USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Historical sketches : a collection of papers prepared for the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Volume I > Part 19
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WOMEN OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY IN WAR TIME.
Stockings and mittens were knitted by the thousand pairs. All ages took up the glistening steel. No idle mo- ments could be spent by the women, whether entertaining a friend, waiting in the depot or riding in cars, the busy fingers were ever at work and the active brain devising what more could be done to increase the comforts of the absent soldier. These were among the things the women of this county did during the war. The regiments were followed to camp, field and hospital, not only by good wishes, never-ceasing acts of kindness, loving care and thoughtfulness, but the prayers of this great army of women ascended continually, like incense, to Him in whose hands are " the issues of life and death."
"The women wait, and watch and pray, With thrilling pulse, from day to day."
After the battle of Bull Run, when the wounded were hurriedly cared for, and imperfect arrangements for their com- fort made, Mrs. Jonathan Roberts, of Upper Merion, was ur- gent in her appeals for ladies to go as nurses. Yielding to her solicitations, Mrs. Rachel Evans, of Bridgeport, and her sister, Miss Lizzie Brower, of Norristown, went to Alexandria, Va., where a week was spent among the wounded. Even in this short experience something was learned of hospital needs and more efficient work for our army aid societies.
So days, weeks and months sped on, and all the while the lowering clouds of war hung darkly o'er the land, with apparently no variation in the cry sounding through the nation, "come and help us." At length the battle of Antietam came so startlingly near us, that it brought before us the hor- rors and sufferings of war as we had never previously felt them. Again the appeal was made for nurses, and again Mrs. Evans offered her services; she was the directing power among the six who went to Antietam. Mrs. Rachel P. Evans, of Bridge- port, Mrs. Anna Carver, of Upper Merion, a lady well known for her great kindness and benevolence; Mrs. Isaac W. Hol- stein, Miss Sallie H. Roberts, now Mrs. William Wills; Miss Lizzie Brower, of Norristown, and Miss Sarah Priest, of Bridge-
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port, comprised the party. They remained ten days, and their labors among the wounded were appreciated and valued by surgeons and soldiers. Though strongly urged to make one of this number, I declined at that time; the idea of seeing and nursing wounded men was one from which I shrank instinct- ively, but when my husband returned soon after with the sad story that soldiers were actually dying for want of proper food and comforts of the plainest kind, lying in barns, sheds, or any kind of wretched shelter, I hesitated no longer, but with others went earnestly to work in procuring additional supplies of food, clothing, medicine, etc.
While the company of six ladies were still there, I accom- panied Mr. Holstein to Antietam. We had in our charge a large quantity of excellent supplies for sick and wounded, and had the satisfaction of getting them through promptly; they came most opportunely and were invaluable. Our stay at this time was short, as we returned home with the party of six, and went directly to Philadelphia, where, among friends and relatives, a supply of medical stores and hospital appliances, made out from a surgeon's list, was collected in three days. These articles were valued at one thousand dollars; the esti- mate was made by the druggist who packed them. A large quantity of delicacies and clothing were contributed in Phila- delphia, and again in our own neighborhood. Mrs. Evans accompanied Mr. Holstein and myself upon this trip, but in ten days she returned home seriously ill with camp fever; her sister, Miss Lizzie Brower, then took her place. From this date the home work in army aid societies was left to other hands. The writer found her place to be in field hospitals, to care for sick and wounded as sorrowing wives and mothers at home would so gladly have done, were it in their power. This mission of mercy and patriotism ended for her the third of July, 1865.
Miss Sarah Priest was ten months in hospitals; Miss Lizzie Brower, eighteen months; they were reliable, valuable, efficient women. Mrs. Anna Carver and Miss Emily T. Amies (now Mrs. Abram Walker, of Philadelphia) afterwards spent a
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few weeks in hospitals at Fortress Monroe. Mrs. Jonathan Roberts, Mrs. Edwin Moore, and others, remained a few days at a time among the hospitals when bringing boxes of supplies for them.
