Welcome to Charlestown Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Our township is about 25 miles
west of Philadelphia and very close to Valley Forge National Historical Park. It is rich in the
history of Pennsylvania. The township is about 12.515 square miles (8,010 acres) in area.
Our Purpose is to supply the most comprehensive information available on our township in an online
format.
The name, Charlestown, honors Charles Pickering, the friend to whom William Penn granted
5,383 acres along the creek where Pickering and his friend John Tinker, believed (mistakenly) that
they had found silver. The two men dug a cave into the side of “Tinker Hill,” thus creating the
first non-Indian residence in the township. Drowned on a voyage back to England before 1700, Pickering
willed his land to sixteen friends. The acreage was combined with that of John Grey and of Penn’s
sister, Margaret Lawther, to become Charlestown Township in the first official survey of 1738. This
included both Schuylkill Township and the Borough of Phoenixville, areas removed from Charlestown
before 1850. |
