USA > Pennsylvania > Welsh settlement of Pennsylvania > Part 34
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*In her Diary, Elizabeth Drinker tells of the incidents connected with the hanging of Mr. Carlisle, who was her neighbor in Phila- delphia, and of his funeral, and that George Dilwyn and Samuel Emlen spoke at the grave. See also Sabine's "Loyalists of the American Revolution."
+John Thomas Peggy, the official gravedigger of Merion Meetings, who prepared his grave, was buried near him, on 7. 7mo. 1779.
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amounting to 318 acres, his mansion house, north of Ard- more, on Mill Creek, and two gristmills, a sawmill, tena- ments, and 300 acres of land on the Schuylkill, with three dwelling houses, a sawmill, a powdermill, an oilmill, and other property.
Remains of parts of the roadbed and cuts of the old "Columbia Railway," which traversed Merion tp., years be- fore the first of the four tracks of the great "Pensylvania" were laid, are, with a few old mills and cabins, the only "ruins" of interest in the Welsh Tract. A brief sketch of this first railway is appropriate here, because the Welsh Tract was the part of the State first to have a railroad, and because a Welshman, Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, was the first inventor who conceived the idea, as early as in 1773, of propelling carriages on land by steam power, though he only utilized it on his automobile carth excavator till in 1805, when he gave exhibitions of his steam propelled vehicle, and trok passengers around Center Square, Phila- delphia. From that time, there were many imitators and improvers of his idea-Leiper, Stevens, and others.
John Stevens (John ap Stephen), of Welsh extraction, was the father of the railroad system of the State. The legislature on 31 March, 1823, passed an act permitting the laying and operating a railway from Philadelphia to Colum- bia, at the request of Mr. Stevens and others. But this act was repealed and supplanted by another with more liberal scope, approved 7 April, 1826, incorporating the "Columbia, Lancaster and Philadelphia Rail Road Co." (which came to be known simply as "the Columbia Railway"). In 1828, the shares in this Company having been sold, the legislature passed an act providing for the constructing of the road. It was opened for traffic in Sep. 1832, but only from Broad and Callowhill Streets, in the Northern Liberties, to Paoli .* At
*Hazard's Register, Philadelphia, 7 Feb. 1829, contains the full report of the Engineer, Major John Wilson, on laying out, cost, &c., of the railway from Columbia to Philadelphia, Broad and Vine Sts., in Aug., &c., 1828. See also Pensylvania Railroad Men's News, June, 1896.
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first, the Schuylkill was reached only by stages from Broad Street, and passengers and light freight were ferried over the river to the "rail cars," at Callowhill Street, which horses dragged to the."Belmont incline," and then from the top of the hill up to Paoli over the rails. But this method of travel obtained for only a few weeks, when the "locomo- tive engin " was put into service, and the route much ex- tended, west and to Broad Street, but it was not until in April, 1834, that the road was completed to Lancaster. The finished portion was formally opened on 9 Dec. 1833, as well as a spur from Vine to South Streets, on Broad Street, and the big red, wooden bridge over the Schuylkill.
This pioneer railroad had features of its own. Its light iron rails were laid in iron chairs, bolted to sills of stone about 22 x 14 x 12 inches in dimension. When much of the original roadbed was abandoned for the present one, these stones went to other uses. Sometimes we see them doing duty as carriage steps by driveways.
In a general way, for the old road simply meandered through Merion tp., with many curves and digressions to avoid hollows and hills, and of course tradition has it,
"Columbia's iron rails Lay un Indian trails."
The route, before it was vacated, was through the ancient Liberty Lands, or Blockley tp. and what is now Fairmount Park to the base of Pet r's Hill, near "Tom Moore's cot- tage," where the carriages were drawn up on an "incline" of about 180 feet, by a stationary engine and cable to "Bel- mont," the home of the Peters family.
