Hopewell is an unincorporated community and former American borough which is located in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States.

[4][6] Hopewell's founding is directly linked to the history of the Dickey family, who arrived in East Nottingham Township from Northern Ireland in the 1730s.

[5] By 1812, Samuel, III, had built another cotton mill northeast of Palmyra on Tweed Creek, the future site of Hopewell.

[5] Village resident Thompson Hudson opened Hopewell Academy in 1834, a private school he operated on his property.

[2][5] His school, also called Hopewell Academy, offered lessons in mathematics, Latin, Greek, botany, chemistry, and many other subjects.

[2] The academy offered an education equivalent to two years of college and drew students from all over southern Chester County.

[5][3] This succeeded, and two square miles were erected from Lower Oxford and East Nottingham Townships on 2 May 1853 to form the Borough of Hopewell.

[2][3] In the 1850s, Oxford and Hopewell had been similar in size, but this changed when the Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad was laid in the region.

[5] The Hopewell Cotton Works briefly rebounded around 1869, and the borough finally received a railroad connection in 1872 with the completion of the Peach Bottom Railway.

[2] The social club drew large crowds but did not disrupt the general trend of decline that the borough was facing.

[5] The Chester County Milk Company, located in Hopewell, shuttered by 1879, and the grist mill burned down at this time as well.

[2] The Hopewellian identity began to die, as residents increasingly considered themselves members of the greater Oxford and Nottingham communities as opposed to a distinct Hopewell one.

[10] The Borough of Hopewell was dissolved in early 1914, and its territory was returned to East Nottingham and Lower Oxford Townships.