This is a picture postcard of Marshall Square park postmarked November 6, 1906. It was to Mrs. Edwin Morrison from her friend Doll and was shared with us by Susan McGovern who discovered it in an antique sale.
Marshall Square Park was modeled after Washington Square Park in Philadelphia.
Arboretum to Public Park Botanizing was a favorite avocation of West Chester's professional men, some of whom attained international recognition. Dr. William Darlington, Joshua Hoopes, and David Townsend were such botanizers, and they succeeded in having this square developed as a small arboretum; in 1878 it became a public park, based on a plan by Joshua Hoopes, a nurseryman.
Basin to Monument Although most of its large and exotic trees are gone, a few remain, and it is worth walking through the park to find them. The southwest corner originally held a basin for West Chester's water supply; now it features the Soldiers' Monument honoring the 97th Regiment of the Civil War.
Humphry Marshall Its founders named the square after their 18th century predecessor, botanist Humphry Marshall. Marshall was born in 1722 and never went to school after the age of twelve; yet (appropriately for a cousin of William Bartram, America's most celebrated explorer/botanist) he published in 1785 "Arbustum Americanum, the American Grove," the first botanical essay in the Western hemisphere! Marshallton, four miles to the west of West Chester, also bears his name, for he acquired the land on which that village stands.