Thence the route, over the George property, crossed the county, or city line, on the old south line of "Pencoyd," and a half mile north of the old road to Lancaster, then through Jacob Stadleman's property, and across the lands of Joseph Evans and the S. Stadleman estate, crossing the old Lan- caster road, at the old McCalla store, and paralleling it,
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past the General Wayne Inn and the Merion Meeting House, crossing the properties of Bowman, John Wainwright, John Underwood, William Thomas, Edward Price, to Liberty- ville, where it again crossed the Lancaster road, and parel- leling it again, passed over the lands of Owen Jones, and over Cherry Lane, and through the old farm of John Wis- ter, beyond which, at the Montgomery Avenue tollgate, and where Church road intersects this avenue (the old Lan- caster road), passing the new High School building, it again crossed the Lancaster road, and thence southwestwardly, between what is now Coulter avenue, and the tracks of the Pensylvania Railroad Company, it continued through Athensville (now Ardmore), and so on, crossing the Phila- delphia and Lancaster pike, passing between Founders Hall, of Haverford College, and the old Haverford Meeting House, to White Hall Inn to Paoli, and out of our distriet towards Lancaster. When the Pensylvania Railroad Com- pany took over the "Columbia Road" it vacated the route to Athensville,and established the one now used, but for years it used the balance of the old roadbed, passing White Hall Inn.
A poster advertisement of the "Through Line from Phil- adelphia to St. Louis," the "Pioneer Fast Line," dated Phil- adelphia, April, 1837, advertised, with pictures of an engine and one passenger ear, and a canal boat, drawn by three horse .: "By Rail Road and Canal Packets, / from Philadel- phia to Pittsburgh, / through in 31/2 days, / and by Steam Boats, carrying the United States Mail, / from Pittsburgh to Louisville, / starts every morning, from the corner of Board & Race St. / In large and splendid eight wheel ears, via Lan- caster and Harrisburg Rail Roads, arriving at the latter place, at 4 o'clock, in the afternoon, where / passengers will take the Packets, which have all been fitted up in a very superior manner, having been built expressly for the aecom- modation / of Passengers, after the most approved models of Boats used on the Eric Canal, and are not surpassed by the / Boats used upon any other Line. / For speed and comfort,
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this Line is not ( celled by any other in the United States. / Passengers for Cincinnati, Louisville, Natchez, Nashville, St. Louis, &c. / Will always be certain of being taken on without delay, as this Line connects with the Boats at Pitts- burgh, carrying the Mail. / Office, N. E. corner of Fourth and Chestnut St. / For Seats apply as above, and at No. 200 Market Street; at the White Swan Hotel Race Street; at the N. E. Corner of Third and Willow Street; / No. 31 South Third Street, and at the West Chester House, Broad Street. / A. B. Cummings, Agent. / "
The list of advertised stopping points in 1850, on the "Central Pensylvania," its successor, also give an idea of the direction of the "Columbia Railway" beyond the river. These were Merion, or Merionville, Libertyville, Athens- ville, Haverford, Whitehall, West. Haverford, Villa Nova, Morgan's Corner, Eagle, Reesville, Paoli, &c. The city depot was then at Broad and Cherry streets. Before the junction with the new road at Columbia, the old railway in the year 1849, carried 90,250 passengers, but after the connection with the "Pensylvania," the Columbia is credited with 146,320 passengers, in 1852, and 162,136 in the next year, and its freight increased proportionately, showing the value of the route extended.
