The Conestoga Turnpike, incorporated in 1811 as the "Little Conestoga Turnpike," traveled a distance of 17 ½ miles from Malvern in East Whiteland Township, Chester County to a point two miles east of Morgantown, Caernarvon, Berks County. It was designated a State Road (Route 401) in 1930.

n the late 1700's, the Conestoga traveler pushing through the wilderness encountered two log cabins a relatively short distance apart. If they were similar to homesteads of the period, the small dwellings probobly stood in a rough clearing, where large rocks and tree stumps seemingly sprouted overnight.

Records show that the first property was part of a 467-acre tract purchased at a sheriff's sale sometime between 1717 and 1718 by David Lloyd.

The previous owners, Robert Thomson, Dr. Daniel Cox, and Sir Matthias Vincent (from whom the township received its name), had been forced to sell the property to cover a debt of L313 10 s. owed in back taxes.Cox and Company at that time owned the surrounding 30,000 acres first acquired from William Penn's proprietors in 1687. It was Cox who eventually formed the West New Jersey Society which - together with Thomas Willing Esq.'s company - held grants for most of the land within Vincent Township.

Settlers here, like those in the Pikelands, largely leased their land with the right to purchase. Nineteenth-century historians, Futhey & Cope, believed that this arrangement discouraged the farmer from investing time or money into his leased property, and thus "these townships did not keep pace with those [improvements] of other parts of the county."

This property was purchased and passed from the Lloyd's heirs to John Whelen in 1774. At the time the property contained "a certain plantation" and 200 acres. In 1792 forty-five acres, forty-six perches of this land was given by deed to his son, Dennis Whelen.

It is Whelen's c. 1750 "plantation" that survives today. Recently restored by the present owners, the house has two additions dating to 1789 and 1820. A fire damaged the 1820 addition in 1980, when the farm was owned by Charles S. Pennypacker. The previous owner, I. Newton Evans, resided on the property - then known as the Spring Aqua Farm - from 1916 to 1946.

The house has been restored and cared for by John Geraldi who purchased the property in 1981.