Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsPaper-Making Willcoxes Sought William Penn's "Holy Experiment"
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
Many people came to America to worship God as they saw fit. The Willcoxes were no different and Thomas Willcox came to a little spot in Pennsylvania to pursue a vocation and worship. He named the spot Ivy Mills and no one is quite sure why. Some think it was because of a similar name (Ivy Bridge) of his surroundings in his former home of England. Others thought it might be because of the ivy he planted in the new homeplace. Whatever the reason, Ivy Mills, Pennsylvania, was to become a landmark place in America.
So devoted were the Willcoxes to their faith in God and their mode of worship, they soon (around 1729) provided for worship services in their home. Later when they built another home in 1837, they built within the home, St. Mary's chapel, to provide a place for worshipers of the Catholic faith. This was the forerunner of St. Thomas Church.
"About 1730, the first mission of the Roman Catholic Church within the territory now comprising the present county of Delaware (State of Pennsylvania) was located at the residence of Thomas Willcox at Ivy Mill, in Concord, to which fuller reference will be made in the history of that township."
Later, the Friends of Old St. Thomas, included the following remarks in their minutes:
"Our thanks to the Willcox Family for allowing the Friends to hold the Spring Social at the historic Willcox Homestead. This stately old home was the perfect setting for the Friends to socialize. Guests had the opportunity to tour the house and grounds. The restored rooms included St. Mary's Chapel where religious services were held prior to 1852.
In August 1992, several Friends of Old St. Thomas members visited Old Bohemia in Warwick, MD. This English Jesuit mission was the home base of travelling priests who came to the Willcox home at Ivy Mills in the 1720s. Thus began the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle.
William Penn's "Holy Experiment" permitted residents of Pennsylvania to be "free" concerning their choice of religious worship. This was a departure from the stringent rules observed in many other parts of the colonies. On September 30, the Religious Society of Friends' Meetings of Chester and Delaware counties sponsored "Penn Heritage Day". This was a tour of eleven significant historical sites which impacted on the lives of early settlers in this area. The Willcox Mill (now in ruins) at Ivy Mill and Pole Cat Roads was one of the first mills to produce paper. The owner, Thomas Willcox, was a Roman Catholic. The Willcox mansion, located across the street from the paper mill is the first recorded site at which the Catholic Mass was said legally and publicly in Pennsylvania in the 1720's. Members of Friends of Old St. Thomas were invited to provide visitors with information about the history of St. Thomas parish.
St. Thomas' Church, Ivy Mills. - The Catholic residents of Aston for many years attended worship in St. Mary's Church, the noted chapel in the mansion of the Willcox family at Ivy Mills, in Concord township, but in time, the congregation grew so numerous that it became necessary to erect a sanctuary at a more convenient location for those living in Rockdale and its neighborhood.
Here at Saint Thomas, we are specially tied to the awesome Catholic tradition that has continued, unbroken, for 2000 years. We are able to attend Mass and receive the sacraments because our fellow Catholics over those 2000 years took extraordinary steps to make sure that the faith was passed along to the next generation. Catholics have worshiped together here for almost 275 years. As one of the oldest parishes in the U.S., and the first parish of the Philadelphia archdiocese, for 11 generations, we have nurtured the faith. In the 1720s, Mass was said at the Willcox family home on Polecat Road; in 1837, St. Mary's chapel was built there, and in 1852, Bishop St. John Neumann blessed the cornerstone of St. Thomas's original fieldstone church, the building on the northern edge of the parish grounds. Until 1991, Sunday Mass was held there, and since 1991, in the spacious new church. So our parish, too, has an unbroken tradition, a tradition which we extend every day and especially by the new school that's going up now."
We can see in the above text, the initial religious commitment and the continuing religious commitment of the Willcoxes and their neighbors.
The desire of man to worship God as he believes is one of the basic anchors of American life. Religious toleration was an ideal pursued, but not always realized, by the early colonists. Today, we have the same problem of a lack of toleration. We let the small stuff devour the big stuff. One man said it this way - "Lack of character - all too easily we confuse a fear of standing up for our beliefs, a tendency to be more influenced by the convictions of others than by our own, or simply a lack of conviction - with the need that the strong and mature feel to give full weight to the arguments of the other side. A game of hide-and-seek: when the Devil wishes to play on our lack of character, he calls it tolerance, and when he wants to stifle our first attempts to learn tolerance, he calls it lack of character."
But the Willcoxes had come to stay. Within their sphere of influence - civic, industrial, and religious - they were to wield a weight of substance and steadiness which would last for generations - to this very day. This influence would cover these United States - from Ivy Mills, Pennsylvania, to Jacksonville, Georgia, and other cities and hamlets scattered across this great nation.
Today, tourists stroll the grounds of Ivy Mills and try to visualize how it was in the time of a country being born - from the religious persecution of the homeland, England, and from the tyranny of the same, to the pamphlets and speeches of visionaries like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry who embodied those ideals so precious to those who loved liberty - liberty in all things.
And, strangely and wonderfully, in an Age of Enlightenment, the printed word was becoming popular and Benjamin Franklin began cranking up his printing press. But he would need paper. Where would he get his paper?
And, smiling that quaint and intelligent smile that only Benjamin Franklin could fashion, he turned his bespectacled eyes toward a little place called Ivy Mills, a paper manufactory, run by a man named Thomas Willcox.
Thus, the beginning of a great story - and we will continue with it next week.
Credits: Telfair History 1807-1987;
Willcox Family information;
Markings by Dag Hammarskjold;
Friends of Old St. Thomas information;
various other sources.
