Tag: Siter Family

Wayne’s First Baptist Church, part 4 – Great Valley Baptist Church members create new church at Carr’s Corner, Siter Family, Music Hall Fund

/ Emma C. Patterson

1951817

The signing of the petition on February 6, 1841, by 79 members of the Great Valley Baptist Church for dismissal from that church in order that these members might form a new church of their own in the vicinity of Carr’s Corners in Radnor township, was the first formal step toward that end. Before the new congregation was really established in the small building that had once been known as Music Fund Hall, many meetings had to be held and much business had to the transacted. Some of these meetings were held in the old Carr’s Corner schoolhouse, while many others were held in the home of Brother William Siter. This was probably the old Siter homestead which once stood on the site of Herman Lengel’s present home at 250 Conestoga road.

At a meeting at which “as many of the individuals as could find it convenient assembled together to be constituted into a regular Church of Our Lord and Saviour,” a council of six men was appointed, from whom D. Bernard was named as moderator and D. A. Nichols as secretary. This council agreed that brethren present form other neighboring churches should be invited to participate in the deliberations. This resulted in representation from Great Valley Baptist Church, and from Baptist churches in Norristown, Phoenixville, Newtown, Lower Merion and Valley Forge. According to the quaint wording of the old record book of the church:

“After some questions had been asked, articles of faith and covenant were read and the Council retired for deliberations, and after consultation were unanimous in declaring that there was no proper reason why the Brethren and Sisters named in the letter should not be constituted into a regular Baptist Church. Hence they proceeded to the public recognition in the following order of exercise.”

This order of exercise consisted of singing, reading of the Scriptures, prayer, the sermon, the “Right Hand of Fellowship,” the “Constituting Prayer,” charge to the church, address to the congregation and the benediction.

Then came the matter of a minister for the new Radnor Baptist Chruch. At a meeting held on April 1, 1841, it was unanimously agreed “to give Brother Hobart a call to supply the church for a year” from that date. The license which he presented at a special meeting of the church, held in July, stated that “our beloved brother Isaac M. Hobart . . . is a regular member of the Calvinistic Baptist Church of Christ in Lyme, in good repute with us as a young man of piety, correct morals and promising gifts; and he has been regularly approbated by us as a licentiate preacher, sound in the faith of the gospel.”

Brethren George Phillips, Zimmerman Supplee and William Siter were appointed at the April meeting to inform Brother Hobart of the call and “to confer with hi on terms.” The three reported back at a somewhat later date that these terms would be “three hundred dollars and expenses to and from the city.” Although the congregation voted unanimously to accept Brother Hobart, they added that when the committee of deacons waited on him they were “to prevail on him if it could be, to lower the terms.” Brother Hobart must have proven most acceptable to his congregation, for by the following year he had the temerity to ask for a salary of $400!

Brother Adam Siter was elected sexton of the church, “with the understanding that a collection would be taken up for him every quarter.” A later note in the record book shows that the first collection amounted to $7.57. Brother George W. Lewis was appointed church clerk and he was “directed to procure a blank book in which to record the proceedings of the church.” This is undoubtedly the book which is now before your columnist as she writes. Its pages are frail with 100 years of existence, their one-time white surface brown and stained, their edges soft and crumbling, yet the record of those early days of the church, written in a fine, regular hand, are almost as legible as when they were penned by Mr. Lewis.

Other business to come before the spring meetings were the appointment of a building committee “for altering the house,” to consider the building of a school house, and to acquire ground for horse sheds and a graveyard. The board of trustees reported that they had obtained this additional portion of ground from brother William Siter at the approximate price of $760 which, in addition to the original price of $700 for Music Fund Hall, brought the total purchase price to $1,460. However, “the additional purchase bro. Siter was willing to relinquish for the sum of one dollar, which added to 700 dols. the sum to be paid for the first purchase, amounted to $701.” However, bills for repairs on Music Fund Hall amounted to $245.43, and as the total amount for subscriptions from church members amounted to only $383 to date, “the debt against the church” was $563.43.

Other urgent matters in the first months of the new church’s existence, in addition to financial ones, were the decision in regard to the form of the charter to be forwarded to the State Legislature, “praying for an act of incorporation” and steps to be taken in regard “to offering themselves for union with the Central Union Association.” Eventually, both charter and membership in the association were obtained. Another matter of business was to have the church insured in the Mutual Insurance Company of Chester County.

