Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
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Source: 1947 Volume 6 Number 3, Pages 64–67

The recollections of a village shoemaker

Ruth Moore Styer

Page 64

David Preston Boot & Shoemaker

There is in Berwyn no better known place than Preston's Shoemaker Shop. The years have passed lightly over it. It still bears the sign atop its square front that adorned it in 1891. And the years have passed lightly over the proprietor who, despite his snowy hair, maintains a youthfulness of spirit that is refreshing.

David Preston was born in County Armagh, Ireland, August 6, 1866, son of John and Eliza Jane Preston. He came to America in 1866, arriving at Reading Terminal, then at 9th and Green Streets. He was met by his sister, whom he accompanied out to Germantown. Having learned his trade with a brother in Ireland, he soon found a place in a shop at Main Street and Coulter. He worked there but briefly, then located in another shop where he worked for three months, when he bought out the business. He operated this second shop in what is now known as Elkins Park, but was then known as Shoemakertown, until 1890.

At that time the cable cars were popular, and the young David applied for a position as motorman. Joseph Bostler, Assistant Treasurer of the United States, had given him a letter to take to the employment office at 23rd and Market Streets in Philadelphia, Even with this influential backer, David was told there was no position open. Then he asked his interviewer to look for a small card which was unclosed and with this boost he immediately secured the job. The card was that of Mr. Yarrow of the Grain Department, and the name carried weight.

Page 65

David worked a few months on the cable cars from McKean Street to 23rd and Columbia, also from the Market Street Ferry to East Park, then decided to return to his trade. He learned through a friend that Martin V. Yerkes, who had a harness and leather business in Berwyn, wanted someone to run his shop, and was quick to apply. He bought his present shop in 1891, but he could not move it until two years later. William Wayne, Jr. had erected the building for a real estate office and his lease was for the five years from 1888 to 1893. The shop had at one time been the post office and stood on the site of the present Fritz office. Mr. Preston moved it to its present location on ground owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Strangely enough, during these first few years Mr. Preston boarded with a Mrs. Taylor, who lived in the very house on Berwyn Avenue where he now lives. When she moved to Bryn Mawr, he went to board with Elijah Wildes, who had the house on Waterloo Road where Henry Cathcart now resides. The present Preston home was owned by a man named Ramsey, and it later reverted to the Aiken estate.

It was during his early years in Berwyn that David was becoming very much interested in a friend of his sister. Alice Brusie's parents were proprietors of a summer hotel in Mt. Washington, Mass. David's sister had vacationed at this hotel, and on her return to Germantown had brought back Alice E. Brusie, who found a position in the city. It is a matter of passing interest that Mt. Washington had the distinction, until the 1944 election, of being the first town in the United States to report national election returns. It ran a close second in 1944, and out of the 37 votes, 29 were Republican.

On June 20, 1894, in Philadelphia, David and Alice were married, and thus are one of the comparatively few Berwyn couples who have celebrated their golden wedding. They went to housekeeping on Walnut Avenue, in the present Mt. Zion parsonage, living there until February 1895, when they moved to the south side of the last double house on Waterloo Road. Shortly after his marriage, Mr. Preston had bought the lot next to his first boarding house, and in 1903 he bought the house itself. In 1907 he returned to Ireland to visit his mother, who lived but a short time after his return to the States. The Prestons have three children: Clyde, Irene, wife of Bernard Hart, and Anne, wife of William Coulter. Both grandsons, William Coulter and David Hart, have been overseas, while Phyllis Coulter, granddaughter, is attending William and Mary College.

Mr. Preston has seen many changes in Berwyn since he first arrived, and perhaps his deepest impressions, naturally, are of the decade just prior to the twentieth century. If there are any corrections in these recollections, from those better informed, I shall be glad to have them.

There were no houses along the Lincoln Highway from Yerkes' store to Mort Thompson's, whose house was on the site of the present Acme store, except Cleaver's house and store combined. The first Cleaver building burned. The later one was put a little further to the west, and Mr. Doran's private school was on Main Avenue, where Miss Nuzum is. Martin Yerkes had the present Gallagher store for his harness and leather business, which business he sold to Mr. Preston shortly after his arrival in Berwyn.

Harry Burns had a planing mill on the north side of the railroad, just east of the station. Frank Landis had a machine shop at the present location of "The Beehive". It was later moved to the rear of the Misses Landis' store, although, of course, that was before the store was erected.

Page 66

In 1891 the Presbyterians were still worshipping in the old church, the new one not having been erected. The Catholic and First Baptist and Methodist churches have also been built since then. The Catholic and Methodist church members met in the old hall back of the Presbyterian church where the Treens live.

Harry Lawrence had a milk route about 1892, coming around with a horse and wagon, to dip the milk from the big can on the wagon into the smaller ones hung on various porches.

The town was rather dimly lighted by oil lamps, whose caretaker was Will Nuzum, Sara B. Nuzum's father.

