USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Historical sketches : a collection of papers prepared for the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Volume I > Part 17
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From an old record, I find such names as follows identi- fied with this First Church : John Dykes, Daniel Diehl, John McFarland, William McGlathery, Isaac Huddleson, Zadok Thomas, Alexander and Hugh Crawford, Dr. Jones Davis, Archibald Darrah, Josiah Evans, Thomas Stroud, Jacob and Isaac Custer, Robert E. Porter, George Govett, Samuel Jam- ison, Robert Stinson, Margaret Knox, John Chain, John Brough, Edward Magee. Methodist and Baptist first fol- lowed.
We at times think the world is growing worse. But aside from what I have already referred to, one or two other instances will show we are growing better. There was a young man who was a ventriloquist. He, with a lot of cronies, would go to some of our meetings, particularly the Methodist, and when the whole congregation felt good and was singing, he would put his head on the front of the pew and make all sorts of noises, like the mewing of a cat or the snarling of a dog, and the good deacons would go off on a
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hunting expedition after the intruder. Once during a pro- tracted meeting a dead horse was laid on the steps of the church, and as the congregation came out in the darkness they stumbled pell-mell over each other; and during the anti-slavery excitement the windows of the Baptist church were broken by a mob. If there are greater crimes they are more hidden, although we have the great evil of intemperance, that is still the fruitful source of untold misery, wretchedness and crime.
My father built a house on Airy street, below Cherry, in 1837, where he died, May 4, 1838. Looking out of the front door there was not more than half a dozen houses north or east to be seen, except farm houses, and many of us remember the first house above Stony creek. The land speculators told about what was the prospect above there, but it was called "The Land of Promise"-especially the promise. Opposite our old home was Potter's field.
About 1788, as we have often been told by "Aunt Betsy Thomson," the first execution took place. The man's name was John Brown. The gallows was erected at the corner of Swede and Airy streets. But the night before the execution the gallows was torn down, and the poor fellow was hung somewhere near Elm and Powel streets.
At the time of my going into the Montgomery County Bank, in May, 1850, there was but one bank in the county, with an authorized capital of $400,000, but not all paid up at that time. The bank was then in a dwelling house, occupied by that prince of bankers, William H. Slingluff, who had not his superior in the state as a skilled and successful bank manager. On the first of March, this year, there were eigh- teen national banks, with an aggregate capital of $2,226,000, with a surplus fund of $1, 113,000, footing up as the available capital of the national banks alone of $3,339,000. Add to this the state trust, deposit and savings institutions, and the amount would exceed $5,000,000. Then copying presses were not in use, not even envelopes, as a general thing. Such a change in the security of safes. Then, what was really only a deep
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recess in the wall, with sheet-iron doors, large locks, and great, heavy keys. At present this bank has a most splendid safe and doors, worth as much probably as the whole bank build- ing fifty years ago. But those "days of yore " were the times for making money, when each bank made its own circulation. It was the season of "wild-cat" banking and "shinplaster" circulation as well, when a pocketful of money would hardly pay your way from here to Washington, considering the per- petual "shaving " process you had to undergo. But now we have the best banking system that this nation or any other country has ever had; a sure protection to depositor and note-holder, and a currency that makes every man feel safe when he gets his wages that he will get dollar for dollar.
At the time of the publication of The Truth, at the office of the Norristown Herald, edited by Rev. Samuel Aaron, in 1843, I entered, in September of that year, the Herald office to learn the "art preservative of all arts." We had an old "Smith " hand press for all kinds of job work, as well as print- ing the papers. And we used the same, great heavy press for printing small hand-bills and even cards. That was all we had, and a "token" an hour (240 impressions) was a fair hour's work, if kept up until we got the edition of about nine hundred copies off. Thursday and Friday were "press days." Now go into the splendidly equipped office of the Herald and see the presses running off their thousands an hour. There are steam presses that turn out ninety thousand complete papers in an hour. As a matter of enterprise once, the mes- sage of the President, delivered on Monday, got into the Herald that same week. But were "we" not proud, from Mr. Iredell down to the " devil," when we issued " our " paper, all new, with "bourgeois" and "minion." We thought it was the handsomest sheet in the state.