In September, 1842, the Radnor Baptist Church was in difficulties with the parent church when they accepted as members “in good standing and full fellowship” four former members of the Great Valley Baptist Church was were “under censure for specific improprieties,” according to a letter received form the other church. This was done “before the cause thereof was removed.” This the Great Valley Baptist Church considered “in violation of the usages of the denomination, contrary to the spirit of the gospel of Christ, which requires that ‘all things shall be done decently and in order’.”

In reply, the Radnor church stated that the four members in question had come to them “as members of no church, and as such we received them in the relation of their Christian experience,” adding that “we still regard your body as our mother church and regret exceedingly that she has thought proper to disinherit us.”

(To Be Continued)

Wayne’s First Baptist Church, part 3 – Spread Eagle Inn, Siter Family

/ Emma C. Patterson

The William Siter whose conversion to the strict precepts of the Baptist faith from his former more wordly ways of thinking, and who was in a large measure responsible for the founding of the Radnor Baptist Church, belonged to a family whose name has appeared more often that any other in the early history of Radnor Township as it has been sketched in this column. In 1791 his grandfather, Adam Siter, ran the first small Spread Eagle Inn on the old Lancaster Turnpike. Later two other Siters, John and Edward, were in turn associated with the second and much large Spread Eagle Inn. The beautiful Siter farm covered much of what is now South Wayne. Part of the land around Martin’s Dam was once owned by this same family.

Mrs. Emily Siter Wellcome tells us that the family was one of the early Welsh settlers to whom William Penn gave a grant of land in what was later to become Radnor township. The original part of the house where she now lives at 415 West Wayne avenue with her daughter, Rosita Wellcome and her brother, George Siter, was probably built in the late 1600’s. Like the other Welsh houses of that period, of which there are a number still remaining in the township, the Siter house was built of stone, with two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs. The thicknesses of the old stone wall of Mrs. Wellcome’s living room gave evidence of the age of the house.

Somewhat puzzling to us at first was the present outside appearance of the house, stince it so closely resembles certain of the Wayne Estate houses. The explanation seems to lie in the fact that it was remodeled in 1890 by Mrs. William Siter, Mrs. Wellcome’s mother. it was at this time that large numbers of Wayne Estate houses were in the process of construction, and it seems quite possible that Mrs. Siter patterned her home after one of the popular type of that era. At the same time that she enlarged the little four room stone home, built by Welsh ancestors, she also built the house just to the west of her that is now occupied by William M. Zimmermann, Jr., and his family, and which for many years was occupied by the late Eber Siter and his family.

According to the old volume of “Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Chester and Delaware Counties”, lent to us by Mrs. Wellcome, Adam Siter, that first early proprietor of the little old Spread Eagle Inn had several children, among them William, who married Mary Taylor. There were six children born to this union. David, the eldest, “kept store for some time at the Old Eagle house on Lancaster turnpike”, in a section that was known for some time as “Sitersville”, even on the post office records. “John married and settled in Radnor township near the village, of Ithan, where he followed farming” according to the old genealogical records.

“Adam and William, the twin brothers (born December 8, 1798) received, under their father’s will, a tract of land containing 192 acres where South Wayne now stands, and here they conducted farming.” After Adam married, he sold his interest to William, who continued the cultivation of the farm and the old Siter saw and grist mill, which stood upon the property. William married Emily Worthington, a daughter of Eber Worthington, of West Chester. The twin brother, Adam, married Margaret Brooke, while one sister, Anna, became the wife of Enoch Davis and the other, Elizabeth, married John Yocum.

Joseph M. Fronefield, Jr., in writing of the Wayne of the 1880’s, when he came to this community and established his small drug store in what was then known as Wayne Lyceum Hall, now the newly remodeled Colonial Building, told of what he could see from the door of his shop:

“I could look out the drugstore door (it had now window on the pike) and see cattle grazing in the meadow where the business block, fire house and school houses now stand. This was part of what was known as the Siter farm. Its buildings stood on Conestoga road, about where the residence of F. A. Canizares now stands. The old Siter homestead burned in later years when owned and occupied by R. H. Johnson. The spring house was near the rear of what is now the Wayne Apartment House at the corner of West Wayne and Bloomingdale avenues.”

(Note: The old Siter household to which this refers was one the site of the present Herman Lengel house, 250 Conestoga road. The former F. A. Canizares house is at 240 Conestoga road.)

