Found in Collection (271)
The trial of Blasius Pistorius, a scandal from Montgomery County’s past
Written by Nancy Sullivan, ArchivistSince I can't get into our headquarters to write any new blogs, I thought I would share some highlights from the past 6.5 years. This is a very early one from November, 2013.
In 1875, Blasius Pistorius, a German priest on a visit to his brother in Norristown, was arrested for the murder of Isaac Jaquette. The trial caused great excitement in the county and was prominently featured in local newspapers. The Historical Society of Montgomery County holds the complete transcripts of Pistorius’s two trials. His trial was the first in the county to use a court stenographer.
The dispute between the two men involved Jaquette allowing his cattle to graze on Pistorius’s brother’s land (John Pistorius was also tried for murder, but he was not present at the time of the shooting and so was acquitted). On July 24, 1875, when a boy working for Jaquette, Henry Muloch, allowed the cattle to cross over to the Pistorius farm, Blasius Pistorius came out with a pistol and threatened to shoot the cattle if they were not removed. Muloch ran for Jaquette, who picked up two stones and threatened Pistorius with them. The two men exchanged some more threats before Jaquette lunged for the pistol. The pistol fired, killing Jacquette.
Pistorius’s lawyers argued that their client acted in self-defense and that Jaquette chose to undertake the risk of the gun firing when he attempted to take it from Pistorius. Nevertheless, the priest was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Since he was a subject of the German Empire, the German consulate stepped in, and his sentenced was change to life imprisonment. Pistorius died in Eastern State Penitentiary in 1888.
This morning I came across two photographs of a rally for the Fourth Liberty Loan in Norristown. Described in the Times-Herald as a “monster demonstration,” the parade was to encourage people to buy bonds to help pay for World War I.
The Fourth Liberty Loan officially got underway on September 28, 1918. The parade took place on the 27th. The large parade included local companies, like Alan Wood Steel, scouts, the Red Cross, veterans, fire companies, marching bands, and even some cowboys from Betzwood Studios.
The man speaking in this picture is Judge William F. Solly, who spoke as a last minute replacement for Henry I. Fox, a local attorney who was ill.
The United States entered World War I in April of 1917, but it was a year before American troops began traveling to Europe. Propaganda showed the dire possibilities of the war. This small poster is from our collection:
Liberty Bonds could be purchased in multiple denominations. The government was authorized to issue them through the Second Liberty Load Act of 1917. That act is still the basis for the issue of treasury bonds today. Initially, Americans were slow to buy the bonds, perhaps because it was not a common thing in American life to loan the government money. By the time of the Fourth Liberty Loan, however sales were good. This small notebook from a women’s committee in Lower Gwynedd records the sales.
The Fourth Liberty Loan would mature in 1938. They were to pay 4.25%, but the government defaulted on the Fourth Liberty Loan, making it the only federal bonds to default. When issued, the bond stated that it would be paid according to the “present value of gold” but in 1933, the US abandoned the gold standard. So the government refused to pay the full value of the bonds.
Lee Templeton car dealership in Norristown
I started on a new shelf in the stacks this morning and discovered 42 photographs of buildings from all over the south-eastern side of Montgomery County. The large format black and white photographs are mounted on cardboard. With the cardboard backing, most measure 18 by 24 inches.
The cardboard backing is signed by the photographer, Ellis O. Hinsey. A few have a date, 1959. I suspect that they’re all from that year or year before. They might have been mounted on cardboard for an exhibit.
All of the photographs are of buildings and several are of churches and parochial schools.
St. Gertrude's Parochial School, West Conshohocken
Epiphany of Our Lord (now Holy Rosary), Plymouth
Mother of Divine Providence (now Mother Teresa), King of Prussia
There are also a few businesses.
Two shops in downtown Norristown
Hale Fire Pump Company, Conshohocken
Ellis O. Hinsey was born in 1902 in Akron, Pa. For his day job, he was an English professor, first at Temple and then at the Pennsylvania Military College, now Widener University. He lived in Wyncote, and according to his obituary in the Glenside News, he was a freelance portrait photographer of 20 years. He died at 58 from complications of lung cancer.
