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Connecting Neighbors
Connecting Neighbors
This history of the neighborhood plays a vital part in the identity of its residents. If you have lived in the neighborhood for many years, the neighborhood history is a heartfelt reminder of days gone by. If you have just come to call the neighborhood home, it is a way to learn more about the new community you have joined. We would love nothing more than to be able to share the history of neighborhood name with all who reside there. |
- What A Difference A Railroad Makes - By Kathy Aker
Lower Merion Township is the largest of the 62 municipalities located within Montgomery County. According to the 2000 Census, Lower Merion Township remains Montgomery County’s most affluent and populated township, just as it was when the early European settlers arrived centuries ago. The transformation of Lower Merion from farms and mills to the mecca that is the Main Line wouldn’t have been possible without the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. To understand the influence of the railroad for Lower Merion and especially the Bryn Mawr area, it is essential to start at the beginning.
The earliest inhabitants of modern-day Lower Merion Township were the Lenape Native Americans, a nomadic tribe of the Algonquin Nation, who arrived about 12,000 years ago. By the mid-1700s, most of the Lenape had moved westward. According to research by Dr. James J. Levick, of Philadelphia, the earliest European settler in Lower Merion was Edward Jones, who arrived with forty passengers in the ship “Lyon,” on August 13, 1682, almost two months before William Penn. The name ‘Merion’ is derived from Merioneth, in North Wales, one of the most mountainous counties and the origin of these settlers.
At this time, most of the land in the area was owned by the Humphrey family. Benjamin Humphrey settled in 1683 and became quite a prominent citizen. Rowland Ellis, a nephew of John Humphrey and native of Bryn Mawr, near Dolgelly, Merioneth, arrived in 1686. In 1704, the area’s first stage of development began when Rowland Ellis built a plantation called “Bryn Mawr,” meaning “high hill” in Welsh. Some descendants of this family still reside in this area, and it is from this family that the name Humphreysville comes.
It was in this setting of plantations that early and vital developments in industrial and commercial transportation, such as the Lancaster Turnpike, the Columbia, Lancaster and Philadelphia Railroad, the Reading Railroad, and the Pennsylvania Railroad, emerged and initiated the change of the region from farms to summertime retreats. The turnpike road leading from Philadelphia to Lancaster, the first road of its kind in America, passed through Lower Merion for a distance of four and a half miles. The Pennsylvania Railroad had a course of five miles through the Township and was the first railroad chartered and built in the state.
The Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Old Main Line” took the easiest course around hills, but in the late 1860s, decided to eliminate the detour by purchasing a large tract of land, later to be known as Bryn Mawr. By 1869, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company established a new village, replacing the settlement of Humphreysville with Bryn Mawr. In the Reminiscences of a Railroad Engineer, written in 1896 by William Wilson, he chose this name from the property records of Rowland Ellis as the tract of land on Gulph Road, across from where Bryn Mawr College now stands. With the construction of the Main Line, Bryn Mawr evolved into a summer retreat for aristocratic Philadelphians trying to escape the city.
The Pennsylvania Railroad built the Bryn Mawr Hotel in 1871. In 1887, before a fire engine could arrive by train, the building burned to the ground. In 1889, Philadelphia architect Frank Furness redesigned the Bryn Mawr Hotel to be “an exuberant improvisation of a chateau,” according to Michael J. Lewis, in Frank Furness, Architecture and the Violent Mind. Furness’s design celebrated the technology that made the railroad possible. In 1912, the hotel was leased and eventually sold to The Baldwin School, in 1922.
Summering along the Main Line was becoming increasingly fashionable with Philadelphians, as indicated by an 1874 prospectus that listed 54 boarding houses from Overbook to Downingtown with accommodations for 1330 guests, exclusive of the Bryn Mawr Hotel, which held 250. By the 1880s, the local population swelled by about 2000 people every summer. Hotel life for these Philadelphians was full of lavish accommodations and group activities. Caravans of about twenty-five riders would go out and explore the country roads. Some joined the Merion Cricket Club, the Radnor Hunt, and the Bryn Mawr Polo Club. Members attended meetings of the Lower Merion Society for the Detection and Prosecution of Horse Thieves, an insurance company. The concerts of the Bryn Mawr Brass Band, which existed for over a century, were attended by most people.
When these Philadelphians tired of hotel life, they often permanently moved to the Main Line or built summer residences in the guise of large country homes, farms, and resorts. Development picked up speed as wartimes resulted in planned residential communities and even an early shopping center. As railroads declined in popularity, the Lancaster Pike became known as “The Main Line” from Philadelphia through Paoli. Today, although Lower Merion Township has been almost completely developed and its population has multiplied, its amiable setting and historic beginnings are still evident. This township built by the railroad has adapted and survived the coming of the automobile.
