Historical
Markers
Robyn as got PA Historical and Museum Commission approval,
and installation and dedication of four historic roadside
markers in Chester County commemorating women's history as
follows:
1) Site of 1st Women's Rights Convention held in
Pennsylvania in 1852 in West Chester;
2) Site of Home of Dr Ann Preston, West Grove, PA, who
attended the convention and then went on to become one of
the 1st female physicians in Pennsylvania;
3) Site of Home of Ida Ella Ruth Jones, an African American
folk painter known as the "Grandma Moses of Chester County"
who lived in Ercildoun, PA;
4) Site of the Home of Dr Charlotte Moore Sitterly, in
Ercildoun, who became an astrophysicist and astronomer and
studied calculations of the sun.
5) The home of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, an African-American, who was born in 1823 in Delaware and moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, when she was 10 years old.
Shadd was the first woman publisher of a newspaper in North America called the "Provincial Freeman." Shadd published the anti-slavery paper from 1853 to 1858 in
Windsor, Canada. After serving as a recruiter for black soldiers during the Civil War, Shadd moved to Washington, DC to teach in public schools. At age 46, Shadd became the first woman to enter Howard Universitys Law School and practiced law until her death in 1893.
6) The site of the Lynching of Zachariah Walker, an African-American steelworker from Worth Brothers Steel who was burned alive by a mob in 1911 in East Fallowfield Township in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Even though 12 men were arrested for their part in the crime and 6 trials were held, no one was ever convicted.
