Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: January 1986 Volume 24 Number 1, Pages 3–7

The Tredyffrin Easttown History Club

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The Tredyffrin Easttown History Club was organized fifty years ago, in the fall of 1936.

"On August 4, 1936 five persons met at the home of S. Paul Teamer for the purpose of discussing plans to form a Tredyffrin History Club, "Mildred Bradley (later Mrs. Mildred Bradley Fisher) recalled two years later, noting that his home was a fitting place for such an undertaking, "on the old Conestoga road where the early settlers passed as they went toward the city of Philadelphia in the early days of the settlement of Pennsylvania, or where later the British camped so near as they waited to surprise Wayne at Paoli".

The five persons were S. Paul Teamer, Mrs. Bradley, Dr. Anthony Wayne Baugh, Frank Hibberd and W. C. Latch. Together with Mary G. Croasdale, they were the prime movers in forming the Club. With an early decision to include Easttown Township as well as Tredyffrin, in October 1936 the Club became "The Tredyffrin Easttown History Club", with that name officially adopted at the Club's meeting two months later in December.

The charter members of the Club - all those who joined it during its first year - included a high school history teacher-principal, a physician, a lawyer, a School Director, an author-historian, a house painter, a student, and several homemakers, all brought together by a common interest in local history.

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A seven-part statement of the aims and objectives of the Club was developed and adopted early in 1937. These aims and objectives, slightly paraphrased, were

1. To conduct research in the history of Tredyffrin and Easttown townships and related adjoining areas;

2. To record and preserve historical records and materials and the contributions of the members;

3. To foster interest, pleasure and inspiration from historical studies;

4. To arouse and increase the interest in the field of local history, and to encourage all workers in the field;

5. To contribute to the establishment of an historical background and tradition as a foundation upon which to build American culture;

6. To cooperate with similar bodies working in the field of history; and

7. To cooperate with all societies and organizations in the area which have as an aim the advancement of the community along lines in harmony with the Club's aims and objects.

Compared with many local history clubs in Chester County, the Club is a relatively small group. Its membership over the years has ranged from twenty-five to forty or so members. In the first year, each member was assigned a research project - as the Reverend Dr. Croswell Bee, rector at St. David's Church and an early member of the Club, described it, it was "meant to be a hive without drones" - but that requirement has long since been discontinued. Additional members, incidentally, are always welcome and invited to join and meet with us.

Until his death in 1940, the Club held most of its meetings at the home of Mr. Teamer, who was also the president of the Club during those four years. For the next eight and a half years it met at the home of W. C. Latch, but since then it has generally met at the homes of its members or at a local church. From time to time a meeting may be held at a local historic site, such as those held at Gunkle's Mill, or the Paoli Memorial Grounds during the past year.

For a half dozen years, from September 1950 to October 1956, the Club also rented, for one dollar a year, a small one-room cabin from Mary Croasdale, to store the various artifacts, books and journals that it had collected. After the building had been broken into and vandalized, with the windows broken, books and papers scattered about, and some of the artifacts taken, however, this arrangement was discontinued. Most of the Glub's collections were at that time donated to the Chester County Historical Society for safe-keeping, with a few items and books kept in various member's homes.

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An early feature of the Club's meetings was the Roll Call, at which the members either respond as being present or report some piece of information or news of present-day happenings, to be recorded for the future. The custom is still continued at the Club!s meetings today. An annual tradition for many years was the "Twelfth Night" meeting in early January. At the meeting, pieces of fruit cake, in one of which a bean was concealed, were passed around, with the member getting the piece with the bean becoming the host for the next year's meeting.

The Club also took a number of field trips to various historic sites or places of interest during its first twenty years. In a number of years, as many as five or six such trips were planned, and in several years as many as a dozen trips were taken. Trips of this sort have been much less frequent during the past three decades, however, although, as noted earlier, some meetings are held at nearby historic places.

