Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: June 1972 Volume 16 Number 1, Pages 2–16

The Upper Main Line Area

Robert M. Goshorn

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It is obviously futile to try to discuss a subject so broad as the hundreds of years of history of the upper Main Line area in the short space of a few minutes or a few pages. For in a very real sense, the history of this area is, in miniature, the history of our whole country.

Here were lands traversed by the Indians — the Lenni Lenape tribe of the Algonquin family — to which came first European tra­ders and then European settlers. Here these settlers cleared farms, and set up towns, and then governments. Here was fought the war for independence and established a separate nation. Here were built roads and railroads, and canals; here industry and commerce developed. Here were established churches and schools. Yes, here, in miniature, is the story of the growth and development of our nation.

The upper Main Line area now includes parts of two counties — Chester County and Delaware County. Originally, though, it was all a part of Chester County, one of the three original counties (with Bucks and Philadelphia) established by William Penn.

In establishing a colony in these lands which he had named Pennsylvania, Penn is said to have had two purposes or objectives; to prove that men could live together and govern themselves in peace in a "Holy Experiment" where a man's word was as good as his bond, and where he could worship as he pleased; and to make the province, which he received from Charles II as payment of an old family debt of 20,000 pounds, a profitable venture.

In furtherance of this second objective, and to attract settlers to these lands, Penn advertised widely their virtues. In a letter to the Free Society of Traders in London he observed that "the Country itself, in its soyl, air, water, seasons, and produce, both natural and artificial, is not to be despised", an unusual and perhaps classic example of understatement in advertising. He also reported "the air is sweet and clear, the heavens serene," and that it is a place where "we are persuaded to stop and step a little aside, out of the noisy crowd and incumbering hurry of the world and calmly take a prospect of things."

One of the groups early attracted by these and similar advertisements and inducements were the Welsh Quakers, who became the first settlers in this area. A committee representing them visited William Penn in London and made arrangements to reserve a tract of 40,000 acres for their exclusive purchase and settlement, a tract where they could preserve their traditions and language and cus­toms.

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This Welsh Tract, or Welsh Barony as it was sometimes called, extended from the Schuylkill River westward and northward through what is now Lower and Upper Merion, Radnor, and Tredyffrin Townships, along the southern slope of the North Valley Hills, which formed its northern boundary.

The first purchases in the Welsh Tract were made by a group of eighteen families led by Dr. Edward Jones. The price of the land was the equivalent of ten cents an acre, plus an annual quit-rent of one shilling (or about twenty-five cents) for each 100 acres. Dr. Jones and his company arrived in Pennsylvania on the ship Lyon in August of 1682.

The first settler in the Great Valley area and Tredyffrin was Lewis Walker. A big 6' 4" Welshman, he came to this area from Redstone in Pembrokeshire, Wales, after "a tedious passage of thirteen months." In 1687 he settled in Radnor, where he purchased 300 acres and rented 200 more, part of what by 1690 was a community of thirty families. In 1705 he and his family (he betook a wife, the former Mary Morris, in 1693) moved westward into the Great Valley, build­ing a stone house which was named Rehobeth. Others followed during the next few years, and nine years later, in 1714, there was a sufficient settlement to build a Valley Friends Meeting. Across the street from Lewis Walker's home, a log meeting house was constructed near where the Valley Meeting House stands today.

This Welsh heritage is reflected today in many of the place names along the Main Line, There are names transplanted directly from places in the settlers' native Wales, as, for example, Merion, or Radnor, or Whiteland (after Whiteland Gardens in Flintshire). Other names reflect the Welsh tongue, as in Bryn Mawr (literally "Great Hills"), Tredyffrin ("the Township in the Valley"), Duffryn Mawr (the original name for what is now Paoli area and literally "Great Valley"), and, further to the north and west, Uwchlan (or "Upland"), and Nantmeal (literally "Sweet-water", hence Honeybrook in Nantmeal Township).

