Fagleysville Hill, perhaps the highest point in Montgomery County, is an old landmark in New Hanover Township. Located at the intersection of Swamp Pike and Fagleysville Road, the tiny hamlet of Fagleysville extends less than a quarter-mile in each direction. The village existed at least since 1758 when the earliest map of the area shows an inn called The Rose located on “the road to Colebrookdale” at that location. The intersecting Fagleysville Road was laid out in 1766 but was established well before that date.
In Colonial times, a great quantity of pig iron from Warwick Furnace was hauled over what became Fagleysville Road to the large Mayburry Forge At Green Lane where the iron was refined and formed into bar iron and nail rod that blacksmiths could use. The road started at Turkey Point on the north bank of the Schuylkill near Sanatoga. On the south side of the river, a road extended to Warwick Furnace. Consequently, the intersection of that road and “the road to Colebrookdale” now known as the Swamp Pike would have been an excellent tavern location serving Swamp Pike travelers and Fagleysville Road teamsters.
In 1763, we find Adam Brant, described as a clockmaker, purchasing 22 acres in New Hanover. It is believed that he lived in association with farmer Michael Brant who owned 150 acres in the southern part of Fagleysville. Prospect Hill, which now lies partly in Lower Pottsgrove Township, was on the edge of the Michael Brant farm. Adam Brant was a prolific maker of tall case clocks (“grandfather clocks”) and died in 1804. He left a daughter, Mary, who married Henry Kepner.
Fagleysville takes its name from the descendents of Hans Heinrich Vogeli. Of Swiss descent and born 1684 in Germany, Hans Heinrich Vogeli, his wife Anna Maria Gilbert and 11 of his children arrived in Philadelphia on Aug. 28, 1733, aboard the ship Hope. Nothing is know of them until 1740 when they appear in Lutheran church records in New Hanover.
The line we will follow is of his ninth born child, Hans George Fagley, in church records spelled “Voegle.” Hans George, was born Jan. 24, 1726, in Germany and died Sept. 7, 1784, in New Hanover. Following the German naming pattern wherein men were known by their middle names, henceforth he is called “George,” not “Hans.” George was twice married – in 1747 to Maria Catharina Sam and then to Philippina Crebill. George had many children, one of whom was Johannes (John), born 1752 and confirmed at New Hanover Lutheran in 1773. His grave at the Lutheran Church is marked by the 13-star flag of a Revolutionary War veteran. Indeed, he is listed on the roster of Philip Hahn’s company of New Hanover militia engaged in 1777.
The first Fagley name on a Montgomery County deed that this author located was for 106 acres centered about where the present Revolutionary War marker stands by the Swamp Pike at Faust Road. The deed is dated 1786 and transfers ownership from Benjamin Markley to John Fagley, the war veteran.
Benjamin Bertolet wrote in a 1905 article published in the Historical Society of Montgomery County’s “Sketches”: “There are now living four grandsons of John Fagley, the Revolutionary soldier, namely, Frederick Fagley, in his 81st year; Elias Fagley, in his 78th year; John S. Fagley, in his 76th year; and Noah Fagley, in his 73rd year. Their father’s name was also John [the tanner], who lived on his father’s [John the soldier] farm but built the tannery and buildings on the south side of the Swamp road at a spring, which is the source of the Sanatoga Creek.”
Statement of Frederick Fagley taken by Bertolet in 1905: “I was born in October, 1819 and raised on my grandfather’s farm and was the owner of it for twenty-five years and erected the new brick house and barn on it (at the intersection of Faust Road and Swamp Pike). I well remember my grandfather. I was 14 years old when he died at the age of 84. He used to point out where and whose farms the Continental army occupied …”
“While a young man I used to gather the leaden musket balls, and grape and canister balls and broken shells, and at one time I had as many as a straw bread-basket full. I saved some of them for a long time, but gradually they dwindled down to one, which I always esteemed and valued very highly. As you are writing this sketch, I therefore hand it to you with the request that you present it to the Historical Society of Montgomery County to be placed with other relics that the society has.
“[Grandfather] used to point out a large sprawly oak tree on the southwestern slope towards the Speck Creek where the army killed the cattle and hung them on the low spreading limbs. …
“My grandfather, John Fagley, served in the first class of the militia company from New Hanover Township under Captain Hahn in the Revolutionary War.
“I well remember him when he was about 80 years old and up to the time of his death. He used to mount his saddle horse and ride from his home in Fagleysville to New Hanover square with his old army overcoat on to cast his vote on election day. This overcoat was similar to the present army coat, except it was made with three capes instead of the one they use at the present time.”
Frederick’s brother Noah, born 1829, was a farmer and tax assessor of the township. His hand-drawn tax map showing ownership as well as metes and bounds of all properties and acreage hangs in the Swamp Creek School House. In his school days, he attended the famous eight cornered “Swamp Door School” near Schaeffer Road and Swamp Pike with John Hartranft, later Civil War general and state governor. He learned the trade of tanner which he followed for a time. Noah, too, had many children.
Another brother, Elias or Eli, built the Fagleysville Hotel in 1861. Also in 1858, Elias was the postmaster of the new Fagleysville Post Office. Post offices were usually maintained in general stores. That post office closed in 1915. Through much of the 20th century, the Pfeiffer family owned the Fagleysville store and hotel.
Hans Heinrich Vogeli’s many descendents scattered to the four winds, many branches extending through Berks and Lehigh counties. A common variant of the name’s spelling is “Fegley,” but there are all sorts of spellings. It’s a large family. To further complicate genealogist’s work, there are several immigrants in the 18th century named “Vogeli.”
About 1870, the Fagleysville School District broke with the township’s one-room school system and went “independent.” There was a large two-room school maintained there by the community until the late 1940s. Through most of the 20th centur,y the hamlet of Fagleysville had a school, a store, a hotel, a grange and various other social and business accommodations associated with village life.
