Concluding the series of articles on the New Hanover village of Pleasant Run.
“Schmitty’s corner, Crump’s house, Pete’s store – Pleasant Run. All the rest is outskirts.” – Pete Yerger
A 1939 article in the Town and Country “spoke of the little known history of the once colorful and important village. The store had been in business for over a century and was built by pioneer George Edelman, who owned all of Pleasant Run at one time. Fifty years later at the age of 80 Edelman built the Pleasant Run Hotel a few yards from the store. But when the highway through Perkiomen Heights a few miles to the northeast was the main turnpike through the region, travelers and teamsters often sought out Pleasant Run and its hotel for an evening’s diversion before stopping for the night at the Perkiomen Heights Hotel. There were regular dances, much music and ready laughter in those days. The general store was purchased in 1912 by H.B. Yerger, and operated by him and his brother for 26 years as a partnership.”
A 1985 letter to the same paper by Jesse Hepler of Salfordville states that “in the 1950’s, one year Pete sold more shoes than any other store in Montgomery County including such busy places ad Norristown and Pottstown. Why? Pete made only fifty cents profit on a sale of a pair of shoes.”
Joe Swann’s memoir, printed last week, mentions that Henry Yerger at his Pleasant Run Store bought pelts and also fur bearing animals trapped by local farm boys. Pleasant run store was famous for this. My father said that he caught as many as 40 muskrats in a winter at our farm. In those days every stream and low place in the area was used for cow pasture, and muskrats thrived in cow pasture streams. Muskrat hides would fetch several dollars apiece. In buying power, that would be 20 or 30 dollars today.
There were other animals too, skunks, ironically, being the most desirable. During the depression, and before, a good black skunk (the less white on the skunk the more it was worth) would fetch as much as five dollars, a windfall to someone then out of work. People roamed the fields at night with flashlights seeking to club the poor critters. Many a boy was banned from school the next day.
It was noted that Henry would come in from work in his skinning shed and, without washing his hands, would dig out a few cents worth of coconut candy for his young customers. It all tasted good anyway.
Children from the Pleasant Run area went to Erb’s School on Deep Creek Road. Sassamansville resident the late Leroy Erb said that six generations ago his family donated the land for that school, hence the name. It’s also called Pleasant Run School.
Long time resident Esther Miller says that in Pleasant Run village “everyone knew everyone else and it was like family.” She says there existed for a time the Pleasant Run Beneficiary Lodge. “This was a social lodge, but it provided a form of health insurance that helped a family through difficult times if the man got ill and couldn’t work. Families kicked in so much, maybe five dollars, and then they could draw on that for a time. At the end of the year there was a big lodge supper to use up any unused money. When companies started to carry health benefits the lodges disbanded.”
Esther Smith Miller (whom I fondly call the mayor of Pleasant Run) is the youngest of 10 children of Simon and Annie Smith. Annie Smith was a New Hanover teacher, first in Freed’s School and then during WWI at Deep Creek.
Esther says there wasn’t any local industry but some people stripped tobacco in their homes. Stripping is removing the leaf stem and veins so it could be rolled into cigars. “A Mr. Schoenly from Sassamansville brought it around in big bundles. Also some women did home tailoring. A man from Philadelphia brought cloth and women made men’s suits. People didn’t need much money to live because the only thing they had to buy was spices and coffee and such. Everybody raised everything and everything was raised at home.”
Around the turn of the century people could pay their township taxes by working on the road. Esther’s grandfather, Abraham Sell, was road-master in Douglass Township, and he let people work on the road at so much an hour until the taxes were paid.
Esther says the Pleasant Run hills were a wonderful place for kids, and they were busy all the time. For example, she says they used to pick wild berries: dewberries, raspberries, black berries, elderberries, strawberries, wine berries, mulberries and cherries, black and sour. Pete Yerger had nicknames for all the neighborhood kids; he called her “Mutt.” She worked as a clerk in the store evenings and weekends when she was in high school.
Henry Yerger died in 1941 probably of prostate cancer. Pete continued running the store until about 1960. After he died in 1963 the building and contents were sold at auction.
The Historian is produced by the New Hanover Township Historical Society. Contact Robert Wood at 610-326-4165 with questions or comments.
