USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > A brief history of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, with an accompanying map; > Part 4
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EARLY LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
stumps and sloughs. Horses, dragging bodies and bur- dens through knee-deep mud, snailed along two or three miles an hour. Even Philadelphia was so often miry, carts were so often stalled that it had the nickname, "filthy-dirty." Some roads like the later Lancaster turn- pike grew into noted national institutions. The history of some roads is marked by periods like these: the vir- gin forest, the Indian trail, the packhorse path marked by blazed trees, the narrow uncertain cartway; the vil- lage street, the macadamized town highway, and the con- creted city street, teeming with pedestrians, autos, rush- ing electric cars, smooth enough to tempt dancers and roller skaters, and firm enough to bear the monstrous and ponderous freight trucks. On account of the miry condi- tion of what has long been known as Germantown Ave- nue large country stores sprang up in Germantown, where the Upper End farmers could exchange their grain, butter and eggs, cured beef and hams, and other produce for fish, plaster, seeds, and general store goods for the rural merchant. A better avenue caused the de- cay of these stores.
Inns, springing up as soon as the traffic along the most frequented roads assured adequate income, became with the jolly innkeeper in time almost indispensable in pioneer communities. Inn and storeroom were often found under the same roof mutually promoting each other's business. The proprietor might at the same time also be the country squire and scrivener. Here the neigh- bors met to buy household necessities, and, sitting on dry -. goods boxes, discussed the great questions of the day. Stagecoaches would make a brief stop, Conestoga wagons would park for the night and drovers would pen their cattle for a needed rest. Travelers could tell of inns that had bugs and dirty attendants, but gave neither candles --
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ROADS AND INNS
nor sleep. Inns had their gaudily painted swinging sign- boards, creaking dolefully on high posts, bearing names like Waggon, Wagon and Horse, Black Horse, Sorrel Horse, White Horse, Red Lion, Bird-in-Hand, The Stag, Fox Chase, King-of-Prussia, The Trooper, Rising Sun, Blue Bell, Wheel Pump, Square and Compass, Seven Stars, Blue Anchor, The Rose, Barley Sheaf, New Moon, Yellow Ball, Crooked Billet, and Broad Axe. Paintings appropriate to the name graced the signboard, which gave names to later villages and postoffices.
CONESTOGA WAGON, LANCASTER, PA. ABOUT' 1910
1810
These country roads and inns together wit- The Life on the Road nessed an ever-changing, unceasing ebb and flow of human life quite different from that of today-farmers and farmers' wives going to market with their produce securely anchored on pack horses ; monstrous charcoal wagons; loads of powder, iron, iron ore, lumber, cordwood; dealers in live stock driving along their herd of cattle, horses, swine, sheep or geese ; bride and groom on the way to the country par- son, riding on horses side by side or even tandem on the same horse; young and old, male and female, gay and grave, each on some mission bent, walking along. A
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EARLY LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
winding string of springless Conestoga wagons, some with buxom lasses bobbing about on the springy seat city- ward bound to visit their cousins, to see the sights, and do the family shopping, would draw up to the friendly wayside inn. Quickly the wagons are parked, the horses stabled and fed; later the barrooms become overcrowded with mattresses, coverlets and robes of the wagoners who play tricks, rehearse stale stories, or snore a hallelu- jah chorus, anxious to resume their journey on the mor- row. Possibly a distant rumble or the tooting of a horn would announce the approaching stagecoach laden with weary, dust-begrimed passengers. Soon the briskly trot-
AMERICAN STAGE WAGON, ABOUT THE YEAR 1800, AND THE "SPREAD EAGLE INN" ON THE LANCASTER PIKE
ting teams halt in front of the regular stopping and ex- change inn; passengers alight to relieve their limbs, the driver crawls down from his high seat, hostlers hustle the foaming horses away to make room for fresh ones, drivers and passengers resume their places, the whip is
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THE LIFE ON THE ROAD
cracked and stage with passengers disappears at the bend of the road.
