USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Norristown > The Centennial celebration of Montgomery County : at Norristown, Pa., September 9,10,11,12, 1884 : an official record of its proceedings > Part 3
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CHAMBERSBURG, PA., Sept. 9, 1884-1.23 p. m. To the Centennial Association of Montgomery County :
Franklin county returns the salutation of her twin sister, Mont- gomery county. Recalls with pride the triumphs of the past. Re- joices in the present prosperity of all, and enters upon a second cen- tury with gratitude and hope.
BENJ. CHAMBERS, Chairman.
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The "Centennial Hymn," written by John G. Whittier, was sung by the chorus, accompanied by the orchestra.
Mr. Fornance then said :
The historian is said to be the preserver of great actions, the witness of the past, the director of the future. Within our county has resided a man, whose great pleasure has been to collect and preserve records of the past. For years it has been a pleasant task for him to delve into all sorts of antiquities, and extract from them matter worth preservation. His first history of Montgomery county was published in 1859, and he has been at that sort of work, both in this and neighboring counties, ever since. The His- torical Society of Pennsylvania finds in him an invaluable helper. This man is here to address you. I take pleasure in introducing him, Wil- liam J. Buck, of Jenkintown.
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Mr. Buck delivered the following
HISTORICAL ORATION.
It is well in the flight of time to have occa- sions to pause and review the events that have transpired around us; to know whether, on the whole, we have advanced or retrograded as con- cerns the general welfare; in what respect, if any, we have really progressed; and that the changes going on be pointed out, that compari- sons may be instituted and deductions drawn as to the results. This is the philosophical aim of history, and, if justly carried out, when made known to a thinking people, cannot fail but ex- ert a beneficial influence. Time will not pause a single moment, and no people can remain sta- tionary. Change, greater or less, is a law in nature to which all that has life must submit. It behooves us then to guard that it be for the better. This gathering is no ordinary one-a centennial, because one hundred years ago this county was formed ; a bi-centennial, because two hundred years have elapsed since its first settle- ment. In less than half an hour's time allotted, where shall I begin, and what shall be omitted? Hence, forbearance is expected on much that cannot even be alluded to, relating to the long period that has elapsed.
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The first knowledge of our territory by Eu- ropeans must have been gained through the prosecution of the beaver trade on the Schuyl- kill, and along which they had erected several forts. The Upland Court Records mention, in 1677, Beaver island, on this river, which may have been the present Barbadoes island, or one of those in Lower Merion. In the pursuit of this traffic, either by the Indians, Dutch and Swedes, the canoe must have been their chief dependence in travel and conveying freight. But in this project they were only actuated by a love for gain, and but little for the progress or devel- opment of the country; hence their easy con- quest by the English. A map was published in London in 1698, which has been faithfully repro- duced, and will appear in the forthcoming his- tory of the county, that represents, at that early date, the Schuylkill from its mouth up as far as about the present city of Reading, or fully one- third its entire length, with the Wissahickon, Perkiomen, and the Manatawny, and all their leading tributaries, with accuracy, clearly de- monstrating that at that time the present terri- tory of Montgomery must have been pretty well explored.
The date of settlement by the Welsh, Eng- lish and Germans was very close in this county ; indeed, so close with the two former, that the
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matter by further research may be contested. Hence the important question, Who was the first European that permanently settled on our soil, sustained by original records? As the case now stands, that honor belongs to the Welsh. These people, before the arrival of Penn, had pur- chased from him forty thousand acres of land, which was subsequently located in Merion, Ha- verford, Goshen, and several adjoining town- ships. How much of it was located in the pres- ent Upper and Lower Merion is not known, but no doubt it embraced considerably over half their area. Under this encouragement, the ship Lyon, John Compton, master, arrived with forty passengers in the Schuylkill river August 13th, 1682, almost two months preceding Penn's ar- rival, on board of which was Edward Jones, with his family, who, on the following 26th, sent a letter to Wales, wherein he states: "The In- dians brought venison to our door for six pence ye quarter. There are stones to be had enough at the Falls of Skoolkill-that is where we are to settle, and water power enough for mills; but thou must bring mill stones and the irons that belong to it, for smiths are dear." We have the authority of John Hill's map of the environs of Philadelphia, published in 1809, that the afore- said made "the first British settlement, 18th of Sixth-month, 1682," which is only five days after
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his arrival in the Schuylkill. The place desig- nated thereon is now the estate of his descend- ant, the late Col. Owen Jones, near the present Libertyville; and is certainly an early claim, for Philadelphia had not then been founded.
