Woodburne Manor

The property Woodburne Manor sits on, near Darby Creek, is thought to have been part of the Great Minquas Indian Path which linked Dutch fur trading posts, and later is believed to have been used as an encampment for British soldiers during the Revolutionary War. William Penn gave the land to Quaker botanist John Bartram, who founded the American Philosophical Society with Benjamin Franklin, and Bartram used the site as part of his family farm.

At some point the property was sold to George McHenry, President of the Philadelphia Board of Trade and operator of an export and shipping business. During the Civil War McHenry was a Southern sympathizer and served as both a Diplomat for the Confederate States of America and also as a commercial agent in London who assisted in procuring supplies for the Confederacy. When the war ended his property was seized – most likely by the United States government as a result of McHenry’s role in the Civil War – and sold at a sheriff’s sale in 1862. Ownership of the property went to Thomas Scott, an industrialist and President of the Pennsylvania Railroad who served on Lincoln’s cabinet as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of War and played a major role in the Union’s war effort. Scott is considered to be one of the Gilded Age’s first robber barons and served as a mentor to Andrew Carnegie, who he hired as a telegraph operator at 18.

When the mansion on the property burned, Thomas’ son Edgar commissioned noted Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer to built a new one in 1906, and it was completed in 1907. The estate was primarily used as a summer home. Thomas’ son Edgar Scott was second secretary in the U.S. Embassy in Paris and served in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps during World War I. Edgar died only twenty-one days before the signing of the Armistice to end the war of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, only a month after he had been promoted to Major. His son, Edgar Scott Jr., was most an investment banker most notable for marrying Helen Hope Montgomery, who was the inspiration for the character Tracy Lord in Philip Barry’s play “The Philadelphia Story”, which was turned into a movie with Katharine Hepburn playing the role of Lord.

In 1936 the mansion was purchased by the Sisters of the Divine Redeemer. The sisters renamed the mansion The Little Flower Institute, repaired the mansion to make it habitable, and used it as a home for orphans and displaced adults. By 1956 the orphanage housed 36 girls ranging from 4 to 15 and an unspecified number of “aged women” who couldn’t be cared for by their families, as well as the Sisters themselves. The Little Flower Institute also provided a home and transitional services for refugee families, many of whom were fleeing the Hungarian Revolution or other Soviet countries. A Delaware County Times article that year also mentions a large playroom on the third floor and a television generously provided by Darby firemen.

In 1957 the name was changed to Little Flower Manor and it continued operating for years, later transitioning to a nursing home for nuns called Villa St. Theresa. The mansion closed in 2005 when the Little Flower Manor Nursing Home was built nearby. While the new nursing home is still in use, the mansion has been left to fall into disrepair. Currently the roof and grand staircase have collapsed and the property is surrounded by a fence to deter trespassers.