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Worcester Historical Society and Its Relationship to the Schwenkfelder Church · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Centrally speaking, is the central speaker from the church's public.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: It speaks of ambition that would be of interest towards his family.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: In particular, it addresses from a Christian worldview in internection with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: In the spirit of the church's family, we take the perspective of the middle women, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Our website is www.cscfamily.mrg.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're very pleased today to have Jim Thompson with us as we speak about the Worcester Historical Society and its relationship with history in this area as well as with the Schweinfeller Church.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jim is a fifth-generation Worcester native.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: He has a love for this area, but he's also been outside of this area, living in places in Africa, in Belgium, Singapore, the Philippines, and also in France for eight and a half years.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: While he was abroad, he was working doing international banking with BNP.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now he has returned to this area as of the year 2000, and he and his wife of 52 years live on the family farm on Hollow Road.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: For 14 years, he's been the treasurer at the Worcester Historical Society.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Jim, we're very glad to have you be a part of this show.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering if you could tell our listeners some things about the Worcester Historical Society, how long it's been in existence, number of members that it has, and something about those members.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think the easiest way is just to open with the mission statement.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: The mission of the Worcester Historical Society is to tell the story of life in Worcester during the second half of the 19th century and continuing to the present.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: By collecting, preserving artifacts of that period, we will give future generations insight into that society, its people, their family life, education, industry, and especially the farming.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: That mission statement came about when the Worcester Historical Society was founded in 1975.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it was founded with the express purpose of welcoming in the bicentennial.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: All the different groups in Worcester, church groups, Schweinfelder, Wences, others, plus Quester clubs and whatever, all seemed to come together to prepare for that event and to prepare for after, because the idea was that the group that was created was called the Friends of Worcester Historical Society.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: And one of their main missions was to purchase the Dutchy Church, which is on Valley Forge Road, which was basically going into ruin.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Among other things, they also bought a Conestoga wagon, which made the trek across the United States, and that is sitting at the Farmers Union Hall, which is a building uh rented by the Worcester Historical Society, where you find all of our museums and things of that nature.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's on Skipback Pike and Valley Forge Road.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: As far as the members go and things like that, we have approximately 250 members.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: We have many lifetime members.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Our members primarily have connections to Worcester, but are all over the United States and abroad.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: We work through the Methacton Alumni Association to target Worcester kids as well as Worcester newcomers.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: We also have quite a few corporate sponsors.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: They are primarily businesses in Worcester or businesses which have business in Worcester.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: We own or rent two buildings, one the Farmers Union Hall, which was built in 1898, and the other is the Dutchy Church.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: In the Farmers Union Hall, this was created almost simultaneously in 1895 by the local farmers and businessmen of Worcester.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: They did not borrow any money to build it.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: They put in their own labor.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: It became quite the place that it could be something like the equivalent of a grange, but believe it or not, the early farmers didn't want to be associated with that.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: They just wanted to be Worcester farmers who built this thing.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it was organized around the welfare and advancement of agriculture, education, progress, and public improvement.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's had a long history.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Between 1908 and 1911, it was the high school for Worcester.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: From 1932 to 1942, it housed the Center Point Egg Auction.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: I should mention the lower level originally had been stables and could hold 41 horses.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: And by the 1950s, the Farmers Union Hall had dissolved and the building was transferred to Worcester Township.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: And between 1967 and 1983, the building housed the Worcester Post Office.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: It also served as the Boy Scout Troop 133 headquarters, which of course the Schwanfelder Church sponsors.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: And in 1986, the Worcester Historical Society leased the building because we were running out of room in the Dutchy Church due to all the donations we were receiving.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: We have a great collection of pictures going between 1885 and 1973 of all Worcester graduating classes.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: And in the one picture from 1910, there are eight members, of which one is Malcolm Schweiker, future wife Blanche Schultz, Ada Maester, and her future husband Earl Markley, my grandparents.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: So this has a long history with people who are Schweinfelders, has a lot of history to it.