This will now direct us to the Welsh, a peo- ple descended from the ancient Britons, possess- ing their own language and peculiar character- istics. Dr. Thomas Wynne arrived with his family in the following November on the Wel- come, with William Penn. He settled beside his son-in-law, Edward Jones, whence has origi-
nated the name Wynnewood. John Roberts came in 1683, and settled near the present Pen- coyd, which has received its name from the place of his nativity. In the list of 1734, fifty-two tax- ables are mentioned in Lower Merion, of which forty-four are Welsh and four English; in Up- per Merion, for said date, of thirty-two, twenty- two are Welsh and one English; in Gwynedd, of forty-eight, thirty-nine are Welsh and six Eng- lish; in Towamencin, eight are Welsh and three English; in Horsham, five are Welsh and four English; in Plymouth, eight are Welsh and six English; in Montgomery, of twenty-nine, twenty- two are Welsh; in Norriton, seven are Welsh and six English. Thomas Evans and William Jones purchased seven thousand eight hundred and twenty acres in Gwynedd, in the beginning
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of 1698, and were soon joined by Cadwallader, Owen and Robert Evans, Hugh Griffith, Ellis David, Robert Jones, Edward Foulke, John Hugh, and John Humphrey. In 1700 they erected a small log building for worship. Ow- ing to an influx of settlers, a larger stone build- ing was erected in 1712. The subscription pa- per was written in Welsh, to which was affixed sixty-six names. A petition from the residents of Gwynedd for a road to Philadelphia, in June, 1 704, states that they then numbered thirty fami- lies.
Before 1720, John Evans, William James, Thomas James, Josiah James, James Lewis, Edward Williams, and James Davis, had set- tled. in Montgomery township, in which year they built there a Baptist church, in which preaching in the Welsh language was main- tained down to the Revolution. According to a well known tradition, the early Welsh settlers sought out in preference, the lands in Gwynedd and Montgomery, because they were not near so heavily timbered as in the townships below, and would, therefore, in its removal, require so much less labor to bring the same under culti- vation ; not imagining, in consequence, its much greater productiveness. Before 1703, David Meredith, Thomas Owen, Isaac Price, Ellis Pugh, and Hugh Jones, all from Wales, settled
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in Plymouth. The Welsh Friends built in Lower Merion, in 1695, thefirst house of worship erected in the county. The Rev. Malachi Jones, from Wales, organized the first Presbyterian congre- gation at Abington, in 1714. According to the list of 1734, the Welsh at said date exceeded the English decidedly in population. Out of a total of seven hundred and sixty names, the for- mer numbered one hundred and eighty-one and the latter one hundred and sixty-three. Neces- sity at first compelled the Welsh, the English and the Germans to form settlements by them- selves, owing to a general ignorance of each other's languages, which, of course, for a long time, must have greatly interfered in their so- cial intercourse. The Welsh, for the first half century, came in and settled here pretty exten- sively, for in 1734 they formed nearly one-fourth of the entire population; but with the cessation of religious persecution at home, ceased com- ing, which is one reason of their having since so diminished.