July 9, 1864, Mrs. Rachel P. Evans came to City Point, Virginia, bringing with her supplies of delicacies, etc., sent from Norristown and Bridgeport. The boxes contained four- teen hundred pounds of nice biscuits, a quantity of fresh home- made bread, apple butter, canned fruit, and such other articles as soldiers, sick and wounded, enjoy. There was such an abundant supply that every wounded man in one section of the hospital was given a biscuit with apple butter or other fruit, where prudent to do so.
Whitpain Ladies' Aid Society was organized at the house of Jesse B. Fisher, Centre Square, November 3, 1863, for the aid and comfort of sick and wounded soldiers on the battle field, in hospitals, or refreshment saloons in Philadelphia. They received, from various sources, seven hundred and fifty- two dollars; no account was ever kept of donations of eatables, and no estimate made of the value of other goods received. This aid society is the only one in the county, that I know of, whose proceedings have been preserved in book form; the last supplies they forwarded were to U. S. Sanitary Commis- sion, 19th of July, 1865.
A society, known as the Woman's Loyal League, had its place of meeting in Norristown. Mrs. Jonathan Roberts, of Upper Merion, President; Mrs. Edward Conrad, Secretary. It was not intended for hospital work, though they raised money by lectures, which was given to the army aid societies. Its object seemed to be to keep up the interest of the women in patriotic movements. I have no date of its formation or continuance.
On the 28th of July, 1863, Mrs. Roberts wrote an article which appeared in the Norristown Herald, styled "A Tribute of Highest Esteem" to the Army of the Potomac.
Montgomery county sent many soldiers to the war whose memory is treasured and record honored wherever loyal citi-
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zens are found. Of this number are Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, Major General John F. Hartranft, Major Gen- eral Samuel K. Zook, Brigadier General Adam J. Slemmer, besides numerous other officers of note, and privates in the ranks. Of the distinguished Surgeons, we find still resident in Norristown Dr. Louis W. Read and Ellwood M. Corson; perhaps others, whose names I have lost.
I have spoken of what the women of Montgomery county did, during our great Civil War, in the way of hospital work and supplies. But what of their costliest offering, the lives that were given, homes that were made desolate, hopes blasted, health destroyed, and agonies endured in southern prisons, that the nation might be saved? Of the many whose names are familiar to me, I can but touch upon a few. Mrs. Hannah Shultz, of Norristown, is one from whose home the "light has gone out." She gave her all-her two brave boys to the war. Henry met a soldier's death on the field of Antietam, and now rests with his comrades of that fearful fight in the soldier's cemetery upon the hill. William Corson Shultz was wounded in the second day's fight at Gettysburg, and lived until the last of September, calmly bearing all these weeks untold agony from a wound which he knew must certainly result in death. His one anxious thought, constantly expressed, was, " Mother, do not grieve; bury me with my comrades on the field." At sunrise, one bright autumn morning, his soul went up to God. The casket which had held it we laid to rest among the nation's honored dead in Gettysburg cemetery.
Captain George W. Bisbing was another of the costly sacrifices. He was an only child, and in his death two homes were made desolate. Connected with this, gallant officer's death is an incident so singular that it is worthy of record. Though familiar as it is to all his family, yet it may not be so to all who hear me at this time. On the fifth of June, 1864, while we were at White House, Virginia, Wm. Percival Schall came, bringing the body of his brother, Colonel Edwin Schall, to be embalmed. He fell at Cold Harbor on the third of June, shot through the neck. The Assistant Secretary of
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WOMEN OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY IN WAR TIME.
War was fortunately that day at the White House. Through our intercession with this officer, he gave a permit for the young soldier to accompany the body of his brother, the colonel, to Norristown.
At this time Captain Bisbing was in the officers' hospital, Georgetown, D. C., his wife sitting by his bedside watching the passing away of a precious life now near its close. As the things of earth receded and another world dawned upon his gaze the lamp of life flickered and flashed in this its closing scene. Suddenly rousing up, his voice, which had previously been faint and feeble, rang out in a clear, loud voice, “ Lieu- tenant, Lieutenant!" A wounded lieutenant lying near him answered, "What is it, captain?" He replied, " I'm not call- ing you, it is Lieutenant Colonel Schall. I saw him fall, and thought the way he was lying perhaps he was dead." His wife soothed him, saying "the colonel was all right," and he sank back exhausted on his pillow. But in a few moments he called again in the same eager tone, "Lieutenant, Lieutenant," repeating the same words that he "had seen him fall, and thought the way he was lying, perhaps he was dead." Again he was soothed to quietness. And now fully conscious that death was near, the brave soldier, in a few earnest, never-to-be forgotten words, sent home the message that he "gave his life freely for his country." Then commending his soul to God, and committing wife and children to the same loving care, in two hours peacefully passed to that land "where there is no more sorrow or sickness or pain."
