Early History
Welkinweir’s history can be traced back to the early 18th century, when the property provided timber for the manufacturing of iron at Reading Furnace. In the late 1820s, blacksmith William Morris purchased the property with its small stone house and surrounding farmland. Morris worked at a nearby tilt hammer mill located on the Beaver Run, eventually marrying the mill owner’s daughter, Mary Ann Rea, and inheriting the mill. Their son Edwin continued the mill operation until his death in 1898. Both generations of the Morris family expanded the original 1750s-era dwelling, approximately doubling the building’s size by 1860.
“Where Sky Meets Water”
By the 1930s, the 162-acre property in East Nantmeal Township had become a sheep and chicken farm. In 1935, Everett and Grace Rodebaugh of Philadelphia purchased it for use as a weekend and summer home. They were attracted by the peace and tranquility of the valley and eventually moved in permanently. The Rodebaughs lovingly transformed virtually every aspect of the property, creating extensive formal gardens, a series of seven ponds, and an elegant estate house. Hills that were once cleared for crops and pasture were re-forested to surround the lush sanctuary that stands today. The name they gave their new home, Welkinweir, is Old English for “where sky meets water”, and embodies the sense of space and beauty that first inspired them to settle here.
In 1964, the two conservationist visionaries founded the organization that would become Green Valleys Watershed Association, in order to protect the streams and surrounding natural lands of this area. In 1976, as part of their lifelong goal to preserve their property for future generations, the Rodebaughs established an Open Space Conservation Easement to protect Welkinweir in perpetuity.