Chelten Way and Ashbourne Drive were both named in 1907 by Caroline W. Dobbins and her daughter Florence Dobbins Lowe on a tract called Ellerslie Park. Dobbins and her late husband Richard had purchased eleven acres here back in 1892 – see Le Droit Drive for their bios – after residing in the Philadelphia area for over a quarter century. Where exactly in the Philadelphia area? Why, in Chelten Hills, a neighborhood within Cheltenham Township, at the time a posh “country estate” sort of area just north of Philly city limits. (Said township was founded by Quakers from Cheltenham, England.) According to a 1892 book, the Dobbinses’ hundred acre property – “Ellerslie” – stretched into the village of Ashbourne, now known as Melrose Park. Mrs. Dobbins and daughter were obviously feeling nostalgic when anointing these two streets.
Find it on the map:
