History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 256

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534

USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania > Part 256

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" The Frankfort Land Company purchased twenty-two thousand three hundred and seventy-seven acres, that chiefly lay in New Hanover and adjoining townships. John Henry Sprogell purchased a tract of six hundred and thirty acres, adjoining the present borough of Pottstown, upon which he settled before 1709, and consequently among the first in that section. Isaac Schaeffer was a settler and a considerable landholder in Plymouth in 1702. Jacob Schrack settled in Providence in 1717 ; John Frederick Hillegass in Upper Hanover in 1727; and Elias Long, John George Gankler, John Henry Beer, George John Weiker, and John Martin Derr, in Salford and vicinity, before 1728. Justus Falkuer had a Lutheran congregation organized in New Hanover in 1703. A church was built in Upper Providence in 1743, in Upper Dublin in 1754, at Barren Hill in 1761, St. John's, Whitpain, and St. Paul's, Lower Merion, in 1769. The German Reformed had congregations at Whitemarsh, Skippack, Salford, and New Hanover, at which John Philip Bochm preached before 1727. A church was built at Whitpain in 1740, and in Worcester in 1770. The Mennonites had houses of worship erected in Perkiomen in 1726, in Lower Salford in 1741, nnd in Towamencin in 1750. The Schwenkfelders arrived here in 1734 and 1740, and the Dunkards still earlier, and hnd organized congregations. The census of 1870 gives the county one hun- dred and forty-four houses of worship. Of this number the exclusive German sects had sixty-eight, only four less than half, as follows; Lu- theran, twenty-five ; German Reformed, ten ; Mennonite, ten ; Dunkards, nine; Evangelical Association, nine ; and Schwenkfelders, five. Of the balance, it is estimated that at least one-fourth may be allowed the Ger- man element, which will make two-thirds of the total number, which is about their present proportion of the population.

" Although the Swedes had settled near the mouth of the Schuylkill in 1642, and four years later erected a church there, yet no evidence exists of their having settled early within this county. It has heen recently ascertained that Peter Cox had made a purchase of land in Upper Merion before 1702, and that Gunner Bambo, in said year, had endeavored to secure a tract beside him. However, there is no doubt that the latter, with Peter Rambo, Peter Yocum and Mats Holstein, had settled on their purchases here previous to 1714. John Matson, it is probable, did not settle here till considerably later, as his name is not on the list of 1734. At Morlatton, beside the Schuylkill, in the present Berks County, several had settled before 1716. We find in Upper Merion, in 1734, the names of Monace Rambo, John Rambo, Gabriel Rambo, Elias Rambo, Mats Hol- stein, and Peter Yocum. The Swedes had a partiality to the Schuylkill, and were skilled in its navigation with the canve, transporting them- selves and their produce by this means to mill, to church, and market. We even ascertain that to their weddings and funerals they were also frequently thus conveyed. It is known that some of their canoes, in 1732, carried from Morlatton as much as one hundred and forty bushels of wheat to Philadelphia. The Swedes were n pious people, who lived along the valley of the Delaware, in peaceable relations with the Indians, for forty years before the arrival of William l'enn. One matter concerning the Swedes is remarkable. Although their writers have left us most ex- cellent books on the country, yet there are no accounts of early explora-

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

an exploring people, leaving that to the English and the Dutch, and among Germans, to such fearless and adventurous spirits as Conrad Weiser, and the devoted missionaries, Zeisberger, Pyrlaeus, Schmick, aod Heckewelder.

"The Scotch-Irish did not settle here early. To our surprise, in the list of 1734, only some sixteen or seventeen names can be ascertained, chiefly in the towoships of Norritoo, Whitpaio, and vicinity. The Por- ters, Knoxes, Todde, and Burnsides, must have come in later. The in- flux of Irish into this county was small previous to 1824, but since has greatly increased, especially along the valley of the Schuylkill, where manufacturing interests prevail. The Scotch-Irish and the Irish mater- ially contributed to the strength of the army during the Revolution. Andrew Porter's company of artillery was largely made up of the former, aod Col. Stephen Moylan's cavalry regimeot of the latter.

" The Revolution could not pass by without the people in this county contributing thereto, and bearing their share of its trials and sufferings. Concerned from the very beginning, we had such men as Gen. Peter Muhlenberg, Col. Samnel Miles, Col. Robert Loller, Col. John Bull, Col. Andrew Porter, Col. Christopher Stuart, Col. Archibald Thompson, Charles Thompson, David Rittcohonse, Frederick Antes, and the patriotic Hiester family, of Upper Salford, as well as many more, who did much to aid the cause. The events of Whitemarsh, Barren Hill, Valley Forge, and the Crooked Billet, transpired on our soil, and all that precedes and follows the battle of Germantown. Within these liunits, during the me- morable struggle, Washington and his army remained nine months, Jacking five days, very probably a longer time than was spent in any other county during this period. The several honses used as his head- quarters are still standing, and the remains of entrenchments, thrown up on our hill sides, can be traced to this day.

"After an ardons struggle, the Revolution at last came to a close, and the country achieved its independence, and on September 3, 1783, a defi- nite treaty was signed with Great Britain. Peace, happy peace, now reigned within our borders, and jodnstry soon brought returning pros- perity to the long-neglected fields and work-shops. Above all, confidence was now restored, and the laborer was secure in his reward. Up to this period, all the territory at present in the county was comprised in that of Philadelphia, which, from the increase in population, required many in attending to county affairs, to go a considerable distance, at a great incon- venience ; and, in consequence, petitions were gotten up and oumeronely signed, praying for the erection of a new county. These were consid- ered and acted upon by the Legislature, and a law passed September 10, I784, 'for erecting part of the County of Philadelphia into a separate county.' Thus did the present County of Montgomery, rich and popu- lons as it now is, spring into origin one hundred years ago.

"In this brief and lnsty survey of our progress, it is well to glance at what Montgomery County was a century ago. It then comprised twenty-eight townships, with a population of about twenty thousand inhabitants. The first assessment, for 1785, returned four thousand three hundred and sixty taxables, eighty bonnd servants, one hundred and eight negro slaves, ninety-four grist mills, forty nine saw mills, five oil mills, nine distilleries, nine paper mills, thirty-oue tanneries, ten fulling mills, four hemp mille, fifty-three riding chairs or gigs, and six phaetons. At this time, though a century had elapsed since the first settlement, there was not a turnpike, no post office, no newspaper, no poor bonse, no canal, and no academy, or even a secondary school, in the county. No bridge had been erected over the Schuylkill, or any of our larger streams; but, instend, they had to be crossed either at fords or ferries. Not a town or a village within its entire area that at this time contained thirty-five houses. One public library alone, at Hatboro', founded io 1755, for which the books had to be imported from London, at this date contained five hundred and fifty volumes. Only two stage

lines had been established ; one from Bethlehem to Philadelphia, started in 1763; the other from Reading, through Pottstown, to the city, in 1781, by William Coleman. Each made but one weekly trip. The churches numbered about thirty-five, of which the Friends had seven ; the Episco- palians, including Swedes' Church, three ; Presbyterians, three ; Bap- tists, one ; Methodists, one ; and the twenty remaining churches belonged to several German denominations, showing that the latter had now ha- come pretty numerous in population.

"From the above statement, we are led to consider as to what Montgomery county is to-day, though with only four hundred and fifty square miles of territory. In population and resources, without Phila- delphia, it is the sixth county in the State, being only exceeded by Allegheny, Inzerne, Lancaster, Schuylkill, and Berks. It now possesses thirty townships, twelve borougbs, sixty-five election districts, one hundred and eighteen post offices, two hundred miles of turnpike, one hundred and sixty-six miles of railroad, with considerably over one hundred stations. Fourteen bridges span the Schuylkill, all built in less than three-fourths of a century. To strangers it should be mentioned, that the noble building in which the antiquarian exposition is held, was built from our own marble, lime and iron, procured withio a few miles of its site. Of the numerous manufactories, educational establishments, charitable institutions, and varions improvements that abound, only an allusion can be made. We have in this goodly heritage of our fore- fathers two hundred and four inhabitants to the square mile, while, according to the latest statistics, Scotland, Denmark and Portugal, average but very little over half this number ; Austria and Hungary have one hundred aod forty-fonr; Bavaria, one hnadred and seventy-fonr; and France one hundred and eighty-three. The township of Cheltenham, without any large villages, contains three bundred and ninety inhabi- tants to the square mile, approaching the most thickly settled countries. Such are our wonderful resources, and the general happiness of our people, that we cannot realize that we are densely peopled, which, in other and much older countries, has so long been associated with wretch- edness, and, as they would have, arising from an inability to secure a sufficiency of food. What a subject is here for the people of Europe to pooder on. Taken collectively, and considering the progress we have made since our first settlement, bow eventually, and at no great distance of time, we must surpass in population and resources, not only the very best portions of Europe, but perhaps every conotry on the face of the globe.

" Within the small area of Montgomery county have lived aud died distinguished persons. A Major General of the Revolutionary army, 8 Speaker of the first Congress of 1789, and three Governors of Peansyl- vagia, were born here. Among the distinguished dead may be mentioned Nicholas Scull, John Lukens, Robert Loller, Nathaniel B. Boileau, Isaiah Lukens, Samuel and John Gummere, Benjamio Hallowell, Joh Roberts, Henry Funk, Heory Ernst Muhleberg, Charles Pbilip Krauth, John and Daniel Hiester, Andrew Porter, John Bull, Frederick Antes, Henry Scheetz, William R. Smith, Jonathan Roberts, William Potts Dewees, William Cullum, David R. Porter, Francis R. Shunk, Joseph Foulke, and Alan W. Corson. They were also born here. Among our dis- tioguished residente we can mention Charles Thomson, H. M. Muhlen- berg, Samuel Miles, Sir William Keith, Thomas Græme, Elizabeth Furguson, Rowland Ellis, Christopher Dock, David Rittenhouse, John J. Audubon, Jacob Taylor, Beojamin Lay, Bird Wilson, Arthur St. Clair, and Lucretia Mott. Having no desire to be invidious, the distinguished living I shall pass by. But it is enough to say that inall the varied pur- suits of life in which we find them, whether it is in mechanical skill and invention, in agriculture, in the learned professions, or in any of the pre- vailing arts and sciences, they have talent to do us credit. Montgomery county has furnished gallant officers and men, not only in the Revolution,

APPENDIX.

but in the war of 1812 and with Mexico. To the late rebellion it furnished its share again, and a monument in the neighboring square contains the names of five hundred and forty-seven, that gave their lives in the terri- hle struggle that the Union of our forefathers might still be preserved and perpetuated. This goes to show a people eminently self-sacrificing and, patriotic.

"In conclusion, a few words more for our honored county. In the long course now of two centuries, not an instance can be found that a white man or an Indian had here shed each other's blood. Mobs have never here prevailed, the most violent reformers have had their way, and no churches or other buildings have been destroyed under such temporary excitement. Though peopled by the English, Welsh, Germans, Swedes and Irish, speaking various languages, and holding different religious and political views, they resolved to live here peacefully with each other, while they diligently labored to improve their possessions, till they have become as we now behold and enjoy them at this day. Let, then, the celebration of this centennial be regarded as a deserving memorial and honor due to those, who have so long preceded ns, and whom we should endeavor to follow in every good example."

"Festive Hymo " was rendered by the chorus. Mr. Geo. N. Corson read the following

POEM.

"Backward through the tide of time we gaze This morning upoo the dawning days Of our towo and county, to thank God That our transatlantic fathers trod These bosky shores, to establish homes In the valley where the Schuylkill rosms, The Perkiomen and the Skippack sweep, Gulf and Valley creeks their vigils keep In the deep guich and the deeper gorge Of the sacred shades of Valley Forge I Where Wissahickon winding invites Trus lovers to scenes of rare delights, Where Mingo, Macoby and the Spack, Manatawny and the Penoypack, The Swamp creek aod Tacony travel On sylvan beds of sand and gravel ; Where the Sanstoga springs do sink In the Schuylkill with the Arrowmink ; And where Stony creek comes romping down A life-preserver to Norristown.

"Our fathers surely were wiser meu Than we are, for they were nearer Peno, And not afraid to make a nation, Found & State, or excite creation With a creed engrossed upou a scroll That gave liberty to man and soul ; To carve a county from an old one, Build a borough, aye, and a bold one, From a village struggling up and down- Make a county-seat of Norristown. Our people, now, more is the pity. Afraid to make the town a city, Would waddle back, for fear of taxes, To tomahawks sod battle-axes. We are proud of our sires, those great men Who made the new Republic just when The King was strongest and his power Felt in every clime, and every hour

There was somewhere the gleam of the suo Ne'er setting on realms he ruled upon ! But are prouder far, if that can he, Of our fathers born this side the sea, Who fled not from oppression, but here Their own own sires' mentories to revere, Their fame extend and their will ohey, Just one hundred years ago to-day Carved a county below and above Out of the loins of Brotherly Love ! Aud such & county, from such & race ! By the chance of birth with Heaven's grace We sons enjoy these vales and rivers So blessed by gift and by the givers ; A double heritage more precious Than thrones and crowns to Princes specious. For here is freedom, and here each man May contemplate the Creator's plan, Worship under his own vine and tree, Write, vote, speak and think and still be free One hundred thousand people make this A county, to-day where plenty is ! Where fruitful fields and exhaustless mines,

Factories and schools and fruits and vines,

The purest water and richest ground And all things we need on earth abound. If we have no seas, no lakes, no ocean, Neither have we wrecks or commotion Of the tornadoes ! We need no dykes Nor levies to bar the tide that strikes

The rock-ribbed and shaded hanks and shores

Of each beautiful streamlet that pours Into the vast ses inviolate The waters from lands they irrigate ! Content with wheat, corn, rye and grasses, Good men and women, hoys and lasses, With products for the proudest table And horses for the richest stable, With farms far-famed, well-tilled, prolific, Homes of plenty and more pacific, We grow sod live on these hills and plains Well satisfied with our modest gains; With our mines of iron, marble, lime, With fruitage and food of every clime, With all birds, fowls, fishes, sheep and kine, And porcine mastodons just as fine ; And bless the parents that gave us birth On this favored spot of mother earth, Where schools are free, and the air serene ; Where summer's harvest and winter's sheer. Fill the garners aod bless the yeomen Along the Schuylkill, the Perkiomen, And through all the bounds of the bounty Bestowed by Montgomery County.

" The changes wrought the century past, Not all for good, or destined to last, Ilave yet been smaller, it is believed, In what is lost than in that achieved. Tho' magnified by the common mind, These changes have left their mark behind.

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

The stage-coach has given way to care Now pulled by engines on iron bars, And in the canals and on the seas Boata pushed by steam ply with eel-like ease, As moved by the unseen hand that rules. Aod usurp the place of sails and mules. It would have made our forefathers laugh To have seen the talking telegraph, Aod would have transformed their flesh to stoue To have heard the langh by telephone. And surely they would have fled the land And left to the Indians, contraband, Their plows and yokes and scythes and sickles Could they have seen how the bicycles, Made of spinning-wheels turned upside down, Are ridden by men through Norristown ! Poor spinning-wheels, pig-yokes, grain-cradles, Flax-brakes, drag-rakes, and wooden ladles. Where are you ? Oh ! dames and men of yore, Down the corridors of time, before, Could you have cast prophetic glances, You would have leaped at these advances ! To have seen us spinning and weaving, Plowing and Irarresting and sheaving, Threshing, milling, printing and preaching, Aye, it is true, preaching aud teaching ; Do our washing, and churning of cream, And e'en hatching our chickens, by steam ! But our crops, our eggs, our clothes, our fur, Are not better than our fathers' were. Their houses were just as large and fine, And stronger with oak than ours with pine ; Their coats and jackets of sterner stuff Than our shoddy, with half wool enough, Made by modera machines for sewing Pretty seams, that part with our growing. The ancients-says St. John-had a coat Without seam and woven to the throat ; But this priceless suit has gone beneath, With the harrows of the wooden teeth. So, we lose iu clothes, in iron gain, Make progress here with the hand aud brain, And there in more ancient honored parts Pine with Phillips over the Lost Arts. In the wars of "twelve" and "forty-eight," As in the Rebellion, lorn of hate, In eighteen hundred and sixty-one, Our man in valor were ne'er outdone ; But on all the fields famed io story Won laurels for their deeds of glory, Were true to mao and State and nation, True to that cause of toleration,

Broad based in every institution By our laws and the Constitution. Pennsylvania ! We praise thee, because Thou art mother of peace, equal laws, Justice, equality among men, Freedom of conscience from denizen Or dynasty, priest, Pope or preacher ; Mother of love to overy creature To which crestion has given life

And biding-place in this world of strife ; Mother of pure charity, and truth, Of wisdom to eldest age and youth ;

And through thee, thou gracious parent State,

Two hundred years have enhanced the fate Of millions of our race and nation ; A century of growth and station, Prosperity, happiness, redown, To our county and our county town ; And on the ascutcheoo of the world, Thou hast to man everywhere unfurled Those VAST WORDS OF HOPE, immortal hence,

VIRTUE, LIBERTY, INDEPENDENCE ! ! "

The poem was followed by the "Hallelujah Chorus," effectively reu- dered by the vocalists accompanied by the orchestra. Dr. C. Z. Weiser delivered the following

ORATION.

" Fellow-Citizens-The life of man is measured by the flight of years ; the history of a province by the revolution of centuries; the course of the world, by the cycle of the ages; and the ages of eternity, by the Creator Himself.