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's it was used in his assembly hall.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: It was used for as a movie theater.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we have all the records going back to that time.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it was usually, it was actually used almost every day of the week.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you serve people in the the Worcester area who are interested in local history, but uh you you mentioned you have a number of members that live outside of Worcester, and are people tapping into the society for records or for literature?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: In what ways are literally all the above, and that's why our website, Worcesterhistorical.org, has become so important and so robust, because we get requests from literally all over the world, people looking for ancestors and things like that, or documents.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: We get a lot of people coming in on a Saturday morning.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: We're open from May all the way to uh through October every Saturday, 9 to 12.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we have people coming in to do research.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't we talk a little bit about how long Worcester as a township has been an entity?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: How old is this township and who were the first type of settlers?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the first settlers were actually Lenny Lenape.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Worcester, of course, evolved around William Penn and his different purchases.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: In 1773, by that time, the area of Worcester had been all measured out, and there were 12 land grants coming from Penn.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And these 12 land grants were owned by 12 different people, many who did not live here.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: But in 1733, the residents of Worcester, approximately 22 families, petitioned the Philadelphia County because there was no Montgomery County back then.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Montgomery County didn't exist till 1784 to create a township.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: And before that, it was known as Bristol.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Worcester, I don't know the exact origins of why they chose Worcester, except it is a British name.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's spelled C-E-A-S-T-E-R in the UK.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's pronounced, of course, different ways Worcester, Worcester, Worcester, we get that too.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: It became Worcester.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: The people, the settlers by that time were primarily the Welsh, the Germans, the English, and many were primarily were Mennonites.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: There were some Lutherans there too.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: And after 1730, of course, that's when the Schweinfelders began migrating.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you feel that Worcester Township is a significant one in the state of Pennsylvania?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: During colonial times, Worcester is the center of Montgomery County.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: And Center Point is the center point of Montgomery County.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: And all the roads kind of came together there.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: There was the Skipback Pike, which I think goes back to 1713.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: You have the Morris Road, which is just a few years after that.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: You had the building of Germantown Pike in the late, very early 1700s.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, the oldest existing bridge is in Collegeville in the United States, 1792 Stone Bridge.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that was called the Great Stone Road, which went from Germantown all the way up to Berks County, because Germantown was where all the Germans were settling and Ben Franklin wanted them out of there.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: He wanted them to go into the hinterlands and farm.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: He kept Germantown small, but kept the road as a way to get out.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So in many ways, it's always been a significant part of Pennsylvania, just from its uh its locale close to the city, as well as uh, I guess a byway or point uh for people going uh out into rural uh farmstead.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: It had three taverns, which were very important, and the stage coaches could stop there.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned um a library that your society has.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: How how large is it?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what type of collections uh does it have, and then what type of people does it serve?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: The library is in the bottom of the farmers union hall.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: The bottom of the farmers union hall is separated into a farm museum and the library with meeting rooms.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: It holds a lot of information.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, most of it, fortunately, we have put on again on our website, Worcesterhistorical.org.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's a massive collection, frankly.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we have a lot of books, we have school texts which go back to the early days of the one-room schoolhouse in Worcester.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: We have all the minutes, receipts, etc., for business and organizations in Worcester Township.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: We have more family Bibles than we know what to do with because they weigh, they're about the size of a big cinder block, and uh they have been donated to us over the years, and we're just running out of space, frankly.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: They're nice to have, but they really take up a lot of space.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: And we have an amazing number of scrapbooks because people were big scrapbookers back in the late 1800s and the early 1900s.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: We have a lot on genealogies, on recollections.