USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > A brief history of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, with an accompanying map; > Part 5
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76
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTY
These two companies were united in 1811 as the Union Canal company by whom the canal was finally built.
The county saw the establishment of the carriage works at Hatboro and the opening of the copper mines at Shannonville (Audubon of to-day) that gave em- ployment to 200 men in 1852. These mines were finally abandoned six years later. Lumbermen organized a
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"THE TOWN OF NORRIS" AS IT APPEARED ABOUT 1835
trust in 1810 to regulate the price of lumber, which was discontinued in 1824. The Bank of Montgomery County, the first in the county, was chartered in 1814. Farm- ers continued to do some of their marketing on horse- back in Norristown. Flour varied in price from twelve dollars a barrel in 1796 to four dollars a barrel in 1821. In 1795 the county had 96 gristmills, 61 sawmills, 4 forges, 6 fullingmills, and 10 papermills. The county acquired in 1806 a farm of 265 acres in Upper Provi- dence and established a county home for the poor, thus changing its method of providing for the poor by
77
1784 TO 1814
farming them out, township by township, for care and keep to the lowest bidder.
Academies were established in Moreland (Loller Academy), in Lower Merion (Lower Merion Academy), Upper Merion (Union School), and in Upper Hanover (Hosensack Academy). Loller Academy was the thirty- fifth academy chartered by the State since its forma- tion. A library was organized in Abington, 1803, that was incorporated three years later. The Whitpain Li- brary Association was incorporated in 1818. On the last Saturday of 1922 its sole surviving member conveyed the library to the Whitpain High School and Alumni Association. The Pottstown Library Association was incorporated in 1810.
The first post-office within the county was estab- lished, 1793, at Pottstown. Three years later there were only thirty-three post-offices within the entire State. In 1799 the Norristown post-office published a list of letters held for persons residing, among other places, in Montgomery, Moreland, Lower Merion, Hors- ham, and Upper Merion townships. By the end of the period the following places enjoyed the honor and con- venience of having post-offices: Hatboro, Horsham, Jenkintown, Norristown, Pottsgrove, Sumneytown, Swamp Churches, Whitemarsh, Willow Grove and Trappe. Two newspapers made their appearance at Norristown during this period, The Herald, 1799, and The Register, 1800. Norristown as the county seat enjoyed a healthy growth. In 1795 it had ten buildings, including a jail, a court house, three inns, and a few farmhouses. By 1812 it was ready to become a borough, less than forty years after the decision was made to locate the county seat in Norriton township.
78
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTY
1815 The growth of population is shown by the to steady increase of the number of election dis- 1847 tricts, new ones becoming necessary almost every year. The number of post-offices in- creased from eleven in 1819 to twenty-nine in 1832, and fifty-nine in 1851. Frederick township had its first post- office in 1837. The Merions, rich and populous to-day, did not enjoy local post office privileges before 1830. The postage rates for single letters, payable by the recipient, ranged from eight to twenty-five cents, depending on the distance.
Increased attention was paid to roads and bridges. A State road was laid out in 1830 from New Hope on the Delaware, across the county to the Maryland line, embodying DeKalb street, Norristown, as part of the road. Turnpike roads were completed as follows : Doylestown and Willow Grove, 1840; Sumneytown and Springhouse, 1848; Gravel Pike, Zieglerville to Green- lane, 1849; Old York Road, 1850. Bridges were built over the Schuylkill at Pottstown, 1819; at Norristown, 1829; at Conshohocken, 1833; over the Perkiomen at Perkiomenville, and over the Wissahickon in Gwynedd township in 1839.
Transportation by canal was greatly developed during this period. The canal from Reading to Phila- delphia was formally opened July 4, 1824. Passenger boats from Philadelphia reached Norristown in 1822 and Reading in 1826. Forty boats loaded with coal passed through Norristown in one day in 1825. In 1830, 81,000 tons of coal were conveyed by boat. Reading shipped by canal in one day 1,201 barrels of flour, 1,425 bushels of wheat, 17 tons of iron, 149 gallons of whis- key, 365 pounds of butter, and 500 pounds of snuff. All this freight and passenger traffic made the canal and
79
1784 TO 1814
towpaths fairly alive with boatmen, muledrivers, lock- tenders, coal arks, express passenger packet boats and passengers walking for a time to relieve their minds. The valleys re-echoed with the frequent, long-drawn tooting of the boatman's horn announcing to the locktender his near approach.