The William Siter who owned so much of what is now South Wayne was the same William Siter who, with is wife, the former Emily Worthington, was the leading spirit in the founding of the Radnor Baptist Church. Their son, another William Siter, married Sarah Martin, daughter of Richard and Hannah Moore Martin, both of English birth. Sarah Martin is the Miss Sallie Martin referred to in a number of articles in this column as the teacher of the Wayne Lyceum School and also as one of the editors of the “Weekly Gazette”, that early Wayne paper published in 1871-72. When the Wayne Lyceum Hall was dedicated on October 24, 1871, Miss Martin was one of the speakers on the program. Two of the children of these William Siters, George Siter and Emily Siter Wellcome, are among the four living trustees of the old Baptist Church who negotiated its present sale.

Seventy-nine persons signed the petition presented at a special meeting of the Great Valley Church on February 6, 1941, for letters of dismissal “for the purpose of constituting a Church at Radnor Hall, which on motion was granted,” to quote the exact wording of church records, now over 100 years old. Written in ink, these records and signatures are still so clearly legible that there can be doubt about only one or two of the signatures. They are names of families who had much to do with Radnor township in its early days. Descendents of some of them are still living here.

The “written request” was signed by George Joseph, Samuel, Sarah, Elizabeth, Alice and Susanna Lewis; Christian, Margaret, Sarah Jane, Mary Ann and Elizabeth Miller; William, Louisa, John, George, Mary Hughes, Elizabeth, Peter and Zimmermann Supplee; Mahlon, John, Elizabeth, Elijah, John, Jr. and Hannah Wilds; William, Lucy, Emily, Mary Ann, Sarah and Adam Siter; Charles and Sarah Ann Stout; Thomas and Ann Petty; Jacob, Eliza and Mary Huzzard; Samuel, George, Ann, Mary, and George, Jr., Bittle; Merriam, Hannah and Joseph Hunter; Mary Ann and Sarah Bowman; Jane and Mary Ann Smallwood; Samuel and Emma Crew; John and Elizabeth Aikens; George and Hannah Phillips; Margaret and Abraham Richardson; Jacob Wismer, Jacob Taylor, Ann Hampton, James Carr, Jr., Elizabeth Meredith, Mary Ann McKnight, Mary Marion Loveat, George Murry, Samuel Hanson, Nancy Davis, Mary Rulong, Isaac Millenn, Benjamin Snively, Theodosia Riddle.

(To be continued)

Wayne’s First Baptist Church, part 1 – Music Fund Hall, William & Emily Worthington Siter, Louis Fillipone, Carr’s Corner

/ Emma C. Patterson

In “The Suburban” of three weeks ago the sale of the old First Baptist Church was reported. The big gray stone building with its high bell tower and its 600-pound bell, has stood in quiet dignity for 61 years on historic old Conestoga road, where that one-time narrow Indian trail meets West Wayne avenue. In 1890 the handsome edifice was built to house a congregation far too large for its first small home on the same site, the old-time Music Fund Hall, given it in 1841 by William Siter, a member of one of the earliest of the Welsh families to settle in and around Radnor township after the coming of William Penn in the early 1680’s.

According to the original church records, hand-written, frail old pages now brown with age and ragged from the turning of many hands, the real history of the Baptist congregation goes back even farther than that time in 1841, when it was fist housed in Music Fund Hall. For it was “during the fall of 1831 and for several succeeding years” that “there was a deep religious feeling pervading this portion of the Master’s Vineyard, and multitudes were brought to see themselves lost sinners; few escaped its influence. The feeling, that Salvation through the Blood of Jesus was necessary, was general.”

For a decade these devout people traversed the hills along rough country roads to worship in the Great Valley Baptist Church. Among the most faithful of these was Emily Worthington Siter, wife of William Siter. According to a thick tome on the “Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Chester and Montgomery Counties” Mrs. Siter was “a devout and earnest Christian woman, while her husband, who was a very energetic and worthy man in all the affairs of life, did not attend any church, and gave little heed to the observances of the Sabbath Day, continuing without interruption his daily routine of toil and business.”

This indifference to the Sabbath Day on the part of the husband gave his good wife so much concern that she “resolved that she should rescue him from his ways of error.” And so it was that “upon one occasion she appealed in prayer to the Almighty Lord to shield and save her erring husband. Hearing her supplication, the strong man of iron nerve could no longer resist, and at once went to the side of his wife and promised to accompany her and the children to church that same Sunday morning, and from that day until the time of his death he was a regular attendant at religious services, and was ever after known as a devout and Christian man.”