When Mrs. Bisbing returned with her husband's body to their home she then first learned that the colonel had fallen as the captain described two days previously.
His body also was brought home for burial and interred in Montgomery Cemetery the day preceding captain Bisbing's funeral, which was in the cemetery of Christ (Swedes') Church, Upper Merion.
In Cold Point Cemetery, a few miles from Norristown, sleeps all that is mortal of Phillip Hattel, of the 51st Pennsyl- vania Volunteers. Starved to death at Andersonville. One
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of the very worst cases that I ever knew among many thou- sand returned prisoners at Annapolis, to which fact the sur- geon in charge of St. John's College certified in a card upon the back of his photograph.
This list might be greatly lengthened, of the many prec- ious lives lost to friends and home, but time will not permit.
The little fragmentary histories of "what the women did in war time," in every township and county, should be col- lected without delay, now while many who took part in the work can recall all that was done. There will come a time when such records will be invaluable. What would we not give for the story of woman's work through the period of the Revolutionary war. And yet, what meagre accounts have come down to us. In a township adjacent to Norristown a woman resided during the war into whose hands great wealth had fallen. As her dividends became due and were paid in gold, the sum, whatever it might be, was immediately ex- pended for comforts and delicacies for sick and wounded soldiers, or in the purchase of red flannel by the bale, which she had made up at her own expense. If there were wives or mothers of soldiers in her vicinity who desired to do the work, they had the first choice of it. Then needy women of the neighborhood were kept employed, and all well paid.
Whatever she found was most urgently needed at "the front" she bought and sent directly on to the persons whom she knew or to the Sanitary Commission for distribution. One of her purchases was forty saddles, with bridles and equipments, for a cavalry company. This thoughtful dis- bursement of a large income was continued throughout the war. In the dearth of laborers for the harvest she went into the fields and worked in the hay and among the grain until all was gathered into the barns; assisted in husking the corn and bringing in the potato crop. All labor was honorable in her sight, because it was for love of country; that men might take a soldier's place in the army while she worked.
The wonderful narratives of self-sacrifice and devotion to principle of the women who nobly did their part in the great
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WOMEN OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY IN WAR TIME.
civil war, have all yet to be written. Not until this generation sleeps beneath the clods of the valley, and the children of to- day, to whose sight distance will lend "enchantment to the view," will begin to inquire if these tales that seem so like ro- mance are true. Then will every little circumstance be eagerly sought for. Forgotten letters and papers will be brought to light and closely read. Events that were to the participants as only every day duties will then appear-a glorified vision of saintly wife or mother, in whose ministry of mercy was in- cluded a great nation's army fighting to preserve the nation's life.
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SKETCH OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA.
By Rev. Matthias Sheeleigh, D. D.
Montgomery county may well claim intelligent consider- ation. It is an important subdivision of a state to which the early designation of the "Keystone State" was, and continues to be, highly fitting, for good reasons beyond the fact of its central geographical position among the original thirteen.
The name Montgomery was applied to this county in honor of the patriotic General Richard Montgomery, who fell at the assaulting of Quebec, on the night of December 31, 1775. The county was formed by an act of the Colonial Leg- islature, September 10, 1784, 102 years after William Penn's arrival. It was cut off the old county of Philadelphia, which was one of the three original counties of Penn's province. Chronologically it became the fifteenth county of the state.