The following few items from the 1860 issue of "The Business Guide of the Pensylvania Railroad" give us some knowledge of the "Main Line" and its stations at that time. It says that West Philadelphia is the first station on the road, and that here "locomotive engines" are attached to trains, the carriages having been drawn there by mules from the city. The next stops are at Hestonville, 3 miles, and City Line, 5 miles, but these were only flag stations. The next stops were at Merion and Libertyville. But they were also only "flag stations for the convenience of a thickly settled country, principally the country residences of Phila- delphians." The post office for these points was at General Wayne. Of our thriving town of Ardmore, then called Athensville, that it is 71, miles from the city. "It has no
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railroad agent," and the post office is Cabinet, with Joseph Pearce as the postmaster. Of Haverford: "the post office for this station, and for Whitehall, is West Haverford. Charles Anhurs has a fine large boarding house here, well patron- ised by Philadelphians in summer." Whitchall, "this is the first regular station on the Road, ten miles from Philadel- phia." West Haverford was a flag station, and had no rail- road agent, but had a post office, with John C. Henderson as postmaster. Villa Nova, too, was only a flag station, and its post office was "Radnor," which was also the post office for Morgan's Corner, another flag station, thirteen miles from Philadelphia. Eagle was the next regular stop after Whitehall, and Eliza Lewis was the railroad agent. The post office was "Spread Eagle," Paoli, "20 miles from Phila- delphia, and 600 feet above tide water," was the third regu- lar stop.
When George B. Roberts became the president of the Pensylvania Railroad, being a lineal descendant of the earl- iest settlers of the Welsh Tract, and interested in its annals, he renamed a few of the stations of the railroad in the Welsh property for places in Wales from which came the first settlers, hence we have Bryn Mawr for the home in Wales and here, near where the station stands, of Row- land Ellis, Rosemont for the name of the seat near the station of Rees Thomas, Merion, Haverford, and Narbeth, or Narberth. But Ardmore, for some reason unknown, was substituted for Athensville from a town in county Water- ford, Ireland. But as few of the Welshmen came from the county of Anglesea, he was not obliged to name a station after its celebrated village, Llanfairnwligwyngyllgogerywy- rndrobwllilandyssiliogogogogoch, much to the comfort of the conductors.
The first substantial improvement in Lower Merion, of the old Welsh lands, along the "Pensylvania Central," or our "Main Line," that was the beginning of the making "along the Main Line" celebrated for its villages and coun-
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try seats, was Humphrysville, the Bryn Mawr settlement. It was plotted in 1868-9, to extend from the Philadelphia and Lancaster turnpike northward to the Gulf Road, and from Roberts' Road eastward to old Lancaster road, on lands purchased from Messrs. Robert N. Lee, Benjamin Tilghman, Hugh Barrett's estate, Charles J. Arthur, Joseph C. Turner, Thomas Humphreys. "Windon," Nicholas Hart, Benjamin Shank, and others, and deeded in 1868 to William H. Wilson. This was land originally patented by William Penn, 13. 1mo. 1684, to Edward Prichard, in two tracts, 1,200 acres (adjoining "Rees Radrah's" land), and 1,250 acres (adjoining land of John Humphrey). The latter tract, on which much of the town stands, Prichard sold in fee to John Eckley, who sold, 1. 3mo. 1685, to Launcelot Lloyd 100 acres, (adjoining Rowland Ellis on the east northeast, and John Humphrey on the south southwest), being "one mile in length and fifty perches in breadth." This land Lloyd sold, 20. 5mo. 1691, to Philip Price. Eckley devised, by his will 17 July, 1686, the balance to his wife Sarah, who by deed, 15. 6mo. 1692, conveyed 300 acres (adjoining Ellis Hugh) to Rees Thomas. And Prichard conveyed, 25 Nov., 1701, to said Rees Thomas 325 acres. After this, these lands passed through many hands till con- veyed in 1868 to Mr. 1, ilson.
The value of these lands increased rapidly after the Civil War. For instance, Rees Thomas 3d., died intestate, and seized of 308 acres, and improvements, appraised in 1788 at £1423. In 1864, Robert N. Lee paid $21,000 for about 59 acres of this farm land, and in 1868, sold 40 acres of the same, lying on Buck Lane and Gulf Road, to Mr. Wilson for $28,573, and Wilson paid $10,469 for 14 other acres of Thomas's land, and for 6 acres which Hugh Barrett sold, in 1865, to Nicholas Hart for $2,212, Mr. Wilson had to pay $6,225, in 1868; but he paid only $31,184, for another tract of 146 acres which had belonged to the Morgans. In
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1850, these Bryn Mawr lands, outside of Humphreyville, were owned by Benjamin and Thomas Humphreys, Louisa Evans and William Icsson.
