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BULLETIN JO/^f/9& HISTORICAL SOCIETY MONTCOMERY COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA Jvoj^msTowjv 2£mery PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY AT IT5 R00M5 18 EAST PENN STREET NORRISTOWN.PA. APRIL, 1944 VOLUME IV NUMBER 2 PRICE 50 CENTS Historical Society of Montsomery County OFFICERS Kirkb Bryan, Esq., President S. Cameron Corson, First Vice-President Charles HArper Smith, Second Vice-President George K. Brecht, Esq., Third Vice-President Nancy C. Cresson, Recording Secretary Helen E. Richards, Corresponding Secretary Annie B. Molony, Financial Secretary Lyman a. Kratz, Treasurer Katharine Preston, Acting Librarian DIRECTORS Kirke Bryan, Esq. Mrs. H. H. Francine H. H. Ganser Nancy ,P. Highley Foster C. Hillegass Mrs. a. Conrad Jones David Todd Jones Hon. Harold G. Knight Lyman A. Kratz Douglas Macfarlan, M.D. Katharine Preston Charles Harper Smith Franklin A. Stickler Mrs. Franklin B. Wildman, Jr. Norris D. Wright ^ohii Winter John Hall /(3^ d/ QSp <>f>v=S.T*..'fcMW«.^-\'»\'b . ATHENSVILLE (NOi (Enlarged from John Levei Part of Leverings Map of LowerMerion 1851 IDMORE) IN 1851 \Iap of Lower MeHon) THE BULLETIN of the Historical Society of Montgomery County Published Semi-Annually—October and April Volume IV April, 1944 Number 2 CONTENTS Early Recollections of Ardmore Josiah S. Pearce 63 Some Facts About Plymouth Township Public Schools George K. Brecht, Esq. 137 Reports 152 Publication Committee Mrs. Andrew Y. Drysdale Hannah Gerhard Anita L. Eyster Charles Harper Smith Charles R. Barker, Chairman 61 EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF ARDMORE BY JOSIAH S. PEARCE Reprinted, hy permission, from the ''ARDMORE CHRONICLE" 1906-07 The Historical Society op Montgomery County Norristown, Pa. 1944 63 "Early Recollections of Ardmore" originally appeared in the "Ard- more Chronicle/' being published as a continued article from April 14, 1906, to March 30, 1907, inclusive. In more recent years, it has been re-published in the "Ardmore Chronicle," with some added material, but has never appeared in book or pamphlet form. Josiah Sibley Pearce, author of "Early Recollections," was born at Humphreyville, now Bryn Mawx, November 10, 1841, and spent most of his life in Ardmore (formerly Athensville), where he died, June 19, 1915. He was the son of Joseph T. Pearce and Rebecca Sibley, his wife. The elder Pearce was auctioneer, cabinet-maker and first postmaster of the first post oflice (significantly called "Cabinet") on the site of Ard more. Old residents well remember the jocular vein in which he con ducted his vendues; the son inherited this sense of humor, which, it is related, oft enlivened the otherwise somber precincts of undertakers* conventions, and which, as the reader will note, is lacking in few of the following pages. No extended reference to Josiah S. Pearce is required here; he was one of Ardmore's best-known citizens, was the president, for fifteen years, of its Trust Company, was a member of the legislature of Pennsylvania, a Civil War veteran and a prominent Mason. An ap preciative account of his life, by Mr. Luther C. Parsons, will be found in Volume I of the BULLETIN. The Historical Society of Montgomery County has owned for many years a file of the "Ardmore Chronicle" which includes a complete set of the issues containing "Early Recollections," and has recently become the possessor, also, of a two-volume, typed transcript of the entire article, fully indexed, and illustrated with original photographs, maps, etc. (See List of Accessions, page 155.) So, with the courteous permission of the "Ardmore Chronicle," the BULLETIN now presents to its readers the first instalment of "Early Recollections," which will be followed by further instalments as promptly as conditions of publication permit. The Publication Committee 64 Early Recollections of Ardmore By JOSIAH S. Pearce At the earnest and repeated solicitation of a number of friends who are or have been residents of Ardmore, and after very serious consideration on the part of the writer, this article, with possibly a number of others which may follow it, is written, not as "The Early History of Ardmore," as an nounced in the editorial columns of the Chronicle one week ago, nor as a correct chronicle of the growth of Ardmore from the proverbial "straggling village," with its smithy, its gro cery and the country tavern, to a thriving village of nearly five thousand people. The writing will be more in the nature of a series of rem iniscences of men and things associated with the growth of the village and its vicinity, with occasional, or possibly fre quent reference, as occasion demands, to the life and work of some of the people who live or have lived in what is now Ardmore during the last half century or more. The writer's apology for presuming to be at all fitted for