Spread Eagle – Radnor Historical Society

From time to time various members of the Siter family, of which there are still descendants in Wayne, were associated with the Old Spread Eagle Inn. It was in 1825 that Edward W. Siter became owner of that famous tavern, and remained its landlord until 1836 when Stephen Horne, who had been associated with the place for some time, leased the Inn.

Two years before this a most exciting incident occurred in the vicinity of Siterville, as the small settlement around the Inn had come to be called. The excitement was caused by the descent of James Mill’s balloon, which had started from Philadelphia at half past five in the afternoon and some two house later had descended in a field near the Inn.

The aeronaut’s description of the incident is as follows:

“Warned by the increasing obscurity of the world below, I began to descend and at six o’clock and 20 minutes reached the earth in a fine green field, near the Spread Eagle Inn on the Lancaster Turnpike, 16 miles from Philadelphia. As I descended very slowly, two young gentlemen and Dr. M., of Philadelphia, came ot my assistance, and laying hold of the car in which I remained, towed me about a quarter mile to the tavern, where I alighted, balloon and passenger safe and sound.

“Before discharging the gas, several ladies got successively into the car and were let up as far as the anchor rope would permit. The gas was let out and the balloon folded. In doing this a cricket was unfortunately included, and having to cut his way out he made the only break in the balloon which occurred on this expedition.

“Mr. Horne, of the Spread Eagle, treated me with great kindness, and Dr. M. politely offered me a conveyance to the city, which I reached at one o’clock in the morning.”

A far cry indeed to the days, only some hundred years or so later, when the whirr of one airplane or many as they go over Strafford scarcely causes any one to even look up in the sky!

As we stated in last week’s column, the decline of the Spread Eagle Inn as a popular hostelry began with the completion of the old Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, and as time went on it had practically no patronage except that which was local.

However, there was a short period during the Winter when some of the old gaiety was renewed in sleighing parties of young people. Musicians were on hand for the dancers who arrived by the sleighload for open house, which was held all night upon occasion. However, by the latter part of the 1870’s these parties became a thing of the past.

As it became less and less of a good investment, the ownership of the Spread Eagle changed hands many times before coming into the possessin of George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, who is said to have bought it to prevent anyone from obtaining a license for the sale of liquor so near is large building operation at nearby Wayne. This was probably in the very early eighties.

Soon after acquiring possession of the property, Mr. Childs gave its use to the Lincoln Institute of Philadelphia as a summer home for the large number of Indian girls who were being trained and educated by the institution.

Since the managers of the school feared the effect of the hot city on their Indian children they were glad to accept Mr. Childs’ offer. Although no rent was charged, it is said it cost the school more than a thousand dollars to make the hostelry habitable and suited to their use. Soon, almost a hundred girls were established in their new home in what proved a highly successful venture.

One of the most interesting events of the Indian girls’ sojourn at the old tavern was an entertainment given on the evening of September 24, 1884, at Wayne Hall. According to Mr. Saehse’s description, as given in his book to which we have made frequent reference, the program “consisted of a series of twenty-two tableaux, illustrative of Longfellow’s beautiful powem of Hiawatha.

“The Reverend Joseph L. Miller, chaplain of the institution, read the portion of the poem descriptive of the scenes as presented by the dusky children. There were ten characters represented on the tableaux.

“All the scenes passed off successfully, and were well applauded by the large audience present. Among the most vivid pictures were ‘The Indian House’, Hiawatha’s ‘infancy’ with an Indian Lullaby and ‘Lover’s Advent’. The ‘Wedding Feast’, with its songs and dances, was the crowning feature of the evening. In this scene the stage was filled with the girls and boys of the Institute, all in striking costumes brilliant in color and beads, feathers, tassels, fringes and other trinkets. A wedding song was sung, then came the dance, after which a chorus of over thirty Indians sang a hymn in the Dakota language.” (Wayne Hall is the big building still standing at the northeast corner of the Pike and North Wayne avenue.)