We recently acquired this wanted poster from board member Charles Kelly. I can’t be sure because I still haven’t opened every box in our stacks, but so far, it seems this is our first wanted poster.
Wendell Bowers was a kid with a troubled past. Born in Ambler in 1918, his mother died when he was 14 months old. Although his father was still alive, and he testified at his sentencing to having an aunt in the area, Bowers was sent to live with an unrelated family. He described himself as a child who always got what he wanted. When told “no” he would cry until he got it. He also stole toys and bicycles.
He attended school until the 5th grade. When his foster mother died, he moved back in with his father and stepmother. His misbehavior escalated. He frequently ran away, getting as far as Virginia and Michigan on different occasions. When he once skipped school, his father beat him. Twelve-year-old Bowers then stabbed himself with a knife, leaving the knife in until his father removed it.
He was in and out of reformatories through his teenage years, and it was in the reformatory that he learned housebreaking.
On December 13, 1937, Bowers broke into the Dreshertown home of Mrs. Wilma V. Carpenter, a 38-year-old widow who owned a beauty salon in Germantown. The house was empty when he entered at 4 p.m. He testified that he searched for money but found none. He did find Carpenter’s .38 caliber revolver and drank some of her liquor and read her magazines. A little while later, Carpenter came home with her employee, 22-year-old Mary Griffin. He demanded money from the two women who handed it over. He then decided to tie them up.
He hit Mary Griffin on the head with the gun to knock her out, then told Carpenter to tie her up. While doing this, Carpenter reached for the gun. They struggled and Bowers knocked Carpenter to the floor. As she rose, he shot her twice, killing her.
After, Carpenter assaulted or attempted to assault Mary Griffin. The Times-Herald of February 8, 1938, quoted extensively from Bowers’ testimony, but glosses over the assault, and I will, too. Bowers said that he then dressed Griffin’s wounded head and left the house through the window. He made his way to the train station and bought a ticket to Pittsburgh.
A few days later, Mary Griffin identified Wendell Bowers from her bed at Chestnut Hill Hospital, and a nationwide manhunt began. The local police sent latent fingerprints from the Carpenter home to the FBI, who identified them as Bowers’.
On December 20th, Bowers was picked up in Louisville, KY, for vagrancy and housebreaking. He was using an alias, but his fingerprints identified him as the killer.
Bowers was sent back to Montgomery County to face his trial. Judge Harold Knight was to preside, but Bower surprised everyone by pleading guilty. Judge Knight described Bowers in his diary as a “pasty faced youth.” The court went straight into the sentencing phase. Knight wrote, “The three judges then heard the evidence of one of the most cruel, brutal and unnecessary crimes I have ever heard.”
Bowers testified for some time about his early life and the murder. Knight described Bowers as being “without emotion.” The county’s three president judges went over the evidence on the evening on February 8. On the morning of the 9th, they sentenced Bowers to death. Knight wrote, “He took it calmly and apparently was not as nervous as the judges.”
The Times-Herald of February 9, 1938 reported that he took the sentence calmly, although it also reported that Bowers did not expect to be executed. He returned to cell number 2 at the county jail, lit a pipe and read a magazine. Wendell Bowers was executed by the electric chair on June 13, 1938.
Recently, the Historical Society of Montgomery County received a very interesting donation: 6 ledgers from O’Brien Funeral Home in Bridgeport. The ledgers show a little of the evolution of funeral rites.
The earliest ledger begins in 1899. We see the cost of the hearse, the burial permit, and the cost of the service. Occasionally, we also see the cause the death, as in this entry.
As we move into the 20th century, the funeral business becomes more regulated, and the ledgers become forms filled in for each deceased person. They list place of birth, parents’ names, and cause of death, among other things (though not all the fields are always filled in). For our genealogy interested patrons, these records could be very valuable.
The other half of the form shows the costs of the funeral. You can see that there were many more options, including pall bearers, tent rentals, “aeroplane service,” and telegram charges.