Although the Welsh Quakers originally received an exclusive grant to this area, they apparently did not settle the lands as rapidly as the proprietors of the colony desired. While taking legal action, on the one hand, to ask the original grantees to show cause why the land should not also be sold to settlers other than the Welsh; at the same time the proprietor's agents also acted with a disregard for the exclusive clause and welcomed into the Welsh Tract peoples of other nationalities and faiths. Among them a number of German immigrants who settled in Tredyffrin Township toward the late first half of the eighteenth century.

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As Sidney Fisher observed in the preface to his "The Making of Pennsylvania," "Most of the English colonies in America were founded by people of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, and each colony had a religion of its own with comparatively little intermixture of other faiths. But Pennsylvania was altogether different, and no other colony had such a mixture of languages, nationalities and religions. Dutch, Swedes, English, German, Scotch-Irish; Welsh Quakers, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Reformed, Mennonites, Dunkers and Moravians; all had a share in cresting it." The observation is also equally applicable to the settlement of the upper Main Line area.

With the influx of other groups, the growth of the western part of Chester County was such that by 1766 a petition was pre­sented to the General Assembly pointing out the difficulties of the thirty or forty-mile distance it was necessary to travel to the county seat and courthouse in Chester to conduct divers official business, and requesting that the county seat be relocated "as near to the center of the county as might be," (Incidentally, the old courthouse in Chester, built in 1724, is now the oldest public building still standing in the United States.) As so often is the case, nothing came of this petition at this time, but four­teen years later an Act was passed by the Assembly creating a seven-man commission to purchase land in a more convenient place, and to build a new courthouse and prison thereon. Four years later, in 1784, this action was supplemented to specify that the new courthouse should be located within one half miles of the Turk's Head Tavern, in what is now West Chester.

It goes without saying that this action did not meet with the full approval of the commercial interests in the old county seat of Chester. The late Dr. Henry Pleasants, Jr., has provided a most descriptive account of their feelings. "They (the citizens of Chester) he wrote, "not only registered a vehement protest officially, but actually organized an armed mob, and journeyed to the new seat of justice with not only wrath but also a small cannon or two, insisting that they intended to tear down the already partially er­ected court house. By the time they reached the outskirts of West Chester, Colonel John B. Hannum, who had distinguished himself as an officer in the American Revolution, had organized a defense unit of resolute bucolics, armed them with muskets, fowling pieces and rifles; had laid in a goodly store of provisions against siege; and had barricaded them in the new seat of justice with all the shutters nailed shut. Just to make things perfect, a fair- sized cannon, loaded to the muzzle with bullets, scrap-iron, and anything lethal avaiable, was mounted at a strategic point ready for action. The invaders saw enough to convince them that a 'cooling off' period was advisable. They adjourned in good order to the 'common' some rods north of the bastion and invited negotiations. The party was getting along pretty well for a while when some Irish cohort of the Chester contingent made a derogatory remark to one of the defenders.

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Unfortunately for him, he was given little chance to apologize before he expired suddenly, For a time it seemed as if hostilities were going to be renewed. At this point some brilliant intellect *** realized that the visitors from afar might be thirsty after their long trek. Also, it was recalled that nothing is more conducive to amicable discussion of any problem than some beverage other than spring water. Just what the hospitable ones produced on the spur of the moment deponent sayeth not, but the accurate historical record shows that the beverage came in casks — several of them. Forthwith the embattled legions fell to with cottony mouths. Exactly what happened seems to be a question *** (but in any event) hostilities were called off, and both sides eventually recovered."

In 1739 the people of Chester submitted their petition to the Legislature, and in the same year the Assembly approved an act dividing Chester County in two, and creating from the eastern part of Chester County a new county, to be known as Delaware County. The act also specified that a part of the boundary line between the two counties, extending north from the Brandywine Creek, "be as nearly straight as may be so as not to split or divide plantations." As a result, this boundary line between Chester and Delaware count­ies today is quite zig-zag, and "as nearly straight as may be" is far from straight as each owner of a farm (or "plantation") bisected by the proposed line was given his choice as to the county in which he desired to be. This act is also why the Upper Main Line area is now in two counties.

