A Brief History of Foxhunting in the Philadelphia Area
written by Jack McCarthy
Foxhunting—the sport of mounted riders hunting foxes with a pack of hounds—has existed in the Philadelphia area in some form or fashion since the early eighteenth century. The first organized hunt club in the region—the first in colonial America—was Gloucester Fox Hunting Club, established in 1766 by a group of prominent Philadelphia men. While based in the city, members hunted across the Delaware River in rural New Jersey. Gloucester Fox Hunting Club disbanded in 1818.
Following dissolution of Gloucester Hunt, foxhunting continued as a popular pastime around Philadelphia, but there were no formally organized hunt clubs in the region until the founding of Rose Tree Foxhunting Club near Media, Delaware County, in 1859. However, there were numerous “private packs” throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, packs of hunting hounds maintained by wealthy landowners for whom fox hunting was a fashionable sporting activity. Hunting with these packs was by invitation of the owner. There were also more modest private packs, called “farmer packs,” maintained by rural and suburban fox hunters who practiced the sport but were not necessarily part of the elite class.
Radnor Hunt, one of the nation’s most prestigious fox hunts, was founded in 1883 in Radnor, Delaware County. Like Rose Tree, Radnor was an incorporated membership-based organization, not a private hunt. In 1931, due to encroaching development in Delaware County, Radnor moved west to the small village of White Horse in Willistown Township, Chester County, near the borough of Malvern, where it remains active. In 1964, also due to development in Delaware County, Rose Tree moved to York County in south central Pennsylvania, where it later merged with another hunt to form Rose Tree-Blue Mountain Hunt.
Two of the largest, most renowned private hunts in the Philadelphia area were Brandywine Hounds, founded in 1892 by Charles Mather, and Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (“Cheshire Hunt”), founded in 1912 by Plunkett Stewart. Both were in Chester County, which became the center for foxhunting in the region over the course of the twentieth century. Brandywine was located south and west of West Chester, the county seat; Cheshire was established below Brandywine, in the Unionville area of southern Chester County. After being run by four generations of the Mather family, Brandywine disbanded in 2004. Cheshire was run by Plunkett Stewart until his death in 1948, then by his stepdaughter Nancy Penn Smith Hannum until 2003. Still active in 2021, Cheshire transitioned in 1984 from a private family-run hunt to a non-profit organization, Cheshire Hunt Conservancy.
Cheshire, Brandywine, Radnor, and Rose Tree (the latter prior to its 1964 relocation) were the most prominent hunts in the region for many years, but there were dozens of others. Eagle Farms, Whitelands, West Chester, Kimberton, Chester Valley, and Pickering in Chester County; White Marsh, Gwynedd Valley, Gulph Mills, Perkiomen Valley, and Huntingdon Valley in Montgomery County; and Lima, Upland, and Newtown Square in Delaware County were among the many active fox hunts in suburban Philadelphia in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Most eventually disbanded due to encroaching development and changing lifestyles, but a small number continued into the early twenty-first century. As previously noted, Brandywine Hounds disbanded in 2004 after 112 years of hunting in central Chester County. In northern Chester County, Pickering Hunt Club, founded in 1911, disbanded circa 2016, while Kimberton Hunt Club, founded in 1870, is still active. Huntingdon Valley Hunt was established in eastern Montgomery County in 1914 but later moved to central Bucks County, where it remains active. (Huntingdon Valley’s relocation notwithstanding, Bucks County has not traditionally been an important fox hunting area, never having the concentration of hunts that Chester, Montgomery, and Delaware counties did. Likewise, Philadelphia County was not a major foxhunting locale due to its early urban development, although many leading suburban foxhunters had homes and/or worked in the city.)
As of 2021, only Radnor, Cheshire, Kimberton, and Huntingdon Valley remain active fox hunts in the Philadelphia region, as recognized by the Masters of Foxhounds Association of America (MFHA). Established in 1907 as the governing body of organized fox hunting in the United States and Canada, MFHA formally recognizes hunts and approves their hunting territories. Radnor is now the oldest continuously active fox hunt in the U.S., as recognized by MFHA.
Most foxhunting in the Philadelphia area is now concentrated in Chester County, where Radnor and Cheshire members have helped to preserve thousands of acres of open space for their hunting activities. In 2004, MFHA approved Radnor Hunt taking on the hunting territories of both the disbanded Brandywine Hounds and Big Bend Farm, the latter the estate of artist, conservationist, and equestrian George “Frolic” Weymouth that straddles the Brandywine Creek in Chester and Delaware counties in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and extends into the northern part of the state of Delaware. Big Bend includes the former hunting territory of Vicmead Hunt, which was founded as a fox hunt in 1921 in Greenville, Delaware, but later discontinued hunting and became a country club.
While much has changed since organized hunting began in the Philadelphia area in 1766, fox hunting remains a vital, longstanding tradition in the region.