Remembering Conshohocken and West Conshohocken

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright © 2010 by Jack Coll

All rights reserved

All images are from the author's collection unless otherwise noted.

First published 2010

e-book edition 2011

ISBN
978.1.61423.247.6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Coll, Jack.

Remembering Conshohocken and West Conshohocken / Jack Coll.

p. cm.

print edition ISBN 978-1-59629-412-7

1. Conshohocken (Pa.)--History. 2. West Conshohocken (Pa.)--History. I. Title.

F159.C66C66 2010

974.8'12--dc22

2010025705

Notice
: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

I'd like to dedicate this book to Dave Pasquale, who didn't know much about Conshohocken and, like me, didn't do much reading. But Dave was my best friend who passed away, and certainly his community of friends miss him very much
.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

P
ART
O
NE
. F
ROM
I
NDIANS TO
I
NDUSTRY

Conshohocken Today

The Schuylkill River

The Leni-Lenape Indians

William Penn and the Trinket Purchase

Washington Takes the Stage, but Not in Conshohocken

It All Started with a Canal

The Birth of Industry in the Village

It's About Time to Incorporate

P
ART
T
WO
. C
ONSHOHOCKEN
,
THE
F
IRST
H
UNDRED
Y
EARS

Incorporation, It Really Started in Norristown

Let's Honor Edward “Ned” Hector

Early Leaders and Street Names

Everybody's Welcome, They Came Looking for America

The Bridge—Matson's Ford, That Is

P
ART
T
HREE
. I
NDUSTRY

It All Started with a Shovel Head

John Elwood Lee, What a Man

Newton and Hervey, the Walker Brothers

The Quaker Chemical Story

Alan C. Hale, Almost a Century

And There's More

P
ART
F
OUR
. T
HE
U
NIFORMS
: P
OLICE
, F
IREMEN AND
M
ILITARY

Police

Washington Fire Company

New Century, New Fire Company

Conshohocken Military

P
ART
F
IVE
. A L
ITTLE
E
DUCATION ON
S
CHOOLS

It Started Immediately

Montgomery County Taps the Best

Catholics, Conshohocken Was the First

Say Goodbye to the Public School

Conshohocken Community College

P
ART
S
IX
. S
PORTS

Baseball, the Fact and the Funny

Football, Tough as Steel

Basketball, It's About the Hall of Fame

And All the Rest

P
ART
S
EVEN
. B
USINESS

It Started Slow

Fayette Street Was a Boom

Family Businesses Still Doing Business

P
ART
E
IGHT
. A F
EW
C
ONSHOHOCKEN
G
EMS

Hannibal Hamlin, a Guest of the Woods

Governor John F. Kennedy Misses Conshohocken

The First Lady, During and After

Finally, Conshohocken Gets a Presidential Visit

The Pines

Conshohocken's Only Hospital

Bishop Matthew Simpson, the President and Conshohocken

That's Right, Owner of the Philadelphia Phillies

Just a Few More Names

About the Author

In order to tell all these stories accurately, I would like to acknowledge the following sources:
The History of Montgomery County
, by William J. Buck; Historical Society of Montgomery County, which can be contacted at (610) 272-0297 or
www.hsmcpa.org
;
History of Montgomery County
, vols. 1 and 2, 1884, by Theodore W. Bean;
History of Montgomery County
, vol. 1, 1923, by Clifton S. Hunsicker;
History of Montgomery County
, vols. 1 and 2, 1983, edited by Jean Barth Toll and Michael J. Schwager; Lenni Lenape Historical Society, Allentown, Pennsylvania; Bryon Anderson at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum;
Neighborhood Tales
, by Samuel Gordon Smyth;
Norristown Times Herald; Conshohocken Recorder
; the Conshohocken Free Library, 301 Fayette Street, Conshohocken, (610) 825-1656; Lower Merion Historical Society, Gerald A Francis, president; Bob Brodie, Main Street Photo, Dave Wingeron, manager;
Walker of Conshohocken
, by H. Alan Dunn;
History of the Alan Wood Iron and Steel Company
, prepared by Frank H. Taylor; J. Ellwood Lee Company, Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, 1883–1908, Silver Anniversary; Gene Walsh for his quick and excellent work on the cover photograph.