Beginning in 1939 the Club also held an annual banquet; the first one was on March 7, 1939 at the former General Jackson Inn (then the Wayside Inn, and now no longer standing) on the Lancaster Pike in Paoli. For several years the banquet each year was held at one of the historic inns in the area - the General Jackson, the King of Prussia (now an unoccupied building), the Bull Tavern, the General Warren - but more recently the annual dinners have been held at local churches. The banquet speakers have included well-known historians and authors, among them Sylvester K. Stevens, of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission; Dr. J. Alden Mason, of the University Museum; Dr. Jacob Gruber, of Temple University; Dr. Robert E. Carlson and Dr. Marshall Becker, of West Chester University; and also C. A. Werslager, the author of Red Men on the Brandywine; and David Taylor, the author of several historical novels of the colonial period, with local settings.

Early on, the Club also began the publication of a small quarterly magazine, its articles largely reports based on the research studies of the Club's members. "A number of papers have been read at our meetings which are of a high order and should be preserved," Dr. Baugh observed in an editorial in the first issue, adding that "This thought led to the idea of a publication to be called the 'Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Quarterly', and we hope that out first issue will prove to be of interest to everyone."

Over the years, its contents have included the histories of old roads, land titles, inns, schools, various churches, early mills and industry, the railroads and other transportation, Indian history, local events in the Revolutionary War, early post offices, entertainment - it is a list much too long even to summarize in just a few sentences.

Originally issued four times a year, after five years it was decided to change the frequency to twice a year, or semi-annual, publication, with four issues still comprising a volume. Later, its publication became only occasional, and from 1974 to 1978 it was a "neverly". In the fall of 1978, however, its publication was resumed, and it has appeared reqularly four times a year since then. Incidentally, this is the 94th issue since it was started.

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(Complete files of the Quarterly can be found in the Chester County Historical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the public libraries in Tredyffrin, Easttown, and at Exton, at Conestoga and Great Valley High Schools, the two junior high schools, and at the Pennsylvania State Museum in Harrisburg.)

The Club has also participated in a number of local community projects. A major undertaking was the restoration of the Van Leer Cabin, a log house built in the late 18th or early 19th century, located on what is now the property of Conestoga High School. It also erected a marker at the site of the Stone Chimney picket post and market of the Valley Forge encampment, on Valley Forge Road north of Swedesford Road.

Other Club projects have included participation in both Berwyn's 75th anniversary in 1952, and its centennial twenty-five years later in 1977. For many years the Club also prepared and placed exhibits in store windows in conjunction with the annual observance of Pennsylvania Week. The Club maintains close cooperation with the Supervisors in both townships, the School Board, and the Tredyffrin Township Historic Sites Committee, and has made several suggestions for the names of streets and schools. During the county-wide observance of Pennsylvania's (and Chester County's) Tricentennial a few years ago, the Club prepared information and material about the two townships for exhibits in the Court House Annex in West Chester and, later, at the Exton Mall.

But perhaps the best summary of the Club's purposes and activities is found in an acrostic written by one of its members, J. Alden Mason, in 1937. You will note that the initial letters in each line spell out "Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Club".

T o study ancient crafts and local lore,
R ecord the happenings of endless change.,
E nlarge the growing bulk of hist'ry's store,
D escribe old customs queer and fashions strange.
Y et not to fail to note each day's events
F or coming generations' questive Ken;
F or oft an unimpressive fact presents
R are knowledge for the minds of future men.
I n these environs patriots fought full well;
N eath sods of Valley Forge their bones lie cold;

E rstwhile Paoli's martyred heroes fell,
A nd Brandywine its tale of valor told.
S t. David's ancient pile our homes abuts
T he churchyards of Great Valley hold our dead;
T he Conestoga wagons left their ruts
O n roads we walk to earn our daily bread.
W here once none but the simple red man stirred
N ow homes and schools and churches dot these lands;

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H ere only modern English words are heard
I n towns where Swede and Welshman once joined hands.
S chools come and go with teachers long forgot;
T owns change their names and roads their rights of way;,
O Id inns and mills and forges fall to rot;
R oofs tumble inwards and their beams decay.
I n nearby fields Mad Anth'ny Wayne once strolled,
C hivalric Lafayette received a ball,
A nd Washington the nation helped to mold,
L eft home and comfort at his country's call.

C ome, let us note the passing happenings;
L et us record, that future men may read,
U ntil the lore of past and present things.
B ecomes a hist'ry that our sons may heed.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Club or in joining and working with it can get additional information from any of the Club's officers listed on the first page.