Enjoy a Concert and Stroll the Grounds of Marshall Square Park

After attending the last month’s Summer Concert Series, I can envision what it was like to live in West Chester a hundred years ago – at least during the summer when town band played in the still-intact log gazebo. 

The sponsor of the summer concert series, the Friends of West Chester Parks & Recreation, Inc., are not to be confused with the Friends of Marshall Square Park, a group of friends and neighbors who have raised funds with the help of first group’s nonprofit status and are responsible for the park’s recent restoration and much of its promotion as a historic property.

I live up the street, so it’s probably no excuse to confess that I only recently noticed the historic plaque that the Friends of Marshall Square Park installed, detailing the park’s history as West Chester’s first public  square, dedicated in 1848. The park, like much of the borough’s history,  demands  a closer look. To paraphrase the plaque, which stands on East Biddle Street, the park was recognized at the time for having one of the regions’ best collections of trees and shrubs -  160 distinct species in all.   The park was also known for its sweeping pathways and planting designs, the pattern of which is now echoed in the logo of the Friends of Marshall Square .  

The group’s latest project for the park – a circa 1878 wooden structure with cross-brace framing  – resembles a small tool shed and is easily overlooked on sunny days when shadows dapple its vernacular architecture.

Until a crew of Friends volunteers came together to stop its rapid deterioration, the structure had been virtually untouched, its roof framing still visibly charred from a 1917 fire. Old panels were removed at one point by the volunteers who discovered layers of turn-of-the-century newspapers  - the  cheap wallpaper and draft preventer of its day.

The building’s historic importance  includes being the oldest of West Chester’s park structures. It is also the last link to the park’s design that included a summer house known as the “Swiss Cottage” and modeled after a famously elegant pavilion at the 1876 Centennial park in Philadelphia.  The present structure (which over time also became known as The Swiss Cottage) served as a small annex or office for park’s superintendent, while the rest of the building, now gone, was used by the public.

Jeff Beitel, the president of the Friends of Marshall Park, who donated his professional skills as an architect to the project, described the former building as a classic Victorian structure. “There was a women’s side and a men’s side,” he said,” and “it was used basically as a resting cottage after they strolled the grounds.  This is all that remains.“

Beitel estimates that group put about $15,000 into the restoration, and that included donated materials. A list of donors and the completed check list is found on the group’s web site, www.marshallsquarepark.org   

The group plans to restore all the roof framing members but leaving the charring still visible. As for the mural of old newspapers, it is too fragile to be removed, Beitel said,  but the group has documented the walls in a slide show prepared by photographer Jim Salvas, now part of a YouTube video and posted on the Friend’ s web site. 

A beautiful print of the Swiss Cottage was also made from a painting by West Chester artist John Supplee and is now part of the group’s fundraising efforts to raise an additional $10,000 to $15,000. The print is available at the FastFrame shop at 27 W. Gay Street, which donates part of the proceeds to the Friends of Marshall Square Park.

Supplee’s painting depicts a wintery scene with the dark and rustic walls of Swiss Cottage standing out against the snow. It is one of my favorite paintings of West Chester by Supplee, a master at capturing the character of the borough.

, E. Marshall St. & N. Matlock St., West Chester, PA 19380

• The Friends of West Chester Parks & Recreation Inc. present the Summer Concert Series at Marshall Square Park. This free series is held on the last Friday of July, August and September at 6:30 p.m.
• Features:Families, Kids, Open to All, Teens