This listing includes “advertising.” That might include placing a funeral notice, or it might mean the invitations that were common for funerals in the past.
I researched funeral customsin our library to find out more. Edward Hocker (as “Norris”) wrote two articles on funerals in Montgomery County. In the past, funerals were famous for their feasting and heavy drinking. Needless to say, they were also well attended. He reports on a Pottstown woman who had, by 1909, attended 3,094 funerals. She was 80 years old and had kept a record of each funeral.
He also wrote of the funeral hostlers, usually teenage boys who watched the horses of those attending the service. They were never paid or tipped for their work but were well-fed, and I guess it beat farm chores.
If you are a snow lover like me, this sled may have you reminiscing snow days from your childhood. This sled was owned by Ethel Mullineaux. We do not have much information about Ethel, but we believe she lived in the Philadelphia and southern Montgomery County area in the early 1900s.
1971.11533.001 – Flexible Flyer
Made by S.L. Allen Company, this type of sled is known as the Flexible Flyer. Compared to other sleds, the Flexible Flyer became popular for its speed and maneuverability. One downside to this sled, as many of you have probably experienced firsthand, it does not work well in soft, deep snow.
Samuel Allen started his company, S.L. Allen Company, as a farm equipment manufacturing business in 1868. To be close to the railroads and workers, the company was established in Philadelphia. Allen’s Planet Drill (a fertilizer drill) and Planet Junior (a seed drill) were designed to help farmers plant their crops more quickly.
Samuel Allen, Photo Credit: wikipedia.org
Although Allen’s business was a success, he wanted to provide work for his employees during the summer (farm equipment was only made in the winter so it was ready for sale by the spring). Allen designed several sleds in the 1880s and eventually patented the Flexible Flyer in 1889.
It took a few years to gain momentum, but by the early 1900s Wanamaker’s and other large retailers began selling the Flexible Flyer. In 1915, an estimated 120,000 were sold and nearly 2,000 Flexible Flyers were sold in a single day!
Photo Credit: Hagley Museum
The company continued to make both farm equipment and Flexible Flyers after Allen’s death in 1918. When the company closed in 1968, the rights to the Flexible Flyer design were sold to Leisure Group. The rights to manufacture this sled have changed hands a few times since then and you can still buy a Flexible Flyer today!
Sources:
“It’s All Downhill From Here!: The Iconic Flexible Flyer Sled.” Hagley Museum. January 22, 2018. https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/it%E2%80%99s-all-downhill-here
Masciantonio, Robert. "Flexible Flyer Glides into Obscurity,” Hidden City. Febrary 8, 2016. https://hiddencityphila.org/2016/02/flexible-flyer-factory-glides-into-obscurity/
Last week, as I continued working through the oversize shelves at the back of the archives, I came across this interesting photo of Norristown High School’s summer class of 1917. As you can see, many of the students are holding items.
Several are holding straw hats, such as this fellow.
This young lady, Rachel Bean, is making a statement.
Only a few of the people in the photo have been identified. This student, holding a Union Jack, is Mabel Blew, whose nickname was “Greenie” according to the June, 1917 issue of Spice. The flag could be a show of support for United States’ new allies in World War I.
Some of the items I don’t understand. For example, I can’t tell what this student is holding.
Two women have signs that say “Free Lunch.” There might be a joke that I’m not getting. Does anyone know what it means?
While we have other graduation photos in our collection, none feature the objects and signs that this one does. Does anyone remember this as a tradition?
The photo also reminded me of a curious thing about Norristown High School. Each year in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were two classes per year at the school, a summer class and a winter class. This situation lasted until 1932. The winter class began school in January and graduated at the end of January 4 years later. The winter class of 1932 seems to have been the last of its kind, but there’s no mention of it in their yearbook or in the 1933 yearbook. The change seems to coincide with the move to the new A. D. Eisenhower building.
But why the two classes? I haven’t been able to find out. I could speculate that it had to do with students, usually boys, who missed much of the year for agricultural work. As farming retreated from the Norristown area, it would make sense that the two classes would no longer be necessary.