It has been suggested by some local historians that the area of the General Warren Inn, on the old Lancaster Pike at the north­ern edge of the present Malvern, was also at one time considered by the General Assembly as a possible site for the new county seat. But, with at least a little politicking by the Turk's Head interests, it was rejected because of the well-known Tory sympathies of Peter Mather, the operator of the Inn during the Revolutionary War. This reputation, incidently, persisted despite a change in the name of the Inn to honor General Joseph Warren, the American patriot who fell at Bunker Hill.

The Admiral Vernon Inn, as it was known before the name was changed, having originally been named after an English seaman, was alleged to have been a frequent meeting place for the Tories. It is said that the British plans for the capture of Philadelphia were developed at this Inn, using maps made by Major Andre, who stopped there while he was a paroled prisoner.

In any event, the attack which led to the capture of the colonial capital was certainly launched from the upper Main Line area.

This campaign to capture the largest city of the American colonies with an attack from the south was begun in the late summer of 1777. With an army of about 18,000 troops, General William Howe sailed from New York, down the coast and up the Chesapeake Bay, and after landing at Turkey Point at the head of the Elk River, began his march on Philadelphia.

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The plan to attack called for crossing the Brandywine in the vicinity of Chad's Ford, and then veering north and east to cross the Schuylkill at Swedes Ford (now Norris­town), Fatland Ford (now Port Kennedy), and other crossing sites.

To counter this campaign, General Washington moved his army south and into position on the hills along the east bank of the Brandywine at Chad's Ford. In the fiercely fought Battle of the Brandywine, however, the British succeeded in flanking his position and inflicted a severe defeat on the Continental forces. Despite this setback it was decided that another attempt should be made to thwart the British plan of attack west of the Schuylkill River. Accordingly, Washington moved his army to a position on the high ground that is now the site of Immaculata College, west of Frazer, to await the British advance from the south. Both sides prepared for a battle that might have been a turning point of the Revolution. As the British advanced, there were a few preliminary skirmishes along the outpost lines in the vicinity of the Goshen Meeting House. Before the two armies became engaged, however, rain and fog descended, giving the name The Battle of the Clouds to the incident. Not only were the flintlock muskets and other weapons made unserviceable, but the rains also swelled the creeks and rivers behind Washington's position, endangering all practical retreat routes. As a consequence, before the battle could be joined, the American troops were obliged to withdraw to Yellow Springs and then further north to Warwick, where they they could refurbish themselves with fresh ammunition and supplies and be in a position to defend the iron founderies and farm lands which were the source of much of the material and supplies for the Continental Army.

The British were thus able to move into the upper Main Line area without further opposition, coming down Swedes Ford Road into Tredyffrin Township. There they encamped along the south slope of the Great Valley to wait until the waters of the Schuylkill River, which were similarly swollen by the rains, had subsided sufficient­ly to permit a crossing at the fords. The main body of troops was encamped between Howell's Tavern (now Howellville) and the Great Valley Baptist Church, generally along the south side of Swedes Ford Road.

Far from their Wilmington base of supplies, the British troops garnered their supplies by foraging off the road, stripping it practically bare. One local farmer is alleged to have claimed he had "not even a spoon left to eat my victuals nor a comb to oomb my head." The claims for damages filed by persons in Tredyffrin and Easttown townships totaled over 9,000 pounds (9,287 pounds 11 shillings and one penny, to be exact), and this is probably only a partial indication of the total plunder since most of the Quaker and Mennonite families did not file claims.

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Among the items for which claims were filed were livestock of all kinds, grain, forage, provisions, wagons, harness, saddles, tools, household furniture, met­al and earthenware, linens; blankets, clothing and personal apparel, objects of gold and silver, snuff and tobacco, currency, and even records of accounts receivable. Many families were reportedly left destitute.

Though the British campsite was vulnerable to attack, with a swollen river on the north, woods on the south, and both flanks ex­posed by the various roads between Philadelphia and Lancaster, General Washington wrote that his army was "so much fatigued" that it was "impossible" for him to mount the attack General Wayne recommended and strongly urged.

