Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: Fall 2007 Volume 44 Number 4, Pages 143–147

70 YEARS OF PUBLISHING THE QUARTERLY

Joyce A. Post, Editor

Page 143

Photograph By Mike Bertram, August 2007

[Editor's notes – Our publication was the Tredyffrin Easttown History Club Quarterly between Autumn 1937 (volume 1) and Fall 2004 (volume 41). It is the Tredyffrin Easttown History Quarterly beginning with the Winter 2005 (volume 42) issue. References to specific material in a Quarterly are included in the text and are cited as the volume number, issue number, and page number. Beginning with volume 2 (1939) the pages in each volume are continuously numbered. References to the Minutes of the Tredyffrin Easttown History Club are included in the text, are cited as the date the Minutes were recorded, and are preceeded with an “M.” In most instances, identification of individuals in an illustration is taken from information on the back of the original photograph.]

THE BASICS

If you take the 177 issues of the Quarterly published since Autumn of 1937 and place them end-to-end on a bookshelf they stretch to a tight 2 feet as shown in the photograph above.

Each issue averages around 32 pages and usually includes 4 or 5 major articles. The 177 issues published so far have approximately 763 articles—this total is approximate because we have not tried to set up definite parameters as to what a “major article” is, or isn't. Some issues have a single long article with many sections—“American Officers Quarters at Valley Forge” (v8n2p28), for example, is a 22-page article about 33 different officers and houses and is counted as one article. Others have items and news notes of one page or less and are too short to be considered an article.

Page 144

There is a wealth of information and insight within the pages of the Quarterly. Most articles reflect the serious research requirements for active membership in the Club and are grounded in local research, interviews, or other primary sources. Listed below are the subjects people always seem to be interested in, the total number of articles about each subject, and an example - in quotation marks - of a typical article from each subject. Most articles are counted at least twice: first for its subject and second for its geographical setting.

• Earliest Settlers - 12 articles - “Tredyffrin and Easttown in 1790” (v20n3p75). Much of this information is scattered throughout the more general articles about the Welsh Tract.
• Tracts and Properties - 14 articles - “Local titles in Easttown and Tredyffrin: Mary A. Lewis Tract, 1877” (2 parts: v1n2p11 and v1n3p9).
• Houses - 39 articles - “The Cassatt Mansion” (v39n4p111). A number of these are survey articles - reports of historic house tours, all the local Vassar houses, etc. - so the total number of different houses described is much higher.
• Farms and Farming - 19 articles - “Elda Farm: History and Recollections” (v41n4p111). In addition, there are 16 more articles about Chesterbrook alone. An interesting series is the 4-part look at “Day-to-Day Life on a Family Farm at the Turn of the Century” [September 1897 through July 1900] transcribed from the handwritten diary of Annie Potts Walker by a club member (4 parts: v21n4p137 through v22n3p105).
• Families, Biographies - 169 articles - “The Kromer Family and the Livery Stables of Berwyn” (v33n2p47); “When Bertrand Russell Lived on Malvern R.D.1” (v38n3p93). There are 9 people who others like to write about. General Anthony Wayne outranks William Penn with 9 articles to Penn's 4; local bibliophile A. Edward Newton's 5 articles beats General Pasquale Paoli's 4. Two of the largest families in this area, the Walkers and the Wilsons, each have 2 and 7 specific articles respectively, but most of their information is buried within other more general articles. In other instances, the regular long-standing “Notes and Comments” feature of the Quarterly is used to publish new hard-to-find information about important people that is not long enough to fill an article. Two examples of this is information about Clarence Staats Jr., a major fuel dealer, (v39n1p34) and Zelinda LeBoutillier, of the family that owns Waterloo Gardens, (v44n3p117).
• Churches - 68 articles - “Historic Churches of the Great Valley” (v32n1p25). In addition to articles about 13 different area churches -5 in Berwyn, 6 in Tredyffrin Township, and 2 in Paoli - there are articles about churches in Devon, the community of Valley Forge, and the outlying areas of Willistown, Radnor, and Newtown Square. Churches were a very popular topic for research during the first decade of the Quarterly and one project of early Club members was to enumerate the names of all persons buried in these cemeteries. This resulted in a series of 30 articles about specific church cemeteries.