Tom Shank, some time during those years, had a butcher route, later carried on by his son Jesse. The butcher shop was located just below the ice plant. There were no houses on Kromer Avenue from Charlie Jones', built by Sam Kromer, to Joseph Leslie's double brick house on the opposite side of the road, much further east. One of the favorite summer attractions was the baseball diamond on the north side of Kromer Avenue. Toward the turn of the century, the diamond moved to the field bounded by Aiken, Knox and Berwyn Avenues, where it continued until the Lamborn houses were built.

The old frame grammar school, razed a few years ago, covered all grades up to and including high school, and J. Alexander Clarke was principal from 1893 to 1901. Directors included George S. Hutton, Isaac A. Cleaver, John M. Campbell, Henry O. Garber, James O. Lockwood, John Hayman and Isaac Alexander.

Tom Rogers had a blacksmith shop on Waterloo Avenue, Jim Hayes worked for Tom, and later had his own blacksmith shop at Leopard, and later still on Walnut Avenue.

Levi Cutler had a meat store on the east side of Waterloo Avenue, south of Ewing's General Store. Earlier the Ewing store was used as a drug store. Abraham Latch also sold meats at the corner of Waterloo Avenue and the Lincoln Highway. Later Peter Trego carried on a plumbing business at this location (old bakeshop), and P. W. Lobb succeeded him in that business.

Krider's Carriage and Blacksmith Shop burned in 1891, and was rebuilt. Oddly enough, this location was the scene of another fire, in 1923, when the building was occupied by the Keystone Motors.

Owen McClure operated a furniture-moving and livery-stable business. Ig Bloom, who had been a harness-maker of Yerkes, was handyman about the McClure stables. He and his wife lived in the present Grubb house, and Ig was a town legend for years. John Fitzgerald, who lived in the next to the last house on Warren Avenue, across from Kriebel's, had moving vans - horse drawn, of course. The livery stables did a flourishing business in that day. Sunday afternoons, especially, found many rented rigs on the road to Valley Forge.

Harry Fritz had a lumber yard and feed business, which business was carried on by P. W, Lobb until William H. Fritz became twenty-one, and it was turned over to him and, later, to Howard Fritz. Therefore, three generations of Fritz's have been in that business, now carried on by Mrs. Howard Fritz. Perhaps some day her son, another William Fritz, will take over the reins.

Page 67

Harry Fritz, brother of the late William, conducted a store on Waterloo Avenue across from Odd Fellows' Hall, then conducted a shoe store at Bridge Avenue and the Highway, while Wilbur Petrie had a tobacco shop next door. Following Fritz at this location was Harry Cook's meat store. In 1898 W. Edward Beadle bought the property and opened a grocery store, which existed until Howard Williams took it over. Beadle later went into the hardware business in the little shop just across the bridge, burned a year or two ago.

Besides Ewing's General Store, at the corner of Waterloo and the Highway, there was Cleaver's General Store, on the site of the Berwyn National Bank and the hardware store. My father was clerk for Cleaver. My grandmother Lamborn said that when she came to Berwyn in 1886 she found my father sitting on the store steps. He also was new in the town, and he asked her if she knew any nice girls? She did not tell me whether it was she who introduced him to her daughter.

Frank Hibbard was working for Isaac Cleaver about 1890, and Elvin Hall for Ewing's. The two enterprising young men combined resources, and started a business of their own in what was later Mrs. Crawford's store. Later they moved to the Lancaster Turnpike, west of Waterloo Avenue, where they continued in business until 1923.

Harry Garber was telegraph operator of the railroad and had a small cigar store in the Lamborn Building. In about 1892 or 1893 he moved to the present location where, in addition to the cigar and paper business, he repaired bicycles, Mr. Garber himself was a cyclist of no mean ability.

The windmills with which the town was dotted must have been a fascinating sight although today the creaking noises might be somewhat disconcerting. Gas was not installed in Berwyn until 1904 - 1906. Preston's Shoemaker Shop was the first place to have it. The workmen on the project wanted to eat their lunch there, and asked if they could pipe the gas first to that point. Electric street lights were installed in 1907, and the decade of 1910 saw electricity in many homes in the town. Note: Mr. Preston understands that the Yerkes house and store was the first place wired.

Before the turn of the century, Berwyn was the scene of many political parades, with P. W. Lobb as drill master. One memorable parade was the Harrison and Morton campaign in 1891, in which Mr. Harrison, a shoemaker, and Mr. T. C. Morton were taken about in a carriage to represent the candidates.

Around 1895 or 1896, a man named Charles Stackhouse, who lived in the Roney house at First and Bridge Avenues, was anxious to get a license for dispensing liquor. Jim Kromer had in his mind the erection of a hotel, and when Stackhouse applied for the license, Kromer testified against it, saying it was not necessary. Then Kromer built his frame hotel on the Lincoln Highway, beyond the former post office, "with ample accommodations for man or beast", and applied for his license. He did not want to run a licensed place, but had the opportunity to sell his hotel if he could get a license. The Judge said if Berwyn was aroused and presented a petition of most of its people he would not grant the license. Eight or nine hundred signed the petition, and the license was refused.

Listening to Mr. Preston's reminiscences, one realizes that life must have flowed at a slower pace than it does today in Berwyn - or anywhere else - and we would not go back fifty years, yet it is interesting to hear of these people who helped to build our town.