Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: April 2000 Volume 38 Number 2, Pages 65–70

Cedar Hollow and the Warner Company

John Alleva

Page 65

This interview with John Alleva at his home on Yellow Springs Road began with a discussion of life in Cedar Hollow and Devault. JA said that his son Danny now lives in the house located on the north side of Yellow Springs Road that was Henry Curry's store about 1912. JA's father, Joseph Alleva, bought the store and the house, and then he bought the little house next to it. His father also agreed to give the land for the Catholic Church on the corner of St. Johns and Yellow Springs Roads. His uncle, Alfonso Alleva, bought 60 acres nearby in Cedar Hollow for $2700 from Bill Smith. His uncle then sold this ground and bought the Catanach farm, and later sold a piece of this across Morehall Road to Sugarman who started a quarry there. This was located by turning left from Yellow Springs Road onto Route 29 heading from Cedar Hollow.

JA was born in Cedar Hollow in the house at the corner of Howell and Yellow Springs Roads. His father, Joseph, had a grocery store in the house. This building was later Torelli's bar. The house is still there but has been remodeled. Joseph Alleva sold the house and bought a building further east on Yellow Springs Road that was Curry's store. He built a bakery in the back and had a store in the front. He generated his own electricity -everything was electric in the building. The old wires are still in the walls of the house.

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JA's father, Joseph, died during the flu epidemic of 1918, leaving his wife Caledonia, and seven children. The family was very poor, but his mother continued to run the store and bakery. They had a vegetable garden to help them through the winter. The oven in the bakery held 300 loaves of bread. These were delivered by horse and wagon. JA's mother made the bread and delivered it. When the children were old enough, they went with her and did the jumping off and on the wagon to deliver the baked goods. One delivery was to Supiot's who had a lilac farm nearby.

To make the bread, Mrs. Alleva would prepare the dough in the evening, get up at 2 a.m. to turn and knead it, get up again early to shape the loaves and bake them, and then deliver them. The oven was heated with wood and coal. The oven burners are still in the back yard of that building. The bakery was closed down when the children were old enough to be employed outside the home and bring in money. The Aquilantes from Howellville rented the store and bakery.The bakery closed but they continued to run the store. JA's family moved back up to the middle of Cedar Hollow where they originally lived and opened another store.

JA went to the Salem School on Yellow Springs Road. He began at the age of seven at the Methodist Church building. There were also two school buildings at Salem adjoining for higher grades. He said that you went to the further (sic) building, then to the big kids' school, from there to Paoli, and then to the high school in Berwyn. He graduated from T/E in the class of 1933. When the Salem school closed, Farra bought it about 1946, and then Bunch, the garbage man, owned it. Today all the buildings, including the Methodist Church building, have been renovated into comfortable residences.

JA's brother Ed went into the coal and feed business. JA said that a Mr. Shapiro, who owned a Paoli business, needed a secretary.So he went to the Berwyn high school to find someone suitable and hired Ed Alleva, who was near the top of his class. Two years later, Ed owned the business --Main Line Coal & Feed Co. Shapiro moved to West Chester and ran Chester County Mills. After Shapiro died, EA bought the Chester County Mills and ran both businesses. Chester County Mills supplied feed for the Paoli store. A competitor, Brosius & Smedley operated Great Valley Mills north of the Lancaster Pike in Paoli. They later split, with Brosius running a lumber business and Smedley running the coal and feed business.

The Club House in Cedar Hollow was a landmark. It was a place where people gathered to chat and pass time. A water tower stood next to it.

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These have since been torn down. Across Yellow Springs Road, what is now Cedar Hollow Inn was a community hall - Elmer Szauer ran it. One little room was a barbershop, and later a second shop was opened there. A room upstairs was used for Mass before the Catholic Church was built. Kids and Boy Scouts used to meet there. A tavern was started in this building after Prohibition. One of the tavern keeper's sons was later accused of burning down the Catholic Church.