Public religious services were also held every Sunday in Wayne Hall by the Institution, when “the choir” music and the responses, according to the ritual of the Protestant Episcopal Church, were entirely rendered by the Indian girls.

“As they walked along the stone turnpike, to and from the services, it seemed a far cry from the days when their ancestors roamed this same countryside as they willed among trails of their own making. Visitors at the school included several traveling Indian bands, among them one led by the famous ‘Sitting Bull’, with his band all resplendent in scarlet blankets, leggings and feathers; with faces and hands daubed and streaked with vermillion and chrome yellow”. They must have been a picturesque lot as they sat around the feast prepared for them by the Indian girls. And all of this was happening in Wayne a little more than sixty years ago!

Later the Lincoln Institute purchased ten acres of woodland on South Valley hill, about a mile and half northeast of the old Inn, after several attempts to buy the latter from Mr. Childs. Three large buildings, used as a permanent former school, were knows as “Po-Ne-Mah.”

Eventually the old Spread Eagle Tavern was demolished by Mr. Childs, the stones being used in the construction of the Wayne Estate houses, if this writer’s information is correct.

According to Elise Lathrop, writing in “Early American Inns and Taverns”, the larger home now known as “Spread Eagle Mansion”, was built somewhere between 1836 and 1846 as a private residence. The building somewhat back of and to the East of the large mansion may have originally been the old stables or some part of them, in Miss Lathrop’s opinion, which she has not been able to verify, however.

(To be Continued)

Any information in regard to the present buildings on the Spread Eagle property will be gratefully received by Mrs. Patterson.

After the Lancaster stone turnpike was completed in 1794, the increase of travel along it necessitated the erection of many inns in addition to the early ones such as the Spread Eagle at Strafford. Eventually they averaged about one to the mile, especially as the distance from Philadelphia increased, and there was greater need for meals and overnight accommodations. Space does not permit an enumeration of all of them in this column, although several seemingly accurate lists are still in existence. One more, however, should certainly be added to those we described in last week’s column, since it is a nearby one which is still standing and in good condition, a charming reminder of an era long past. Still known today as the Ship Inn, it is situated on the Lincoln Highway, one mile east of Exton, catering now to the automobile tourist, as in olden days it catered to the stage coach passenger.

This old Inn as it now stands was built in 1796 by one John Bowen, who brought the signboard from an even older Inn which flourished on the Kings’ Highway west of Downingtown in Revolutionary days. The first Inn was operated by a Tory, as were many others of that time. To quote from the interesting little brochure issued by the present proprietor of the Ship Inn, “Several days after the battle of the Brandywine a company of American soldiers stopped at the Inn for refreshment, but the old Tory flew into a rage and ordered them away. To punish him, the soldiers put the ‘Patriots’ curse’ on the Inn by firing thirteen bullets through its sign. The curse was apparently potent, for the original Ship Inn was soon out o*********** f business.” This signboard was later taken to the new location of the “Ship Inn”, where for many years it swung and creaked in its yoke by the roadside.
Quaint assessment records of the year 1794, now in possession of the Chester County Historical Society, list:
1 large ditto (Stone Building not finished) $600.00
1 stone stable, not finished 80.00
1 log barn 40.00
1 stone spring house 50.00
1 frame necessary 1.00
1 cart house on posts (Buckwheat straw roof) .05

From these figures it is not difficult to estimate the modest cost of the Ship Inn which remains to this day such a charming landmark on the old highway.

This tale of the old signboard, into which the soldiers shot thirteen holes, calls to mind stories of two others Inns in the close vicinity of the Spread Eagle. They were told to me by Miss Lecian Von Bernuth, who is well versed in the history of Strafford, where she makes her home. It seems that in Revolutionary days there was another Inn almost opposite the Spread Eagle. Some English soldiers were quartered at the former, while at the latter there were a few from the American army. At various times they are said to have made forays into each other’s premises, sometimes even meeting in the middle of the road for a skirmish.