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: As part of the historical society, about every three or four years we'll have a reminisce meeting, uh, which is open to the public where we'll ask uh certain people to come in and talk about what life was in Worcester when they were young and things like that.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: I myself have done one of those, talked about muskrat trapping, shooting crows, working on the farms, and it's kind of fun.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: We have a big portrait area uh for photos, rather, and we have all the graduating classes of Worcester schools, one room and then through Worcester from 1885 until 1973, of which 99.9% of the students in the pictures have been identified because we would have open houses and invite people to come in and look at the pictures.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And certainly for you Schweinfolders, if you want to see what your grandfather looked like in 1894, you can probably find it.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people come in and look at that, and we can scan the photo for them.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And the photo is a group photo, it's like the whole class photo.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: We have a wonderful map collection.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, we just received a map from Mr.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Griffith, who is uh Worcester resident from 1954, an aerial map, all of Worcester, but taken as a photo, and it's really extraordinary and can't wait to use that for the kids when they come in because we do a lot of outreach when we give tours and see if they can find their house and what it looked like in 1954 because the roads are all there.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: It looks just like a snapshot taken above.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Our map collection goes back to I think 1748.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we have all of the maps of Worcester and a lot of Montgomery County, too.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: We have what we call volumes of research, we have the history of Worcester Township, a research collection of literally all the information that went into the Worcester book, all the notes, all the pictures, and a lot of stuff that didn't get in there.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: We have the Cub Scout Pack 200 or the Swankfeld or Cub Scout group.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: We have all their records.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: We have the Fairview Village Assembly records.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: We have the Farmers Creamery Association of Center Point records, because let's face it, Center Point was a hub for picking up milk and things like that.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right down on the corner by the Palmer Farm, the farmers would come and put their milk there to be picked up by the trolley to be taken to the Creamery.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: We have the Farmers Union of Montgomery County Records, the Lester M.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Landis Clippings Collections, which is really extraordinary.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have the local history collection.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: So the library is there.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: We get a lot of resources given to us.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're cataloged, and as much as possible, we do put them on the internet so that you can, you know, you don't have to come in and see them, but you can certainly download things all over.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's great that uh some of these things are uh digital so that they could be sent off potentially even overseas to somebody who can't come to the library uh themselves.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: We can be contacted over the internet, and um, what we'll do is we'll respond or someone will send us a letter.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: And usually it's say, would you be interested in, you know, some kind of artifact from Worcester?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: We do accept them, but we only accept Providence, Worcester, because otherwise we have to find another farmer's union hall to store stuff.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: So literally everything in our museum is from Worcester, with few exceptions.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Over the years, there have been a number of notable people that have lived in Worcester Township.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Could you say a few things about them?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: I have to bring out my great-great-grandfather George K.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Maestrier and his son Cyrus, who did the Schweinfelder's and Worcester book.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: What I really would like to talk about is the Worcester boys who became Eagle Scouts from 1934 to 1970.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: In the early years, Boy Scouts went to a West Point, which was the closest troop.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: But in the 1950s, then the Worcester Troop 133 came into existence, and of course, it was sponsored by the Schweinfelder Church.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: I have identified 20 boys between 1934 and 1970 who received their Eagle Award.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: The first was Elwood Brunt, and he became a famous collector of Indian lore, of Indian everything.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: He had a museum in Worcester, and the reason we know about the Lenny Lenapece being here is he donated a lot of his artifacts dealing with the Lenapece to the Historical Society, and we actually have an exhibit of all that he brought in there.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: And Elwood Brunt just passed away a few years ago.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: I believe he was 95, and at 95, he was still bringing stuff every Saturday morning to the Worcester Historical Society and his old station wagon.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: In 1938, Malcolm Schweiker received his Eagle Award.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think I need to say much about Malcolm because you folks know who he is very well.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: He was killed at Okinawa.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: His remains were transported back to the Garden Memories.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the origins I know it of the uh Schweinfelder Church, the new one, was basically in his memory.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: His brother, Richard Schweiker, was an Eagle Scout in 1943, and we don't need to say much about him either.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: He was a congressman for I believe 12 years.