Finally, in looking around for information on the summer class of 1917, I looked at the commencement issue of Spice. At this time, Spice wasn’t a yearbook, but a monthly magazine produced by students. A reflection by a student notes that the summer class of 1917 started out with 111 students. By graduation, that had reduced to 66. That’s a pretty high attrition rate. No doubt many students had to start working or were unable to keep up their grades.
Royersford’s founding document
Written by Nancy Sullivan, Archivist
In 1879, a small corner of Limerick township broke away to form its own borough. Here is the original map and petition presented to the county proposing the new borough of Royersford.
Royersford’s development began in 1839, when the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad first came through. Prior to that, although there was some farming, much of the area was heavily wooded, according to the The Second Hundred Years. The area, which was part of Limerick Township at the time, was already known as Royer’s Ford because it was an easy place to cross the river and the land owners on the Chester County side were named Royer.
With the railroad came industry. While there were several mills and foundries in the area, stove making soon became the most prominent industry. The Buckwalter Stove Company and the Grander Stove Company shipped their products around the world.
With industry, the population began to increase. In 1880, one year after incorporation, there were 558 people in Royersford. By 1900, there were 2607. Shops, schools, banks, and a public library were all built or expanded to serve this growing population.
Today there are about 4700 people in Royersford today. Although the industry has mostly left, it still has an active main street with shops and restuarants.
Recently, I decided to tackle a part of the stacks that has gone largely untouched in my seven and a half years at the Historical Society – the almanacs. We have hundreds of them from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. These are not the large volumes of facts you might remember from your school library or playing “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” They do not list the monarchs of Britain or world capitals.
These are instead small booklets. They contain the expected information about the phases of the moon, sunrise and sunsets, and the tides. Beyond that they seem to contain whatever the printer felt like adding. Many have household tips, humorous anecdotes, and moral stories.
We have a mini-almanac published by Franklin. This one contains little extra information and instead left pages blank for notes.
Many of the almanacs were created for the general public while others had a specific audience in mind. Today, the Farmers’ Almanac is one of the best-known periodicals, and many of these early American almanacs also focus on agriculture.
But it seems like there was an almanac for everyone:
My personal favorite is the Piratical & Tragical Almanac. It is not an almanac for pirates, but it fills the gaps between the calendars and the weather predictions with stories of pirates, murders, and stagecoach robberies, complete with woodcut illustrations.
Given the number of almanacs we have and their condition, they must have been consulted often.
Born on December 5, 1890, George Howard Earle III was a resident of Lower Merion. In his youth, he attended the Delancey School in Philadelphia and later attended Harvard, but never completed his degree.
In 1916, Earle became a lieutenant in the army stationed on the Mexican border. His duty was to prevent raids from Pancho Villa, a Mexican revolutionary and guerrilla leader. His military service continued in World War I when he commanded the U.S.S. Victor. In February 1918, Earle earned the Navy Cross when he helped to save his crew from a fire onboard.
Photo credit: Capitol Preservation Committee and John Rudy Photography
After his military service, Earle turned his attention to his family’s sugar business and participation in politics. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became President in 1933, Earle switched his political affiliation from Republican to Democrat. President Roosevelt appointed Earle Minister to Austria. Enjoying political life, Earle decided to run for Governor of Pennsylvania.
Norristown Times Herald, Wednesday November 7, 1934
Earle became Pennsylvania’s 30th Governor in 1935, only the second Democrat to hold the position after the Civil War. During his time as Governor, Earle followed in President Roosevelt’s footsteps by creating a “Little New Deal” for Pennsylvania. He created work projects, many of which focused on parks and historic sites. Some of the projects included: the reconstruction of Pennsbury Manor (William Penn’s summer home) and connecting the Pennsylvania Turnpike from Harrisburg to Pittsburg. He also passed public aid laws such as unemployment compensation, civil rights laws, and support for unions. At this time, Governor Earle was not permitted to run for a second term and thus attempted to become a U.S. Senator in 1938. He ultimately failed.
