Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: January 1939 Volume 2 Number 1, Page 1

Editorial

A long time ago, quite beyond the memory of any person now living, there dwelt in the vicinity of Reeseville (now Berwyn) a cordwainer noted for his ruddy health and activity during his advanced years, which he was wont to attribute to his custom of taking a daily four or five mile walk before breakfast, over hill and dale, no matter what the state of the weather.

Perhaps members of the Tredyffrin-Easttown History Club require a greater incentive than that of the mere boast of mileage on foot. They may request a more leisurely gait in which nature and the works of man may be examined in detail or to indulge in instructive conversation, or they demand that a worthwhile objective be sought in a round-about way.

There are no more pleasing word pictures in the Gospel than those in which the Disciples are described walking in the fields while listening to the Master expound the Scripture after taking some lowly product of the soil as a text.

We point with pride to our great Appalachian trail which extends from Mt. Katahdin, Maine, to Mt. Oglethorpe, Georgia, along which few, if any, single individuals have traversed in its entirety. We pride ourselves upon the lesser trails, like the Horseshoe, by-paths to some part of the greater trail, but we cannot expect to develop the seasoned hiker at home while he is compelled to walk in the gutter of our concreted roads or risk death by some reckless and probably exonerated driver.

How agreeable it would become for the able-bodied to really walk on the public roads on pleasant days and how convenient and safe it might be if the humble taxpayer would demand that all public roads have smooth and graded footpaths on either side. Meanwhile, although we inhabit a walking country, one walks at his own peril.