Playing the
The great Nazarene Teacher taught that one ought to give expecting nothing in return. Men in pioneer days, as in our day, tried to Lottery get, giving nothing in return. The lottery was one of the ways of doing this. In 1735 the proprie- tors of the province proposed to sell 100,000 acres of land by lottery at £2 per acre. Of the 7750 tickets, 1293 were to get the land and 6457 were to be blank. In 1759 a law was passed declaring all lotteries whatsoever, whether public or private, "common and public nuisances and against the common good and welfare," and providing fines. In 1765, only six year later, the same authority, "desirous of aiding and encouraging such charitable and pious designs," passed a law providing lotteries for churches in the cities of Philadelphia, Carlisle, York, Reading and in other places. In subsequent years other churches were similarly favored. The erection of school buildings, the improvement of roads, the navigation of the Schuylkill river, the bridging of streams and the con- struction of piers to secure river banks were promoted by like legislation. Some of these were in Montgomery county. It is easy to imagine how prevalent the lottery spirit was when legislators and church fathers gave their sanction to the public lottery, and how many other games of chance must have received like countenance from the community.
Pioneers The pioneer as citizen had varied duties and privileges ; some of these being local were dis- as posed of without leaving home. Legal busi- Citizens ness, trials of criminals, settlement of es- tates, recording of deeds and mortgages had to be at- tended to at the county seat, Philadelphia. The primi-
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EARLY LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
tive court house stood in the middle of the main street, Market, at Second street, where at first the town bell swinging on a high mast announced the important events. The basement as auction room was reserved for millers, weavers, and stocking makers. Close by stood the public pillory and prison cage, westward the market house. On the east side was the conspicuous, historic stairway. Upstairs was the court room and voting place. Here for many years Montgomery county voters ascended the steps on the north side, cast their ballots and descended on the south side. At one time the wave of faction ran so high that sailors and coopers rough-housed the rural voters for control of the stairway and thus of the election-an act that led to arrest and court trial. From these same steps gov- ernors spoke, politicians harangued, ministers preached. Later the elections were held at the State House, Sixth and Chestnut streets.
Much community business of a legal nature was disposed of by the country squire. David Schultz, an Upper End surveyor, conveyancer and general business and utility man, in his almanac diaries speaks of plowing, sowing, reaping, thrashing, sheep shearing, butchering, hauling wheat to market, applebutter boiling, flaxbrak- ing, hauling logs, erecting stables, building fences, dig- ging wells; surveying roads, farms and townships ; neigh- bors moving to Maryland or the Carolinas ; quit-rents and ejectments ; agreements, wills, bonds and letters written ; settling estates and adjusting disputes; rains, snows and thunder storms; things interesting and instructive in foreign lands; wars and rumors of wars; Indian troubles, murders and massacres ; comets seen ; the mean- ing of the Indian terms: the death of a rag col- lector; attending elections in Philadelphia, etc. A few
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PIONEERS AS CITIZENS
of the many strange and unusual laws and regulations that faced citizens of the county in early days were: punishment by public beating on the bare back, marking the poor on the shoulder, imprisonment for debt, auc- tioning the care of poor annually to the lowest bidder, im- port duty on slaves, the public pillory, punishing coun- terfeiting by cutting off the ears.
A glimpse into the home and home life of common, well-established families, pioneer days being ended, may be of interest and
At Home and at Play profit. Rev. Mr. Doddridge pictures things thus :
"These original settlers had to be their own mechanics, for all which they needed. The hom- mony block and hand-mills were found in most of their houses. The block was hollowed out at top by burning, and the play of the pestle ground the corn. Sometimes they used the sweep of sixteen feet to lessen the toil, in pounding corn into meal for cakes and mush. At some places where they had saltpeter caves, they made their own gun- powder by means of these sweeps and mortars. In making meal they also used a domestic contrivance called a grater; it was a plate of roughly per- forated tin, on which they grated their grain. The hand-mill was another and a better contrivance, made with two circular stones, the under one be- ing the bedstone, and the upper one the runner. These were placed to run in a wide hoop or band with a spout for discharging the meal. The run- ner was moved by a staff passed through an up- right affixed in the runner."
