Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society

11/07/2026

The "Wide Awakes" of Tredyffrin and Easttown, 1860

In the summer of 1860, a new kind of political club swept the North. The Wide Awakes began in Hartford, Connecticut, that March, started by anti-slavery Republicans determined to elect Abraham Lincoln. Members were mostly young men, many too young to have voted before. They marched at night in glazed capes and caps, carrying torches on long poles, and their parades of hundreds or thousands of flickering lights became the signature spectacle of the campaign. Southern newspapers painted them as a sinister army; in the North they were a sensation.

West Chester's Wide Awake club made its first parade in July, "creating quite a sensation" with "brilliant torches and handsome uniform." The Record explained what the clubs were for: a Wide Awake club was "a permanent, well disciplined, Vigilance Committee," which would canvass every township, make sure every Republican voter was assessed and got to the polls, guard against illegal voting, and organize "night processions." Chester County went further than most. In August, the Brandywine Equestrian Wide Awakes organized at Darlington's Corner, probably "the first club of the kind organized in the country," with a black wool hat turned up at one side, a cape, a blue saddle cover, and a torch resting in a holster on the stirrup.

Then the movement reached our townships.

TREDYFFRIN. On Thursday evening, Aug. 30, "the Republicans of Tredyffrin and adjacent townships" met at Howellville to form a club, and between forty and fifty men signed up. Two weeks later the Tredyffrin Wide Awake Club was drilling at Howellville, sixty members strong and "rapidly increasing," with plans to raise a large flag there.

EASTTOWN. On Sept. 6, a Wide Awake Club was formed at the Leopard tavern. Capt. James Givin, who had also spoken at Howellville, addressed and drilled the thirty-three new members, joined by the club from Sugartown. Joshua S. Cox was elected president and Owen R. Horne chief marshal; miller William Steele was treasurer. By mid-September the Easttown Wide Awakes numbered about fifty men in "drab-colored" capes and caps, each with his name inscribed.

ON THE MARCH. The clubs traveled to rallies across the region. On Oct. 11, about 1,000 torchmen, nearly 400 of them on horseback, paraded through West Chester. The Easttown Equestrians and the Tredyffrin club were both in the line. In late October the Valley Forge Equestrians and other clubs joined a torchlight procession at Howellville.

The campaign's local finale came at the Leopard on Saturday, Nov. 3, just three days before the election. A Lincoln pole went up in the afternoon, and that evening came a "Grand Torch-Light Procession." The Easttown and Willistown Wide-Awakes rode with the horse companies, the Tredyffrin Club marched with the foot companies, and the Charlestown Brass Band played. John M. Broomall, G. N. Corson of Norristown, and the "Buckeye Blacksmith" spoke.

THE VOTE. On Nov. 6, each township had a single polling place: Tredyffrin men voted at the Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Hotel in Centreville, and Easttown men at the Leopard. (Only white men 21 and older could vote. Pennsylvania's 1838 constitution had taken the vote away from free Black men.)
• Easttown: Lincoln 107, Democratic ticket (Breckinridge) 21. Lincoln's 84% was the highest share of any municipality in Chester County.
• Tredyffrin: Lincoln 229, Breckinridge 118, Bell 11, Douglas 2. Lincoln won 64%, but nearly one voter in three went Democratic.
• Chester County as a whole gave Lincoln 58%.

AFTERWARD. Within months the country was at war, and across the North many Wide Awakes traded their capes and torches for uniforms.

Sources:
• The Record (West Chester), July 24; Aug. 7; Sept. 1, 8, 15, 18 and 22; Oct. 2, 13, 16, 20, 27 and 30; Nov. 3, 1860
• The Jeffersonian (West Chester), Sept. 15 and Oct. 13, 1860
• Chester County Archives, "1860 Presidential Election Results"
• National Park Service, "The Wide Awakes": https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-wide-awakes.htm
• TEHS History Quarterly: Robert M. Goshorn, "Chester County and the Civil War" (April 1963); "Election Campaigns in the Nineteenth Century" (Oct. 1984); Herb Fry, "How 'Inn-Genius' Are You?" (Oct. 1995)