There was a mixture of Mexicans, Italians, Hungarians, Blacks and others who worked at the quarry. Many of these people were laid off as the lime business declined after World War II, found jobs in the Phoenixville area and eventually moved there.

At the height of Cedar Hollow's glory days, there were two or three stores in town. One of the stores was originally owned by the Ricklands, and then by the Kesslers and finally by the Jaffes. Each house had a little yard with a fence. It was a neat and well-kept little village. Once bandits robbed what was Curry's store. There are still bars on the windows of the building. The long porch in front of the store had benches on it, and people would gather there to "shoot the breeze."

During JA's childhood, schools were segregated. The Blacks in the community had their own church. They used to sing spirituals that could be heard in Cedar Hollow and sounded very nice. They had a playground next to the church that was equipped much as any other playground. It was located across the railroad tracks from where Capetolas lived. A school was started for Black children where the Vanguard School on North Valley Road is now located, but it was never finished and remained empty for years. Later someone bought it and lived in it, and then the Vanguard School was built on the site.

The Diamond Rock Octagonal School on Yellow Springs road was taught for many years by Miss Emma Wersler, who lived on her father's farm across the street. When they closed the eight-sided school and built Salem School, she became principal there. She was related to the Detwilers, a large family who owned the farm now belonging to the William Andrews family. Miss Wersler died at age 61, and her funeral service was held in the Great Valley Presbyterian Church. JA recalled that after the service, the attendees came back to Salem School and rang the school bell 61 times.

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When asked who were the wealthier families who lived in the area when he was a boy, JA replied that they were the Page, LeBoutellier, Haughton, Gretz (the beer people) and Wedge families. Utley Wedge was an inventor. He invented the Crosley refrigerator, and he was friendly with the Kaiser (Germany). JA said Wedge had big tall poles that went up into the sky with a line across and, of course, people thought he was communicating with the Kaiser when the war was on, but he was only inventing new code. He built an office in Paoli for his enterprises that stood where the parking lot of Mellon Bank is today.

These well-to-do families promoted beautification initiatives in the Valley. North Valley Road has no telephone poles, and is planted with flowering chestnut trees imported from England (both pink and white). JA said if you ever put a post on North Valley Road, it has to be painted green from the g round eight feet up. Part of Yellow Springs Road was moved down the slope of the North Valley Hill in 1929. Page's son got married and they bought the little house across the street. The road was against the house and they didn't want it there, so they had it moved.

Warner Lime Company -- In order to get lime you have to grind up the quarried limestone into gravel, then burn or cook the stone in kilns or furnaces until it becomes chunks of white powdery material. The chunks are then ground to a fine powder. Limestone contains calcium carbonate. When heated, carbon dioxide gas is driven off and leaves a white powder, calcium oxide. This is called "quick lime". (When exposed to water it forms lime - calcium hydroxide - a weak base that has low solubility in water and will therefore slowly sweeten the soil when applied.) The prod­uct sold by the lime company was quick lime. It was also used in making mortar and whitewash. The fires in the kiln had to be kept going day and night, with men pushing the stone around to keep more of the surface exposed to heat. The furnaces replaced the kilns, and coal was carried to the furnaces up long tubes.

They are still selling what is stockpiled, but are not quarrying anymore. Evidently the quality of this quarry was so good, according to Duke Wilson -who was manager of the plant - that he was very upset after he retired because they were selling crushed stone to be used on roads, and he felt it was a shame that they were using it in that way. The company had wanted to dig deeper, but the township limited how deep they could go. After fighting in court, they finally just decided to close it. There was still plenty of stone there, but it was feared going deeper would lower the water table and dry up wells.

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The Chester Valley Railroad ran through the valley parallel to Swedesford road, and a spur shunted off to the Lime Company. Trains stopped running into the quarry in the 1980s. Cedar Hollow Station was located some distance away from the village where the spur left the main line, south of Swedesford Road and west of the Presbyterian Church.