Norristown Times Herald, Tuesday, November 6, 1934
After his term as governor ended in 1939, Earle served President Roosevelt again, this time as Minister to Bulgaria. During World War II, it is rumored that Earle served as a spy for President Roosevelt. Of the many stories that arose from this rumor was the story about Earle’s private meeting with Adolf Hitler where he is said to have stated, “I have nothing against the Germans, I just don’t like you.” Earle later presented a plot to capture Hitler, but President Roosevelt declined to proceed with the plan.
After his public service, Earle returned to Pennsylvania. He died in Bryn Mawr on December 30, 1974. He is buried at the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr.
Sources:
Dixon, Mark E. “George Earle Paid a Price for Being the Messenger: the Lower Merion resident gave President Roosevelt some unpleasant news on the Soviet massacre.” Main Line Today. http://www.mainlinetoday.com/Main-Line-Today/April-2017/George-Earle-Paid-a-Price-for-Being-the-Messenger/
O’Loughlin, Kathy. “History: PA. Governors with Main Line Ties.” Main Line Times. January 18, 2013. http://www.mainlinemedianews.com/mainlinetimes/life/history-pa-governors-with-main-line-ties/article_24c4b8cc-c31f-5526-b880-43323ac08cc1.html
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Governor George Howard Earle III. http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/governors/1876-1951/george-earle.html
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One of the more interesting road names in Montgomery County is Forty-Foot Road. It runs through Towamencin and into Hatfield. According to every source on the subject, the name of the road refers to its width.
Forty-Foot Road from the 1877 atlas of Montgomery County
However, Edward Hocker points out in one of his articles in the Times-Herald (May 3, 1957) that most roads laid out in the Eighteenth Century were forty feet wide, but farmers were free to use whatever land they could without interfering with the traffic. Perhaps Forty-Foot Road was left wider than other colonial era roads and thus acquired the name.
This map from our collection shows property owners along part of the road in Towamencin as well as Skippack Creek. The area next to the road is marked as “woods.”
A 1752 map drawn by Christian Lehman
Forty-Foot Road’s moment on the national stage came early in its existence when American troops marched along the road in October, 1777 after the Battle of Germantown. With them was General Francis Nash who had been wounded by a cannonball during the battle. The wounded were placed in houses along the road, perhaps some on the properties seen on this 1752 map. Nash (after whom Nashville, TN is named) and three other officers died of their wounds. They are buried at Towamencin Mennonite Meeting House at the intersection of Forty-Foot Road and Sumneytown Pike.
Headline from the Times-Herald
In the 1960’s the road was widened. Landowner Clayton C. Moyer took the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to Court and was awarded a payment of $1905. The state appealed and attorney R. Wayne Clemens researched the history of the road and found that before the state widened it to fifty feet, the road had shrunk to thirty-eight feet! The judges agreed with his research and ordered the state to pay Moyer the money immediately.
Lately, I’ve been working on the oversize items in our collection. The lonely oversize shelves at the back of the closed stacks contain a variety of unwieldy items – framed deeds, panoramic photographs, diplomas, and posters. There are also some oversize publications, like the one I found a couple of weeks ago.
“Norristown, Pennsylvania – Largest Borough in the World” is a curious document. On the one hand, it seems to be a reflection of “boosterism,” a phenomenon of late 19th and early 20th century America. In towns and cities across the country chambers of commerce and other civic groups promoted their community with the sort of “rah-rah” enthusiasm usually restricted to the high school football field.
We have several such publications, each touting Norristown’s location, people, and institutions. This one seems particularly aimed at business leaders. It has lots of pictures of Norristown’s businesses, as well as the mansions their owners lived in. There are special sections on Ursinus College and Bridgeport, as well as a detour to Jersey Shore (I suppose to show off possible summer homes).
There are lots of great pictures that show what Norristown looked like just over a century ago.