• Schools - 57 articles - “Two Centuries of Tredyffrin-Schools, 1700-1900” (v7n4p95); “Secondary Education in Tredyffrin-Easttown: The Tredyffrin-Easttown High School: First Joint High School in Pennsylvania” (v8n4p80). Many of the early Club members had strong ties to local education, so it is not surprising they were so prolific in writing about specific area schools, particularly ones that no longer exist. There are also many articles describing our dual-township school district, the old Tredyffrin-Easttown High School, and today's Conestoga High School. There are also articles about local:
  • one room schools, written from the teachers' point of view - 3;
  • special education schools - 3;
  • lyceums from the past - 2;
  • segregation attempts - 2;
  • university campuses - 2.
• Inns and Taverns - 19 articles - “How Inn-Genius Are You?” (v33n4p154). This might seem like a low number considering that there were 15 different inns and taverns in this area and that the communities of Berwyn and Paoli grew up around the earlier ones in these locations along the original Lancaster Road. Much of this information is found in the more general articles and in articles about the Revolutionary War and the railroads. The 2 Howellville Inns, for example, do not have separate articles, but are fully described in a Quarterly issue devoted entirely to Howellville (v39n3).

Page 146

• Wars - 70 articles
  • Revolutionary War - 26 articles - “The British Encampment in Tredyffrin, September 1777: New Light on an Old Story” (v41n2p43). There are 13 more articles devoted to just the Paoli Battlefield site, 4 of which, interestingly, have the same title of “Remember Paoli.” The 14-page compilation of poetry commemorating this event, “Remember Paoli: A Portfolio of Poetry” (v23n4p137), is particularly unusual.
  • Civil War – 8 articles – “A Local Band of Brothers: The 97th Pennsylvania Infantry During the Civil War” (v41n4p119)
  • World War I – 6 articles – “Interview With a Red Cross Volunteer” (v36n2p60)
  • World War II – 12 articles – “Recollections of a Conscientious Objector During the Second World War” (v37n2p49)
  • Cold War – 2 articles – “The Nike Base on Diamond Rock Hill” (v28n3p115)
  • Veterans – 3 articles – “A Gold Star Honor Roll of World War II Heroes” (v38n1p35).
• Transportation – 9 general articles – “Under Whatever Name It May Go: the Vehicles on the Lancaster Turnpike” (v30n2p41)
  • Roads – 32 articles – “The Old Lancaster or Conestoga Road” (4 parts: v2n4p90, v3n1p13, v5n2p26, v11n2p41)
  • Railroads – 3 general articles – “The Railroads of Chester County” (v7n4p86)
    • Pennsylvania Railroad – 8 articles – “When the Pennsylvania Railroad Promoted Suburban Living” (v19n1p13)
    • Chester Valley Railroad – 4 articles – “The Chester Valley Railroad” (v38n3p79)
    • Trolleys and Interurbans – 4 articles – “The Amusement Park on the Trolley Line” (v30n3p87)
    • Stations – 5 articles – “Some Observations on the Strafford Railroad Station” (v25n3p105)
    • Model Railroads – 2 articles – “The Upper Main Line” (v35n4p143)
  • Automobiles – 7 articles – “Reminiscing About the Matthews Ford Agency” (v31n2p65).
  • Aviation – 6 articles – “A History of the Main Line Airport, Paoli, Pennsylvania” (v40n2p41).
• Sports - 9 articles - “Five Big League Ball Players Who Played For Berwyn” (v24n3p111).
• Business and Industry - 58 articles - Local businesses and industries are often not recognized as a part of the early history of villages and communities. Tredyffrin and Easttown are fortunate in this regard. The oldest Quarterly article in this category is “Weavers and Weaving in Tredyffrin-Easttown” published in 1943 (v5n4p73). The American Non-Gran Bronze Co. in Berwyn has had 3 articles in the last 70 years.
  • Businesses - 23 articles - “The Burroughs Research Center in Paoli” (v40n1p3)
  • Stores and Shops - 19 articles - “Isaac A. Cleaver and the Bee Hive Store” (v13n3p69)
  • Industry - 7 articles - “The Electric Transmission Lines Through Tredyffrin Township” (v33n4p147)
  • Mills - 9 articles - “Local Textile Mills” (v5n4p77).