A more intimate account of the scene of this conversion was recently given this writer by Mrs. Emily Siter Wellcome, who lives at the old Siter homestead on West Wayne avenue. Mrs. Wellcome says that family tradition has it that her grandmother was kneeling in prayer behind a corn shock in the field, where her husband was at work on Sunday morning, when he chanced to overhear her supplication. He was so moved by the earnestness of his wife’s prayers that he immediately unhitched his team of work horses and drove the children and her to church.

From that day on William Siter’s religion became a very real factor in his life. When “in the latter part of the Year of Our Lord, 1840,” to quote again from the old church record book, “many of the friends of Zion, members of the Great Valley Baptist Church who had been much exercised on the subject of establishing an independent church in the neighborhood of Carr’s School House” circulated a petition “to ascertain the number who would be willing to cast in their lot together,” William Siter’s name appeared with that of his wife, Emily.

Before the Music Fund Hall was used as the first church building of the new congregation, meetings were sometimes held in Mr. Siter’s own home. At such a meeting, held on February 27, 1841, he was elected one of four deacons of the new church, the other three being George Phillips, William Supplee and Hughes Supplee.

When the recent sale of the old church property, fallen into disuse since the building of the Central Baptist Church, was consummated, two of William Siter’s grandchildren were among the four remaining trustees to negotiate the sale. They are Emily Siter Wellcome and her brother, George Siter, of Wayne; Lillian Childs Williamson, of Media, and May Morris Dawson, of Collegeville. The latter two are also descendants of founders of the First Baptist Church.

The property bought by Louis Fillipone consists only of the church building itself and some ground surrounding it. The building is to be demolished and the ground levelled off to provide a suitable site for a new, handsome store which Mr. Fillipone proposes to erect there. Not included in the sale are the little old stone building to the right of the church and the old parsonage which stands between the old graveyard and the tracks of the Philadelphia and Western Railway.

The former is the small stone building which originally housed the first school in Radnor township at what was then known as Carr’s Corner. This building ante-dates the old Music Fund Hall, built about 1832. When the small stone structure and the parsonage have been sold, the proceeds will be added to those from the sale of the church itself. With this money the old graveyard, in which the founders of the church are buried, will be fenced in, while the old tombstones will be straightened and the grounds beautified. And thus, too, will perpetual care be guaranteed to the last resting place of those who founded the church 110 years ago.

(To Be Continued)

Old Inns, part 3 – Old Spread Eagle Inn

/ Emma C. Patterson

1950519

In the April 21 and April 28 issues of The Suburban this column described the first Spread Eagle Inn on the Lancaster Highway, which was “kept as a house of entertainment by one Adam Ramsower as early as 1769”. This quaint little building which J. F. Sachse, in his book, “Wayside Inns on the Lancaster Turnpike”, speaks of as “a small rude stone house” was replaced in 1796 by the large three-story stone building with porch and piazza extending along the entire front, which is shown in the picture accompanying this article. Built a year or so after the completion of the first stone turnpike in the United States, this lovely old inn stood slightly to the West of the present building now known as Spread Eagle and occupied by the A. L. Diament Company, Interior Decorators, on the first floor and by apartments above.

Among the early owners of the Spread Eagle were Adam Siter and John Siter. The new tavern was built during the ownership of the latter, who was succeeded by Edward Siter. During the late years of the eighteenth century, the little hamlet which grew up around the Inn was known as Sitersville on all the local maps. Even a post office was located here, the importance of which is shown by old records of the United States postal department for the years ending March 31, 1827. These records show that there was a larger amount of postage collection there than at any other tavern post office on the turnpike east of Downingtown, viz: $60.25. During the same period the collections at “The Paoli” were but $6.54!

Other members of this same Siter family later became extensive landowners of Wayne. William Siter, the grandfather of Mrs. Emily Siter Welcome and George M. Siter, who now live on West Wayne avenue, owned what is at present the Mill Dam property, in addition to many other acres in that general vicinity. The family had much to do with the First Baptist Church which with the old cemetery with its quaint markers still stands as a reminder of days long past.