In one of the great processions of the Clay campaign I had a press in the parade and distributed Whig songs along the whole route of the miles the procession journeyed. In those times there was the "pony express" to bring the returns, and all we hoped to hear from was the county. As
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the tidings would come in from Horsham, Abington, and the " lower end," there would be extended figuring and rejoicing. But when we heard from the " upper end," Sumneytown and the like, we lost heart and went to bed, for the county would go Democratic all the way from eight to eighteen hundred majority. But there was no such thing as fail. W. H. Sling- luff, B. Markley Boyer and Lloyd Jones were the leaders in the Whig ranks and John B. Sterigere the controlling power with the Democrats. Lloyd Jones' series of articles over the signature of "Spectator," were probably the most vigorous and effective political articles ever written in our county in those years. Just on the eve of a hotly-contested election both parties claimed the old court house. The Democrats had it first. Then the Whigs tried to get possession, but out went the lights. The confusion threatened to develop into a riot, when Judge Krause came upon the scene and commanded order and quietness.
After the public school system started the schools were held in a little two-story frame building on Church street, close to the Episcopal church. There we had Winfield S. and Hilary Hancock for our classmates. Then the basement of the Methodist church on Main street, now used as a factory, and an old barn, corner of Mill and Lafayette streets. Com. pare those places with the grand structures Norristown now has. Of course there was no such apparatus to illustrate any of the principles of philosophy, chemistry or astronomy, or even maps of any practical value. The master at the school on Mill street undertook to whip John H-, when John ran out of the school and into the creek that runs by the depot, and when about the middle of the stream, put his thumb to his nose and twirled his fingers in defiance of the pedagogue, who declined to follow his pupil into the " vasty deep."
John B. Sterigere, a distinguished lawyer, politician and old bachelor, took a great interest in improving the streets of the borough. He was very greatly censured at times, but the more fault-finding the more he went on his way, and when Lafayette street was opened it was called " Sterigere's Canal."
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In after years it was found that much of his work was very valuable. There is a story told of Mr. Sterigere that indicated his political power. He was asked by a friend to canvass the county to secure the nomination of his friend for a high politi- cal office. The canvass was made, but upon the first ballot Sterigere himself was nominated. The beauty of our present borough, in the arrangement of the grade and width of our streets, is due to the gentlemen who controlled the affairs of the borough. There was Mr. Slingluff, C. Heebner, Charles Christman, and others whose names we do not now recall. For a long time the town council met in the room between the bar-room and entry of the Montgomery House.
David Sower took an active interest in public matters. He was interested in the first temperance hotel ever started in our borough.
There has been an amazing stride. On the corner of Swede and Main streets stood a one-story frame and plastered building, so low that the boys could from the court-house hill climb upon the roof. In here were two small hand-engines, made by Pat Lyon, and the smaller of the two the maker named after himself. The members of this fire company ha'd at their homes a certain number of leather buckets. When the alarm was sounded each of the members, if winter-time, put on his overcoat, big boots, and grabbed his fire buckets, and off to the scene of the conflagration. One of those scenes comes before me at present. At the corner of Main and DeKalb streets, where the drug store is now, was a hotel. In one of the upper rooms a secret society held its meetings. A bitter cold night a fire took place. There was a pump about opposite the Herald office. The hand-engines were placed close to the burning building, and a string of men, women and boys was formed from the pump to the engines; two men at the pump and sixteen at the handles of the engines. Those at the pump and engines had to rest off about every half hour and others took their places, and the water buckets were passed along from one to another. About half of the water was spilled on the journey. Then the pumps would give out,
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and all had to wait awhile. In the meantime the fire made headway. Fortunately, Norristown has been spared from the ravages of this destructive element in the years gone by, until now we stand in the front ranks, with all the necessary equip- ments, with splendid apparatus, and effective companies for the protection of the borough. Picture the bucket brigade and the hand-engine with number one of our steam fire engines and trained horses. As a step in advance a bucket company was formed, with a carriage to carry the buckets to the fire. But the leather buckets and bucket carriage are amongst the relics of the past.
