Remembering Conshohocken and West Conshohocken

by Jack Coll

  Daniel Ermentrout was named principal of the grammar school, now containing about fifty pupils. He resigned in 1857 and was replaced by Jesse Hall. Hall remained as principal until 1864, when he resigned, and Reuben F. Hoffecker was appointed principal. Hoffecker led the charge to build the public school at Third Avenue and Harry Street, a school that would eventually bear his name.

  MONTGOMERY COUNTY TAPS THE BEST

  Reuben Hoffecker was a leading educator of the day, and when he accepted the job as school principal in 1864, the school was already overcrowded with more than 230 pupils. Within five years, Hoffecker convinced the school board to build a modern-day facility at Third Avenue and Harry Street. It was first named the Third Avenue Grammar School and later the Harry Street School.

  Hoffecker organized the public schools of Conshohocken into a system that became more effective than any other school system in Montgomery County. Graduation of pupils was a new idea in education when Hoffecker introduced the ceremony in Conshohocken in 1872. Hoffecker also introduced graded courses and school libraries.

  There was no doubt that Reuben Hoffecker was the pioneer educator of the borough of Conshohocken, and other school systems and school districts took notice. When Montgomery County created the post of county superintendent of schools, it tapped Conshohocken’s own Reuben Hoffecker, who resigned from Conshohocken in 1878 to share his knowledge with the rest of the county.

  Following Hoffecker as principal in Conshohocken was J.W. Schlichter, followed by J. Addison Jones, who served one year. Then John Harley served until 1892. Conshohocken then hired J. Horace Landis as principal, and he served until 1896, when he was elected superintendent of borough schools, being the first to hold that office in Conshohocken. In 1904, following a very successful twenty-five-year run as county superintendent of schools, Reuben Hoffecker resigned his post.

  Once again, Montgomery County came calling upon Conshohocken, asking for Landis to fill Hoffecker’s shoes at the county level of superintendent of schools. Landis resigned in Conshohocken in 1904 to do just that. As Montgomery County called on Conshohocken for school leadership, it acknowledged the borough’s ability to recognize talented educators. Landis was an ardent advocate of consolidated schools and worked continuously to enact the legislation necessary for the establishment of such schools. When the legislature permitted the consolidation of township schools, Landis personally carried on a campaign of education among the school directors and parents, showing the advantages of consolidated schools, which would give all pupils the same educational advantages enjoyed by children of the larger towns.

  Many of the programs enacted by Montgomery County superintendent of schools Reuben Hoffecker and J. Horace Landis were recognized and implemented at the state level. The county’s first two superintendents were at the forefront of modern educational advances in the state of Pennsylvania, and it all started in Conshohocken.

  On March 2, 1922, the Harry Street Grammar School was renamed the Reuben F. Hoffecker Grammar School in honor of Hoffecker, who had passed away in 1921.

  CATHOLICS, CONSHOHOCKEN WAS THE FIRST

  St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church was established in 1851 under the guidance of Reverend Patrick A. Nugent. Twelve years later, in 1863, Reverend Richard F. Kinahan recognized the need for a Catholic school teaching the religious values of the church. In September 1864, St. Matthew’s School was established in the basement of the church, then located on the corner of Hector and Harry Streets. Three teachers—Mary Ella McCullough, Elizabeth O’Brien and Mary McGuire—established the teaching guidelines for the school. By June 1865, more than fifty students were attending the basement school.

  By 1866, St. Matthew’s School had established advanced courses, or high school education, which led to the school’s first high school graduating class. One hundred years later, in 1966, when St. Matthew’s High School (then located at 1300 Fayette Street) changed its name to Archbishop Kennedy High School in honor of Reverend Thomas F. Kennedy, it was the oldest Catholic high school in the United States.

  By 1869, more than one hundred students attended the basement school, and Father Kinahan purchased property on Hector Street east of Ash Street for the purpose of building a schoolhouse for St. Matthew’s pupils. Acting as the architect, and with no permits needed, Father Kinahan opened the new school in 1872 at a cost of $15,000. The new two-story structure consisted of ten classrooms and six cloakrooms. Nine of the classrooms were for elementary studies, and one classroom was used for high school studies. Keep in mind that not many students pursued a high school education; in 1895, only seven students graduated. Restrooms were later added in a separate building located behind the school, replacing the antiquated outhouses. The school was being used as an elementary school into the early 1970s.