Another interesting picture is thus portrayed by the late Rev. J. F. J. Schantz :
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EARLY LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
"It was not difficult to make an inventory of the contents of the dwelling house. The large hall had but little furniture besides a long wooden chest, and a few benches or chairs. The best room of the house on one side of the hall contained a table, benches and later chairs, a desk with drawers, and the utensils used on the special hearth in heating the room. In the rear of the best room was the Kammer (bedroom) with its bed of plain make, also the trundle bed for younger children and a cradle for the youngest, a bench or a few chairs and the chest of drawers. The room
CRADLE, ROCKER, ETC., MUSEUM OF THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
on the other side of the hall was often not divided, but when divided the front room was called the living room, with table and benches or plain chairs, with closet for queensware and the storage of precious parcels, with the spinning wheel, with a clock as soon as the family could possess one, and with shelving for the books brought from the
65
AT HOME AND AT PLAY
fatherland or secured in this country. The kitchen contained the large hearth, often very large, with rods fastened to a beam and later an iron bar, from which descended chains to hold large kettles and pots used in the preparation of food; the tri- pod also on the hearth to hold kettles and pans used daily by the faithful housewife; the large dining table with benches on two long sides and short benches or chairs at each end ; the large table for the use of those who prepared meals for the family; extensive shelving for holding tin and other ware; benches for water buckets and other vessels and the long and deep mantel shelf above the hearth on which many articles were placed. The second story contained bedrooms, beds, tables, chests."
Clocks and watches were rare and large. The good housewife or hired girl gave a welcome musical call for dinner on a yard-long tin horn or on the curiously-shaped conchshell, while the faithful dog whined a sad accom- paniment. If the plowman failed to hear the notice the weary horses did and whinnied in joy. Newspapers were small, stale and slow in coming. The few advertisements would tell, among other things, of stray cattle, runaway slaves, of Germans for sale and of faithless redemp- tioners. Each colony had its own money and money valu- ation for the English pound. Although Pennsylvania de- vised a safe paper currency, barter was often conducted in terms of bushels of wheat. To go visiting meant a long tramp, or painful horseback ride, or a tedious bouncing around on springless Conestogas. Happily the boys did not have to go to the post office for big sister's love letters, for there were no post offices. Chickens roosted on the trees, the year round, boughs bending under their weight,
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EARLY LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
the faithful dog keeping watch. Mothers and daughters made the spinning wheels hum to finish the winter task by Candlemas, when spinning was to cease and supper was to be served by daylight. Father as weaver made the busy shuttle fly back and forth. Young branded cattle ran wild in the woods, revealing their whereabouts by the tinkling of the bell suspended from the neck. The smoke lazily curling over the treetops showed where the Woudman was converting wood into charcoal. Even then some saintly fathers grieved over the hurry and bustle of
TOOLS OF FLAX INDUSTRY, MUSEUM OF THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
the times consuming strength of soul and body. What would they say of the present-day hustling? Seven- foot snows fell, reaching the eaves of the loghouses. In some cases correspondence with the relatives and friends in the homeland was kept up, forty, fifty years after the
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AT HOME AND AT PLAY
migration, twenty or thirty letters going forward in one package. When vessels arrived people went aboard for mail. Letters undelivered were taken to a public place, the Coffee House, where they would be called for.
Strong liquor was drunk at public sales, at weddings and funerals, in haymaking, in harvest fields and wher- ever else the work was strenuous and it even found its way into toasted bread. If drunkenness resulted, long forgotten terms were applied to the unfortunate one.
Want of space forbids our lingering on the marriage revelries and funeral feasts, on butchering and soap-mak- ing, on applebutter, corn-husking, sleighing and dancing parties, on horse racing, cock-fighting, bull baiting, bear baiting, of slack-rope and tight-rope dancing, of games of fortune, of the visits of the cobbler, tailor and school teacher, and the bundle-burdened peddler, of mother's household remedies and the garnered medicinal plants in the garret, of the fabled witches and ghosts, of the super- stitions and charms as implicity believed in as the Good Book itself, of St. Nicholas, and New Year's shooters.