The "old Lancaster road" also led, by the way of the older Il verford road, which crossed it, to the Upper, or Scull's Ferry, opposite Fairmount. At this ferry lived Mr. Scull, the maker of a valuable map of the city of Philadel- phia and vicinity, published in 1750. At that time, Scull's neighbors were the families of Meredith and Warner, just above him, on the west side of the Schuylkill. This Warner family descended from Capt. William Warner (son of John, of Draycot), who was baptized at the Blockley church, in Worcestershire, 8 July, 1627. He was a settler beyond the Schuylkill before Penn received his royal grant, (having come here from Connecticut, it is supposed), and was here to welcome the first Merion settlers. His will was proved in 18 Oct., 1706. His eldest son, by wife Ann, namely Isaac Warner, will proved in April, 1722, married on 30 Nov., 1692, Ann Craven, and had William Warner, of "Eagles- field," on Schuylkill, who was the founder of the celebrated State in Schuylkill Fishing Company, the oldest social club in Pensylvania. His will was proved in Sep., 1766.
This club was started in May, 1722, with a select few of Mr. Warner's neighbors. He leased the club an acre of land on the river, for the nominal rental of three sun-perch per annum, payable in the Spring, and the payment thereof to the "Lord of the manor" was always a ceremonious func- tion. On this lot, which was enclosed by a high fence, the "Company" erected its "castle," having organized itself into a "State" of independent colonists, with a governor, as- sembly, sheriff, etc., in 1732. (Was this intended as a par- ody on the Welsh Quakers' "Barony"?) After the Fair- mount dam was built, and ruined the sport here, the "fisher- men" removed the "castle" to Rambo Rock, below Gray's
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Ferry, in the Schuylkill, where it still stands, the scene of memorable annual fish-dinners, and the concocting of the still more celebrated insiduous "Fish-house Punch."
In 1750, according to Scull, coming from town on the then so-called Lancaster road, "only a dirt-road, corduroyed in low places," the first dwellings met were those of David and Edward George, in Blockley tp., on the upper side of the road. Further on, on the lower side, was the Humph- rey's house, and nearly opposite, in Blockley, was Jonathan Wynne's "Wynnestay," still there, with "Stradleman," or William Stadleman's and Bailert's (?) beyond, near the old road that led to the ferry, (at the "Wissahickon creek"), down which road was Hugh Evans's house. On the lower side of the Lancaster road was Richard George's home, near Anthony Tunis's. On the road, beginning opposite Tunis's, leading to Garrig's, and the falls ferry, was the John Roberts house, still there. Beyond Anthony Tunis's, across the road, was Joseph Tunis's house, but the alleged old inn was not placed on the map between Tunis's and the meeting house. Opposite the Merion meeting house was Griffith's house. Along the old Haverford road, about two miles out from where it crossed the Lan- caster road, was a Thomas home, on the lower side, then came Rhoads', back of whom was Williams' and Moore's. Further along this road, on the upper side, were the homes of Roberts, Hughes, and Llewellyn, and opposite a Bevan. None of the houses on this map were located exactly right.
Long before the Civil War, Philadelphians had handsome summer homes along the old Lancaster road, and the open- ing of the Columbia railway, some six miles through the township, gave further great impetus to Lower Merion as a summer residential district. But the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, opened in Dec., 1839, going about 71/2 miles through the township, passing over the river ends of the l nd taken up by some of the Thomas and Jones Com- pany, never was particularly beneficial to Merion in this respect, though its stopping places were Pencoyd, Mill
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Creek, and Spring Mills. But the Pensylvania Railroad, the worthy successor of the "old Columbia railway," has cer- tainly been the making of towns in the Welsh tract. I refer, of course, to those along its route, for the settlements dis- tant from it, yet using it, as Merion Square, or Gladwyn, General Wayne, Libertyville, Academyville, Cooperstown, Garretsville, &c., are but little grown in fifty years, and in half that time nearly a dozen thriving villages have grown up in the township along "the Pensylvania," several being three times as large as the combined towns of the township in 1860.
