Remembering Conshohocken and West Conshohocken

by Jack Coll

  In 1953, after more than three years of Newton raising money for the Conshohocken Community Chest for the purpose of building a youth center called the Fellowship House (a name given by Newton Walker), the community center opened its door with Newton presiding. The Fellowship House opened at Christmastime in 1953 at a grand building cost of $225,000, most of it donated by Walker Brothers or fundraising undertaken by Newton.

  In 1958, following a fire at the Harry Street School, the borough was in financial straits and unable to rebuild the school. It was Hervey to the rescue—he drafted the plans and laid out a good portion of the funds to rebuild a modern school, renamed Hervey S. Walker Elementary School. In 1957, a group of businessmen founded the Leeland Foundation, with Albert A. Garthwaite Sr. as president and Hervey S. Walker as one of the founders. The Leeland Foundation still gives out grants and supports Conshohocken today.

  Hervey S. Walker never lived in Conshohocken; in fact, he lived six miles from the town in Haverford. He passed away in September 1958 in Atlantic City. Many people never knew what the “S.” stood for in his name; it was Stricker, Hervey Stricker Walker.

  THE QUAKER CHEMICAL STORY

  Quaker Chemical had very humble beginnings when Emil Niessen, a German-born chemist who had been a salesman for a chemical company, began his business on December 13, 1918. Niessen started his business on the second floor of an old factory that was located on the berm bank between the canal and the Schuylkill River. The John Wood Manufacturing Company would later expand and occupy the site.

  Niessen manufactured oil products and lubrications for the textile industries. He called his company Quaker Oil Products. By 1927, Emil Niessen had moved the company to its present location, an old glass factory on the border of Conshohocken and Whitemarsh Township along East Hector Street. As the nation was headed into a depression, an offer came to sell the company. Mr. Niessen was only too happy to sell to brothers D.J. and L. Osmond Benoliel, while Niessen retained part ownership. By 1930, the firm incorporated as Quaker Chemical Products Company and consisted of twenty employees, including laborers, two chemists and nine office employees. The nation felt the full impact of the Depression by the end of 1930. Many local factories were working four-day workweeks, but Quaker Chemical Products Company managed to go over $200,000 in sales for the year.

  Over the next twenty years, Quaker expanded, opening plants in Wilmington, Chicago and Detroit. The postwar years helped stimulate Quaker’s business with the growing automobile industry and the popularity of household appliances. By 1953, Quaker Chemical had posted more than $10 million in sales.

  In April 1951, a massive explosion at Quaker set the company back but not out. The explosion caused a fire that gutted most of the main production plant, causing more than $400,000 in damages. The employees worked around the clock to rebuild the plant in something of a record time. Company executives were pleased when the production lines were back in full force and not a single customer was lost.

  Today, the Quaker Chemical Company is still headquartered in Conshohocken, with regional headquarter locations in China, Brazil, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro and the Netherlands. From $200,000 in sales back in 1930 to a $581.6 million company today, Quaker continues its commitment to excellence for its customers.

  Quaker Chemical treated its customers the way it has treated the Conshohocken community for more than ninety years. Along with the Walker brothers, the Benoliel family contributed much to the building and maintenance of the Conshohocken Fellowship House. Peter Benoliel, chairman of the board for many years, took a keen interest in the Fellowship House and the development of Conshohocken’s youngsters, participating in many events throughout the years. The Quaker Chemical Company has never failed to support Conshohocken, and Quaker is currently helping many communities not only throughout this country but around the world as well.

  ALAN C. HALE, ALMOST A CENTURY

  The story of Hale Pumps of Conshohocken can be traced to Wayne, Pennsylvania. In 1906, the Radnor Fire Company purchased a new state-of-the-art motorized fire pumper, the first in America. Radnor firefighters Jan Wendell and Charlie Young would often take the horseless fire carriage to the Hale Knox Motor Company garage for repairs. Alan C. Hale, who owned the garage, was also an active firefighter with the Radnor squad. Hale shared a common interest with Wendell and Young to make firefighting equipment more efficient, especially the horseless carriage and its pumping capacity of water to extinguish fires.

  The three dedicated firefighters developed an interest in the new motorized fire carriage and strongly believed improvements could be made on both the truck and pump that would provide better fire protection to the community. The three men formed a partnership and set up shop at the Hale Knox garage, making fire engine pumps. The company would be known as the Hale Motor Company.