The Religious Life The persecutions in the fatherland which made the emigrant seek a new home had pro- duced a strong religious faith. The offer of religious liberty in addition induced persons of the most varied faiths to seek asylum in Penn's colony. The result was that a condition peculiar to Pennsyl- vania was developed which has meant a great deal in the religious world. One writer, dwelling on this, says: "Colonial Pennsylvania, where Penn's inviolable guar- antees of boundless liberty of conscience brought to- gether an aggregation of fanatic and fantastic char- acters which converted his fair colony into a religious wilderness, where zealots of every description charged themselves with the task of further devastation and dis-
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EARLY LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
order" (E. J. Wolf). In spite of these seeming disad- vantages Montgomery county in conjunction with other counties similarly situated demonstrated to the world that religious liberty could not only be believed, but also be lived; that it was not a matter of mere toleration or theory, but of inherent, inalienable right. The lives here lived helped to demonstrate to the world the beauty of religious liberty, and furnished the unanswerable argument that religious liberty should be made a part of the constitution of the United States, and this was brought about under unfavorable conditions. The daily toil for food, raiment and shelter, the free life of the backwoods, the want of earnest Christian ministers caused decay and death of faith. It is of record that there were righteous souls among the pioneers who, be- ing concerned for the welfare of God's spiritual king- dom, sent to their old homes earnest pleas for righteous preachers, saintly prayer books, catechisms and A, B, C books. Occasionally preachers were in the pulpits who should have been in jail. Of certain ministers it was said one seeks souls, another the crowd, the third bread, the fourth a wife. The pulpit language in German com- munities was termed by one man "a miserable, broken, fustian Salmagundy of English and German." In Luth- eran churches alone half a hundred different catechisms and hymn books were in use. Church organs and stained-glass windows were a rare luxury. Muhlen- berg reported early in his ministry that within five years half of the membership of his churches had been taken away by death or removal to the frontier in Penn- sylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The minister's pay was not always in coin of the realm. One of these saintly, hard-working pastors wrote: "One man brings me a sausage, another a piece of meat, a third a chicken,
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THE RELIGIOUS LIFE
a fourth a loaf of bread, a fifth some pigeons, a sixth a rabbit, a seventh some eggs, an eighth some tea and sugar, a ninth some honey, a tenth some apples, an eleventh some partridges, etc." The early church fathers of necessity led a very strenuous life, traveling under exacting conditions over very wide stretches of sparsely-settled country, founding churches, teaching the children, educating the oncoming ministry of young men, adjusting disputes, setting the erring aright, while ministering as well to the wants of the body. Some car- ried with them medicines and the lancet, and knew many
------
NORRITON PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
of housewife's home remedies, thus anticipating the modern medical missionary.
The early church buildings were rudely constructed of unhewn logs, with backless, uncomfortable seats of
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EARLY LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
puncheons, floor of the native soil or brick, without stoves, carpets, or cushions, organ or piano; sometimes even without a roof, because of poverty of the member- ship. One reads of bats dropping on the worshippers' heads, and of snakes looking on from chinks in the church wall. Under more favorable conditions churches were built of stone, seats had high, straight backs, with doors at the end of the pews, galleries on three sides
PULPIT AND PEW, LUTHERAN CHURCH, TRAPPE
with uncomfortable seats, increasing the capacity of the church. Here the young men sat to keep an eye on the young ladies, who on the opposite side on the main floor, worshipped God and watched the boys. Two square blocks of pews at each side faced the goblet-shaped pulpit, which was hardly wide enough to hold a pot-bellied
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THE RELIGIOUS LIFE
pastor, and which was supplied with sounding board a few feet over the head of the preacher, who entered by a narrow spiral stairway. The story is told that at one time a minister with goblet and gospel tumbled to the floor, upon which he expressed himself in Pennsylvania- German, "There lies your old rattle-box" (rabbelkaste). In the absence of church buildings services were held in the school house, in barns, or under wide-spreading trees. Going to church meant putting on clean homemade clothes, threading one's way past thorns, weeds and un- derbrush of the primeval forest, wading streams, edging along the dusty or muddy roads, some carrying their shoes to save the sole until the building was sighted; some, both men and women, without shoes and all with- out umbrellas, rubber overcoats or overshoes. Hus- band and wife at times came mounted tandem on the faithful plowhorse. If the worshippers came to church too soon, or the preacher too late, men might be seen sitting on the fences or welcome benches, whittling, chewing and discussing the weather, the crops, stale European news or the political situation, often serious and trying. Thanks to the peace principles of Penn, the pious pioneers did not stack their guns beside the church door to save their souls to this world while preparing to go to the next, preferring to send their neighbors instead. In winter time the worshippers came in their rude sleighs, bringing heated planks, or sandbags or foot- warmers bought in the city to keep their feet from freez- ing while their souls were being warmed up in the un- heated building. Fires were built outside the church building to warm worshippers. When no church services were held pious parents would conduct family worship. Father, mother, children, hired help would meet, hymns were sung, postils read, prayers repeated, while the young wished for the ending of the services when they would
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EARLY LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
be allowed quillpen and pokeroot ink to copy in imitation of the teacher's illuminated ornamented penwork re- ligious sentiments, or design impossible animals with equally impossible colors.