Two brigades of American troops, under the command of General Anthony Wayne, however, were detached to encamp to the rear of the British army to watch its movements. If reinforced by additional troops under Brigadier General William Smallwood before the British broke camp, Wayne's troops were also to harass the rear of the British as they moved out to cross the river, with General Washington's troops facing them in battle position on the other side of the Schuylkill.

General Wayne's detachment of about 1,500 men, with four cannon, established its camp on the Griffith farm on the high ground about a mile south of the then Admiral Vernon Inn at what is now the Monument Grounds in Malvern, The location of Wayne's headquarters is still not certain, though I like to think it was in the home of Cromwell Pearce, where I lived many years as a boy; that it stood midway between the encampment and the Inn, the nearest grog dispensary, is submitted as evidence in support of the hypothesis. It can also be stated that while much of the surrounding area was dotted with Tories, Pearce was known to be a Whig,

Despite General Wayne's report, in a letter to General Washington, that he believed General Howe knew nothing of his position, and that he "had taken every precaution to prevent any intelligence getting to him, "whether through spies, through reconnaisance, through loose talk in the local taverns, or through Tory sympathizers, not only was his position known to the British, but also exact information on the number of troops, the roads leading to the campsite, and even the American countersign, "Here we ere and there they go!"

It was obviously sound tactics for the British to attack this outpost, after the fords again became traversable, before attempt­ing the river crossing. General Howe therefore sent a detachment under Major General Grey to conduct a surprise night attack on Wayne's troops, using beyonet and sword only, and with the flints removed from the muskets to prevent firing or noise. Led by a Tory guide, every inhabitant along the way was captured and taken along, to insure secrecy.

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So complete was the surprise that the American troops were in no way formed to meet an attack and, in fact, were still waiting General Smallwood's reinforcements) and so again had no alternative to withdrawing. In the ensuing confusion, some troops were silhouetted against the campfires, and made ready targets for the bayonet attack.

On the monument commemorating this action, which also marks the graves of fifty-three of the casualties left on the field, dedicated forty years later, the inscription reads: "Sacred to the memory of the Patriots who on this spot fell, a sacrifice to British barbarity during the struggle for American independence, on the night of the 20th of September 1777 *** The atrocious massacre, which this stone commemorates, was perpetrated by British troops under the immediate command of Major-General Grey *** Here repose the remains of Fifty-three American soldiers, who were the victims of cold-blooded cruelty in the well-known Massacre at the Paoli while under the command of General Anthony Wayne, an officer whose military conduct, bravery, and humanity were equally conspicuous throughout the Revolutionary War."

There is obviously some poetic license in this inscription, but it can perhaps be forgiven if it is recalled that it was written just a few years after the War of 1812, and at a time when feelings about the British may still have been running a little high. [The author of the inscription, incidentally, was Dr. William Darlington, certainly one of Chester County's outstanding native sons and citizens; a farmer; physician, soldier, banker, statesman, and distinguished botanist, as well as a United States Congressman and Whig leader.).

Following the Paoli Massacre, which really was not a massacre at all but a well planned attack, the British moved across the Schuylkill without opposition and occupied Philadelphia a week later. After the Battle of Germantown, the American troops were quartered for the winter at Valley Forge, with which I'm sure you are all familiar.

General Anthony Wayne, as you all know, was also a native son of the upper Main Line area. His birthplace, Waynesborough, is on Waynesborough Road about a mile south of Paoli. After his brilliant career in the Revolutionary War, he served in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, and was also elected to the United States Congress from Georgia (where he had been awarded land holdings following the Revolution), but lost his seat because of charges of irregularities in his election. Appointed by President Washington to command the reorganized American army, he secured the western frontiers with victories over the Indians that led to the Treaty of Greenville and opened the west to settlement and expansion. He died at Fort Presque Isle (now Erie) in 1796, and thirteen years later his remains were removed to St. David's Church, near his native home.