" Montgomery County completes its primal round of one hundred years to-day. Like s century plant, our proud shire opeos into bloom with a sound and a savor loud enough to fill the domain with a bracing melody and & pleasant flavor; drawing to its centre the masses from rural and from urban quarters, from thirty townships and twelve boroughs, like & magnet of great power. And beyond its borders, too, the music and the odor float.

"Our twice venerable and bi-centennial neighbors, Philadelphia, Ches- ter, and Bucks (1682), like the three ancient Graces, discern the echo, and are with us to taste of the 'feast of reason and the flow of soul.'

" The senior counties, Lancaster (1729), York (1749), Cumberland (1750) Berks and Northampton (1752), Bedford (1771), Northumberland (1772), Westmoreland (1773), Washington (1781), Fayette (1783)-all are glad to hail Montgomery into the mystic guild of the centenarians.

"Our twin sister, Franklin (1784,) crosses the line with the province of Montgomery, arm-in-arm.

"The junior counties are happy as well as their elder sister's majority, and speed her oo with cheering words, that their own period of adole- scence may grow speedily and beautifully less, when they, too, may wear the manly toga. Peers and compeers, you are welcome.

" So live and so general an esprit du corps, pervadiog the Common- wealth, renders it all the better to be here, and helps to swell Mont- gomery's jubilee to real grand proportions. Our proud shire is of age ; has one hundred thousand inhabitants, five hundred thousand acres, and five hundred square miles of territory-old enough, and large enough, and rich euough, to rejoice alone. But it is ' not good to be alone,' especially on & festive occasion. Maokind is mankinned. Not only misery loves company, but joy as well. It is written on the big heart of humanity : 'Whether one member suffers, all the members suffers with it ; if one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.' That is St. Paul's commentary on the legend inscribed od our national escutcheon-E PLURIBUS UNUM.

" Inasmuch, however, as it is meet and right to inquire into the reason of things, as far as mortals may, let us here now ask, What means this gala day ?

" A sweet American singer tells us in flowing rhyme to 'bury the dead past.' But surely this is not Montgomery's funeral ! It were a lively corpse, indeed. It is an Eastertide. Some naseen power has touched the dry bones of its hills and dales, breathed upon thent, and wrought

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APPENDIX.

the miracles of a resurrection. What an aroma collects around and diffuses from the shades and handiwork of our ancestors! Norristown is filled with shrines, as Athens once stood filled with altars and with gods. Our goodly-disposed citizens are down on their knees, worshiping relics. Who does not pass by the new, the fresh, and the green, to tarry by the ancient, the gray-haired, and confess that ' the old is better ' ?

"But why is this great post-mortem ? Why this grand review of the dead ? Why this mania for the vanished century ?

"Is it not a phenomenon, worth our study, that we should be 80 anxious to place our eyes in the back of our heads, just now? That we should, so simultaneously aud unanimously, turn from the rising to the setting sun ? That we should, one and all, slight the glorious future and the prolific present, to revere alone the 'desd past ' ?

"This is the Sphinx that sits hy the roadside, mutely challenging each one : 'Solve me or die' !

" The answers vary even as the souls of men. 'Many mien of many minds.' A conventional holiday will it prove to some. 'Only this and nothing more.' As the falls of Niagara suggest a goodly site to plant a mill, or the leaning tower at Pisa, to build a derrick, so, too, can these men see but an occasion to 'eat and drink and die' in a centennial jubilee. Let us preserve a 'boisterous silence' in the presence of sonts so radically utilitarian or epicurean !

"Bnt is it not an event celebrated in honor of a departed ancestry ? That were a healthy motive, indeed. No son or society is on a wrong road so long as a sentiment so filial animates the bosom. Age is honor- able.

"Nevertheless, Montgomery's jubilee must be rested on a firmer base than a mere sentiment affords, be that never so noble. Otherwise, cer- tain perplexing queries might be propounded.

" The thoughtful do not believe that 'a little spark may kindle a great fire ' unless a vast heap of combustibles is at hand. The occasion is not the cause of a great conflagration. And he that argues our jubilee on the basis of a sheer sentimentality, would place the stream far above its source. We make bold to declare that the centennial jubilee of Mout- gomery County does not rest as the 'baseless fabric of an airy vision.' Young America, least of all, will content itself with a ground so narrow. A class so progressive will cry out: 'In honor of a departed ancestry ! Why must the fathers and mothers be so loudly lauded ? What is it that entitles them to such a glorification ? An unsophisticated race !'

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History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 256

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534