Montgomery is one of the sixty-six counties into which the state is now divided. Its place is near the southeastern corner of the state. It lies just above the fortieth parallel of north latitude, and the line of seventy-five degrees of longitude west of Greenwich strikes through the centre of the county, as also does the line of two degrees east of Washington. The form of this division of the state is that of a somewhat irreg- ular and indented parallelogram, extending lengthwise from southeast to northwest. Its measurement is thirty miles long and fifteen miles wide.
The Gazetteer, of Dr. Thomas, states briefly thus, by way of general description: "The surface is diversified with beau- tiful undulations of hills and valleys. The soil is productive and highly improved."
The rock and mineral productions of the county are vari- ous and valuable. There are granite, serpentine, different kinds of sand stone, marble, etc. A range of lime stone runs
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SKETCH OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
east and west through southern townships, from points in which lime has been produced for about 200 years. Iron ore has also been extensively mined and prepared for generations past. Copper has been mined to some extent, and even silver and gold have been found, but not thus far in quantities suffi- cient to encourage their extraction.
The county is divided into 32 townships. It as yet con- tains no town with a city charter, although Norristown, the county seat, together with adjacent bodies of population, has been moving toward that dignity. There are fifteen boroughs within the county limits, ranging in population (in the year 1890) from Norristown with 19,761, down to 237 in the case of Green Lane. There are 128 unincorporated villages or hamlets. The county is accommodated with 140 post offices, 19 national banks, 30 newspapers, 4 being in the German lan- guage. In the townships there are 281 public schools, and in the boroughs 172, making in all 453. In addition to these are about a dozen higher seminaries, five of which possess college charters, namely, Ursinus, Haverford, Villa Nova, Bryn Mawr and Ogontz, the last two being for young ladies.
There are in the county probably about 150 churches or religious organizations. They are connected with at least a dozen denominations.
According to estimate, the county has an extent of 473 square miles; and, as the area of the state is about 45,000 square miles, the county embraces nearly the idu part of the surface of the state. The census of 1890 reports for it a popu- lation of 123,290, being a fraction below the & part of the inhabitants of the state, given as 5,258,014.
The largest streams are the Schuylkill river on the west side, for about 25 miles; the Perkiomen creek, running through the centre, mainly in a westerly direction, with its numerous branches draining half the area of the county; the Wissahickon creek in the southern part, emptying into the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, and furnishing some of the most picturesque scenery lying within any city; Neshaminy creek, branches of which rise in the eastern part of the county. Properly speak-
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HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
ing, there are no mountains within this county's limits, although there are heights of considerable elevation. Among these are the hills at Valley Forge, those on the Perkiomen, the Edge Hill range, and others.
Thomas Burrowes, writing half a century ago, made the observation, "Since the separate organization of Montgomery, in 1784, its career has been marked by a quiet but regular succession of prosperity." This language may now be ex- tended to the years that have followed.
Before any Europeans had set foot on the territory of this county, these lands were claimed, in common with the sur- rounding region, by the Delaware Indians, bearing the tribal designation of Lenni-Lenapes, and were occupied by them, according to the manner of occupying on the part of the roaming aborigines of this part of the continent.
The first white people, or Europeans, settling within the borders of the area now included in this county, appear to have been some of the people of Sweden, who came over in 1638 and soon thereafter, and settled along the Delaware from Cape Henlopen, mostly along the west shore of the river, up past the sites of New Castle, Wilmington and Philadelphia. Fol- lowing up the waters of the Schuylkill, they entered upon the soil now embraced in Montgomery. On referring to Mr. Buck's history of the county, this sentence will be read: "The credit is due to the Swedes of having made the first perma- nent settlements in Pennsylvania." I add to this that traces of the Swedes remain within the county in some family and local names, as also in a few customs.
English and Welsh families, mostly Quakers, and many of the latter Baptists, pressed out beyond the present limits of Philadelphia within two or three years after Penn's arrival, making their homes in several of the more southerly town- ships included now in Montgomery. The Welsh people set- tled a large space south of the middle of the present county. They extended westward in a belt of several miles in width, and running some twenty-five miles beyond the Schuylkill through Chester county, where they largely occupied four
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townships. In both these counties their descendants and early homes may still be pointed out through their family names, designations of townships, etc. In this county we have their geographical marks in the two Gwynedd townships and the Merions, the borough of North Wales, Penllyn vil- lage, the Welsh road, etc., while in Chester county are the township names of Tredyffrin, Uwchlan, East and West Nant- meal, as also the Welsh mountain.
