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 in the present borough of Rose Valley and Nether Providence Township. The brothers arrived in Pennsylvania in 1682 and began farming the area, about north of Chester, which was then the largest settlement in the colony. Though the brothers purchased their land in 1681 while still in London, the land was not surveyed and patents were not granted for the land until years, perhaps decades, later. The Providence Great Road (now PA 252), just to the north of the borough, was laid out in the 1680s, and Brookhaven Road, on the borough's eastern boundary, was laid out in 1705.