Above: Architect John Milner and Wynne Milner restored the 1724 Taylor farmhouse for their home. Image source: Lee J. Stoltzfus
Abiah Taylor, Jr. was a Quaker immigrant from Didcot, Berkshire, England. He emigrated to Pennsylvania with wife Deborah Gearing in 1702. Abiah Taylor purchased land here along the Brandywine Creek where he built a mill around 1722. Two years later he constructed this brick house on a mound by the creek, using bricks made from clay on his own farm.
Taylor acquired several hundred acres here in the early 1700s. He later gave portions of that land to his daughters Deborah Parke and Alice Hoopes. The stream near his home became known as Taylor’s Run. When Abiah Taylor died in 1747, his son Samuel inherited the homestead, dividing it later among his own sons. Taylor’s house and mill site still mark the early Quaker settlement where he established one of Chester County’s first substantial brick homes.

  Above: The 1724 Taylor House is the earliest house in this historic district. Image source: East Bradford Township (modified)
The Taylor–Cope Historic District, in West Bradford Township, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. The district includes fifteen contributing buildings which are mostly rural residences and barns.
Quaker farmer / businessman Abiah Taylor, Jr. was member of the Bradford Meeting. He settled on 430 acres of land and built a mill along Taylor Run in 1719. He eventually owned a sawmill, a gristmill, a farm, a hatter’s shop, and inn on the Strasburg Road.