Images:
1) Some of the original Connecticut Wide Awakes, Smithsonian Magazine, emergingcivilwar.com20240620how-the-st-louis-wide-awakes-helped-to-keep-missouri-in-the-union
2) Leopard Inn Grand Mass Meeting Ad, The Record, Sat, Oct 27, 1860, Page 4.
3) Wide Awakes banner, on display at the Old Capitol building, Springfield, Illinois, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Awakes

11/07/2026

Save the date! Please join us at Easttown Library on Sunday, November 22 at 2pm when George Lonsdorf will present Elm Station’s Lost City: The 1876 Grangers’ Centennial Encampment. George will share stories about the remarkable complex created for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition and its legacy in the nearby community of Narberth.

Additional information may be found here: https://www.tehistory.org/news/2026/news202611.html

11/05/2026

“Yesterday in Tredyffrin” is a project of the Tredyffrin Township Historical Commission, an advisory group to the board of supervisors, tasked with providing heritage conservation education to residents and recommending the appreciation and protection of significant historic places in the township. Contact them at: [email protected]

YESTERDAY IN TREDYFFRIN – The grey stone buildings on North Valley Forge Road in Devon have housed and cared for the area’s elderly and infirm since 1892. But its history is primarily about a son’s love for his mother. Founded as the Eliza Cathcart Home, the institution was originally funded with a $200,000 bequest from William C. Stroud (inset, right), an executive with Baldwin Locomotive, as a memorial for his mother (inset, left). Financial operations of the home were in the hands of Presbyterian Hospital (now part of Penn Medicine); day-to-day management was the responsibility of live-in staff – a matron, a maid and various utility and kitchen help. The property included a 40-acre working farm that produced vegetables, fruit and meat from pigs and chickens. Old minutes mention that, one year, the home’s residents, staff and committee members had put up 1,000 jars of preserves and 400 cans of tomatoes. In the 1970s, new regulations for nursing homes mandated improvements that the home could not afford, and the Orphan’s Court turned Cathcart over to Presbyterian Homes, a professional management company. It has since passed through several corporate hands, and is now known as Juniper Village at Devon

10/31/2026

Halloween Night Heroics: The Foiled Berwyn Bank Robbery of 1904

The fall of 1904 was a nervous season in Berwyn. In August, a band of “tramps” raided local kitchens, and residents formed a vigilance committee. Then, in the early hours of October 7, safecrackers blew open the Berwyn post office safe with nitroglycerin. The blast sent a piece of the safe through the ceiling into the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Mercer upstairs. The thieves got away with $500 in stamps and $135 in cash. The same gang was blamed for post office break-ins at Strafford, Haverford, Wynnewood and Rosemont. Berwyn had no police force to stop them. Its only lawman was a single constable, Louis Keller, who worked as a carpenter.

Three weeks later, there was another attempt.

Around 2 or 3 a.m. on November 1, William Bradley and Isaac Kauffman were walking home in costume from a Halloween party. A man stopped them and asked whether the bank kept a night watchman. When they said no, he told them someone must be trying to break in. The two hurried to the Berwyn National Bank on Lancaster Pike, two doors from the post office. As they arrived, men ran out of the doorway and headed for the railroad. One of the masqueraders pulled a revolver from under his costume and fired twice, and the robbers fired back. Postmaster Harry O. Garber, T. E. James and the bank’s janitor, William Kerr, joined the chase. The thieves escaped across the tracks into North Berwyn.

The burglars had smashed through the outer storm door using pick heads stolen from a railroad tool house at Paoli Station. They were about to start on the inner doors when they were interrupted. They left behind the picks and a monkey wrench.

The newspapers couldn’t agree on the details. The Inquirer reported two robbers, while the West Chester paper said there were four. A Phoenixville paper gave the credit to a farmer on his way to market, who spotted a light in the bank and saw the men flee by wagon. A Pottsville paper got the story backwards and reported that the robbers were the ones disguised as Halloween revelers.

No one was ever caught. As the West Chester paper put it, the bank officials had “no clue.”