  St. Matthew’s Church established a school in the basement of its church in 1851. By 1872, the parish had purchased ground on East Hector Street and built a school. Bertha Knicht was one of seven graduating students from St. Matthew’s School in 1895; she lived to be ninety-five years old and passed away in 1974.

  In 1993, Archbishop Kennedy High School closed its doors and merged with Bishop Kenrick High School, renamed Kennedy-Kenrick High School, located in Norristown. In 2010, Kennedy-Kenrick closed its doors, leaving both Conshohocken and Norristown without a Catholic high school.

  SAY GOODBYE TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

  Reuben Hoffecker established Conshohocken’s first public high school, located next to the elementary school on East Third Avenue. The first high school graduating class was in 1872. Once again, the borough’s population growth forced the expansion of school facilities, and in 1913, the borough school board purchased property on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fayette Street. Two lots, 40 feet on the corner, were owned by Romandus Scheetz, and were purchased for $5,000. Four lots adjoining, owned by Mrs. William Maconachy, were purchased for $3,500, giving a total tract of land 120 by 187 feet.

  The seven-classroom high school, complete with two drinking fountains and a chemistry laboratory, cost $50,000 when completed in 1913. In 1922, the first of several expansion projects was completed with the addition of a gymnasium and auditorium.

  In the mid-1960s, many small steel towns in the state of Pennsylvania recorded a steady declining enrollment of high school students. Act 299, passed by the Pennsylvania state legislature, defined the required enrollment that school districts must meet in order to remain open and independent; this was not met by several local school districts, including Conshohocken.

  On June 8, 1966, the ninety-fifth and final commencement exercises were held in the high school auditorium. In the fall of 1967, Conshohocken high school residents were required to report to Plymouth Whitemarsh High School located on Germantown Pike in Whitemarsh Township. The school operates under the subname of the Colonial School District.

  The following is the first verse of the Conshohocken High School song, rendered for the last time at the 1966 graduation ceremony:

  Far above life’s rushing waters,

  Mingled with the blue

  Stands our noble Alma Mater,

  Glorious to view,

  When life’s trials dark assail us,

  Firm and strong we stand

  Hail to the dear Alma Mater,

  Fairest in the land

  CONSHOHOCKEN COMMUNITY COLLEGE

  Talk of a community college in Montgomery County started in 1961. By 1963, a bill was introduced in the state legislature for the establishment of a community college. In August 1964, a steering committee delivered a plan to the State Board of Education, which gave the plan approval, and on December 8, 1964, the founding of the college was announced.

  The timing of Act 299, forcing the merger of Conshohocken High School and leaving a vacant school building in Conshohocken, was good for the newly formed Montgomery County Community College. The first classes of the new school met at the old Conshohocken High School on October 3, 1966.

  The Montgomery County Commu
nity College, located at 612 Fayette Street, was the fourth such institution in the state of Pennsylvania. Governor William W. Scranton dedicated the facility. When it was opened, 440 full-time students and 150 evening students were attending the school at a yearly tuition rate of $975. Students at that time were only required to pay one-third of the cost, as the county and state paid the other two-thirds if needed.

  The college was located in Conshohocken for five years and showed steady growth. In 1966, the school had 590 total students. In 1971, it had 3,300 full- and part-time students. The faculty expanded from 17 in 1966 to 90 in 1971, and the school required nine locations in the borough, including a church and former funeral parlor, to house the students for classes.

  In January 1972, the four-building complex located on 186 acres in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, was completed and ready for occupancy. Within ten years, the school more than doubled in population. In 2008, the college was ranked first in the nation for its use of technology by the Center for Digital Education. Today, it has more than thirty thousand alumni.

  For Montgomery County Community College, it all started in Conshohocken back in 1966, thanks to Act 299.

  Part Six

  Sports

  BASEBALL, THE FACT AND THE FUNNY

  Chot Wood, Knute Lawler, Ira “Whitey” Mellor, Roy “Whitey” Ellam, Jack Harrold, Jack Gillespie, Perk Smith, Dave Traill, Paul Burton, Leo Redmond, Ray “Binkie” Fairlie, Sam Webster, Jim Kriebel, Bill Ford, John “Pud” Johnson, Ed Harrison, Jack Crimean, Bill “Parry” Murphy and Jack McDade were some of the best baseball players of an era ago to ever pick up a baseball in the borough of Conshohocken.