A special thanks to all the residents who have contributed to this book in one way or another over the years. A few of the good storytellers I've had the pleasure to know over the years include John “Chick” McCarter, Art “Tuti” Andrey, Sam Januzelli, John Durante, Paul “Roger” Touhey, George Snear, Rudy Lincul, Bill Danitz, Dr. Joseph Leary, Vilma Frattone and Gerald McTamney.

Thanks to my wife, Donna, who proofreads every single thing that I write, and for the support of my loving children, Brian and Jackie.

The history of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, is made up of more than 160 years of small stories. Sometimes those stories are centered on the Schuylkill River or in one of the long-forgotten mills. These stories come from the living rooms of the immigrants who came to Conshohocken looking for the American dream, and they come from the firemen and other volunteers who protect and serve this great community.

When you read some of these stories, you'll wonder why this book wasn't titled
Conshohocken: I Didn't Know That
, because that's what you'll be saying time and time again.
Remembering Conshohocken and West Conshohocken
serves not so much as a recorded history of this borough as it takes the reader back in time, but rather as a reminder of the foundation of this borough: the residents. No matter how far back we go in time, this borough is and always will be about our residents, the changes they made and the contributions we all continue to make.

Conshohocken celebrates Veteran's Day, Memorial Day and Independence Day, all with good reason: our involvement in the struggle for freedom goes back to the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and all the wars since. Our involvement in sports goes back nearly 125 years; our involvement in firefighting goes back more than 135 years; and our ancestors arrived in Conshohocken more than 175 years ago.

In 1905, Father Benedict Tomiak of St. Mary's Church founded the St. Mary's Orphanage for Polish Boys. The orphanage consisted of about a dozen orphans from the city of Philadelphia. Father Benedict Tomiak purchased the former George Bullock estate in West Conshohocken and opened the St. Mary's Orphans Asylum for both boys and girls. In 1936, the Sisters of the Holy Nazareth purchased a castle in Ambler once owned by Richard Vanselous Mattison, and St. Mary's Orphanage moved to Ambler and was later renamed St. Mary's Villa for Children.

In 1965, Hollywood visited St. Mary's Villa in Ambler to use the orphanage as a backdrop for a movie. The movie script was based on the memoir written by Jane Trahey called
Mother Superior
, the original title for the film, later changed to
The Trouble with Angels
. The movie starred Rosalind Russell and Hayley Mills. Russell played Mother Superior, while Mills played Mary Clancy, who was sent to an all girls' Catholic boarding school. To think that it all started in Conshohocken.

Hey, I didn't know that. Read on.

Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, is a one-square-mile community located thirteen miles northwest of Philadelphia and five miles east of Valley Forge National Park. It is a thriving community of nine thousand residents, ten churches with thirteen different denominations and a history dating back to William Penn.

A stroll down Fayette Street, Conshohocken's main street named after General Lafayette, gives visitors and residents a great sense of history and twenty-first-century progression. The former mansions of John Elwood Lee—currently Conshohocken's Borough Hall—and the former Jones Estate—currently the Ciavarelli Funeral Home—are to this day simply breathtaking.

The Great American Pub and Flanigan's Boathouse restaurants stand out in the business district, along with Light Parker Furniture, Flocco's Discount Shoes and Reliance Federal Credit Union. Places to eat are plentiful, including Fayette Street Grille, Spampinato's Restaurant, Ted's Pizza, Win Wah Inn, Chiangmai and Tony and Joe's Pizzeria. A few restaurants off the beaten path include Pasta Via Italian restaurant and Stone Rose, located on upper Fayette Street, and Vince Totaro's Trattoria Restaurant, located on Spring Mill Avenue. The borough also offers many specialty stores and shops, like Conshohocken Italian Bakery, founded in 1973 by Domenico Gambone and Frank Manze.

Conshohocken is the quintessential all-American, main-street town, with an extraordinary history setting it apart from any other small town in America.