At Tyler Arboretum, the land itself tells a rich story. From Indigenous stewardship to a beloved public garden, this 650-acre preserve holds millennia of natural and human history within its meadows, woodlands, and stream valleys. We’re so glad you’re here to explore it.

For thousands of years, the Lenape people have inhabited Ridley Creek Valley, part of the large territory known as “Lenapehoking.” Before English colonization and settlement, the Lenape formed semi-permanent villages as well as moving across the region seasonally to manage the land. Through the 1730s, records indicate that Lenape families spent summers nearby in what is now the Okehocking Indian Land Grant Historic District in Willistown Township. Despite forced displacement throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Lenape people maintain an active connection to this land to this day. Tyler has welcomed visits from members of the Delaware Tribe of Indians (one of three Federally recognized Lenape tribes) as well as local Indigenous community groups.

The story of English settlement begins in 1681, when Quaker farmer Thomas Minshall purchased the land from William Penn. Over the next two generations, the Minshall family built a life here, farming the land, raising families, and eventually constructing Lachford Hall in the 1730s, named warmly after their hometown of Latchford, England.

The property passed through several more generations until 1800, when Hannah Minshall married Enos Painter, weaving together two family legacies that would shape this place for centuries to come. Enos was a capable and enterprising man who gradually reassembled much of the original farmland. In 1834, he added a large, 3-story stone barn to a smaller livestock barn, both of which still stand today and serve as the setting for weddings, celebrations and community gatherings.

Perhaps the most impactful chapter in the Arboretum’s story began in 1825, when Enos and Hannah’s sons, Minshall and Jacob Painter, started planting trees. Over time, they cultivated more than 1,000 trees and plants from across the country and around the world, lovingly building what their neighbors came to call the Painter Arboretum.

Minshall and Jacob were true “citizen scientists,” curious, and deeply engaged in their community. In 1833, Minshall helped found the Delaware County Institute of Science, which opened a natural history museum and lending library to the public. When a devastating flood in 1843 took 19 lives and wrecked mills and bridges across the county, Minshall and his colleagues responded with one of the region’s earliest scientific environmental impact studies, a 53-page report aimed at preventing future disasters. Jacob, meanwhile, studied genealogy, wrote poetry, and served on the planning committee for the 1852 Pennsylvania Women’s Convention in West Chester. Both brothers were considered pillars of their community.

The Painter family’s values included support for women’s suffrage and opposition to slavery. The Painter’s farm is believed to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad. Minshall noted in his diary that an individual escaping slavery had come to the hall on the advice of a Railroad “conductor.” Because helping freedom-seekers was illegal, written records are rare, but the tolerance shown by many in the local Quaker community is evident, for example in nearby Lima where Quaker neighbors sold lots to free Black families.

After both brothers died and were interred in Cumberland Cemetery, their sister Ann Painter inherited the property in 1876, closing down their library and clearing portions of the “Old Arboretum” to protect their legacy. Ann’s son John J. Tyler eventually took over stewardship. John added Victorian touches to Lachford Hall, including a new wing. When John died in 1930, his widow Laura Hoopes Tyler spent 14 years carefully consolidating the estate. Upon her death in 1944, Laura left the entire property, including the land, buildings, family documents, artifacts, and an endowment, as a gift to the public. The John J. Tyler Arboretum was born.

In 1946, the renowned horticulturist Dr. John C. Wister became the Arboretum’s first director. Alongside his future spouse and planting partner Gertrude Smith, they began cultivating the magnificent collections you can enjoy today, including magnolias, cherries, crabapples, lilacs, conifers, and rhododendrons. They also laid out the winding hiking trails beyond the deer-exclusion fence that invite you to slow down and wander. In the decades that followed, the Arboretum kept growing: a Fragrant Garden, a Chestnut Orchard, a meadow maze, tree houses, a Pollinator Preserve, and Lucille’s Garden all found their home here.

Today, Tyler Arboretum is a thriving non-profit, welcoming visitors of all kinds through educational programs, summer camps, community events, horticultural displays, and the quiet joy of 650 acres waiting to be explored. We hope you’ll wander these trails in the spirit Jacob Painter captured so beautifully in his own epitaph:

“Where truth and nature seemed to lead.”