In bygone eras, people identified their home’s location not by road name and street address (indeed there were none), but by geographical location. Geographical locations were usually geographical features such as hills, creek valleys or other notable landscape features. A person, then, would say he lived in Swamp or Fox Hills, not New Hanover or Pottsgrove.
An early place name was the German word for meadows: Schwamm. Anglicized to “Swamp,” it was an early name for New Hanover. The postal addresses of “Swamp Churches” were established in 1815.
Another frequently mentioned early location was “The Oley Hills,” which were nowhere near the present day village of Oley. Located in Berks County around Hill Church above New Berlinville, the Oley Hills are that ridge of low hills lying west of present day Route 100.
In New Hanover, Pleasant Run was the name of the Deep Creek Valley while the Scioto Creek, also called Society Run, was a parallel creek valley. A person might say he lived along the Scioto near Obelisk, or in Swamp by Grubb’s Mill.
Other prominent locations were the Stone Hills near Schwenksville; Prospect Hill (later named Pruss Hill) near Fagley’s Heights, which later became Fagleysville Hill; Ringing Hill (with the colorful Pennsylvania Dutch name “Klingelberg”); and the Fox Hills located in present Upper Pottsgrove Township near Halfway House.
Most road names are 20th century creations, although in older times some roads were locally identified by a mill or prominent farm or another feature located thereon such as “the road by Blases’ Mill” or Big Road and Little Road. Well into the 20th Century, a postal address was just a name and a post office such as “Jane Doe, Perkiomenville, Penna.”
When Rural Free Delivery came along during the Depression, the mailman simply knew everyone’s names and where they lived.
The simple addresses suggest the question of how mail coming into the state was routed. Anyone who sorted and channeled incoming mail from out of state must have known the locations of hundreds, if not thousands, of small post offices, many of which went in and out of existence in a year or two.
Post offices were almost always located in a store. The advantage to the store owner was obvious. One of the first post offices in this region was Swamp Churches established in 1815. In 1829, the name was changed to New Hanover and it was located in Brendlinger’s Store until 1934… 119 years in the same location! Fagleysville had a post office from 1858 until 1915; after that, patrons were served by Gilbertsville. The Pleasant Run post office was established in 1859, discontinued in 1864, reestablished in 1872, changed in 1895 to the single word Pleasantrun and discontinued in 1904. Those patrons were then served by Green Lane. In 1888, a post office was established in Layfield (which is now called Hickory Park) under the name Keystone. It was discontinued in 1905.
James H. Walters was the postmaster at Layfield and also owner of the Layfield Mill that still stands close to Route 73 near Hickory Park. He also owned the large creamery directly across the street from the mill and for which the Hickory Park ice dam was built, which also still exists. The post office was perhaps in the creamery.
Because post offices could not be named for a person, they were often given whimsical names like Obelisk or Congo. Such was the case with the Anise Post Office. Anise is a licorice like flavoring and was the name selected by David W. Hartzell for the post office he established in his newly built store on Little Road between Hildebrant and Renninger roads. He was appointed postmaster in 1888. Henry C. S. Hartzell and Samuel S. Hartzell succeeded David W. at the post. The Anise post office ran until 1907.
A few years back, Robert and Richard Kulp, who live on Little Road, were traveling out west and on a whim dropped a post card in the mail addressed to themselves in “Anise, Pa.” It arrived, delivered through the Perkiomenville Post Office.
The village now called Congo applied to become a post office in 1884 under the name of McCall, a nod to the original name of Douglass Township… McCall’s Manor. That name was rejected, so another try produced Congo as a post office in 1886. It was discontinued in 1917 with patrons served by Sassamansville.
Obelisk in Upper Frederick was originally called Roseville, not for the flower but for the Rose family who were quite prominent there. The name was rejected by the postmaster general as there were too many Rosevilles already; the name Faust also was rejected, so on a whim, someone suggested Obelisk for no reason whatsoever. That name was accepted in 1882. The post office was discontinued in 1978.
In Douglass Township, Gilbertsville was originally called Gilbert-town, then Gilbertville, but the first post office was at Douglass, which was the original name of Sassamansville. That post office was established in 1849 and changed to Sassamansville in 1888. Gilbertville became a post office in 1854. Some time later the “s” was added to the name.
But, the most interesting post office name comes from the small post office called Woxall near Sumneytown. It seems that this post office was originally named “Mechanicsville,” and their postmaster was informed that there were too many Mechanicsvilles in Pennsylvania and he was to pick a new name. Looking around the store some local spotted NOXALL shirt collars, so they sent in the request to call it “Noxall.” Seems their handwritten “N” was mistaken for a “W” and they were informed that their request for the name “Woxall” was accepted.
The Historian is produced by the New Hanover Historical Society. Call Robert Wood at 610-326-4165 with comments.