John Alleva's Family -- Brothers: Pete, Ed, Fileno and Daniel. Sisters: Mary and Elsie. One of the sister's married name was D'Angeli, the other Lannutti. Fileno died in 1957. Daniel was killed during World War II in 1944. JA spoke at length about the tragedy, which was accidental. He was a combat engineer and was on sharpshooter duty, standing out looking for snipers while his unit was putting down land mines. He was off on the side standing guard when one of the mines went off accidentally. It hit Daniel right in the heart. One of the fellows who came back said the only thing he said was, "I'm hit," and then he was gone. He was religious, and always carried a prayer book in his pocket, His prayer book was returned to the family, stained with blood, accompanied by his Purple Heart. John Alleva is the last survivor of his siblings.

JA's brother Peter once owned a building in Berwyn on Lancaster Avenue that had been converted to apartments. That's where Ward Bumside Plumbing is now. He renovated the building with the help of cousin Vincent Alleva, owner of the funeral business in Paoli, who supplemented his income during the early days of his business doing renovation work. Brother Pete earlier worked as a inspector at the lime company, but was laid off during the depression.

The family had rough times during the depression. They got work wher­ever they could. JA worked as a water boy for ten cents an hour. He worked for a contractor, Mason and Cullen, installing a cesspool at Immaculata College, for 20 cents an hour (his brother-in-law was digging a hole up there, he had a crane). Then Roosevelt got elected, and it was 40 cents an hour, eight hours a day -- that was big money making $17 a week. JA saved an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer about the effects of the depression on local people. He felt it was an accurate description of his experiences. "The reporter wrote our story to the 'T'."

Cedar Hollow -- An old photograph of Cedar Hollow about 1890 was taken looking down from a vantage point on the hillside where the Pennsylvania Turnpike is located today. A line of telephone poles may indicate a slightly later date, but it was before the houses for the quarry workers were built. Some of the buildings shown are gone now. It shows Cedar

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Hollow Inn, and where Church Road meets Yellow Springs Road; the Buckley house (later the Cauler house) and a farm. JA confirmed that Yellow Springs Road dog-legged to Route 29 even before the Pennsylvania Turn­pike was built. "It never was straight." Route 29 then was what is called Phoenixville Pike today.

Curry's store was on Yellow Springs Road. There is an old picture of it showing Curry and two other men standing outside. JA's son Dan bought the building and changed it a little during remodeling. JA said Henry Curry was an inventor. He was trying to invent perpetual motion. He had springs and wheels and doodads. He must have had something in mind. He created his own electricity; and had loads of glass batteries with pewter in the middle, and liquid. Another Curry lived in Paoli. He had letters and pictures from the Civil War that were thrown out by his house­keeper after his death.

JA's father had the first delivery truck in Cedar Hollow. His brother Phil was about 12 years old - he used to drive it. In those days you didn't need a license. After JA's father died, they went back to two horse­driven wagons; one for when the weather was nice, and one for when it was bad - we had a covered wagon. They also had a horse drawn sleigh that would ride right over fences when crossing the fields following a drifting snow.

JA had a couple of old pictures of Paoli taken near where his brother Ed had a coal and feed store, located on the northwest side of the railroad bridge. He remembered the 1930 explosion that destroyed the fireworks factory in Devon -- it turned windows around in his school. He spoke of a fire that destroyed a mill in 1940, with fire trucks coming from as far as New Jersey. Flying ash set fire to roofs of buildings. It is unclear if he was referring to a Paoli fire or the Devon fireworks factory explosion.

John Alleva died at age 84 on January 5, 1998 at Bryn Mawr Hospital, less than six months after he shared these recollections on audio tape with the History Club. He had mentioned that he was in failing health. His wife Julia, son Danny and daughter Rosie survive him.

*Notes from an interview with John Alleva on August 22, 1997, conducted by Bill and Sue Andrews and Herb and Barbara Fry, transcribed from audio tape by Nancy W. Pusey.