Perhaps we have made less advance here than at any other point. But many of our older people will remember the market wagons stretched along the sidewalk on the east side of Swede street, from Main to Airy street, on the three mornings of the week. There the butchers, the farmers and the truck-men were gathered, and a great crowd it used to be, too. That was a step in advance from these same class of dealers going around from house to house. The departure from the curbstone was the DeKalb street market. The in- tention at first was to have outside as well as inside stalls; the outside were to be rented at a cheaper rate than those on the inside; but it was found not to work well, when the outside ones were abandoned.
The Norristown library is one of the old institutions of the town. In the years "long ago" the books were in a one-story: frame building on Main street, just above where the Montgomery National Bank is. There the public got their reading. Mr. Slingluff and Mr. Boyer, the cashier and presi- dent of the bank, took a great deal of interest in this institu- tion. The following is the list of subscribers that contributed to the erection of the building on DeKalb street. The sub- scription was started February 1, 1859: William H. Slingluff, B. E. Chain, D. H. Mulvany, H. Freedley, James Hooven, J. Greir Ralston, W. M. Jamison, Geo. S. McKnight, Thos. P. Knox, J. McDermott, J. M. Albertson, Judge Smyser, B. M. Boyer, Thos. Saurman, Mckay & Stinson, D. Longaker. A.
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Markley, F. Deer, Stephen Bawden, George Shannon, John Boyer, S. N. Rich, H. McMiller, C. J. Elliott, F. B. Poley, T. P. Bayly, Charles Earnest, C. H. Stinson, Wm. Schall, G. R. Fox, Geo. Steinmetz, James Boyd, Charles Christman, Nathan- iel Jacoby, B. F. Hancock, Jacob Childs, John M. Stauffer, Gabriel Kohn, Christopher Heebner, Bean & Wentz, Samuel Brown, Jr., R. T. Stewart, D. H. Stein, G. W. Rogers, P. P. Dewees, Adam Slemmer, A. B. Longaker, Michael C. Boyer and Thos. P. Potts. It will be noticed how few of this long list of names are living. Something over two thousand dol- lars were raised at that time. I was the secretary of the board of trustees some two years prior to this movement, and have served in that capacity without intermission up to the present date.
For a long series of years we had a Montgomery County Bible Society. Mr. Zadok Thomas was for more than a quar- ter of a century the treasurer. Adam Slemmer was for a long period the president. After he had retired Dr. Ralston took charge as the president, and remained in that office until his death. Repeated efforts have been made to reorganize, but all their efforts have been short lived. During its existence the county was canvassed in order to supply every family with a Bible.
In May, 1859, Rev. Mr. Long came here with a large tent for the purpose of holding Evangelistic services. Some of the preachers were men of great pulpit power, and an in- tense excitement was the result of these meetings, and a large number of conversions followed, and additions were made to most of the churches as a result.
Norristown has been favored with distinguished citizens in the past years. Audubon, the great ornithologist, had a school and Dr. Isaac Huddleson was a pupil. The eloquent and peerless orator Rev. Samuel Aaron thrilled vast audi- ences, and left a very halo of precious influences behind him. General Hancock was always popular with "the boys," at all times a leader, a good scholar, and through all his life, when at home, he met his old friends and schoolmates with hearty
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good cheer. Then there was Albanus S. Powell; at school a most remarkable memory; reading his lessons over he could repeat them word for word, and never down tail. There was Adam Slemmer, apparently slow in getting his lesson and understanding a question, but when he got the idea he had it in an iron box, for it was with him all his life. These three were all contrasts with each other in mental as well as physical appearance. They were all students at West Point. It is not necessary to refer to the great Hancock, the real hero of Gettysburg, and a marked and brilliant character in two wars. Powell left the West Point Academy, and after the war entered the ministry, and died a few years ago in either Kansas or Nebraska; Slemmer, the hero of Fort Pickens, the man who so quickly comprehended the situation as the tocsin of war was sounded, and did such reliable services at that time ; Col. Edwin Schall, who fell at the battle of the Wilderness while leading his command into that terrific combat; General Hartranft, distinguished as executive of the state, whose deeds will live all along with the roll of the great of the nation. And our own Col. Theodore W. Bean, the organizer and the inspiration of our Montgomery County Historical Society, who, equally on the field of literature as well as on the field of battle, distinguished himself. Besides these, that long list of worthies on that " roll of honor " of names on the soldiers' monument in the public square-the brave men in the rank and file of that army that went from home to keep the stars and stripes over a free and united nation.