In less than seven years after the landing of Penn, Ger- mans pressed out from Germantown, settling in Springfield and Whitemarsh townships, north of Chestnut Hill, and now in this county. Concerning the early period of the settling of Germans on the territory of Montgomery, Robert Sears writes thus in his " Pictorial History of the United States": "A few Germans, having early come over from Europe to join the colonists of William Penn, and settled in Germantown, near Philadelphia, sent back to their countrymen such favorable accounts that they had numerous followers, especially from the Palatinate, between 1700 and 1730. They occupied the territory about the head waters of the Perkiomen creek, and Lutheran and German Reformed churches were afterward founded."
To this it may be added that the early stream of German immigration continued to flow hither and into other parts of the state, for almost a half century beyond the date just given, until interrupted by the Revolutionary War. Besides the Lutherans and Reformed being represented, there came also Mennonites, Dunkards, Schwenkfelders, and others. The Germans spread themselves over more than the northern half of this county. The industry and patient toil of these people in a few years specially marked all that region with fertile farms and plentiful homes. Even as early as 1734, writes Prof. J. K. Harley, "considerably over one-half of the population of the county were Germans."
In Sherman Day's volume, "Historical Collections of the State of Pennsylvania," we read: "The Germans still retain their mother tongue, but the original languages of the Swedes
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and the Welsh, for a long time preserved, have been eradi- cated by the English." To-day, sixty years later, it is seen that the German language is becoming harder pressed. This appears most evident in the churches and schools. Yet so wedded is this people to the old inherited tongue that another century will hardly witness its entire disappearance.
Montgomery county has never been shocked by any real battle fought upon its surface, the nearest decided conflict having been that of Germantown, five miles beyond the south- ern line, October 4, 1777. Yet could there be written some thrilling and pathetic stories of military movements, defences and quarterings of the soldiery upon its soil, under the eye of "the father of his country," from Whitemarsh and Barren Hill by the Wissahickon on the southern border, to Skippack and the Perkiomen northward, and again westward to the Schuylkill, where history still sighs over the sore privations of the winter among the sheltering hills of Valley Forge. The engagement known as "the battle of the Crooked Billet" (now Hatboro) was an extensive running skirmish, when White- marsh was occupied by General Washington.
Besides, in Whitemarsh there are eminences on whose crests burned an army's camping fires-eminences that still bear suggestive titles, such as Fort Washington, Camp Hill and Militia Hill. There are also within the county four prominent houses, each bearing the name of Washington's Headquarters-one at the Whitemarsh camping ground, in the edge of Upper Dublin; another in Whitpain township, now known as the Lewis residence; another in Worcester township, occupied at the time of the retirement to Skippack after the battle of Germantown; and the last one is that at Valley Forge, which an association of ladies purchased in the year 1880, with the view of perpetual preservation.
Of the large number of men born and bred in Montgom- ery, or otherwise associated with it, who have served in vari- ous high positions, national, state and ecclesiastical, or who .
have been prominent in science, literature, and in numerous other ways, reference can be made here to only a few.
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Before the organization of the state government under the constitution, General Peter Muhlenberg, a native of the county, was vice president of the Supreme Executive Council, from 1787 to 1788; Sir Francis Keith, Colonial Governor, lived in Horsham; Charles Thomson, first Secretary of the Continental Congress, lived in Lower Merion.
Of the twenty governors of the state under the constitu- tion, three were natives of Montgomery, and were elected therefrom, namely, David Rittenhouse Porter, serving from 1839 to 1845; Francis R. Shunk, 1845 to 1848; John F. Hartranft, 1873 to 1879.
Prominent among military men were Gen. Peter Muhlen- berg, a native of the county, who served effectively in the War of the Revolution; Gen. Andrew Porter, born in the county 1743, served in the Revolution, and was prominent in the bat- tles of Trenton, Brandywine and Germantown; Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock and Gen. John F. Hartranft, both natives, who served with distinction in the War of the Rebellion.
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