People had to be educated to the use of coal. Its introduction for domestic use was slow, and the cheap coal meant new industries along the line of the canal. In Norristown, McCreedy's Mill, the DeKalb Street Mill, Eagle Works, Derr's Marble Works, Hooven's Iron Mills, and in Conshohocken, Harry's Grist Mill and Wood's Rolling-mill began business during this period, depending more or less directly on the canal and the coal. The canal business was so brisk that increased capacity became necessary and the canal was conse- quently enlarged to accommodate greater boats. During the rebuilding period three hundred boats are said to have been tied up in the Port Kennedy dam at one time.
MUHARC
THE FIRST STEAM RAILROAD PASSENGER TRAIN IN AMERICA, 1831
A forceful argument and compelling motive for the digging of trans-State canals and a little later the build- ing of railroads was the Susquehanna river, whose wa- ters were carrying both products and riches from the State to Baltimore. To tap this traffic more effectively
80
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTY
a railroad was built from Philadelphia to Columbia which coursed a distance through Lower Merion. Rail- roads to Norristown and Reading were opened about the same time. The first rails, cars, and engines were, of course, primitive affairs. The rails did not resemble the massive T beams of present-day railroads. Instead, the track rested on stone blocks to which wooden rails were fastened that were protected by iron strips laid along the upper surface. For a time certain trains rendered service only in fair weather. It is related that
LOCOMOTIVE BUILT, 1914, BY BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS; WEIGHT 425 TONS, HORSEPOWER, MORE THAN 4000
at one of the formal openings, a great time of rejoicing and jubilee, nine passenger coaches were put to use that looked like the old stage coaches, twenty passen- gers within each, sixteen atop, the poor horse in shafts along the track as motive power. It is stated also that when one of these primitive trains stopped at a certain station the passengers on top walked a plank to the second story porch roof of a house along the track and thus got down to solid ground again after what must have seemed to them a most wonderful ride.
Among the industries of the period may be men- tioned the silk industry, which for a time received wide-
81
1815 TO 1847
spread attention, the grist, saw, oil, clover, powder, fulling mills, the tanneries and forges. The farmers whose business was the most important of the county sought to improve their condition by the establishment of the Montgomery County Agricultural Society.
Norristown had, in 1818, one hundred houses, five lawyers, stovemakers, innkeepers, each; four teachers, carpenters and shoemakers, each; three physicians, butchers, blacksmiths, each; two hat factories, mer- chant mills, magistrates, printers, cabinetmakers, plas- terers, coopers, each; one woolen factory, pottery, tan- nery, church, academy, fire engine, clergyman, apothe- cary, watchmaker, mason, chair maker, saddler, milliner, barber, and stageline to Philadelphia.
Pottstown, incorporated 1816, became a publication town by the establishment of a newspaper, The Times, 1819. Hatboro began the publication of The Literary Chronicle, 1840. Sumneytown began the publication of The Bauern Freund, 1827. This paper was later ac- quired by The Pennsburg Democrat.
Playing the lottery, in vogue before the establish- ment of the county, had developed into a craze. In 1833 more than two hundred lottery offices were offer- ing over four hundred lottery schemes in Philadelphia, authorized by New York, Virginia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, which tempted buyers with prizes aggregating more than fifty- three million dollars. Montgomery county farmers, like other farmers, doubtless tried their luck.
It was during this period that the State Free School system was introduced, a century and a half after William Penn as proprietor had made known his plans for universal education. Before this, the tuition of the children of the poor was free, but under such condi-
82
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTY
tions as to make free tuition a stigma or reproach to the beneficiaries. The system itself was its own worst ene- my. Out of 400,000 children in the State between the ages of five and fifteen, 150,000 did not get within a schoolhouse during a certain year, and a large propor- tion of the adult population could neither read nor write. Societies were organized in 1831 to promote the free school idea. The free school law was enacted by the Assembly of 1833-34. On the vote of adoption of the system by the county out of thirty-two districts only one voted in favor of adoption. In 1835, five hundred and eighty petitions signed by 31,989 citizens of the State asked the repeal of the law, but the law was allowed to stand. By 1839 eighty-four per cent of the school districts of the State had adopted the free school system, although in Montgomery county only thirty-four per cent, eleven districts out of thirty-four, had done so. By 1843, fifteen districts had accepted and there was in the State Treasury a credit of over $38,000 for the non-accepting districts, sums appropri- ated by the Legislature for their benefit. This credit with the threat that after a certain time it would revert to the general funds influenced the districts to accept the law.