  By 1914, a military conflict was raging overseas, and before it was over the conflict would become known as World War I and involve most of the world’s great powers. In that same year, the three partners came up with a new pump for firefighting called Young Giant and, shortly thereafter, got its first test. The bronze body pump was mounted on a secondhand simplex chassis, and on December 30, 1914, the Young Giant was called out to fight a fire at the Wayne Opera House.

  Fire companies from throughout Philadelphia and Montgomery County took notice when the Young Giant pumped water for six straight hours until the fire was extinguished. The George Clay Fire Company of West Conshohocken was so impressed with the truck and pump that the company purchased the truck and used it for more than ten years before purchasing another Hale truck. The Hale Motor Company all of a sudden had trouble keeping up with the demand for the trucks and pumps. By 1917, it was time to move to Conshohocken.

  The Hale Motor Company of Wayne purchased a plot of ground on Spring Mill Avenue near Eighth Avenue from C.A. Desimone. The company awarded a contract to Burns and Desimone for the erection of a one-story brick building forty by ninety-six feet. The Hale Motor Company was already building fire pumps and trucks for Plymouth Fire Company, Conshohocken Fire Company No. 2 and George Clay Fire Company, among others. The new plant was dedicated to the building of pumps and would employ about fifteen local skilled mechanics. It was at this time that the partnership was incorporated, becoming Hale Fire Pump Company. Alan C. Hale was the company’s first president and treasurer, and Wendell and Young were members of the board of directors.

  By 1924, Alan Hale had resigned from the pump company to concentrate on his garage business. Hale had a love of the automobile and wanted to devote more time to the auto industry. E.J. Wendell took over as president and general manager of the Hale Fire Pump Company, and in 1924, the Conshohocken plant quadrupled in size. Hale would continue to expand its operations in the borough for the next fifty years.

  In 1952, Hale purchased seven acres of land to build a new plant on Washington Street at the foot of Jones Street, in an area formerly known as “the Meadow.” The Meadow served the borough as a baseball field for close to seventy-five years.

  In 1974, Hale opened a “clean air” foundry, also located on Washington Street, that featured both induction and gas-melting furnaces used by gas and electric. The thirty-four-thousand-square-foot foundry cast pump parts in iron, aluminum and brass. In that same year, the company also broke ground for the second phase for a new sixteen-thousand-square-foot air-conditioned machine shop. With the addition of the foundry, the company employed as many as 250 union employees by the mid-1970s.

  The Hale Fire Pump Company started with 3 men and a fire pump back in 1914; by 1922, 24 employees found full-time work with the company. By 1954, a total of 240 employees were collecting paychecks from Hale, and by the mid-1970s, more than 500 employees, including office personnel, enjoyed employment with the Conshohocken firm.

  Generations of families have realized the American dream working at the Hale Fire Pump Company, and today Hale Products Inc., with products and production plants throughout the world, continues to employ Conshohock
en residents while servicing the continent with the best firefighting equipment in the world.

  AND THERE’S MORE

  Cigar, brewery, ice cream and casket companies were all part of Conshohocken’s job market at one time or another. In 1928, the Bobrow brothers opened up their cigar factory, called Bobrow Brothers Cigar Manufactures. The cigar factory was a three-story building located on the corner of Hector and Apple Streets.

  The Crystal Spring Brewing Company was located on the southwest corner of Hector and Jones Streets. F.A. Loeba started the business in 1898, and two years later, it became the Crystal Spring Brewing Company. The company was short-lived, closing its doors in 1902. The building for many years was occupied by the Acme Saw Company, owned by the Capozzi family, and is currently a condominium complex. Also around the turn of the twentieth century was the Leibert and Obert Brewing Company, once located on the canal bank. The company also had a cold storage building, where it stored kegs of beer. According to newspaper accounts in 1910, the cold storage building was also the site of weekend drinking get-togethers for the young men about town.

  In 1919, I.D. Shaffer leased his planing mill located at Elm and Maple Streets to the newly organized Conshohocken Burial Casket Company. The casket company was unable to sell to any of the local undertakers for the first four weeks, as it had backorders promised.