Sources:
“Burglars Busy; Berwyn Citizens Turn Policemen,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 13, 1904, p. 1.
“Main Line Residents Want Watchmen for Postoffices,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 8, 1904, pp. 1–2.
“Main Line Towns Ask Safety from Gang of Cracksmen,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 9, 1904, p. 1.
“Robbers at Berwyn,” Daily Local News (West Chester), November 1, 1904, p. 2
“Main Line Bandits Try to Enter Berwyn Bank,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2, 1904, p. 3.
“Robbers at Berwyn,” The Daily Republican (Phoenixville), November 2, 1904, p. 1.
“Futile Attempt at Bank Looting,” Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, November 2, 1904, p. 2.
“Pennsylvania Paragraphs,” The Miners Journal (Pottsville), November 3, 1904, p. 3.
“Robbers at Berwyn,” The Jeffersonian (West Chester), November 5, 1904, p. 4.

Images:
Berwyn Bank (on left) and Post Office (right) - c1904, Lucy Sampson Photographer, TEHS Archive.

10/28/2026

“Yesterday in Tredyffrin” is a project of the Tredyffrin Township Historical Commission, an advisory group to the board of supervisors, tasked with providing heritage conservation education to residents and recommending the appreciation and protection of significant historic places in the township. Contact them at: [email protected]

YESTERDAY IN TREDYFFRIN – In 1888, Henry Curry (right) had a post office to name and was stumped for an idea. Curry owned a store (background) on Yellow Springs Road near the Cedar Grove quarries and his application to open a post office in the building had been successful. (Both Curry and Grover Cleveland – then serving his first term as president of the United States – were Democrats, something that mattered before civil service reform terminated the spoils system.) Curry, however, had a form to fill out. So, according to the Tredyffrin-Easttown Historical Society Quarterly, he looked around the interior of his store until his eye rested on a box of crackers. The brand name was Tablet, and so that became the name. The Tablet Post Office opened in February 1888 and served local residents until discontinued in 1901. The former store, built about 1840, survives as a private residence.

10/28/2026

Radnor Historical Society and Radnor Memorial Library present:

James Forten: Prominent Black Founding Father, by Jim Segrave-Daly

Thursday, October 29, 2026
7:00 p.m.

Radnor Memorial Library
114 West Wayne Ave
Wayne, PA 19087

https://radnorhistory.org/events/

10/24/2026

111 Years Ago Today: The Main Line Gets Its Half-Hourly Electric Trains

On Sunday, October 24, 1915, the Pennsylvania Railroad began running electric trains between Paoli and Broad Street Station every half hour, from 7:15 in the morning until 9:45 at night. For Main Line commuters, it was the moment the new electric railroad truly arrived.

The first electric train had run six weeks earlier. At 5:55 a.m. on Saturday, September 11, it pulled quietly out of Paoli Station. It reached Broad Street at 6:45. At first, that single train made four round trips a day, and steam trains handled the rest of the schedule.

The project had been a long time coming. By the early 1900s, more than 60 trains a day ran on the Main Line, and Broad Street Station was badly congested. In 1913, the railroad announced plans to electrify the 20 miles to Paoli, at a cost of about $4 million.

In the summer of 1913, the railroad tested different electrical systems on a stretch of track between St. Davids and Wayne. It settled on alternating current carried by overhead wires, ruling out a third rail as too dangerous for freight crews. Stringing those wires was perilous work. Crews of linemen climbed through the cables while express trains roared beneath them, and the Philadelphia Record compared them to a swarm of “human spiders” spinning a web of metal. Residents along the line had something to look forward to: relief from the smoke and cinders of steam engines.

The first steel cars arrived from the Pennsy’s Altoona shops in January 1915. Service was promised by June, but on a trial run several hundred of the wires supporting the overhead lines snapped. Replacing them took all summer, and the delay reportedly cost the railroad nearly $1,000 a day.

On that first run in September, the man at the controls was W. J. McClintock of Harrisburg, a veteran steam engineer retrained for electric operation. Riding with him was his old fireman, Charles Hogentogler of Paoli, who had no coal to shovel and nothing to do. Albert L. Greenwood, a Paoli printer, was the first passenger aboard, and Miss Estella Parker, also of Paoli, was the first woman to ride. The new trains picked up speed so quickly that they sometimes had to wait at a station to avoid running ahead of schedule. The Evening Public Ledger promised that the faster trip would give commuters “a little more time at breakfast.”