The next settlement most probably was made by the English in Cheltenham. There is no doubt but what this township received its name through Toby Leech, one of the earliest settlers and land-holders there. On his tomb-stone, at Oxford church, is found this extract, that he "came from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Eng-
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land, in 1682," which is a matter in confirma- tion. There is reason to believe that there is no district in the county that was named earlier than this, or had earlier surveys made to pur- chasers. In evidence, we know from the records that Thomas Fairman, on the Ist of Seventh- month, 1683, surveyed, for Patrick Robinson, two hundred acres, adjoining Richard Wall, by Tacony creek, which states that "this tract of land is in the parish of Cheltenham." From the aforesaid we learn that Richard Wall's purchase had been made still earlier, and was located in the vicinity of the present Shoemakertown. The latter was also from Gloucestershire, and we know John Day, William Brown, Everard Bol- ton, John Ashmead, John Russell, and Joseph Mather, were also early settlers here from Eng- land. John Hallowell, John Barnes and Joseph Phipps had settled in Abington before 1697. Nicholas More, a physician from London, ar- rived soon after William Penn, in 1682, and had conveyed to him by patent, 7th of Sixth-month, 1684, the manor of Moreland, containing nine thousand eight hundred and fifteenacres. About 1685 he commenced thereon the erection of buildings, where he lived and died, calling the place Green Spring. Jasper Farmar, by patent, January 31, 1683, took up, in two tracts, five thou- sand acres of land. His widow, Mary Farmar,
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settled thereon, with the family, in the fall of 1685, and it was the first settlement in Whitemarsh. Edward Farmar, on the death of his mother, about the close of 1686, became the owner of three-fourths of the original purchase. He be- came a noted man, interpreter to the Indians, and before 1713 built a grist mill on the Wissa- hickon. About 1685 Plymouth was originally purchased and settled by James Fox, Richard Gove, Francis Rawle, and John Chelson, all from Plymouth, in Devonshire, but who after- wards removed to Philadelphia. John Barnes, who had purchased in 1684, two hundred and fifty acres in Abington, and settled there, by will, in 1697, vested in the trustees of Abington Meet- ing, one hundred and twenty acres, for the use of the same and for a school house. This was, no doubt, the first donation for educational pur- poses within the present limits of the county, if not among the first in Pennsylvania. Thomas Palmer and Thomas Iredell were among the earliest settlers in Horsham. Edward Lane and Joseph Richardson settled in Providence in 1701, and the former built a mill in the vicinity of Col- legeville in 1708. Henry Pawling came from Buckinghamshire, and was also an early settler in Providence. To the English belongs the honor of having burnt the first lime from lime stone, in Pennsylvania.
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Nicholas More, in a letter to William Penn, in England, dated September 13; 1686, states that "Madame Farmar has found as good lime stone as any in the world, and is building with it. She offers to sell ten thousand bushels at six pence the bushel, upon her plantation." Thomas Fitzwater carried on the burning of lime before 1705, at the present Fitzwatertown. Oldmixon mentions lime burning in Upper Me- rion before 1708.
We will now take up the most English town- ships, as settled in 1734, to compare with the Welsh. Abington had twenty-four English and thirteen Welsh; Cheltenham, eleven English and six Welsh; Moreland, forty-seven English and seven Welsh; Whitemarsh, twenty-three English and nine Welsh; Upper Dublin, fifteen English and five Welsh; Springfield, nine Eng- lish and no Welsh. It will be perceived that even in the most English settled townships, with one exception, the Welsh possessed some strength. The English built Abington Friends' meeting house in 1697; at Horsham, 1721; at Providence, 1730; and at Pottstown, 1753; St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, in Whitemarsh, about 1710; and St. James', in Providence, in I721.