The little old stone house standing even to this day just to the west of the present Spread Eagle Mansion was once a roadhouse where men from the American forces were stationed. The big oak still standing in the field back of this building is said to have been a lookout towards Valley Forge. Up until a comparatively short time ago the old bar was still in the small building as was the trap door that on occasion plunged undesirable patrons into the basement!

Some of these nearby taverns took the overflow which could not be accommodated in the more desirable quarters of the Spread Eagle. Doubtless, too, they served for the more ribald element whose presence at the Inn was not welcomed. As the reader looks at the lovely Spread Eagle Tavern as pictured in last week’s column it is interesting to reconstruct scenes within and without as described in J. F. Sachse’s book, from which we have quoted liberally already. Mr. Sachse says:

“Within the tavern all would be life and animation. On warm, fair nights the porch as well as the piazza above was illuminated by large reflecting lamps, where on such occasions congregated the ladies and gentlemen who were stopping there either permanently or merely temporarily to while away the time and watch the life and bustle on the road in front of the Inn, as well as in the yard beyond; the shouts and activity of the hostlers and stablemen at the arrival or departure of the mail or post coach, the rapidity with which the horses were unhitched, or replaced by fresh relays after the passengers had refreshed themselves, the numbers of travelers on horseback or in private conveyance, the occasional toot of a stage horn or ringing of the hostlers bell. All tended to form a continuous change of scene.”

As the Inn guests looked over the rail of the cool, shaded second floor porch they might see long lines of Conestoga wagons going either to the East or the West. These wagons were usually drawn by “five stout horses, each horse having on its collar a set of bells consisting of different tones, which made very singular music as the team trudged along at about the rate of four miles an hour” or there might be companies of emigrants traveling together for mutual assistance towards the new West, there to found homes of their own. Large herds of cattle or flocks of geese also added to the panorama.

In 1823 there were eleven principal lines of “Land Stages” running daily East and West on the turnpike past the Spread Eagle. Among them were the quaint names of “Harrisburg Coachee”, “Lancaster Coachee”, “Lancaster Accommodation”, “Harrisburg Stage”, “Lancaster and Pittsburgh Mail” and others. The fare for way passengers was usually six cents a mile. Through fare from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh was $18.50 each way, meals and lodgings extra.

The “Coachee” here mentioned is described as a carriage peculiar to America, with the body rather longer than that of a coach, but of much the same shape. In the front “it was left open down to the bottom, and the driver sat on a bench under the roof of the carriage. There were two seats in it for passengers, who sat with their faces towards the horses. The roof was supported by posts at the corners, on each side of the doors, above the panels; it was open and to guard against bad weather there were curtains made to let down from the roof and fasten to buttons placed for the purpose on the outside. There was also a leather curtain to hang occasionally, between the driver and the passengers. The Coachee had doors at the side, since the panels and body were generally finely finished and varnished”.

All of this picturesque type of travel that continued by night as well as by day, with the attendant hustle and bustle at the wayside inns, reached its height in the late 1820’s. For it was then that the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad was completed by the Canal Commission. Although many of the more spacious inns such as the Spread Eagle continued in existence for some years afterwards, the necessity for them decreased in ration to the lessening of traffic on the turnpike. Some, however, remained open as summer boarding houses as the Spread Eagle did for a number of years. When the picture reproduced in last week’s Suburban was taken in 1886 by Mr. Sachse, he wrote that “the old inn, though in good repair, is closed and without an occupant, and looms up on the roadside like a dark and sombre relic of the past, with nothing to remind the present generation of its departed glories.”

(To be continued)

(Information on the date of the building of the present Spread Eagle Mansion, as well as names of various owners and any other interesting data will be welcomed by Mrs. Patterson who, to date, has been able to find little of its history. Mrs. Patterson’s address is Windermere Court, Wayne, her telephone is Wayne 4569.)

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The Spread Eagle Inn

Old Inns, part 4 – Spread Eagle