The October timetable added more local trains in both directions and a new evening express stopping at Devon, Berwyn, Daylesford and Paoli.

More than a century later, trains on this route still run under overhead wires today as SEPTA’s Paoli/Thorndale Line.

Sources:
Robert M. Goshorn and Robert E. Geasey, “The Electrification of the Paoli Local,” Tredyffrin Easttown History Quarterly 34, no. 4 (October 1996): 127–140
“P. R. R. Gets First Cars for Main Line Electric System,” Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia), January 30, 1915, p. 2
“Tentative Schedule for Electric Trains,” Harrisburg Telegraph, March 16, 1915, p. 2
“Modern Electrified Railroad Line Is Built by the Pennsy,” Altoona Tribune, June 7, 1915, p. 7
“Pennsy Electric Service Delayed,” Altoona Tribune, July 24, 1915, p. 6
“Electric Trains Replacing Steam,” Altoona Tribune, September 11, 1915, p. 3
“P. R. R. Electric Trains to Paoli,” Pottsville Republican, September 11, 1915, p. 1
“P. R. R. to Begin Electric Service,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 11, 1915, p. 2
“First Electric Train Rushes In from Paoli” and “Main Line Sees Electric Train Service Started,” Evening Public Ledger, September 11, 1915, p. 3
“Will Open Electric Zone,” The New York Times, September 11, 1915, p. 15
“Electric Service Begins on P. R. R.,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 12, 1915, p. 4
“Electric Trains Run on Pennsy Main Line,” Altoona Tribune, September 13, 1915, p. 5
“Harrisburg Man Runs First Electric Train from Paoli on Pennsy,” The Patriot-News (Harrisburg), September 13, 1915, p. 2
“Extension of Electric Plan,” Delaware County Daily Times (Chester), October 21, 1915, p. 1
“Many Trains on Electric Branch,” Harrisburg Telegraph, October 21, 1915, p. 9

Images:
“P. R. R. Gets First Cars for Main Line Electric System,” Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia), January 30, 1915, p. 2
“First Electric Train Rushes In from Paoli” and “Main Line Sees Electric Train Service Started,” Evening Public Ledger, September 11, 1915, p. 3

10/21/2026

“Yesterday in Tredyffrin” is a project of the Tredyffrin Township Historical Commission, an advisory group to the board of supervisors, tasked with providing heritage conservation education to residents and recommending the appreciation and protection of significant historic places in the township. Contact them at: [email protected]

YESTERDAY IN TREDYFFRIN – In dating Conestoga High School’s Van Leer log cabin, the giveaway is the nails. The modest structure on Irish Road is the sole surviving remnant of the former Curwen farm on which Conestoga was built in the early 1950s. And, truth be told, it’s
really nothing special. Not an early settler’s cabin; those tended to acquire additions which often evolved into substantial residences. It’s also too recent to have been built by a 17th or 18th Century settler. According to a researcher for the Chester County Historical Society, the cut nails used in its construction prove that it wasn’t built until after 1800. (Sliced from sheets of iron by a machine, “cut” nails weren’t invented until 1794.) Most likely, it was built by William Van Leer soon after he inherited it from his father, Isaac, who died in 1799. The Van Leers came to Tredyffrin in 1759 when Bernhard Van Leer of Marple, a physician and German immigrant, purchased 109 acres here. Fun Fact #1: Dr. Van Leer was the grandfather of Priscilla “Prissy” Robinson, the mistress of the nearby Blue Ball Inn who allegedly murdered some of her guests for their money. Fun Fact #2: Dr. Van Leer’s ca. 1742 stone mansion survives in Marple Township

10/21/2026

Radnor Memorial Library, Radnor Historical Society, and Main Point Books welcome local historian Mark DeWitt Lanyon to discuss his book Lost Chester County.

Chester County has a deep and enriching history, from sites of the Underground Railroad to great moments of Women's Suffrage and incredible remnants of Native American culture. The stories of the county's past can be experienced in many of its historic landmarks. Author Mark DeWitt Lanyon charts Chester County's lost history and the places that defined it.

Books will be available for purchase.