Early school expenses compared with the present were very low, as a study of statistics will show. Ac- cording to a school tax duplicate 140 citizens in a cer- tain district paid a school tax of $20.46, or at the rate of 141/2 cents each. Of these twenty-eight paid less than ten cents each. In 1831 the teacher's salary in another district was two dollars per pupil for a term of seventy- two days. Of another district it is said that at times there was no school for two or three years until some wayfaring stranger came along and opened one.
83
1848 TO 1884
About the time the free school system was adopt- ed, Pennsylvania had two universities, eight colleges, fifty academies that were receiving State aid. Within the county four academies were receiving such aid-at Hatboro, Norristown, Pottstown, and Sumneytown. During the period the following private schools were opened; Haverford College, 1832; Treemount Seminary, 1844; Oakland Female Seminary, 1845; Freeland Semi- nary, 1845; Cottage Seminary, 1850.
During this period great progress was
1848 made in various directions. It was also
to the period of the Civil War which meant so 1884 much for the county during and after the war which will be considered in another connection.
Among the new private schools of the period may be mentioned the Hill School (1851), Oakland Female Institution (1845-1880), Pennsylvania Female College (1851-1875), the first American college established solely for women and authorized to bestow degrees, North Wales Academy (1867-1892), Perkiomen Seminary (1875), now Perkiomen School, Frederick Institute (1855-1877).
The free school system became fully established in the county. The townships which had not yet adopted the system soon did so. In 1854 the office of county superintendent was created, which meant closer super- vision and greater efficiency of the schools. A county superintendent made this report: "It is no uncommon thing for scholars at sixteen in winter schools to be found going over and saying to the teacher precisely the same thing in principle that they went over and said at six." In 1855 the county superintendent re- ported : "In many of the schools in these districts the
84
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTY
TYPES OF ONE ROOM SCHOOLHOUSES
Ivy Rock, Plymouth
Oak Grove, Hatfied Eight Square, Plymouth St. James Episcopal, Lower Providence
85
1848 TO 1884
principal branches taught are orthography, reading, writing, and arithmetic, English grammar and geogra- phy not yet being taught in them to a very great extent and in a considerable number not at all." The follow- ing year he reported long desks and benches without support to the back in a large number of districts. In 1860 the same superintendent said: "Six years ago schools were in a loose and disjointed condition; now they are pervaded by a common life and have system and method." During the Civil War many of the older and more experienced men teachers left the profession and women teachers took their places, against whom there was widespread objection. Institutes came into vogue about this time, but the attendance was optional and many of the teachers failed to attend. 1871 the superintendent dwelt on the increased salaries, the better houses and furniture, the lengthening of the school term, the increased number of graded schools. The late Superintendent R. F. Hoffecker in his first reports beginning in 1880 dwelt on the attention given to decorating the school rooms, examinations in un- graded schools, increased interest in apparatus and professional reading, free textbooks coming into use, of all but fourteen of the teachers attending institute.
A new prison was built in 1851 and a new court house in 1852-54.
The following turnpikes were either incorporated or opened in the years indicated : Whitemarsh and Ply- mouth, 1848; Limekiln, 1851; Greenlane and Goshen- hoppen, 1851; Norristown and King of Prussia, 1851; Plymouth and Upper Dublin, 1853; Norristown and Center Square, 1867; Penllyn and Blue Bell, 1867; Gwynedd and Blue Bell, 1867; Dublin and Souderton, 1874; Telford and County Line, 1874; Lansdale and
86
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTY
Montgomery, 1874; Philadelphia, Bala and Bryn Mawr, 1874.
Steam railroad building was continued during the period, the following roads being opened in the years indicated: Chester Valley, 1853; North Penn, 1856; Perkiomen, 1875; North East Branch of Philadelphia and Reading, 1872; Philadelphia and Newtown, 1872; Bound Brook, 1876; Stony Creek, 1875; Schuylkill Valley, 1884.
Growth is shown by the establishment of these newspapers: 1857, The Democrat, Pennsburg, to which was added The Perkiomen Valley Press, 1874; 1858, a German newspaper made its appearance in Zieglerville; 1870, The Reporter, Lansdale; 1875, The Independent, Collegeville; The Daily Register, Norristown ; 1877, The Home News, Bryn Mawr; The Weekly Item, Schwenksville; 1878, The Independent, Souderton ; 1881, The Times, Norristown; 1883, The Gazette, Am- bler. The first daily county paper was The Daily Herald, established 1869.
Among other evidences of progress of the county were: incorporation of Bridgeport, 1851; Royersford, 1879; opening of Swedes Ford bridge, 1851; establish- ment of Norristown gasworks, 1852; recognition of women physicians.
