Thomas Leiper was a Scottish American businessman, banker and politician who owned a successful tobacco exportation business as well as several mills and stone quarries. He served as a lieutenant in the Philadelphia City Troop during the American Revolutionary War. He built one of the first railways in America and the first in Pennsylvania. The Leiper Railroad was a three-quarter-mile long track on his property in Nether Providence Township, Pennsylvania used to ship quarry stone to market with animal-powered carts.
The plaque at Leiper's estate commemorating the first permanent railway in the United States was originally dedicated in 1923 by the Daughters of the American Revolution and placed on the Sproul Road bridge
Leiper's estate Strathaven Hall built c. 1785 in Avondale, now Nether Providence Township, Pennsylvania
Leiper's "safety" on his estate may be the first private bank in America
Thomas Leiper's gravestone in Laurel Hill Cemetery
Nether Providence Township, Pennsylvania
Nether Providence Township is a first class township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Many residents refer to the township by the name of its largest community, Wallingford, because the Wallingford postal code is used for most of the township. The population of the township was 13,706 at the 2010 census.
Wolley Stille, ca. 1692-1700
"Avondale," Thomas Leiper Estate
West Lawn, listed on the NRHP
I-476 "Blue Route" northbound in Nether Providence Township