the task assumed may be found in the fact that with but four exceptions there is no person now living in Ardmore who has continuously resided in the village a greater length of time than himself. And right here he encounters his first dilemma. The reader will naturally ask—Who are the four? Why does he not name them? Surely this is local history. The only ac ceptable answer to these pertinent inquiries is that the quar tette are all ladies, and we all know how danger always lurks in coupling dates with the lives of ladies of any age. With the exception of a trifle over three years spent in the Army of the Potomac from 1862 to 1865, the writer has resided in what is now Ardmore, and what was originally Athensville since the year 1842. At this writing he is unable to call to 65 06 BULLOTIN OF HISTOEICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMBEY COUNTY mind any other man who has been continuously resident in the little village for so long a time. There are a number of residents of.our present prosperous suburb who are older in years and abler in practice than the writer, who could much more acceptably perform the duty assumed by him; but these have all become residents since the date given, and therefore cannot be permitted to detract from the "distinction" falling to the "oldest inhabitant," even in writing reminiscences. Consequently there will be but few readers of the articles going to make up this series who, while being in a position to criticise their form, and purpose, or even the desirability of such form of correspondence, will be able to either attest their accuracy or question their authenticity. In the dates given in the articles which will appear from week to week for some months accuracy will be secured as far as possible, but our readers will, we trust, not be hypercritical, either-in regard to dates or the correct spelling of names when we call to their minds the fact that during the greater portion of the time covered by these articles no records of any kind were kept, for the reason that under the old form of township government no place for either, making or keeping recotds, excepting such as are kept at the county seat, was provided. Consequently births, marriages, deaths and all misfortunes of a like character went unrecorded. Even the church (for during nearly all the time about which we shall write there was but one church in the village) kept very meagre-and imperfect records, and they related only to those connected with the church or congi'egation. It is said that a recent pastor of this old congregation of St. Paul's was, soon after accepting the pastorate, somewhat embarrassed, and even shocked, when an applicant for an extract from the church record became profane in presence of his Reverence on account of their inaccuracy. The story goes that the seeker after information desired to know just the number of times he had been saved. .When told by the pastor that his name appeared five times in thedist of converts he replied: "Parson, you're short in your count, and your records are no good. It's six at least." EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF ARDMORE 67 In the enforced absence of any records it is manifest that much that will be written will be from memory, and conse quently much must be forgotten that should enter into our story to make it complete,-and very much that is remembered omitted for obvious reasons. No effort will be made to trench upon ground heretofore occupied by any of the great historians who have heretofore written up the village, the township, the county and themselves, usually with special emphasis on the latter. As already stated, we shall not attempt a history, but will endeavor to tell of the days when our handsomest residential section were farms, when our beautifully macadamized roads were simple lanes of mud, when tallow candles, burning fluid and kerosene furnished our light, and old-fashioned wood or coal stoves or open fireplaces supplied our substitute for heat. When we walked to and from the city without a thought that we should live to be able to ride there in 14 minutes, when there was no water supply other than wells, and no telegraph, no telephone, no electric light, power or heat. When we could not have understood had we been assured how man could talk with man across the then unexplored continent, or how, with only God's pure air as a transmitter, we could talk across the sea. How the scythe and the sickle, the grain cradle and the flail, should in our generation be supplanted by the mowing, reaping, harvesting and threshing implements and machinery of the present. Nor would it have been possible to explain to the children of the forties how their children, when fifty years had rolled away, would be carried by a power then unknown wheresoever they would in horseless carriages.

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