  The Harvey Ice Cream Company was opened in 1929 by Michael J. Harvey. The Eleventh Avenue resident built a two-story ice cream factory at the corner of Twelfth and Maple Streets and purchased the most modern ice cream–making equipment available.

  Vistex Brothers out of New York opened a yarn plant in 1929 that would employ more than seventy Conshohocken residents. In 1889, Stanley Lee had his cotton factory in full operation, and in that same year, James and Lawrence Ogden operated a woolen factory. Textile mills employed thousands of residents on both sides of the river for many years, including Superior Knitting Mill, Rambo & Regar Knitting Mill and J&S Lees Textile Mill. Aramink Carpet Mills, owned by James Hall, began in West Conshohocken in 1881 and employed more than fifty residents. The J.N. Susskind Company purchased the old Lee Surgical Supply factory at Eighth Avenue and Harry Street and for many decades manufactured military clothing.

  In January 1918, the Ford & Kendig Company of Philadelphia announced the purchase of seven and a half acres from R.V. Mattison of Ambler. The ground was located on Washington Street and was the former site of the Longmead Iron Company. Ford & Kendig was one of the best known manufacturers engaged in the iron pipe and steam specialties business. The firm was incorporated in March 1888 by partners Alfred E. Ford and John Kendig, and the two established their business at 712 Filbert Street in Philadelphia. Within the first year in Conshohocken, nearly 150 residents were employed for the pipe-making business. By 1930, the company announced an expansion that would increase the workforce by another 150 employees to work in the foundry and warehouse. The Ford & Kendig Company ceased operations in the 1980s, and the site is currently one of many office buildings constructed by O’Neill Properties, owned by Brian O’Neill.

  Frank Carlile and Leon Doughty were high school buddies, and in their senior year of high school in 1906, the two envisioned a future where the new technology of electricity would power the nation into a new century. By 1912, the two friends had set up a small battery plant in Conshohocken called Carlile and Doughty Batteries, later shortened to C&D Batteries. C&D Batteries operated out of Conshohocken for nearly ninety years before moving its headquarters to Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. The battery company took off in Conshohocken, and by the Second World War, it met the challenges by developing industrial batteries. The company stayed on top of the industry and never failed to expand with the changing demands of technology. Today, C&D Technologies has locations throughout the world, including Mexico, England, Canada, China and several locations in the United States. For more than a century, C&D Technologies has followed the lead of Carlile and Doughty by continuing to meet the technological challenges of the future.

  Although we can’t mention the hundreds of companies that have had a chapter in the borough’s history, here’s a list of some of the old—and not so old—factories, mills, companies and other places where Conshohockenites have earned a living for their families.

  A few were founded in the 1800s: Longmead Iron Works, 1882; Plymouth Rolling Mill, 1881; H.C. Jones Company, 1880–1950; Colwell’s Furnace, 1866; Merion Furnace, 1866; Spring Mill Terra Cotta Works, 1898; Schuylkill Iron Works, 1898; Schuylkill Woolen Mills, 1898; Poulterer & Co. Iron & Steel & Machinery, 1898; A.L. Miller & Co. Planing Mill, 1898; Albion Print Works, 1871; Joseph Whitton Woolen Mills, 1871; John O’Brien Brick Yard, 1871; George Tracy Brick Yard, 1871; George S. Yerks Planing Mill, 1871; Walter Cresson and Brother Saw Factory, 1889; Jacoby & Company Marble Yard and Saw Mill, 1889; Farr & Kinzie Furnace, 1835; Merion and Elizabeth Furnaces and Merion Iron Company in West Conshohocken, 1847; Plymouth Furnaces, 1845; W.C. Hamilton & Sons, 1856; and Merion Worsted Mills, 1891.

  A few industries some of us just might remember founded in the 1900s include: the Bentley-Harris Manufacturing Co., 1924; Philip Carey Manufacturing Co., 1902; Coopers Creek Chemical Co., 1938; Empress Hosiery Co., 1937; Flexton Inc., 1946; Francis L. Freas Glass Works, 1905; Glassine Paper Co., 1925; Graeber Machine Works, 1927; Gray’s Ferry Brick Company, 1942 (Gray’s Ferry Brick Company was located in the former Harrison mansion once located at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fayette Street, currently the CVS Pharmacy); Kimble Glass Co., 1910; E.J. Levino & Co., 1916; Moser Glass Works, 1914; Philadelphia Steel & Iron Co., 1929; Philadelphia Uniform Co., 1903; Reilly-Whitman-Walton Co., 1923; Tompkins Rubber Co., 1938; United Pattern Co., 1939; Valley Forge Cement Co., 1927; Yergey Peanut Co., 1936; Chrome Alloy Products Inc., 1929; No-Gum Products Co., 1918; and Getz-There Soap Laundry Company, opening in 1908 and employing more than fifty residents. The laundry business was operated out of the old Martin Building once located on Hector Street.