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: When I became an Eagle Scout in 1962, uh Richard Schweiker pinned the Eagle Award on me.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And there were a number of other people.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: In 1956, you had John Chambers, and then later his brother, five years later, uh Jimmy Chambers rather, and then John Chambers, they both were engineers.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: They own Chambers Associates down in Worcester.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: They're retired now, but they had a large Christmas tree farm, and John Chambers was the first president of the Worcester Historical Society.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: A few other people, uh Keith Weirman was a plant manager in 1961.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Leslie Jones was actually a very good baseball player and owned a trucking company.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: All of these folks I'm talking about now are Troop 133.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: The Quay Twins, they're known as the Brothers Quay, and they're probably the most world-famous animators in existence.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: They own a studio in London, and they actually worked for Bill Bourne when they were little kids, learning how to paint and things like that.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: And if you look up, they have won awards all over the place.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: They exhibited at the MoMA, the Mutter Museum, the Louvre.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, these people are extraordinary.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you Google the Brothers Quay, you'll be in for a real treat.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: In 1962, as I mentioned, I also got my Eagle Award.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Andy Lewis sponsored my uh Eagle Award.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, Andy Lewis was the father of Drew Lewis and the owners of Hankles and McCoy.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: And my job to get my project out of the way is I was Andy Lewis's spokesperson.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: I would give his speeches when he would go to the Union League and have to make a speech about the Boy Scouts because he was head of the Valley Forge Council.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: So he would haul me along and I would give his speech at a 14-year-old kid.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine that at the Union League doing that?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: In 1967, you had John Graham, who just recently passed away in January, Cole Hoagland, who's uh became a hospital administrator, and my cousin Bill Markley, who became uh head of the uh South Dakota Department of Natural Resources.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: In 68, you had Tom Cagey, who became a gourmet chef.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: In 69, you had the Bustard twins, John and Larry.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Their dad is the one who owned the Buster Road, of course, the the tree farm.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: And Larry Busard passed away in 2002.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: They were both PhDs in physics, and he is the guy who came up with the way of creating a foam to get rid of anthrax, which infested the Darkson building.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: In 1970, we have John Lawless, who is an orthopedic surgeon.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, his mother was uh a good Schwank voter, and Brad Smith, Ollie Smith's son, who owns Brad Smith woodworking uh right behind the church.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: And we sponsor a lot of Eagle projects at the Historical Society.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's a way of showing people that getting an Eagle Scout is worth it, and you have a good future ahead of you.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us about the old Dutchy Church?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: How old is the building and how long uh have people worshipped at the church?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: The Dutchy Church has been around since approximately 1845.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: The Dutchy Church, it's there at the right off of Valley Forge Road, and it's a typical kind of Teutonic structure, as they called it for that period.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: If you looked at the Dunkered churches in Antietam and those other places, you'll find that they're all exactly the same architecture.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: You have the door for the ladies, you have the door for the men.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's very simple inside, and it's probably done that way because it's an easy way to build.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: The church itself came out of something called the uh Evangelical Congregation, and this was a German sect which was founded by Jacob Albright, who was a Methodist.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: And Albright lived in the middle 1700s.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Although he was baptized a Lutheran, he later became a Methodist, and he was an itinerant preacher, and he basically preached to the uh German congregations in this part of Pennsylvania.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: He was based in Reading, as a matter of fact.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: He created a newly formed Methodist church, as they say, in 1803.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: So our church was built by five different families, among which the Frick family, who owned quite a few quarries.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: The church itself had a very strong abolitionist philosophy about it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, it's uh quite neat inside because it was made at the time when the Fugitive Slave Act was uh in existence.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, that allowed slave owners, slave traders to come into the north to take slaves back home that had escaped.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: And the church looks like it's almost built for that function.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: It has some trapdoors, it has a tunnel which leads out to the cemetery, and underneath it has different places where you can hide.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: My guess is that it was built so that at night escape slaves could come in through the tunnel and then sleep on the floor up top and then leave the same way because the people who would go out to capture slaves would typically watch the front doors of the peace churches, whether they be the Quaker meetings or the brethren or whatever.