In the years gone by, at the time when Philip Gilinger was largely engaged in building, and when he did so much to improve Norristown in a style of dwellings far in advance of his time, it was found that an hundred houses had been built in one year, and it was thought the town was to be ruined by having so many empty houses. But as we look back for a few years, we suppose there has been five times that number built for years together. But an instance will illustrate what a great fall there was in real estate. A farm was bought and sold out in lots. A building association made a loan of three
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thousand dollars on a piece of ground before the panic of 1857, but after the financial cyclone of that year had struck the town that same real estate got into the hands of the Sheriff and was sold for three hundred dollars. But the business enterprise of our borough could not be seriously impeded, and if we go back a decade of years we will see that we have more than recovered our old prestige.
As we think of the past and the men that figured, we will see the energy and push they had. There was Mr. McKay, whose remarkable memory of events was such that all ques- tions of that kind, as to the exact date, being referred to him, his decision was conclusive and final. Mordecai R. Moore, George M. Potts, Daniel Mulvaney, the Pawling family, John Freedley, member of Congress from this district. At the bar were Charles W. Brooke, Philip Kendall, Francis Dimond, Dr. Duncan and Dr. Blackfan of those gone. We have Dr. Hiram Corson, and his brother William, while he lived, of the pres- ent times.
I have thus, members of the Montgomery County His- torical Society, looked back over almost a half century of the time of Norristown, and as the events come before me, and for the time lived in the days of yore, I lay these recollections before you, not so much for any historical value they may have, for I may have made errors in dates and facts, as I have depended upon memory, and as an accountant might report in his statement, E. O. E. (errors and omissions excepted), so have I given you these incidents. If defective, still these pages may do to while away a half-hour with you ..
But grand as has been the advance for the past generation . or more, the sun of prosperity for Norristown is just rising, only clearly above the horizon for that which lies before the intelligent perseverance and energy of the years that are to come. Let us step up to the front, and when the advance guard make their forward march, may our place be near the "flashing of the guns."
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THE REDEMPTIONERS.
By Lewis R. Harley, Ph. D.
The subject of capital and labor is agitated as an import- ant issue in our American system at the present day ; and yet this strife between these two great forces of civilization is by no means confined to modern times, but it existed as well in the past ages of the world. It was only by slow processes that labor has been emancipated. Labor passed through the thralldom of the feudal system, and its claims for recognition were ignored in that period when the nations believed that gold was the chief source of the wealth of the world. Labor was also restricted by the power of the English guilds and the long apprentice systems. The governments of the old world in the era of discovery and exploration were filled with the paternal spirit. Man was cared for by the state, and in return he was to sacrifice all his service in behalf of the state. It was upon this principle that Raleigh's experiment in Virginia was made and that Locke's Grand Model was formed. Adam Smith had not yet written his "Wealth of Nations," in which the theory was first advanced that labor is the source of the wealth of the world. This work had a strong tendency to elevate labor and make it free.
Labor has also been reduced to the degradation of the slave system. Columbus and his followers introduced a sys- tem of slavery into America that swept away the entire Lucayan race-over fifty million souls. Slavery and the slave trade were established institutions along the Delaware long before Penn founded the colony of Pennsylvania. As the colony grew in numbers, strength and wealth, slavery re- mained one of its constituent elements, and the slave trade made a great part of the commerce.