The operation of the underground railroad, orig- inated early in this period and ended by the Civil War, must not be overlooked. This was an effort to assist colored slaves to get away from their masters and secure their liberty by flight to Canada. Misunderstand- ing, personal abuses, and financial loss were the lot of those who assisted the slaves to escape.
There were in 1852 in Montgomery county not less than 30 merchant, 120 grist, 76 lumber, 8 marble, 20 paper, 12 clover and 12 (?) powder mills. Besides
87
1848 TO 1884
these there were 15 or more iron works of various kinds, 25 large cotton factories, 10 woolen mills, 12 fulling mills, and 35 tanneries. In 1854 there were on the Per- kiomen creek below Greenlane 17 gristmills, 8 oilmills, 6 sawmills, and 3 powdermills; and on the same creek
SPINNING WITH SPINDLE AND SPINNINGWHEEL
with its branches above Greenlane, 10 sawmills, 14 powdermills, 16 oilmills, in addition to furnaces, iron works and woolen mills.
Blast furnaces and iron works were put up as fol- lows: 1843, Plymouth; 1846, Norristown and Potts- town; 1847, West Conshohocken; 1849, Stony Creek; 1850, Swedeland; 1852, Pencoyd; 1854, William Penn
88
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTY
and Port Kennedy; 1863, Pottstown; 1867, Edge Hill; 1869, Norristown; 1874, Glasgow; 1875, Pottstown; 1881, Plymouth; 1884, Pottstown.
1885
to
It will be impracticable and inadvisable to attempt a listing of changes that have taken place within the county since 1884.
1923
Data on special features of the develop- ment can be obtained without special effort.
The following facts may serve as milestones in the progress of the public school system (taken from a paper prepared by Superintendent J. Horace Landis) .
1854, E. L. Acker appointed superintendent of schools at an annual salary of six hundred dollars.
1855, Montgomery County Teachers' Association organ- ized-became the Teachers' Institute, 1868.
1860, Rev. J. W. Cruikshank elected superintendent of schools at an annual salary of nine hundred and fifty dollars.
1863, Abel Rambo elected superintendent of schools at an annual salary of eight hundred dollars, later in- creased to twelve hundred dollars.
1871, Clergy, the bar and other friends of education invited to take part in the discussions at the county institutes.
1878, R. F. Hoffecker elected superintendent of schools at an annual salary of twelve hundred dollars, later increased to twenty-five hundred dollars.
1879, Local institutes introduced.
1881, Lower Providence adopted a graded course of study.
1882, First public school commencement held.
1884, Cheltenham established a township high school.
1887, Final abandonment of the A, B, C method of teaching reading.
1885 TO 1923
89
THE SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS OF THE COUNTY Robert Cruikshank
Abel Rambo
E. L. Acker
J. Horace Landis
R. F. Hoffecker
90
FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTY
1888, Lower Providence held a public school exam- ination.
1889, Montgomery County Directors' Association formed.
1890, First district superintendent appointed. Direc- tors' Association recommended a minimum school term of eight months-made a state law, 1919.
1891, Directors' Association discussed township high schools and compulsory attendance.
1893, Directors' Association discussed graded courses of study.
1903, Directors' Association discussed the centraliza- tion of rural schools.
1904, J. Horace Landis appointed superintendent of schools at an annual salary of twenty-five hun- dred dollars, later increased to five thousand dol- lars. Divided county institutes introduced, later made compulsory by law.
1908, An outline of studies for an eight grade and a ten grade course issued by the superintendent.
1913, A course of study for the county prepared.
The county itself has spent over $800,000 in freeing turnpikes, only one toll road remaining. Improved roads have come to stay. The three election districts have become one hundred and fifty-two with prospect of a material increase in numbers. Instead of the lone post-office of 1793 there are considerably more than a hundred supplemented by more than half a hundred rural delivery routes. Nerves of steel crisscrossing the county annihilate space. Its private educational forces have been strengthened by the addition of Bryn Mawr College. Asylum and hospital service have been added to the county.
1885 TO 1923
91
Half a score of years has passed since the county seat celebrated its centennial. The growth of the county business necessitated larger Court House quarters in 1902 which are again too small. Trolley and bus service facilitate travel. The seventy-five public schools have become seventy-five dozen schools. Bicycles and auto- mobiles have compelled road betterment. Improved farm machinery and practice mark rural life. "Movies" have come to while away dull care and long evenings. Agricultural communities are acquiring city conveni- ences. Manufacturing plants have sprung up all over the county bringing remunerative employment at home to the young.