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This is the old St. David's Church in Radnor, of which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote:

What an image of peace and rest
Is the little church among the graves;
All is quiet; the troubled breast,
The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed,
Here may find the repose it craves,

See, how the ivy climbs and expands
Over this humble heritage,
And seems to caress with its little hands
The rough gray stones, as a child that stands,
Caressing the wrinkled cheeks of age.

Cross the threshold; and dim and small
Is the space that serves for the Shepherd's Fold;
The narrow aisle, the bare, white wall,
The pews, and the pulpit quaint and tall,
Whisper and say, "Alas, we are old!"

Old it is, as one of at least three churches or places of worship in the Main Line area that date from the first half of the 1700's. The present old St. David's Church was started in 1715. Services were held before that, however, in the home of William Davis, the Rev. Evan Evans of Philadephia writing in 1704 that he had held services in Radnor "for the past four years." Another old Episcopal church is St. Peter's, north of Swedesford Road, east of what is now Valley Store in Tredyffrin. Its congregation first had services in a log cabin at the same time under Reverend Evans, with the present church building begun in 1744.

There were other early congregations in the area. The Great Valley Presbyterian Church, also on Swedesford Road north of Paoli, started services in 1710 under the Rev. Malachi Jones. Its first church was built ten years later, and the present church dates from 1793. The congregation of the Great Valley Baptist Church, on Baptist Road north of Devon, similarly first met in the home of Richard Miles under Rev. Hugh Davis in 1711, moving in 1722 to a log church which was damaged by the British during their encampment in the Valley, and replaced by the present church, built in 1803. The Great Valley Friends Meeting, to which reference has already been made, was started in 1714; the Radnor Friends Meeting, which first met in 1685, began construction of its present meeting house in Ithan in either 1718 or 1721. About a half-century later the first Lutheran church in the area was established in a log cabin north of the Lancaster Pike and west of the Eagle (sometimes Spread Eagle) Inn, near what was then a growing hamlet oalled Sitersville and is Strafford today. Services were held here perhaps as early as in 1767.

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Of particular interest is the fact that, as Dr. James P. Wickersham has pointed out in History of Education in Pennsylvania, "The Reformed and Lutheran Germans brought with them to Pennsylvania this idea of a union of church and school. *** The first public build­ing erected by a community was generally a house that could be used both for a church and a school."

Thus it can be presumed that in the 1770's school classes were also probably held in the log church, and in 1788 a stone school house, known as the Eagle School (now the "OLD" Eagle School) was built about ten feet south of the church building. It is one of the earliest school houses in tho state. Furnishings for the school consisted of rude benches in double rows around the sides of the building forming a hollow square, open at the fireplace (later a ten plate stove), at which the schoolmaster's desk stood. Tho initials "A.G." and the date "1794" carved in a stone on the southwest side of the building were presumably by Andrew Garden, a drum and fife major in the Revolutionary War, who was one of the school's early schoolmas­ters. (Incidently, in a graveyard adjacent to the school are buried many unknown soldiers who died during tho winter of the American encampment at Valley Forge.)

The tuition rate to attend the school was three dollars a quarter — exclusive of books, slates, ink or goose quills. Transient scholars paid three cents a day. With the establishment of the public school system in Pennsylvania in 1836, the Eagle School became a part of the public school system. Classes were held in the school until 1872, when a new school was built about a quarter of a mile away and the Old Eagle School was no longer used. Its heritage in education, though,is reflected today in the name of the New Eagle School on Pugh Road.

An example of the discipline at the Eagle School is told by one of its former pupils, Ellwood Carr. He recalled an incident in the early l860's, when the teacher left the classroom briefly and put the students "on honor not to misbehave during her absence." "She had hardly passed out of sight," he reported, before we had what is now popularly known as'rough-housing'. *** When the door opened and the teacher entered she did not say anything at first, and neither did we. *** At length, when the dust of the recent conflict had subsided, Miss Smith announced that she would remain at her desk for a short time to receive an open apology from the school for their outrageous violation of decorum, and until this had been done by each participant in the recent disorder, no one would be permitted to take part in the school work." He then reports how, one by one, each student made his apology until only he was left. After a pause, "she then summoned one of the classes to recite," his account continues,"and as she proceeded to call upon the dif­ferent members, I was shocked to find that I was omitted. *** The next day matters were even worse, and I found I was absolutely ignored.