Before the time when inns like the Spread Eagle became frequent along the highway, travelers secured entertainment at private houses. An early historian, John Galt, writing in 1738, tells us that in the houses of the principal families in the county, “unlimited hospitality formed a part of their regular economy . . . It was the custom of those who resided near the highways, after supper and the religious exercises of the evening, to make a large fire in the hall, and to set out a table with refreshment for such travellers as might have occasion to pass during the night. And when the families assembled in the morning they seldom found their tables had been unvisited.” Inns as they became more and more the order of the day were havens for the weary sojourner in need of rest and refreshment whether “he were farmer, drover, teamster or traveller upon business or pleasure bent”. These taverns became important landmarks in both social and political history, growing, according to Mr. Sachse, “in the course of years from the lowly log tavern, to the stately stone turnpike inn of later years, in which important social functions were held”. In some instances they were also polling places and provided assembly rooms for Masonic Lodges and similar organizations as well as for mass meetings and political rallies.

“Meals at these inns such as the Spread and the Warren presided over by the Pennsylvania-German matron” to quote Mr. Sachse again, “were entirely different from the fare set out in the houses kept by other nationalities. When in the other wayside inns, even of the better sort, regular fare consisted of fried ham, corned beef and cabbage, mutton and beef stews, mush and molasses, bread, half rye and corn meal, with occasional rump steak and cold meats and tea . . . in these Pennsylvania-German inns we had such dishes as “Kalbskpf” (mock turtle) soup redolent with the odor of Madeirs; ‘Sauerbraten’, a favorite dish of the Fatherland; ‘Schmor braten’ (beef a la mode); ‘Spanferkel’ (sucking pig stuffed and roasted); ‘Kalbsbraten’ (roast veal filled); ‘Hammelsbraten’ (roast mutton); ‘Kuttleflech’ (soused tripe spiced); ‘Hinkel pie’ (chicken pot pie); ‘Apfellose’ (apple dumpling); ‘Bratwurst’ (sausage); applecake, coffee cake with its coating of butter, sugar and cinnamon, and many other dishes unknown to their English competitors”.

Sharply defined lines were drawn between the various classes of wayside taverns. Those of the better class, such as the Spread Eagle were known as “Stage stands” when stage coach passengers stopped for meals and sometimes for the night. Here also relays were changed. “Wagon stands”, those taverns patronized by wagoners and teamsters were next in the scale. Often their sleeping quarters were on the floor of the barroom or barn on bags of hay. “Drove stands” made up another class where special accommodations were to be had by the drovers for their cattle, which were here watered, fed or pastured. The lowest class of all was the “tap house” the chief income of which came from the sale of bad spirits or whiskey.

Distances between places were computed from inn to inn, as shown by some of the old provincial almanacs which have still been preserved. Since but few of the teamsters or wagoners could read, the signboards which swung and creaked in their yokes were all figurative. Some were even painted by artists of note. The reason for the figurative feature was two-fold; first, they were more ornate, and second, they could be understood better by travellers of different nationalities. Many of the signs were of a homely character, such as “The Hat”, “The Boar”, “The Lion”, and “The Cat”. The drove stands usually had signs pertinent to their class of patrons, such as “The Bull’s Head”, and “The Ram’s Head”, while tap houses were known by such designations as “The Jolly Irishman” and “The Fiddler”. The best class of stage stands had such names as “The King of Prussia”, “General Paoli” and “Spread Eagle”, to name but a few in this vicinity. Sometimes political changes caused changes of names. One of the most noted taverns on the Lancaster turnpike, the “Admiral Warren”, after the Revolution, had the coat on the figure on its signboard changed from red to blue, and henceforth it was known as “The General Warren” in honor of the hero of Bunker Hill.

Among the many old taverns along the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, in addition to our own “Spread Eagle”, few are better known to the present generation than the “Red Lion”, still a familiar landmark in Ardmore. Also in Lower Merion were “The Black Horse Tavern” just over city line, about one mile east of the old Friends Merion Meeting house and “The Seven Stars”, kept for many years by the Kugler family. The Buck Tavern was between Haverford and Bryn Mawr, a stage stand of the first order and renowned for its good cheer. In Radnor Township there was “The Plough” and “The Sorrel Horse”, the latter still remembered by many in the community. “The Spring House” was just east of Reeseville, now Berwyn, while a nearby Inn was known as “The Drove Tavern”. “The Paoli” was among the most celebrated stage stands. Destroyed by fire in the 1860’s it had been the polling place for several townships and the chief post office for the district.

(To be continued)

(For much of her information the writer is indebted to “Wayside Inns on Lancaster Roadside”, by J. F. Sachse, and to “Early Philadelphia, Its People, Life and Progress”, by H. M. Lippincott)