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There had always been a great amount of opposition to slavery in Pennsylvania. The well-known protest of the Ger- man Quakers of Germantown in 1688, showed a marked aversion to slavery. William Penn, the wise founder and law- giver of the state, was opposed to all systems of servitude. In the charter of laws agreed upon in England and confirmed April 25, 1682, by Penn, is the following clause: "That there shall be a register for all servants, where their names, time, wages and day of payment shall be registered." The laws of the fifth of May, 1682, state, "that all children within this province of the age of twelve years shall be taught some use- ful trade or skill, to the end that none may be idle, but the poor may work to live, and the rich, if they become poor, may not want. That servants be not kept longer than their time, and such as are careful be both justly and kindly used in their service, and put in fitting equipage at the end thereof, accord- ing to custom." One clause of the Great Law of Chester, December 7, 1682, states: "There shall be a registry for all servants, where their names, time, wages and days of freedom or payment shall be registered." In 1683, a law was passed to prevent the selling of servants, and regulating the service of those not indentured. Of this latter class, "each servant being seventeen years of age and upward, shall serve five years, and those under seventeen years shall serve till they come to the age of twenty-two, of which age each respective county court wherein they reside shall be their proper judges. And every master or mistress shall be bound to bring such servant or servants within three months time after their arrival before the said courts, to be adjudged as aforesaid, and shall then and there oblige themselves to pay unto every servant at the ex- piration of their time one new suit of apparel, ten bushels of wheat, or fourteen bushels of Indian corn, one axe, two hoes (one broad and one narrow), and a discharge from their service."
Labor in early Pennsylvania was not performed as it is now, by paid wage earners, but for the most part by persons in bondage. These included two classes-slaves and inden-
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tured servants, or redemptioners. At the beginning of the American Revolution, slavery existed in some form in nearly every state of the Union. The economic conditions of the North prevented the growth of the slave system, and it early became unpopular and was abolished.
Many of the white inhabitants of Pennsylvania were also in a condition much like that of slavery, except in the length of its existence. Many laborers, artisans and tradesmen be- longed to this class of indentured servants, or redemptioners. These laborers were recruited from two principal sources : first, those who fell into the condition on account of poverty and misfortune; and secondly, those immigrants who paid for their passage from Europe by agreeing to allow themselves to be sold by the shipmaster for a number of years after their ar- rival in this country.
As in olden times the debtor without means was sold for a certain time to cancel his debt, the criminal who could not pay his fine was sold for as long as was necessary to obtain its amount, and often the paupers from the work-houses were sold to pay their expenses. The Directors of the Poor in Philadelphia were empowered by law to bind out men and women from the poor-house for a term not exceeding three years to pay for their expense, and such persons were offered to purchasers through the columns of the newspaper.
The custom of selling for a period of service, criminals who had been fined and were unable to pay the amount, arose from the poor jail facilities of the country, and the reluctance of the early settlers to pay jail expenses. A man in Lancaster county stole £14, 7s .; he was whipped with twenty-one lashes and was then sold to a farmer for a term of six years for £16. The early records of Chester and Montgomery counties are full of instances of freemen being sold into servitude as pun- ishment for offenses. A man was sold for a period of eight years for stealing fourteen deer skins. Another man was sold for three years for his jail fees. Prisoners often begged to be sold as servants rather than continue in jail.
Imprisonment for debt was a common occurrence in
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ancient times in England and in the early history of our own country. A law passed in Pennsylvania in 1705 provided that if no estate sufficient be found, the debtor shall make satisfac- tion by servitude, not exceeding seven years, if a single person and under the age of fifty-three ; or five years if a married man and under forty-six. The largest number of indentured serv- ants were those called "redemptioners," because they redeemed the payment of their passage money by service to anyone to whom they were sold.
The time of redemptioners was usually sold at from £2 to £4 a year. Free labor at the time ranged from £10 to £20 per year. The discrepancy in the value of the service of the redemptioners is found from the fact that they had to be fed and clothed, and their labor was less efficient than that of free persons, and servants running away was a constant source of loss to owners. The colonial papers were filled with adver- tisements containing rewards for the capture and return of runaway servants. The law empowered the master to chastise the runaway servant, and the unpleasant position held by the redemptioners induced many of them to enter the army. Necessity for soldiers led the government to pass a law releas- ing all from further bondage who would enlist in the service of their country. Many availed themselves of this privilege and became distinguished for bravery in the early colonial wars.
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