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She said nothing to me. I was simply a vacancy" On the last day of the week, after voluntarily clearing a path in the snow, brushing off the steps, building a fire in the stove, and cleaning the school room to make atonement, he reported he wrenched his courage "up to the very last turn, and with every nerve at its fullest tension, staggered up to the desk and murmured a faint but sincere apology. The account concludes, "the stern relentless disciplinarian looked me full in the face, and then threw her arms around me and wept like a child, and we both cried in concert before the arrival of the scholars. *** Never was a conquest more absolute and complete; never did a teacher more effectively win the esteem and love of a delinquent scholar."

While many of the early schools had religious affiliation (there were probably also schools in conjunction with both the Radnor and Valley Friends Meetings), the Diamond Rock School, located on Yellow Springs Road north of Paoli, was a non-denominational school built by public subscription. This octagonal school was opened in 1818 as the first school of free education in eastern Chester County. Subscriptions for the school were received from thirty-two donors, whose individual contributions ranged from fifty cents to thirty dollars. To build the school, the final cost to the founders was $260.93. This school, too, became a part of the public school sys­tem, and was used until 1864 when the pupils were transferred to newer facilities.

The Eagle School, and its general area, took their name from their proximity to the nearby Eagle Inn. This is but one of several examples of instances in which the local inn or tavern gave its name to the area surrounding it. Other similar place names in the upper Main Line area include Paoli (a name derived from the Paoli Inn on the old Lancaster Pike at about the eighteenth mile stone); the Leopard, south of Paoli and near Waynesborough (from the Leopard Inn); and King of Prussia (after the hostelry of the same name still standing on an island in the middle of what is now U.S. 202, and whose early sign board is alleged to have been painted by Gilbert Stuart).

The building of roads and highways was one of the initial functions of the government, according to William Penn. In his The Framework of Government, promulgated in 1682, he provided that "the governor and provincial council *** shall appoint all necessary roads and highways in the province."

Many of the early roads were laid out over old Indian trails, or over the paths made by cows or other animals, which explains their sometimes meandering character.

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One of the earliest roads was the Conestoga Road, which was also the first road through the Welsh Tract, Its route through this area is still marked by sections of road bearing that name. Following an old Indian trail, just west of what is now Malvern, it went off to the northwest to the Conestoga Indian villages on the Susquehanne below what is now Harrisburg, and hence its name. In 1720 a road was surveyed to run due west to Lancaster from this point, where the Conestoga Road veers off to the north, and the entire stretch of road from Philadelphia to Lancaster (including a part of the old Conestoga Road) soon became known as the Lancaster Road or the Philadelphia-Lancaster Road.

Shortly after the Revolutionary War, an extensive turnpike or toll road system was projected for Pennsylvania, and in 1792 the State Legislature provided for the incorporation of a company to make an "artificial" road from Philadelphia to Lancaster. (Its need is indicated by a report of a traveler who; in 1787, described the mud of the Lancaster Road as comparable to "being chin deep in Hasty pudding", with the hills "worn into lopsided ruts so as to be scarcely passable." The Lancaster Pike was completed two years later, and was the first stone-paved road in the United States. Its construction cost was slightly under $445,000 for the 62-mile distance, or an average cost per mile of about $7,150, quite a contrast to the multi million dollar costs per mile for turnpike construction today. This turnpike proved to be a really dependable road for the famous boat-shaped, canopied Conestoga wagons, with, their foot-wide, iron-tired wheels, pulled by either four or six horses, and which lumbered over the pike for the next half-century with loads of up to six tons.

To insure collection of the tolls, pikes or poles were placed across the road at intervals, and turned aside only when the fares were paid. A replica of one of these early toll booths had been constructed on the north side of the Pike, just east of Paoli. The toll rate set by the State Legislature was 2c at each pike for the foot traveler, 19c for the driver of a horse and carriage, 25c for each twenty head of stock, and so forth. Even at these rates, dividends were soon paid.

