Historic Newtown Square Day: Creating and building community …

I grew up in a suburban neighborhood of the 50’s and 60’s that represented everything that was right about a community.  The generation now called the Greatest Generation had moved out to the new suburbs springing up all around the city.  Almost every house on our street had a young family with children.  We roamed in packs from back yard to back yard all day long, and each mother kept an eye on us when we came within her “zone”.  Our whole neighborhood was built around a central elementary school, and everyone could walk there.  In addition to providing education, it was the focal point of the community – the place to go for the spring Highland Fling, the 4^th of July celebration, summer arts programs, little league baseball, movies in the auditorium, summer basketball leagues, etc.,  My parents were involved from the time they moved in.  My father was one of the early presidents of the civic association, and my mom was the editor of the community newsletter for several years.  My mother also ran the candy concession for each gathering at the school, and was the cookie storage location for the annual Girl Scout cookie sales.  At various times in our lives we would come home to find boxes and boxes of candy and cookies – and were told to stay away – they were for the community events.  Having parents and their friends involved in the community was my “normal”.   We took for granted that every community has these events, and this energy level of involved residents.  And of course as I grew up I found out … they don’t.  It was something special that only certain communities have. 

In Marple and Newtown, we are fortunate to have many of these community events still.  We have one of the largest 4^th of July parades in the County.  We have two great little league organizations and facilities.  At the elementary school level, my experience was that we had very involved parents and there were a lot of activities at the school.  There is good community support for the excellent Marple Newtown High School band and its annual Bandarama.  However, when I first joined the Newtown Square Historical Preservation Society in the mid 1990’s, there was very little going on in the Society.  We had a monthly public program during the school year, but not much else.  I agreed to be treasurer back then, because I was told “you only write 10-12 checks a year.  No problem.”  And then Sam Coco and Jan and Sid Elston and some others had this idea for Colonial Day, and all hell broke loose. 

The original idea was to celebrate our Colonial history.  According to a contemporary news article, "It's going to be like a little Williamsburg," said chairman Sam Coco. ''We're going to have people in costume doing colonial crafts like carpentry, smithing, and colonial art."  That year, on June 10, 1995, we hosted that first Colonial Day.  Costumed guides provided tours of eight of the historic locations in the township. A fife-and-drum corps and volunteers in costume kicked off the event at the Paper Mill Museum.  George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Betsy Ross were in attendance at the opening ceremonies.  Isobel Snyder taught students that day at the Octagonal School House.  Several private homes were open for tours as well.  Sam sold ads for an event program to raise money for the Society as well.  We were not sure what the outcome would be for the event, but it was well received, and that first year has served as a template for what has become an annual event. 

My favorite memories of Colonial Day involve two weddings that were held at the Newtown Square Meeting House.  In 1999 or so, we had arranged for actors to act out a Quaker wedding, and sent out invitations, and promised a wedding reception at the Square Tavern after the event – open to all.  At the last minute, the actors canceled on us.  A friends of a friend and I agreed to step into the role of bride and groom, we had a full meeting house for the event, the wedding went off without a hitch (pun intended!), and then on a beautiful moonlit night, we had a wedding reception at the Tavern, complete with band and wedding cake.  I recall sitting off to the side at one point and marveling at the music and dancing and laughter behind this old tavern that used to see its share of celebrations like this in the 1700’s.  I thought “what a great way to bring the community together.” 

The second wedding was similar to the first, but with a wrinkle.  My daughter, a senior at Marple Newtown High School that year, chose to do her senior project on a Colonial wedding.  She found the original records from the Meeting House during the time of the American Revolution, and read about how the young Quaker boys were eager to join the troops defending the area when the British invaded in fall of 1777, much to the dismay of the pacifist parents.  She wrote a script for the day, incorporating those facts into an actual marriage that occurred that year.  She recruited her friends to dress up and play roles in the wedding, with speaking parts.  And then on the night before the event, the dress rehearsal, it poured rain – and the weather forecast the next day called for more on Saturday.  I never felt lower at a Colonial Day than that Friday night, when she was close to tears because the hours and hours of work and planning for the event might be rained out the next day.  Can you imagine having your wedding canceled on account of rain?  But that next morning, our chairperson, Madaleen Ellis, made a bold call – “we are holding this event” – and we did.  The rain was intermittent, but did not keep the wedding crowd from showing up for my daughter’s wedding.  The wedding was held, afterward in the Quaker custom everyone in attendance signed the wedding certificate, and we had a happy volunteer’s party at the end of the day, as we do each year. 

Last year’s volunteer party was a favorite memory as well – a number of the musicians who had played during the day brought their instruments back to the party.  We set up outside, overlooking the Darby creek outside the Paper Mill House, and we sang and played till the wee hours.  The ghosts of the hundreds of millworkers who had lived and worked along those banks in the 1800’s must have been thrilled to hear such life and laughter in this old building after too many years of empty silence. 

So this year we are again hosting this community event, the 16^th one, on Saturday, June 4^th, from 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.  We have changed the name – our history is not limited to the Colonial era and so we are simply calling it Historic Newtown Square Day.  We have over 30 merchants and vendors who will set up behind the Square Tavern, to display their wares and show off their skills.  We have tours still at the Paper Mill House, the Tavern, the Octagonal School, the Bartram Bridge, and the Newtown Square Friends Meeting.  There are no private home tours this year, and the Sandy Flash Dash, a 5K event, is on hiatus this year.  But there will be food, music, children’s activities and fun for all ages at the event.  Please come out and join us that day.  Support your community, see your neighbors and friends, and learn a little history in the process as well. 