Naming farms, as gentlemen named their seats in Eng- land, (and not as in Maryland, retaining the name given a tract by the surveyor, for his convenience, on making the original plot), was a fashion early imported into the Welsh Tract. A map of sixty years ago shows the following named farms in Lower Merion, a few of which still bear their old names, and the mansion houses are still standing, Green Hill farm, 214 ac., Israel W. Morris; Red Leaf, 276 ac., Thomas P. Reming; Fair Hill, 64 ac., Henry C. Bevan ; Poplar Grove, 40 ac., Thomas Bealer; Maple Grove, 78 ac., Josiah Hunting; Twine Grove, 24 ac., Thomas Bealer; Clover Hill, 100 ac., James L. Paiste; Penn Grove, 72 ac., Stephen Paschall; Wynne Wood, 269 ac., Owen Jones; St. Mary's, 167 ac., John Wister; Walnut Grove, 130 ac., An- thony Zell; Rose Hill, 80 ac., Jacob Latch; Juniper Bank, 25 ac., Mary Bowman; Pencoyd, 50 ac., Isaac W. Roberts ; Marble Hill, 111 ac., Anthony L. Anderson; Ashland Hill, 27 ac., Paul Jones; Narrows Hill, 88 ac., David Jones; Glanrason, 163 ac., Silas Jones; Green Dell, 100 ac., Abra- ham Levering; Harriton, 594 ac., Levi Morris; Eagle Farm, 100 ac., John Supplee; Brookfield, 336 ac., Frederick W. Porter; Green Bush Farm, 87 ac., Benjamin B. Yocum; Prospect Hill, 120 ac., Joseph Crawford; Walnut Hill, 135 ac., Eleanor Curwen; Windon Farm, 147 ac., Thomas Hum- phreys; Fountain Green, 52 ac., Wm. J. Underwood; Rock Hill, Henry K. B. Ogle; Mine Hill, 133 ac., Heydock Gar-
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rigues; Break Neck Hill, 58 ac., Joseph Kirkner; Federal Spring, 15 ac., John Underwood; Elm Hall, 35 ac., John Wainwright; Green Bank, 114 ac., Dr. James Jenkins; Lilac Grove, 40 ac., Edward Harvey; Homeworth, 25 ac., Mary Jones ;* Penn Cottage, 73 ac., Mary Penn-Gaskell; The Orchard, J. George Kiess.
The Welsh Friends were the first settlers who "Built God a Church" in the township of Merion, and their meet- ing house was the only place for publie Christian worship in it for seventy-five years.
"The sound of the church-going bell, Thou, valleys and rocks, never heard,"
till about 1770, when the German Lutherans erected a little stone church, part of which is now standing in their ceme- tery at Ardmore.
The earliest evidence of the existence of this religious society was in Oct., 1765, when the trustees of the German Lutheran Congregation, Messrs. William Stadelman, Fred- erick Grow, Stephen Goodman, Christ. Getzelman, George Baasler, and Simon Litzenberg, purchased 66 acres of land, at £4.3.0, per acre, from John Hughes, who had bought the same at sheriff's sale, on 3 Sep., 1765. This was to secure a location for a burying ground, and a church site (as, like the early Welsh Friends, the German settlers had held their religious meetings in private houses in Merion), for all German Protestants,-the German Reform and Lutheran
*Mary Jones, wife of Jonathan Jones, whose old house "Home- worth" is still standing, (on the McFarland property), off of Church Road, Ardmore, near and north of the railroad, has left an interest- ing account (see Pa. Mag. XXIV, p. 231), of an entertainment of Granville John Penn, a descendant of the Founder, by Mary Penn- Gaskell, (born McClenanchan, wife of Thomas Penn-Gaskell, who was a cousin of the guest), of "Penn Cottage," on the old Gulf Road, at the nine-mile stone, given 1mo. 31. 1852. She had at five o'clock dinner all of the relatives and descendants of William Penn, and there came in the evening descendants of many of the Welsh Tract pioneers, and first prominent families of Philadelphia.