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: The history is that it was used until 1961.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: And in 1961 it was closed because the Methodists and the Brethren had formed a union and there was no longer any need for the church, and it just kind of sat there for years.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have any water, which means it doesn't have a restroom inside or anything like that, but it does have an outhouse out back, which I wouldn't recommend, but it's there if you would need it.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: And as I mentioned in 1977, uh this is when the Historical Society purchased that church to basically to salvage it and keep it alive.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: As a neat point of interest, though, there's two things.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: There is a geodetic survey seal on one corner, and this was put there in 1942.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: And the geodetic survey was started by Thomas Jefferson, and this is a medallion that was placed there and in many, many other buildings around the eastern United States at the time, and it's a marker that can never be removed because it has an actual point for height, elevation, and longitude and latitude.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: So if we wanted to do something with the church, you'd have to leave that standing somehow.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: We have two historic trees, one on the property itself and one on the property adjoining it.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Those are really important because these are bicentennial trees, which were identified in 1976 as having been 200 years old.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: We do have uh the graveyard, it's very well maintained.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Suffice it to say that we do have burials from time to time, but we restrict them to just cremanes.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, we just had a burial two years ago of the past pastor and his wife of the church.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: What's it used for now?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Between 1977 and 1987 for open houses, things of that nature, Christmas pageants, but afterwards, when we got the farmers union hall, we moved a lot of our activities there simply because of water and other facilities.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: We maintain it.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's still a real neat building and one worth preserving.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I assume that it's not connected with any church, particular church group today.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Other churches apparently looked at it, but they were not as to use it, but they were they were not interested because again, if it had water, sure.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: But but it is a witness of Christian uh involvement in the Montgomery County as well as um Worcester Township area.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned already uh uh Mennonites and uh of course um an evangelical uh congregation being uh the duchy church, all of these religious groups were present during uh the times of the 1700s.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: How have you seen um the Schwenkfelders being involved with uh within Worcester Township and perhaps also in connection with some of these um these different groups, um, these different uh religious groups?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when we go back and look at our membership in The mid 1970s, I would say a good half were Schweikel's.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Rosalie Smith was our first secretary back in 1976.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And our later presidents included Ollie Smith and Billbourne.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Brooke Acre was our attorney.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Malcolm Schweiker was very involved in it too.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: I make reference every now and then to the Worcester book, which is a 550-page history of Worcester.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he uh sponsored the first 1,000 printings of that book.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, it had gone has gone into a second printing as well because of the demand for it.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because it is if you live in Worcester, you should really own it if you have any interest at all in what's going on.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mentioned uh Andy Lewis.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, his son Drew and Marilyn, uh, his wife uh were also very active up until well, she up until just about five years ago before she passed away.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: We've had over a hundred Schwankfelders as members in the first membership roles.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: There were easily identified as over a hundred.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Things are different than they were back in 1976.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: But if you look at the records of the township, I mean, you look at the township supervisors and things of people of that nature, uh, you go way, way back for a very heavy Schwankfelder influence.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: The Schweinfelders were, I would say, just in terms of numbers, more involved in the township and in the historical society than anyone else, including Wentz's, which is also has a very active congregation, too.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you've seen a lot of different changes in uh Worcester Township over the years.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious what ones you personally have seen, but then with all this uh change in the environment and uh questions about history, why is it important to preserve a township's heritage?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, there has been a lot of change.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: In the 1790 census, there was only several hundred residents, as a matter of fact.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, if you look at that, is an interesting thing to look at is the 1790 census, because it has uh Peter Wentz listed there, listing what he owned, including three Negroes.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Those were the only Negroes that we I could find in servitude in in Worcester Township.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And they were they were Peter Wentz's.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Then in 1950, you had approximately 3,000 residents, and now that you have over 10,000.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Development has been pretty much curtailed over the years, and this was done by one man.