  In 1937, the Marsden Glass Corporation moved to Conshohocken following seventeen years of production in Ambler. J.E. Marsden was the owner of the glass company that manufactured the glass vacuum–type coffee maker, for which Mr. Marsden held the patent. The plant was located on the property located at Elm and Ash Streets and employed seventy-five residents.

  In December 1930, a new industry began operation in the old Miller Planing Mill owned at that time by C.B. Daring Millwork Company, once located at Elm and Poplar Streets. The construction of miniature golf courses for home use would be manufactured with the help of eight to ten employees. Keep in mind that in 1930, Conshohocken had four public miniature golf courses, and an in-home miniature golf course was very popular at the time. The four public miniature golf courses were the Washita Indoor Course, once located at Sixth Avenue and Harry Street; the Rock Garden Golf Course, located at Sixteenth and Fayette Streets; the Conshohocken Junior Golf Course, run by Henry Feingold and located at Twelfth Avenue and Wood Street; and Fayette Street Junior Golf Course, located at Twelfth and Fayette Streets.

  Part Four

  The Uniforms: Police, Firemen and Military

  POLICE

  Conshy, Times Were Tough

  In 1850, when Conshohocken incorporated as a borough, the village had a mere 727 residents and very little, if any, criminal activity. Twenty years later, the young borough was laying down the foundation for becoming a major industrial town. The iron- and millworkers were a young, rough bunch who, upon being paid on Saturday mornings, found themselves in one or more of the local taverns for an afternoon of relaxation. By early evening, the overcrowded bars, some with dirt floors, became a crush of loud voices, rattling bottles and the smell of stale beer.

  Generally, the conversations were jovial, and all too often the ironworkers would get to bragging about their abilities as workers. More than once the townspeople were heard saying that “more iron was made in the saloons on Saturday night than made at the mills during the week.” Of course, all of their differe
nces were settled outside.

  The workers came from Fulton’s two furnaces in Conshohocken and Moorehead’s two furnaces in West Conshohocken, and the workers from Spring Mill furnaces were always involved in the weekly fisticuffs, as were the employees from the furnace at Matsunk—now Swedeland—and the mighty ironworkers of Alan Wood. As the industries grew, so did the taverns and saloons, and by 1870, the Saturday night get-togethers also included the quarry workers from Whitemarsh, the lime burners from Plymouth and, of course, the steel workers from Connaughtown.

  The Conshohocken Police Department was formed in the early 1870s and was already more than fifty years old when this photo was taken in the mid-1920s. The four-man police force, led by Chief William Heald (standing in the back on the right), was made up of Samuel Himes, Daniel Donovan and Frank Jacquot. Burgess John Hampton is standing in the back on the left. This photograph was taken outside the police lockup once located on West Hector Street.

  Eventually, the company workers formed themselves into company gangs. There were the Connaughtowners, the Guineatowners and the Pikers. Just outside of the borough were the Hickerytowners and the Limeburners from Plymouth. Adding to the rowdiness of the Saturday night drinking parties were the boatmen who worked and traveled along the canal, who tied up their boats on Saturday afternoons until they were sober enough to unhitch the boats on or about Monday morning. The town residents also had to contend with workers from the freight trains as well as the free travelers of the trains known as hobos.

  Residents who lived in certain parts of town had trouble traveling to other parts of town because the gang mentality transferred to all parts of the community. West Elm Street became known throughout the borough as “the Bowery” and was a very rough stretch of real estate to pass through, especially when an outsider—particularly one from Connaughtown—attempted to make his way through the Bowery. As stated earlier, Lower Maple Street was known as Cork Row, named for the Irish section of town, long before Italians started moving into the borough along Maple Street and Cork Row eventually became known as Little Italy.