Pondering things like these pertaining to the early life of the county one may ask the question when and where were the good old times the fathers suggest?
OLD IRONSIDES Locomotive built by Baldwin, 1832
CHAPTER V
THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTY
Four We have seen how Montgomery, as part of Groups the parent county, Philadelphia, was acquired, of Data settled, and developed. A study of its erec- tion and growth as a separate county is the object of this chapter. The historical data will be grouped under four subheads: The Turnpike Period, 1784 to 1814, the close of the second war with Great Britain; the Canal Period, 1815 to 1847, the close of the Mexican War; the Railway Period, 1848 to 1884, the completion of a century of county history; the State Highway Period, 1885 to the present.
The means of communication are a fair test of the business and social advancement of a county. Distinct periods of expansion in the county's progress are indi- cated by the building of turnpikes, railways, and State highways. These improvements, though originally op- posed by some men, were demanded by the growing business and social activities of the community and in turn fostered them and proved themselves indis- pensable.
1784 to The distance to the county seat where alone certain classes of business could be trans- acted, the steady growth of population, 1814 and the proper adjustment of taxation were among the causes that induced the people of the upper end of Philadelphia county to petition Assembly a few years prior to 1784 for the erection of a new county. About the same time a movement was started to secure the establishment of a county out of parts of Berks, Chester, and Philadelphia counties, with the county seat
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FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTY
at Pottstown. Like unsuccessful efforts were made a num- ber of times afterwards. The act establishing Mont- gomery county was passed, after several years of skir- mishing and discussion, September 10, 1784. Soon thereafter the county machinery was set in motion ; gradual and healthy growth has been the good fortune of the county ever since. The first Court, an Or- phans' Court, was held at Trappe, December 1st, 1784. The first regular Court of Quarter Sessions was held at the house of John Shannon, December 28th, 1784, the location of whose residence has been ques- tioned by writers. The first Court House and Prison in Norristown were erected 1787. The Court House on the public square faced Main street ; the Prison stood where the present Court House is located. The county was orig- inally subdivided into three election districts which during this period became thirteen.
The great amount of traffic to and from the fron- tier and the adjacent counties, centering in Philadel- phia and radiating in part over Montgomery county, necessitated the building of substantial roads. The first charter for a toll or turnpike road in the United States was issued in Virginia, 1772, although the first road building under this charter was not undertaken until 1785. The first turnpike road in Pennsylvania was built from Philadelphia to Lancaster, crossing the southeastern part of Montgomery county. This was completed in 1796 at a cost of $7,500 a mile-$13,000 according to one authority. Other county turnpikes of the period were the ones to Collegeville (including the building of the Perkiomen Bridge), Willow Grove, Springhouse, and Bethlehem. In constructing these, old roadbeds, confirmed many years previously, were
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1784 TO 1814
in most cases made use of. In some instances the road was relocated and the grade changed.
Bridges across the Schuylkill were built in 1810 at Pawling's (now Perkiomen Junction) and Flatrock. The latter was swept away by a freshet in 1824 and re- built. Swept away again in 1850, it was not rebuilt.
PERKIOMEN BRIDGE, COLLEGEVILLE
Canals that had been suggested by William Penn himself and had been under consideration for some time past received increased attention during this period. In 1792 an act was passed by the Legislature authorizing a canal from Norristown to Philadelphia. Money was raised, excavations were made, but the enterprise ended in failure. In 1791 a company had been chartered to connect the Schuylkill and Susque- hanna rivers by canal and slackwater navigation.
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