In this area, taverns were a necessity of village life for more than 200 years. First, taverns were friendly meeting places where men, isolated on the farm, could meet, exchange gossip, learn the news and as we say today “bond.” Taverns were by law not used as post offices, but were meeting houses for political parties, polling places, an overnight rest and shelter for farmers taking their goods to the city, and for drovers taking herds to city markets. Also, taverns were overnight rest stops for Conestoga wagons – the freight trucks of their day.
It is estimated that by 1800, it required 7,000 to 8,000 wagons to serve Philadelphia. Many taverns provided hay and overnight shelter for horses. Finally, local government meetings were held there. Indeed, in New Hanover, the Swamp Hotel was the seat of township government until 1960. The Swamp Hotel is now called “Our Place.”
Taverns were licensed in Pennsylvania from the start. There was a significant amount of whiskey distilled here and very cheap rum, by-product of the Caribbean sugar industry, imported into the colonies. As early as 1710, legislation was deemed necessary. An act was passed “that no public house or inn be kept without a license.” The object was stated to be “preventing of disorders and mischiefs that may happen by a multiplicity of public houses of entertainment.” However the license money “formed no inconsiderable revenue to the pockets of several colonial governors” (Bean’s History).
These tavern licenses are on record and allow us to see the innkeepers’ names but unfortunately not where the inns were located. There were no addresses, other than “New Hanover.” Usually there were three or four taverns operating in the township. The earliest one, licensed in 1742 but operating before that, was at the intersection of New Hanover Square Road and Route 73. Few passersby today would imagine that the untenanted white apartment building that sits close to the corner is actually a historic building. But our story is with the taverns of Swamp.
The following newspaper clipping from around 1910 can be found in the County Historical Society archives:
“The hotel kept for many years by Mr. Francis Weand at Swamp, New Hanover Township, is one of the oldest in the county. It is believed to have been built about 140 years ago and its quaint style of construction sustains that belief. A century ago it was known as ‘Falconi Swamp Hotel’ and its swinging sign was the picture of the rising sun. About seventy years ago it was kept by a man known as ‘Ole Wessel.’ The landlords who succeeded him were
John SnyderCharles SnyderPhilip Bitting
Samuel HartranftSamuel ThomasGeorge Ziegler
Peter FritzMatthias WartmanJosiah Huber
William ThomasFrancis Weand.”This clipping like so many things from the newspapers of olden days is suspect. What an odd name for a German Tavern, “Falconi.” Sometimes the Pennsylvania Dutch word “Schwam” was Anglicized to “Swamp” (the former name of New Hanover), but in 1800 these establishments were called inns or taverns or public houses, never “hotels.”
Francis Weand did keep a tavern from 1848 to 1877 but he bought it from Moses Kehl who kept it for many years. The 1848 map shows “Weand’s Tavern” located directly across from Schneider’s Tannery just below the Minister Creek bridge on the Swamp Pike. It was demolished sometime about the turn of the century and a double dwelling erected on the old foundation, but it was a small tavern, the type often called a public house.
With few records, we can only speculate about what went on. I think when storekeeper Frederick Brendlinger bought the Schneider’s Tavern Building (pictured in the last article) in 1867, where he had been keeping store for many years, he went out of the tavern business. The tavern license could have been transferred over to the “Swamp Hotel” then under construction. The era of the country inn was ending and Schneider’s Tavern was probably regarded as passed its day and not worth keeping open.
By then the trains running from Reading to Philadelphia through Pottstown would have taken over most of the freight and passenger business. There would have been few teamsters and few drovers that needed shelter for the night as most everything went by train. The first train departed Reading for Philadelphia on Dec. 5, 1839, carrying 1,635 barrels of flour, 73 tons of iron, six tons of coal, two hogsheads of whiskey and 60 passengers. Goodbye Conestoga wagons! The track extended to Pottsville in 1842, which occasioned a celebration using 75 passenger cars, three bands and 2,000 passengers. The spur to Boyertown soon followed. With few travelers needing shelter for the night there was little need for the old colonial inns.
Although still renting rooms to travelers, the modern Swamp Hotel was built more as a resort where the “better class” of people could flee the air pollution and summer heat of the towns and cities for a country holiday or extended stay. It was convenient. At the turn of the century the electric trolley would stop at the hotel connecting it to the rail system in Pottstown, Boyertown, Reading and all points beyond. The trolley provided fast, affordable, light rail service from New Hanover to anywhere.
Between 1867 and 1937, there were 22 deed holders of the Swamp Hotel. There were times in the early 20th century when it had a somewhat checkered reputation and, it seemed, a new owner every year.
But like its neighbor, Fagleysville Hotel to the south, the Swamp Hotel still exists. The village taverns have existed in New Hanover for at least 260 years.
An act of 1794 states that the “great abundance of taverns and public houses for the vending of spirituous liquors has been found to promote habits of idleness and debauchery; to the end that the number thereof be determined by the means of real utility and necessity.” It didn’t work. In 1794 there were about 70 taverns in Montgomery County, and in 1883, 209. The $100 annual license fee might have been an incentive to allow their increase.
The Historian is produced by the New Hanover Township Historical Society. Contact Robert Wood at 610-326-4165 with questions or comments.
