A Welsh quarrymen's cottage recently was bought at a foreclosure sale in Coulsontown, Peach Bottom Township, to preserve it after years of deterioration.

Two other such cottages were bought by the Old Line Museum years ago.

The museum, in nearby Delta, purchased the latest slate-roofed cottage, cut from local stone, for $25,000, according to Don Robinson, a volunteer with the museum who also contributed to the purchase.

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"It was hard to watch it deteriorate, because there is nothing else like it in the country," Robinson said of the stone cottages that create the village of Coulsontown.

The group of cottages were built by Welsh quarrymen immigrants who came to Peach Bottom Township to work in the slate industry. At the time, slate was a common material used for roofs.

The skilled immigrants built the cottages out of local stone between 1850 to 1860 using techniques that were familiar to them in Europe.

Robinson said that the workers built their cottages near the quarries where they worked. The slate quarries still exist today within walking distance, across farm fields that surround Coulsontown.

Robinson said that in Wales, the climate wasn't suitable for wood and that building material was expensive at the time. There were several cottages built in the Coulsontown village all with the same architectural details.

The similarities include cut and fitted stone walls, slate roofs and a fireplace in each cottage next to a built-in cupboard. There is a winding staircase to a second floor. The original floorboards vary in width.

The first two cottages were purchased by the museum in 2006 with the proceeds of a book published about the local area and the Delta slate industry.

They are in various states of stabilization and restoration. An interpretive exhibit was built in front of the first two cottages.

The latest purchase is the first cottage you see coming off the main road, so it was significant to a long-term plan. For years, vegetation obscured the building. "Nobody was in it, the termites were busy, the weather was busy, so we have really been trying to get our hands on it to stop the deterioration," Robinson said.

Since the recent purchase, he has been stabilizing flooring and has replaced some roofing slates.

The tiny village, a quarter mile from the Maryland border, is of interest to European visitors and a unique window into North American immigrant history. Coulsontown has been filmed by the BBC four times, according to Robinson. Next week, a class of students will visit from North Wales during a trip up the East Coast.

Robinson hopes that Coulsontown will one day be a completed Welsh village historic site and tourist attraction.

You can visit the interpretive exhibit with photos of early Welsh settlers and see the exterior of the Welsh cottages by accessing Green Road, just southeast of Delta. The cottages are open on occasion for special events.

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