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: His name was Russell Place, he was a township supervisor for 42 years.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: I know many people who said we should build a statue to him.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: He kept development in line with the rural character of the township.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: He owned the saw a sawmill on Quarry Hall Road, which is right across the fields from where I'm sitting now.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: And if I had opened the window, I could hear it still whine because the sawmill still works.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's now called the Spocked Mill, S-P-A-C-H-T.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: He did a great job.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: One time, for instance, you could only have minimum lot size of three acres.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that keeps a lot of people out, but it also keeps out sewage and things that are, you know, sewers and what have you.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: The biggest challenge we have with development right now is uh, and we've hopefully put a stop to some of this, is cutting down historic trees, uh, demolition of buildings.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: We we lost, believe it or not, a few years ago.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh a developer toured down William Penn's hunting lodge.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Fortunately, a lot of the farmland is preserved.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Someone told me the other day it was almost 1,500 acres out of 10,000 we have as preserved land.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: We have also something called uh something called Act 319, which uh is set up by the county, which allows uh people who have more than 10 acres but under cultivation to get reduced taxes.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we do have a we do have a lot of things in place to help protect this, but it's getting more difficult all the time in terms of uh the new building.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we are actually doing a lot of work in terms of what we're doing for the uh of preserving the area, too.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: One of these is the Historic Resources Survey for the township.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: We do this in conjunction with the state.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: There are about 300 historic buildings and homes that we have identified in Worcester, which are prior to 1940.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: And these include houses, barns, outbuildings, bridges, cemeteries, mile markers.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: And this survey has been going on now for quite a few years, where we collect the history of the house and we do this in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's funded by the Heritage Conservancy, and you've seen their signs over throughout Worcester.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: All the people doing the collection are Worcester folks and mainly are in the historical society.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Although we do not sponsor it, we certainly support it as much as we can.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: We're about finished now this survey.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: The data collected shows that we have a really interesting set of architectural influences here.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: We've identified in the 18th century colonial era, we saw the simple stone farmhouses, and that ranges to Georgian homes.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: In the 19th century, there were three-story Greek revival homes, very popular to the mid-19th century.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then we move into the Gothic Revival and Italianate and Queen Anne homes and the Victorian era, and then in the 20th century we have the big boom in the model, the craftsman style homes, which you find a lot of right in center point.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: So all of these have been uh identified and uh as much history written up on them as possible, and uh GPS'd.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: We have sponsored a number of Eagle Scout projects.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: These are for Worcester boys, but they can be for different troops.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: We have West Point getting involved, we have Troop 133, uh, we have St.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Joe's, we have a number of uh guys who go to St.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Joe's Prep and they belong to their troop too, but they're Worcester residents.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have a few that come from the Presbyterian Church over in Lower Providence.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: But in the past 14 years, we've done over 10 of these.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: We've identified all the historic trees, re-measured them, and GPS them.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: We did a survey of all another uh Eagle project, all the stone buildings in Worcester, the spring houses, smoke houses, etc.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: These have all been taken pictures of, measured, GPS them and the information that's available so we can hopefully not have any of them torn down.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we did a survey of all the barns in Worcester.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: As far as the Dutchy Church goes, we had one Eagle Scout project to repair and replace the iron fence.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: We had another one to paint the interior, another one to repair and repaint all the shutters, and mostly Shane Harris and his mom and his scout troop straightened 23 tombstones and did a repair and cleanup of the of the cemetery.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: And what was fascinating about that is that Shane Harris found a distant relative of his buried there from the 1700s, because uh Shane and his mom are from the Byer family, which was one of the uh earliest settlers uh in Worcester.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the other ways we keep in contact too is that our museum is open every Saturday morning, May through October for visits, research, etc.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: We have an annual antique market.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: We do a lot of community outreach through the schools and things of that nature.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: We have a lot of interactive stuff in the uh farm museum, for instance, where kids can push a button, they'll see a light go on which shows how a saw works or something along that line.