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CHAPTER VI
CHANGED HOME LIFE
Modern Conveni- Were some mighty power to take away from Montgomery county the things that seem so essential to daily life which have ences come into existence since the erection of the county in 1784, it would leave house and home, barn and shop, street and field so bare and cheerless that men would feel that life was not worth living. At the begin- ning of the period news snailed along by horseback and stagecoach on narrow roads made almost impassable by dust and mud or rough, frozen ruts. To-day it flies at lightning speed and he who will may listen in. According to Watson, in 1800, people in Philadelphia, then the most populous and most advanced city in the United States, "were unacquainted with the use of carpets, sideboards, massive plate, gigs, barouches and coaches; they were satisfied with sanded floors, white- washed parlors and halls, rush chairs, plain chaises, corner chimneys, corner clocks and glass-door buffets and cupboards." Although these, and unnumbered other things, are not products of Montgomery county, they have entered very vitally into the life of the county and helped to make it what it is. We can not know its history without knowing something about them.
Before these things became part of life, "the era," according to Professor Clark, "was one of uneconomi- cal methods of work, of undivided and localized produc- tion, of large profits and small sales, of high prices to society as a consumer, of little general wealth, but of comparative equality and contentment among the mid- dle class in the community."
93
DATE OF PATENTS
Date A chronological list of patents issued to of Patents inventors will help one to form an idea as to when certain improvements were made. It must be remembered, however, that in most cases many steps intervened between the first and final forms of patents as we know them. Among these patents may be mentioned : 1797, cast iron plow; 1803, steel pens; 1813, gas generator; 1816, manufacture of oilcloth; 1817, steam wagon; 1819, plow with adjust- able point and iron suspension bridges (in England) ; 1822, flop-over horserakes; 1825, first passenger car and steam engine; 1830, hilling cultivator; 1833, slotted- guard fingers for mowers; 1840, magnetic telegraph; 1843, composing machine and fountain pen; 1846, sew- ing machine; 1849, shoe machine and paperfolding ma- chine; 1850, cotton harvester ; 1853, envelope machine; 1855, haytedder; 1858, carpet sweeper and ice elevators ; 1859, ironframe school seats and desks; 1862, wash wringers; 1864, Bessemer steel; 1865, ice machines ; 1868, vacuum milking machines; 1869, washing ma- chines and springtooth harrow; 1870, hot air heaters; 1873-1892, typewriters; 1875, vacuum airbrakes and self-feeding heaters; 1876, telephone, bicycle, and pas- senger elevators; 1880, electric railways; 1884, gang plow and quadruplex telegraphy; 1885, first electric street railways; 1891, "movie" apparatus; 1894, first gasoline-driven vehicle; 1895, Roentgen rays; 1902, aeroplanes.
The
H. L. Fisher, in his "Olden Times; or, Pennsylvania Rural Life, Some Fifty Years
Changed Ago," published in 1888, pictures the old Home home in these words: "We, almost trem- blingly, ask permission to enter the different apart- ments, in the vain hope of recognizing some familiar
94
CHANGED HOME LIFE
object, or hearing some familiar sound ; we look in vain for the Bible and the Hymn book on the quaint old stand; or the cradle that rocked us in our infancy ; we listen for the measured tick, tick, tick, or the silvery tones of the old clock, so full of mystery in the peaceful hours of life's rosy dawn. And in their stead we find things new and strange; in the little back room, where our parents slept, and we first saw the light, we find a modern-styled bed in the place of the highposts and ample curtains ; no Bible-stand, family Bible, nor hymn- book; and instead of the stately old time-piece, an in- significant mantleclock, as if running by steam, clicks and clacks, as if trying to make up for lost time. In the spacious, old sitting-room, where once we heard the music of the spinningwheels on the bare, sand-scoured floor, we find the flowery carpets, the melodeon, or the cottage organ. In the kitchen, that altar of our youth- ful sacrifices, where once glowed the cheerful wood-fire, in the long winter evenings, the great old chimneyplace closed and dark; and in its stead the modern cook-stove, heated, tamely, with filthy coal. On the garret we find no more hanks of flax, the rolls of wool, nor the bun- dles of fragrant herbs ; but we do find the neglected and despised, cast-off, spinning-wheels, reels and winders hidden away, down in the darkness under the eaves of the roof, as if it were a virtue to show how much the children are ashamed of the homely works and ways of the parents. And so, in sadness, we go away, musing and half doubting whether the works and ways of the present are really better than those of the past."
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