[4] The area was settled by Quaker farmers in 1682, and later water mills along Ridley Creek drove manufacturing in the nineteenth century.

Price also co-founded Arden, Delaware, a utopian single tax community based on Henry George's economic model.

[6] Native Americans of the Leni Lenape or Delaware tribe lived in the area when Europeans began arriving.

Soon after William Penn received his charter for the Colony of Pennsylvania, three brothers, Thomas, Robert, and Randall Vernon, received land grants from Penn to settle over 900 acres (360 ha) in the present borough of Rose Valley and Nether Providence Township.

The brothers arrived in Pennsylvania in 1682 and began farming the area, about 4 miles (6 km) north of Chester, which was then the largest settlement in the colony.

William Lightfoot Price modified this house after 1900, adding a stone porch and red tile roof.

Following the Revolution, land in the southwest corner of the present borough was confiscated from a Vernon family member who had supported the British.

The land was eventually sold to Jacob Benninghove, a Philadelphia tobacconist, who built a large mansion there in 1787.

Little remains except a silted-in dam pond of what may have been the earliest mill, located on Vernon Run near the present Pool and Tennis Club.

Near the Bishop White House, on Ridley Creek, the remains of a dam and millrace can be seen leading up to the "Old Mill", which is now used as the town hall.

After 1900, William Lightfoot Price built a furniture mill or craft shop on the foundations and later it was used as a meeting hall.

[7]: 4–8 Under the leadership of William Lightfoot Price, the Rose Valley Association was formed in July 1901 to start an intentional community based on the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The association bought approximately 80 acres (32 ha) of land, an area that is the nucleus of today's borough.

Investors contributed about $25,000 in capital, including $9,000 borrowed from nearby Swarthmore College to buy and improve the land.

Price's vision placed artisan workshops at the center of the community, thus aligning with the socialist utopia that Arts and Crafts proponent William Morris described in his novel, News from Nowhere.

The Rose Valley Association did not produce arts and crafts itself, but rather rented out working space to craftsmen, and provided them housing, generally designed or renovated by Price.

Artsman's Hall was also used for theater, with the first play The Carpet Bagger's Revenge presented on New Year's Eve, 1904.

By 1910, however, craft production had faded and the community had become essentially a commuter suburb of Philadelphia, using the nearby Moylan - Rose Valley Station.

[11] In 1926 a Pennsylvania State historic marker was installed on Rose Valley Road to the south of Thunderbird Lodge.

[4] It has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) and monthly average temperatures range from 32.6 °F in January to 77.6 °F in July.