Over 200 more articles can be grouped together into 36 additional smaller categories ranging from “Animals” to “Women.”

GEOGRAPHIC RANGE OF ARTICLES

Page 147

There is a sort of geographical race to see which area, Easttown or Tredyffrin, has the most articles about it in the Quarterly. They are very different in nature. Easttown, with the older community of Berwyn, is more established while Tredyffrin is more rural and spread out and includes the newer community of Paoli. In the end, it is only a difference of 4 articles: Easttown and Berwyn with a total of 133, and Tredyffrin and Paoli with a total of 129. [In totaling the number of articles in these places, only those giving earlier or current community names in the title are counted.]

Major Areas

• Easttown - 31 articles + 8 articles on schools - “Private Schools in Easttown Township: 1865-1965” (v43n2p43)
• Berwyn - 76 articles + 17 articles on churches + 1 article on schools - “When the Berwyn Fire Company Rescued Six Peacocks” (v20n1p27)
• Tredyffrin - 54 articles + 16 articles on churches + 12 articles on schools – “The Borough of Great Valley: an Attempt to Secede from Treddyffrin” (v32n1p3)
• Paoli - 39 articles + 6 articles on churches + 2 articles on schools - “The Changing Face of Paoli” (v27n3p102).

Individual Communities

• Cedar Hollow - 8 articles - “Cedar Hollow and the Warner Company” (v38n2p65)
• Daylesford - 8 articles - “The Fourth of July at Daylesford” (v29n3p98)
• Devault - 2 articles - “The Company House at Devault” (v38n2p59)
• Devon - 14 articles + 5 articles on churches + 2 articles on schools - “Devon Dramatic Association: The Belgian Consul General and his Family at Devon” (v41n1p13)
• East Whiteland - 4 articles - “Spring Mill [Gunkle's Mill]” (v23n4p123)
• Howellville - 6 articles - “Great Valley Area Limestone Quarries: Pt. 1: Howellville Quarries” (v42n3p95)
• Leopard - 1 article - “Reminiscences of a Shady Road and Quiet Nook in Eastown” (v10n4p66)
• Malvern – 6 articles + 1 article on schools – “The Monday Afternoon Club of Malvern” (2 parts: v10n1p2 and v11n1p18)
• Mt. Pleasant - 2 articles - “Mt. Pleasant Village and Carr School” (v12n1p2)
• New Centerville - 2 articles - “History of New Centerville” (v13n1p17)
• Spread Eagle - “The Village of Spread Eagle” (v36n3p77)
• Strafford - 8 articles - “A Personal History of Strafford (Reflecting the Many Years I've Lived There)” (v35n2p67)
• Valley Forge (community) - 12 articles + 2 articles on churches - “The Valley Forge Project of the University of Pennsylvania” (v24n1p17)
• West Whiteland - 1 article - “The Methodist Church in Chester County With Particular Reference to the Grove Methodist Church in West Whiteland Township” (v16n3p53)
• Willistown - 1 article - “Willistown Friend's Meeting” (v9n2p26).

Other Areas

• Upper Main Line - 5 articles - “The Upper Main Line News” (v28n2p63)
• Main Line - 6 articles - “Mapping the Main Line” (v42p3p82)
• Chester County - 25 articles - “Evolution of Chester County Architecture” (v43n1p27)
• Philadelphia - 5 articles - “Philadelphia's Celebration of the Adoption of the Constitution, July 4, 1788” (v1n4p2)
• Outlying Areas -19 articles - “Foraging for Valley Forge by General Anthony Wayne in Salem and Gloucester Counties, N. J.” (v33n2p77); “The Archaeological Expedition of the University Museum to Panama (1940)” (2 parts: v3n3p53 and v3n4p87).

Article continues on page 148 with "HOW AND WHY THE QUARTERLY CAME TO BE"