Other early roads in the upper Main Line area were the Darby Road, opened before the 1700's; the Swedes Ford Road, running through the Great Valley and cleared in about 1700; and the East Valley Road (now Old Eagle School Road), dating from 1719.

At convenient distances along these roads there were soon established taverns or inns where the weary traveler would get refreshment or lodging. Along the Conestoga Road, between what is now Ithan and Paoli, there were eleven taverns. Their names, and the order in which they were passed or stopped at by westbound travelers, can be recalled by the "Sorrel Horse" Toast, This toast is attributed to Joe Pike, appropriately named , and described by one local historian as a "loyal toper" of the Sorrell Horse Inn. It goes:

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Here's to the Sorrell Horse, who kicked the Unicorn
and made the Eagle fly;
Who frightened the Lamb, upset the Stage,
and drank the Springhouse dry;
Who Drove the Blue Ball into the Black Bear,
And raced General Jackson to Paoli on a dare.

Each inn had its own clientele, The Sorrell Horse, the Spread Eagle, the General Jackson, and the Paoli, being somewhat more elegant, were stopping places for the stage coaches; the Black Bear was more likely to serve wagoners; while drovers en route to or from Philadelphia wers more likely to be found at the Drove.

There are also stories and legends about each of these inns. It is tradition, for example , that the Blue Ball Tavern, at what is now Daylesford, on the north side of Conestoga Road, is haunted as a result of the nefarious deeds which took place under its roof. (This tavern really should be described as the "new" Blue Ball, since the "old" Blue Ball was originally located about a quarter of a mile further to the south, but changed location when the road was also relocated in the construction of the turnpike.) This tavern is also reputed to have been popular with drovers, who led their sheep or cattle (or even droves of turkeys) from the farmlands to the north and west, along the highway into the markets in Philadelphia, and returned with gold and silver and currency in their pockets. That some, after their night's stay at the "Ball" on their way home, never awoke the following morning is also reported. And it is a fact that at least six skeletons, some of them showing broked bones or cleft skulls, have been found buried in the back room of the tavern. It has also been suggested that with the coming of the railroad, whose travelers obviously bypassed many of these wayside inns, the proprietress of the Blue Ball erected log barriers across the tracks, not with the idea so much of stemming the inexorable tide of progress, but more with the thought that the passengers could stop in for a spot of refreshment and perhaps a mug or two of the local spirits during the delay required to clear the tracks.

But perhaps we have crossed the line between history and folklore--and, besides, the ghost is alleged to be that of Prissy Robinson, the proprietress, not that of an unfortunate wayfarer. There are those, however, who believe that the purpose of her wanderings is to look for clean garments to replace her blood-stained ones. There is also the report of an incident occuring when one of Prissy Robinson's cows strolled too close to the railroad tracks and thereby met with an untimely end. According to legend, when her claims for damages were not fully satisfied, she greased the tracks with what was left of the calf, so that no train could proceed on the slippery rails until the matter was resolved in a manner she accepted.

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The coming of the railroad obviously meant a loss of trade for these taverns and inns as traffic was diverted from both the Cones­toga Road and the Lancaster Pike.

By the 1820's it become apparent that the state's turnpike system would not be sufficient to carry the movement of traffic from the west either across New York on the newly-opened Erie Canal or down the Susquehanna River to Baltimore. Therefore, in 1832 an act of Pennsylvania set up a Main Line of Public Works. This proposed system was a combination of rail and water transportation, with a "railroad from Philadelphia, through the city of Lancaster to Columbia" connecting there with canals and waterways to Hollidaysburg, an in­clined railway over the Allegheny Mountains from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown, and another canal system from Johnstown to Pittsburgh.