The real mystery behind this item is who produced it? On an inside page we see what looks like a periodical title, “Buyers and traveler's report” along with a date, 1910. But I can’t find any record of a magazine by that name. The Norristown Chamber of Commerce is prominently featured, so my guess is that they are the creators and publishers of the item.
As for the title, is Norristown the world’s largest borough? I’ve seen this claim in several places, sometimes modified to “the world’s largest independent borough.” A listing of boroughs by population isn’t readily available, and the term means different things in different countries and even within the US (an Alaskan borough is analogous to a county). We can say that Norristown is a grand borough indeed.
In the northern corner of Montgomery County are three small towns that run together along Route 29 – Red Hill, Pennsburg, and East Greenville. The borough of Red Hill was incorporated in 1902 and today has a population of just under 3000 people.
Stella Roth is the teacher, Helen Roth is the short, blond girl in the second row
We recently got a collection of family papers from the Roth family of Red Hill, and they give us a picture of a family at the turn of the 20th century, just at the time the borough was incorporated. The collection was maintained by Jane Gately Foster, and donated by her daughter Patricia Sosinski in memory of the descendants of John A. and Catherine Gery Roth.
John A. Roth, a doctor, was the patriarch of the family and Catherine Roth, nee Gery, was the mother and a milliner. There were five children – John W., Helen, Edna Mae, Flora, and Stella. The children are shown here in a portrait they had taken when their mother was in the hospital in 1905.
Jane Gately Foster was Helen’s daughter, so she is very prominent in the collection. But all the family is included, as well as neighbors and friends. Jane even identified most of the people on the reverse of the photos. Edna Mae seemed to share her milliner mother's interest in hats.
Helen, who eventually married Bill Gately, comes through in the photos as a fun, friendly person. Here she is on an Indian motorcycle.
And here’s the gang at Atlantic City in the 1920’s.
Helen is in the center, with various family and friends
The family also has a little bit about the famous Red Hill Band. The band was founded in 1900 (before Red Hill was even incorporated) and is still going. Community bands like this one were very popular in the early 20th century and could be found throughout the county. The Red Hill Band is the only one left in Upper Montgomery County. You can check out their website here.
As we enter the holiday season, many of us will be eating plenty of pies and cakes. For people who enjoy fruit pies and cakes, having a device to remove pits is essential.
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Cherry Pitter, HSMC Collection
This is an example of a cherry pitter, circa late 1800s. It is made from cast iron. The user secures the clamp to a table or counter, places the cherries in the top tray, and moves the crank. One by one, each cherry is moved under the blade, which pushes the pit out from the cherry. We still used pitters today, but they are generally less heavy and easier to use than older models like this.
Photo Credit: Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network and the Free Library of Philadelphia
This particular cherry pitter was manufactured by Enterprise Manufacturing Company. Located in Philadelphia, this company specialized in making hardware products. The company was especially known for their cherry pitters, apple peelers, and coffee mills.
Photo Credit: the American Artisan, Volume 71, Issue 3
The company was founded in the 1864 and was located on the corner of Dauphin, 3rd, and American Streets. Enterprise Manufacturing Co. remained in business until 1956 when it was bought by Silex Co.
Sources:
Paul, Larry R. Made in the Twentieth Century: A Guide to Contemporary Collectibles. (The Scarecrow Press, Inc., Lanham: 2005), page 144.
The American Artisan and Hardware Record, Volume 71, Issue 3. Chicago, 1916. https://books.google.com/books?id=g349AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA6-PA67&lpg=RA6-PA67&dq=when+was+the+enterprise+mfg+co+philadelphia+in+business&source=bl&ots=dH3lyqFBGg&sig=ACfU3U0zf6SrcAJUGciMuAnFtDdyG73dyQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixrrvV3fvlAhXydd8KHeqgBpAQ6AEwFHoECA0QAQ#v=onepage&q=enterprise%20mfg%20co%20&f=false
“Hexamer General Surveys, Volume 18, Enterprise Manufacturing Co. of Pennsylvania.” Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network. https://www.philageohistory.org/rdic-images/view-image.cfm/HGSv18.1660-1661