For more information, please visit our website at http://www.historicnewtownsquare.org/news_events/historicnewtownsquareday.asp

For additional photos and videos of past Colonial Day celebrations, see the blog article on Patch at http://marplenewtown.patch.com/blog_posts/historic-newtown-square-day-creating-and-building-community

Local Elections in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Newtown Square Hotel (circa 1891)

Today is Primary Day when our political parties each select candidates for the fall elections.  2011 is a typical “off year” election, with no federal offices in play, and just a few statewide races for judges, and a few local offices. Most races are uncontested this year. Where I vote, a slate of school board candidates was running “against” the party, but otherwise there were few contests. It has been a rainy morning as well, and so the turnout is expected to be very low. 

What were elections like in Delaware County at the beginning of our independence, and for the next 100 years?  Up until 1789, there was no Delaware County. All of the townships that now form Delaware County were then part of Chester County, and the county seat was at the city of Chester, at the far eastern border of the county, equally inconvenient to everyone in the huge county. 

The courthouse was located in the city, voting took place in the city, and if you were a party to a lawsuit, a witness, or a juror, you had to come to the city. In the days of transportation by foot and horseback, this trip was a major investment of time for those who lived far from the city of Chester, such as those in Oxford, West Grove or Kennett Square. As Henry Ashmead noted in his 1884 History of Delaware County: 

“It involved considerable labor to go and return in those days, and in winter time, when, in a warm spell, the roads would be wretched beyond expression, it was a journey such as no man of these modern times would contemplate calmly.”

Of course, traveling over this distance to vote was not a problem for the women of 18^th and 19^thcentury Pennsylvania: they didn’t have the right to vote until 1920. However, all of the county offices were there as well, and so the distance had to be covered for the probate of wills, will challenges and the like. Imagine the trip for an elderly widow living in Oxford, Pennsylvania, and having to travel the very hilly and muddy Baltimore Road (today’s Route 1) for 37 miles to get to the city of Chester to deal with the estate of her husband.  

With the separation of the eastern townships of old Chester County into the new Delaware County in 1789, the legislature also took aim at making it more convenient to vote in the elections in the new country. George Smith’s History of Delaware County gives a good account of the beginning of local elections:

“In early times the general election for the whole county of Chester, was held at the Court-house in Chester. Before the Revolution, Chester County was divided into three election districts, called Chester, Chatham, and Red Lion—the places at which the election was held.  Chester district embraced nearly the same territory that is now included in Delaware County.  After the division, the people of the whole county continued to vote at Chester till 1794, when an Act was passed dividing the County of Delaware into four election districts.  This Act constituted the townships of Concord, Birmingham, Thornbury, Aston, Bethel, and Upper Chichester, the second election district—the election to be held at the house of Joshua Vernon, in Concord; the townships of Newtown, Edgmont, Upper Providence, Marple, and Radnor, the third election district—the election to be held at the house then occupied by William Beaumont, in Newtown; and the townships of Darby, Upper Darby, Haverford, Springfield, and Tinicum, the fourth election district—the election to be held at the house then occupied by Samuel Smith, in Darby. The people of the remaining townships still held their election at Chester, and those townships composed the first district.”

In the first contested presidential election in 1796, voters in Marple and Newtown made the trek to the Farmer’s Wagon tavern kept first by William Beaumont (until 1810), and then by his son Davis Beaumont (see photo), at the crossroads of the Newtown Street and West Chester Roads (now Route 252 and West Chester Pike/Route 3).  The 439 voters in Delaware County that year, generally free, white, male property owners age 21 and older, preferred Federalist John Adams over Democratic Republican Thomas Jefferson, giving Adams, the ultimate winner, about 71 percent of their votes.

Davis Beaumont

The Farmer’s Wagon tavern where they cast their votes, and the adjacent general store, formed the commercial hub of the local community, as the stage coach from Philadelphia to West Chester stopped there as well, bringing mail, news and visitors from each place to this small country crossroads. 

In 1838, Newtown became its own election district, and voting continued to occur at the tavern.  In 1846, under new management, the tavern upgraded its image, changing its name from the Farmer’s Wagon to the Newtown Square Inn.  Davis Beaumont owned the Inn, inherited from his father in 1810, until 1868, two years prior to his death, when he sold it to William T. Davis. 

Davis, a former cattle drover, knew the needs of farmers traveling with their cattle to market, and made the inn a destination for drovers and their cattle.  Cattle auctions were held on the porch of what was then called the Newtown Square Hotel.  The auctioneer?  William T. Davis.  As one of the few businessmen in town, Davis was a political force, and so the hotel remained the polling place in Newtown township for well into the 20^th century. 

In the last presidential election of the 19^th century, Delaware County voters overwhelmingly turned out for Republican William McKinley, giving him 13,952 votes to 4,071 for his Democratic opponent William Jennings Bryant. There were a number of third-party candidates that year, and the next highest vote total was 184, for the Prohibition party candidate Joshua Levering. 

As we leave the 19^th century, I want to share a description of the hotel as it existed in 1891 (see photo), when local author and travel writer Julius Sachse passed through:

“At the present day the old inn has degenerated to an ordinary country tavern, a mere stopping place for the few who still travel the almost deserted turnpike, while the outside benches and bar-room chairs offer a gathering place for the idle gossips of the vicinity—the only exception to the humdrum routine being the days when cattle sales are cried from the tavern porch, or in the winter when some merry sleighing party wakes up the nooks and crannies of the old hostelries for the time being  . . .”

And, of course on election day, when local farmers left their farms and made the trek into town, to vote, to meet and greet, pick up supplies, and talk about the political issues of the day.