By April 1834 the railroad between Philadelphia and Columbia was completed sufficiently to permit through operation on it. Rolled rails were imported from England and laid on stone sills, though these sills were later replaced by wooden ties when it was discovered that the winter frost heaved the stones, causing the tracks to spread, with frequent derailments. A reminder of the hardships of constructing the right of way is found about a mile west of Malvern, where a small square of those original stone sills marks the burial place of fifty-seven Irish track layers who were the victims of a cholera epidemic that swept through their shanty construction village. Originally, the railroad was intended as a public way, to be open as a toll road to private conveyors using their own horse-drawn wag­ons or stages. For the first ten years it was open for such use by private transportation. But with the rapid development of steam locomotives, they too were used by the State from the time the line opened, and by 1835 there were fifteen locomotives in use (ten made by Matthias Baldwin and the others English-made), notwithstand­ing considerable opposition both from persons using the road and from those residing near it who feared fires from the sparks of the engines.

In 1832 the West Chester Railroad was also built, to provide rail service between the county seat in West Chester and Philadel­phia. It connected with the Philadelphia & Columbia at what was known for forty years as Intersection, because of this junction. The town was renamed Malvern in 1873.

With floods or freezing too often making the waterway parts of the system unserviceable, the State-owned Main Line of Public Works was discontinued in 1853 in favor of a privately-owned, all-rail route. At that time the Pennsylvania Railroad was given the right to operate its equipment over the tracks of the Philadelphia & Columbia as a part of this system, and four years later the right of way was sold to the Pennsylvania.

The Main line area, of course, takes its name from this old Main Line of Public Works which subsequently became the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The name was not applied to the area,

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However, until the 1800's, after the Pennsylvania had added branch lines from Philadelphia to West Chester, to Chestnut Hill and to Reading, as well as connecting with New York and Washington, the Main Line was the only line.

In contrast to today's service, in the 1860's there were but six trains daily, and only a very few city families lived out in this area or had summer homes here to escape the city's summer heat. It appears that the earliest suburban growth was in a more northerly direction toward Chestnut Hill, rather than to the west.

It was just about one hundred years ago that suburban development began its move to the west of the city, with the building of summer homes and estates, resort hotels and boarding houses. To stimulate this development, and to build additional rail traffic, the railroad advertised in 1874 that there were fifty-four boarding houses between Philadelphia and Downingtown capable of accommodating 1,330 guests.

The trend from the city was expedited in the late 1860's in one of the Pennsylvania Railroad's early estate ventures. At that time the railway tracks in the Haverford area were relocated to eliminate a sweeping curve that had been part of the original Philadelphia & Columbia right of way. The damage claims resulting from the new right of way were of such proportions that the railroad found it more economical to buy entire farms and utilize them for real estate purposes than to pay the amounts claimed. In a short time the small town of Humphreysville, consisting of only a few dwellings on the Lancaster Pike, became Bryn Mawr as the land was plotted into building lots for residential purposes. It was also specified that the homes were to cost not less than $5,000, and that stores, shops, livery stables or "buildings for any offensive occupation" were prohibited.

At about the same time, George W. Childs, the editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, and A.J. Drexel, developed the town of Wayne, launching a real estate development and promotion near the small settlement of Louella on the Pike and renaming it, obviously, in honor of General Anthony Wayne.

Similarly, a railroad station was established in 1866 at Devon, so named after Devon, England. In 1885 a new station was established near Eagle and named Strafford, at the suggestion of one of the leading residents who was descended from the Earl of Strafford. (The station building at Strafford, incidentally, was originally one of the pavillions at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, being moved to its new location to serve as the depot.)

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Reeseville, originally Cockletown, became Berwyn in 1877, renamed for the Berwyn Hills in Wales, where in ancient times the Welsh defeated the Saxons in battle during a violent thunderstorm. And in 1890 the Daylesford station was established, taking its name from a tourist resort in Australia: why, no one has suggested an answer.

Thus farms and villages became towns, and the upper Main Line area developed into a suburban area. The wilderness that greeted Lewis Walker and his family is today almost forgot.

I said at the outset that this assignment was futile. So much has been left out, about how the people lived, their personal trials and accomplishments, their diversions and entertainments, their arts and crafts.

For, yes, here in the upper Main Line area is, in miniature, the story of our nation's growth. It is quite a heritage.