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Congregations,-conjointly. The dwelling house on this property was used as a church by the Germans till in 1769. In this year, the 66 acre lot was conveyed to Stephen Good- man, who thereupon conveyed 133 perches of the same to the trustees of the Society of Lutherans of Merion. Forty years afterwards, the Society increased its holdings for interments, and, in 1810, put up the stone wall about the cemetery.
In 1709, the Society built a log church on the 133 perches, which was used thirty years. In 1787, it erected a stone school house, still standing. In 1800, it built a stone addi- tion on the east end of the school house, and used the whole for church purposes until the present St. Paul's church was built on Lancaster Avenue, in 1833. The rec- ords of the Merion German Lutherans begin with the bap- tism, on 17 Oct., 1765, of three infants, Jacob, son of Jacob and Margaret Schlonhouse, (sponsors, Tobias and Barbara Taumiller), Jacob, son of John and Annie Leix, and John, son of John and Catherine Leix, (sponsors, John Getzel- man, and Elizabeth Stadelman). In Sep., 1767, there were 43 communicants in thi. congregation, which suggests that Merion was receiving a fair share of the German emi- grants at that time. Among the surnames of these Ger- mans in Merion, besides those mentioned above, were Sorg. Schlerman, Prinz, Fimbel, Hoffman, Horn, Negler, Heller, Graner, Wagner, Keller, Hass, Heidle, Seibert, Mowrer, &c. Some of these names may still be heard in Merion but like the Welsh, the Germans lost their identity in the greater English population in this section.
The church of the Merion Baptist congregation, at the intersection of the Gulf Road and Roberts's Road, on the Harrison-Morris-Vaux land, was not built till in 1800. De- scendants of early Welsh Friends, and of the Gaskills, descendants of William Penn, have been buried in the grave- yard of this church. But a much older Baptist congrega- tion, all Welsh, built a church in Montgomery tp., before 1720, and of its members were John Evans, William,
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Thomas, and Josiah James, James Lewis, Edward Williams, and James Davis. And an older one than this was the Baptist congregation of Welsh in the English settlement of Plymouth, members of which, before 1703, were David Meredith, Thomas Owen, Isaac Price, Ellis Pugh, and Hugh Jones. A Welsh minister, Malachi Jones, gathered the first congregation of Welsh Presbyterians, at Abington, among the Quakers, in 1714. In all of these churches the sermon and hymns were in the Welsh tongue till the time of the Revolutionary War, and, at only a short time before this, the population of what is now Montgomery Co., was nearly one- half Welsh and "half Welsh." Or, according to assessors' returns in eight townships of this district, made in 1731, there were 155 distinctively Welsh surnames to only 37 English.
Nothing of particular interest has come down to us about the early schools of the Welsh Tract. Mr. Isaac Sharpless, in his little book, "The Quaker Boy," only refers to them in a general way. That there were Friends' schools in early days, there is no question, as the extant meeting min- utes are generally nicely written, and well expressed, and that they had sessions in their old meeting houses, for some of these have proserved some of the old school desks, and then there are entries in meeting records of the burials of teachers. At Merion Meeting, "Buried, James Marks, schoolmaster, 7mo. 15. 1742," and "Garret Hodnut, school- master at Blockley, Smo. 16. 1753." Elsewhere is noted the school house, built back of the Merion meeting house, about 1765, on a lot on the S. E. corner of Rees's land, and corner of Lancaster road and Meeting House Lane, (indi- cated on Levering's map of Merion, in 1851), which this meeting bought from Rees, in 1765. Down the Rock Hol- low road, and near the Meeting House Lane, Jacob Jones, a Welshman by descent, founded in 1812, the Lower Mer- ion Academy. It was a pay and free school, for boys an.l
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