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have a biannual member meeting where we have a speaker who comes in and talks to the public and what have you about different about different topics.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we're doing everything that we know that we possibly can do to try and preserve the culture and the history of Worcester, keep it as alive as possible.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, many uh here at the central Schweinfelder Church feel uh very strongly also about Worcester area.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering if uh you might uh even make a few suggestions on uh how uh Schweinfelder's might be able to make a valuable contribution to whether it be uh Worcester Township or the Historical Society.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, just your thoughts on that would be appreciated.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, we're always in competition with your your museum up in uh East Greenville as far as artifacts and things like that go, but we do have quite a bit from the Schweinfelder public over the years.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: We have some wonderful blanket chests, we have quilts, and as I mentioned, the really important thing that we insist on is that all the items that we receive have provenance of Worcester.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: You guys have your ball festival every year, and I know that you sell a lot of goods.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: So if by some chance something is spotted from Worcester that comes up for sale there, which has historical value, we'd like to consider that.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Not to buy it, but maybe to take it as a donation, okay?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because that that's that's one way that we can keep stuff from just filtering out and draining away because we see a lot of that coming from other people who come in and want to donate things to us, but that has nothing to do with Worcester, and they're looking for a home for it, and you know, we give them reference someplace else.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: But what we really need is is something from Worcester.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: I really would like to have some kind of partnerships with the the Schweinfelder Church or other local churches with the Dutchy Church.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is the Orphan Church of Worcester.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: It is a stress on us uh financially because everything we do we get through donations or memberships, things of that nature.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: And this this year has been particularly tough.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: I would like to explore if we could get yourselves or others somehow involved in the church with us.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: We have repairs we need to do, we have to hire people, maybe there's some volunteers.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: Another area would be corporate memberships.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: We have 16 corporate members, and we're not we're not extravagant.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: We just asked for$200 a year donation.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: And we have 16 members from uh either in Worcester, these are small businesses, restaurants, so gosh, Miller Pump, gas stations, whatever.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we have people who come and service Worcester.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: So if there's any small businessmen in the Schweinfelder Church who would like to become a sponsor, this is a cheap way for advertising because they're all listed in our membership.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: We have a on they're on our website too.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: There's a whole page dedicated to them.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that would be another uh opportunity.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe just in terms of of membership, how we can maybe communicate a little better, if in any chance think it would be useful, I could come and give a little talk to your congregation or the folks at Schwankfelder Church, uh, keep them up to date on what's going on with Historical Society.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I would be happy to do that too.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we do have books, by the way, for sale.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: They're$45 a piece, not that I want to shill anything.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: Any little bit helps, and of course, if uh they are really important to the history of Worcester and to anyone who likes the history of Worcester.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: You asked how the Schweinfelders can help.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Those are a few ideas that I had.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being uh specific.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Anything else you want to share about the historical society with us before bringing this interview to conclusion?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: We have a lot of good people.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: We've always had a lot of good people.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: We're all dedicated to basically the same thing, preserving the history of Worcester.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: We're very serious about it.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: We welcome people who are interested in it too.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: We enjoy what we do, we enjoy giving the tours, we enjoy the annual meetings, we enjoy the the the flea market.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's just uh it's a it's a great little society to belong to, and uh we all all have the same goals in common.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: So if anyone is interested in joining, or if there's anything that we can do that would help you out, uh please let us know.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: One last time, if you could give the website uh for the Worcester Historical Society.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's Worcesterhistorical.org.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: One word, Worcesterhistorical.org.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not Worcester and it's not Worcester, it's Worcester.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jim, thank you so much for coming to interview today.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: All the best.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And to you too.