Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
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Source: January 1989 Volume 27 Number 1, Pages 3–6

The Berwyn Railroad Station

Bob Goshorn

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It was only a short time after Reeseville officially became Berwyn in 1877 that an effort was begun to replace the old flag stop on the railroad there, established eight years earlier, with a new passenger and freight depot.

Berwyn, at that time, had grown to a village of about 200 inhabitants, with forty or so dwellings. In the village there were also a Presbyterian church, a general store, a feed, lumber and coal yard, a tin shop, a carpenter shop, a carpet weaving shop, a harness shop, and blacksmith and wheelwright establishments. [Note 1]

The area's farmers also supplied foodstuffs and agricultural products -- milk, meats, poultry, eggs, butter, cheese, and, in season, fresh fruits and vegetables -- for the Philadelphia markets, shipped on a daily milk train or in special market cars twice a week. "The Berwyn market car was often insufficient to hold all the dressed meat, butter tubs, and egg boxes," Franklin L. Burns has reported, and in April 1879 it was reported in the West Chester Daily Local News that 900 quarts of milk had been shipped from the Berwyn railroad station on the previous Sunday morning, with traffic "on the increase from that station".

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In the same issue of the Local it was also reported, "That flourishing village, Berwyn, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, is to have a new passenger office and freight depot, which will be thirty feet square and two and a half stories high. The engineers are expected to be at that place to-day to lay out the grounds, and the work will be commenced at once. The plans show that the building will be neat and pretty."

The report, however, seems to have been somewhat premature, for fifteen months later, in early July of 1880, it was reported, "The citizens of Berwyn held a meeting on Thursday evening last and resolved to again petition the Pennsylvania Railroad for a new and more commodious depot at that place. A committee was appointed to draw up and circulate a petition requesting the Company to build one. It appears from the statements that the receipts of that place during the month of June for passengers alone amounted to $643.15. They think the business of the place warrants a better depot. We hope their efforts will be crowned with success."

The committee was headed by Isaac A. Cleaver, with the petition it drew up available for signatures at his store. By the end of the month the petition, addressed to Frank Thompson, General Manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad, already had a number of "signatures of those who believe that to Berwyn rightfully belongs a new passenger and freight station".

This effort was more successful. On November 17, 1880, it was reported: "The engineers of the Pennsylvania Railroad were at Berwyn a day or two ago and surveyed the ground for a new depot and warehouse, which will probably be constructed together. A new depot at that place," it was added, "is much needed. The business of that place is quite large and constantly increasing and the patrons of the road desire better accommodations than they now have." In February the following year it was announced that a "new brick depot, two stories, with ample accommodations for passengers and freight and residence for a family, will be one of the early spring improvements, to be commenced before June 15th next." It was also predicted that the new station at Berwyn would make the deopt at West Chester "a pigmy in comparison"!

The new structure was to have a front of 50 feet and a depth of 22 feet. The low bidder for the project was a J. B. Gibson, of Berwyn. When he "for some cause threw up the same", the contract was awarded to the next lowest bidder.

Work was begun in early April, it being reported in the Local on April 15th, that the "digging of the foundation was commenced on Monday". Two weeks later, on April 28th, however, it was noted, "The Pennsylvania Railroad Company have changed the site for the location of their new depot at Berwyn. The foundation of the first one had been dug, but at the solicitations of the citizens of that place, changed it, and they are now filling up the trenches of the first foundation with the earth taken from the last."

In its new location, the building was to be 54 feet long and 20 feet wide. The first story was to be 15 feet high, and the second story 10 feet. Constructed of brick, ornamented with peerless glaze bricks and Ohio stone, it included a ticket office, a waiting room, and a bay window to be used as the telegraph office.

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The Berwyn station c. 1908, with the town pump in the foreground

In early May the stone work was begun by Peter Burns, who had the contract for this part of the construction. While it had been reported that he had expected to "have his part finished and ready for the brick layers in about a week", in fact the masonry work took nearer to three weeks to finish. On June 1st it was reported that it had been completed and that the bricklayers would now "commence operations".

The brick work was under contract to Patterson & Smith, of Philadelphia. By the end of the third week in June the walls of the first story were completed, it being reported on June 23d that "the brickwork of the new station ... is well up to the second story and looks remarkably well. It is built of variegated colored bricks, red, black and yellow." At the same time, it was noted that the carpenters were at work "laying floors, &c", though on June 7th it had been reported that the installation of the windows and doors had been held up by a fire at the supplier's shop which had burned up the doors and sashes, compelling the contractor "to suspend operations for the present".

By early September the new station house was "fast approaching completion", with the plasterers putting the white coating on the walls, and the carpenters and painters "following closely after them".

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In mid-December grading operations around the new station were started. "Thursday John Grant and sixteen of his men commenced grading around the PRR station at Berwyn," it was announced in the Local for December 16th. "Mr. Grant says there is $1.50 per day and roast beef at dinner for all men who need work, if they will just put in their appearance at Berwyn." The work was completed by early January the next year. (The care of the grounds, however, was a perennial problem: in September 1886, for example, it was reported, "The company is ...grading the grounds around the Berwyn station preparatory to putting in flower beds", with a report two months later that, according to a "gentleman from Berwyn", the Railroad was "fixing up the grounds around its station at that place in a handsome manner. The grounds are being sodded, flower beds made, and when completed the station will be a very different place." A "substantial fence" was also built in front of the station in May of 1887.)

With the initial grading operations completed in early 1882, construction of the "much-coveted depot" was virtually finished. In March of that year however, Emmet Hampton, of West Chester, was engaged to do some fancy brick work at the station, using buff, black and red bricks supplied by George Guss, one of West Chester's brick makers, and in April the station was repainted when the "first coloring did not prove to be pleasing to the eye".

In September 1886, work was begun on the construction of the warehouse, to the northeast of the station. The frame building stood for less than twenty years, however, before being destroyed by fire on July 22, 1904. According to newspaper accounts, it was believed that the fire was started by boys playing with matches, with a burning match having been thrown on the station platform, where it ignited the contents of a can of gasoline and started a fire that spread to the warehouse.

But the brick depot is still standing, although it was recently renovated and remodeled to provide space for offices and a store. Although farm produce no longer goes through it today, it continues to serve the area's commuters to and from Philadelphia, as it has for now more than 100 years. Not far from where the town pump was once located a large evergreen tree now stands: at Christmas-time it is lighted and serves as the community Christmas tree.

Even with the remodeling, it is a considerably "more commodious depot" than the old flag stop that had served Reeseville.

1. See "Sixty Minutes in Berwyn", in the January 1979 issue [Volume XVII, Number 1] of the Quarterly.