According to the list of 1734, out of a total of seven hundred and sixty names, three hun-
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dred and ninety-five were already Germans, and can be regarded as the original settlers of over half the territory in the county. In less than a year from the landing of Penn, a colony of Ger- mans, chiefly from Creyfelt, arrived in October, 1683, and shortly afterwards founded the village of Germantown. The Proprietary had been among them in their native land, and encour- aged them to come. Here, liberty of conscience had been proclaimed, and an exemption from tithes, though neither was tolerated in Great Britain, or, even to a very limited extent, along the valley of the Rhine, where also were the frontier lines of powerful France, and the fre- quent wars of Germany, the results of which combined, were strong incentives to emigra- tion to those more peacefully and liberally dis- posed. To facilitate this, a company was or- ganized at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and numer- ous pamphlets circulated throughout Germany, in the language of its people, setting forth the peculiar advantages of the distant colony. Hence, it need not be a wonder that the weaker of the persecuted sects were disposed to come first, for no matter how strong the at- tachments of nativity the fatherland presented, from their experience in the past, no bright or sanguine future. The doctrines of the Reform- ation had now been established almost a cen-
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tury and a half; yet, through the connection of church and state, progress to toleration was very slow.
A majority of the earliest Germans were members of the Society of Friends, and they had not been in Pennsylvania five years, before they were shocked at the system of negro sla- very that prevailed, and was maintained and continued by the English colonists. The result was a protest on the subject, dated at German- town, 18th of Second-month, 1688. As this was the first document ever issued in English-Amer- ica against the iniquitous system, it demands for these people some credit. Concerning them- selves as a body, and to whom it was alone di- rected, the Friends did not approach it until the long period of three-quarters of a century had elapsed, through the excitement brought about at the dawn of the Revolution by the passage of the Stamp Act, as to the rights of mankind. The start, however, made by these Germans, was so powerful in its effects on their country- men, the Mennonites, Dunkards, and all of their other sects, as to cause them to abstain almost entirely from holding negroes or Indians in bondage; and hence the great exemption, from an early period, of the present territory of Mont- gomery county from the evils arising from Afri- can slavery.
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Mathias Van Bebber purchased a tract of six thousand one hundred and sixty-six acres of land, which, by patent dated February 22, 1702, was located on the Skippack creek, constituting about one-half of the southern portion of what is now Perkiomen township. He began thus early, for so remote a distance from the city, to invite set- tlement by selling it off in parcels. Among the settlers prior to the close of 1703 were Henry Pennepacker, John Kuster, John Umstat, Claus Jansen, and John Frey; John Jacobs in 1704; Edward Beer, Gerhard and Herman Indehoffin, and Dirck and William Renberg before the close of 1707. In 1708 we find here William and Cor- nelius Dewees, Herman Kuster, Christopher Zimmerman, John Scholl, and Daniel Desmond, followed in 1709 by Jacob, John and Martin Kolb and John Strayer. The settlement so in- creased that Van Bebber gave one hundred acres towards a Mennonite meeting house, which was built prior to 1726. Henry Frey, or Fry, who settled in this vicinity, is stated to have arrived in the colony two years before the landing of Penn. But even prior to the Skip- pack settlement, it is known that some of the German settlers located themselves in some of the lower townships, as, for instance, Chelten- ham, Springfield, Whitemarsh, Abington, More- land, Upper Dublin, and Horsham. For the
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Shoemakers, Tysons, Snyders, Clines, Ottin- gers, Cleavers, Redwitzers, Rinkers, Bartle- stalls, Melchers, Leverings, Reiffs, Conrads, Lukenses, and Yerkeses, were located pretty early there, and as substantial landholders. The Germans were the original settlers of Perkio- men, Towamencin, Upper Salford, Lower Sal- ford, Hatfield, Franconia, Frederick, Marlbor- ough, New Hanover, Upper Hanover, and Douglass, and contend almost with the Eng- lish in the settlement of Cheltenham, Spring- field, and Upper Dublin.
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 Spro- gell purchased a tract of six hundred and thirty acres, adjoining the present borough of Potts- town, 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 Falkner had a Lutheran congregation organ- ized in New Hanover in 1703. A church was
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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 congrega- tions at Whitemarsh, Skippack, Salford, and New Hanover, at which John Philip Boehm preached before 1727. A church was built at Whitpain in 1740, and in Worcester in 1770. The Men- nonites had houses of worship erected in Perki- omen in 1726, in Lower Salford in 1741, and in Towamencin in 1750. The Schwenkfelders ar- rived here in 1734 and 1740, and the Dunkards still earlier, and had 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 German 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
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county. It has been recently ascertained that Peter Cox had made a purchase of land in Up- per Merion before 1702, and that Gunner Ram- bo, 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 pur- chases 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 Mounce Rambo, John Rambo, Gabriel Ram- bo, Elias Rambo, Mats Holstein, and Peter Yo- cum. The Swedes had a partiality to the Schuyl- kill, and were skilled in its navigation with the canoe, transporting themselves and their pro- duce by this means to mill, to church, and mar- ket. We even ascertain that to their weddings and funerals they were also frequently thus con- veyed. It is known that some of their canoes, in 1732, carried from Morlatton as much as one hundred and forty bushels of wheat to Philadel- phia. The Swedes were a pious people, who lived along the valley of the Delaware, in peace- able relations with the Indians, for forty years before the arrival of William Penn. One mat- ter concerning the Swedes is remarkable. Al-
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though their writers have left us most excellent books on the country, yet there are no accounts of early explorations up or along the Schuylkill. Indeed, they do not appear to have been an ex- ploring 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, Pyrlaes, Schmick, and Heckewelder.
The Scotch-Irish did not settle here early. To our surpise, in the list of 1734, only some sixteen or seventeen names can be ascertained, chiefly in the townships of Norriton, Whitpain, and vicinity. The Porters, Knoxes, Todds, and Burnsides, must have come in later. " The in- flux of Irish into this county was small previous to 1724, but since has greatly increased, espe- cially along the valley of the Schuylkill, where manufacturing interests prevail. The Scotch- Irish and the Irish materially contributed to the strength of the army during the Revolution. Andrew Porter's company of artillery was largely made up of the former, and Col. Stephen Moy- lan's cavalry regiment 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 suffer- ings. Concerned from the very beginning, we had such men as Gen. Peter Muhlenberg, Col.
1
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Samuel Miles, Col. Robert Loller, Col. John Bull, Col. Andrew Porter, Col. Christopher Stu- art, Col. Archibald Thompson, Charles Thomp- son, David Rittenhouse, 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, trans- pired on our soil, and all that precedes and fol- lows the battle of Germantown. Within these limits, during the memorable struggle, Wash- ington and his army remained nine months, lack- ing five days, very probably a longer time than was spent in any other county during this period. The several houses used as his headquarters are still standing, and the remains of entrenchments, thrown up on our hill sides, can be traced to this day.
After an arduous struggle, the Revolution at last came to a close, and the country achieved its independence, and on September 3, 1783, a definite treaty was signed with Great Britain. Peace, happy peace, now reigned within our borders, and industry soon brought returning prosperity to the long-neglected fields and work- shops. Above all, confidence was now restored, and the laborer was secure in his rewards. Up to this period, all the territory at present in the county was comprised in that of Philadelphia,
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which, from the increase in population, required many in attending to county affairs, to go a con- siderable distance, at a great inconvenience ; and, in consequence, petitions were gotten up and numerously signed, praying for the erection of a new county. These were considered and acted upon by the Legislature, and a law passed September 10, 1784, "for erecting part of the county of Philadelphia into a separate county." Thus did the present county of Montgomery, rich and populous as it now is, spring into ori- gin one hundred years ago.
In this brief and hasty survey of our progress, it is well to glimpse at what Montgomery county was a century ago. It then comprised twenty- eight townships, with a population of about twenty thousand inhabitants. The first assess- ment, for 1785, returned four thousand three hundred and sixty taxables, eighty bound ser- vants, one hundred and eight negro slaves, ninety-four grist mills, forty-nine saw mills, five oil mills, nine distilleries, nine paper mills, thirty- one tanneries, ten fulling mills, four hemp mills, fifty-three riding chairs or gigs, and six phae- tons. At this time, though a century had elapsed since the first settlement, there was not a turn- pike, no post office, no newspaper, no poor house, no canal, and no academy, or even a secondary school, in the county. No bridge
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