  Young baseball stars of today start young and play in the Conshohocken Little League organization, a solid Little League program that has been in the borough since 1955. Back in the 1920s and throughout the 1930s, the borough had midget baseball leagues. Teams like the Greyhounds, Notre Dame Midgets, the Hollyhawk Aces and the Connaughtown Red Raiders would square off in open fields and later at Sutcliffe Park.

  Baseball in the borough of Conshohocken dates back to the 1870s, before Major League baseball was organized. Baseball was the first branch of organized sports to be played here. One of the few flat fields in the borough was located on Washington Street along the canal, east of Cherry Street, later called “the Meadow.” There was no infield or diamonds; rocks or other items were used as bases; catchers had no protective gear and no padded baseball gloves.

  The first organized team recorded playing the sport was the Nerve of Conshohocken, made up of local steelworkers and young men. Andy Loughery and Johnny Heffelfinger pitched for the Nerve, and George Buck and Michael McCall were catchers. Other players included Jack Harold and Horace Cassey.

  The Aerials followed the Nerve and carried several of the first team’s players but added young talent like Dick Blake, Fred Wood, Edwin Harrison and Bill Davis. Then came the great teams of the late 1890s, and Conshohocken soon joined much more competitive leagues, like the Schuylkill Valley Baseball League and leagues in and around the city of Philadelphia. History notes that league meetings would often be held at McCall’s cigar store on Hector Street or similar places in Norristown.

  Conshohocken’s glory years in the sport of baseball were many, but there was nothing like the 1920s, when the manufacturers of the borough formed a league with dozens of teams. Some companies had so many employees that they formed their own league within the company. In the John Wood Manufacturing Company, each department had a team. One write-up in the local paper told of the Alan Wood teams, the Puddlers and the Helpers, facing off. In a scoreless game in the fifth inning, the Puddlers scored twenty-five runs and the Helpers called off the remainder of the game. Both teams retired to the shade of the trees at the Ninth Avenue field and, with smiles on their faces, relaxed with cool, refreshing drinks—and we’re not talking soda pop.

  After-game refreshments didn’t always go down so well; often the winners and losers would join together for postgame refreshments, as they did back in 1905. The Standard Athletic Club from West Philadelphia was on the losing end when the Conshohocken Athletic Association beat them late in the game 4–3. The losers decided to “do up the town,” and a riot resulted. Conshohocken police officer William Heald walked into the middle of the fight, featuring brass knuckles and blackjacks, and was quickly pummeled. Many of the West Philly boys made their way to the train but had police officers waiting for them at the end of the line. Most of the visitors spent the night in jail.

  By 1908, the Conshohocken burgess had had enough. Fred J. Bloomhall notified all organized baseball clubs that ball games on Sundays were no longer allowed to be played within the borough limits. Bloomhall gave notice that warrants would be issued and arrest would result in fines for each offender, calling them a “gang of half-grown Rowdys.”

  Then Came the Girls

  As early as 1910, traveling female baseball teams would visit Conshohocken to engage in ball games with local teams, often drawing several thousand spectators to the fields. In 1914, the Female Ball Tossers of Conshohocken played the visiting New York Bloomer Girls in a game played at the Meadow. While the New Yorkers won a close game 4–3, the local headlines declared that more than one thousand spectators witnessed the game, some walking for miles, but less than half paid money to view the game. The field was surrounded with a canvas enclosure, but hundreds of spectators stood on top of dozens of boxcars on the siding along the Reading Railroad to view the Bloomer Girls perform on the diamond.

  In the 1920s, Bloomer Girl baseball teams became more popular when other small, local towns fielded competition. In 1922, the Swedeland Bloomer Girls visited Conshohocken for a game against the Lady Tigers. Conshohocken won the game 7–6 behind the fine play of Kate Davis, Mary Gillespie, Kriebel, Sedor and Smith.

  By the 1930s, many of the Bloomer Girl teams were playing members of the opposite sex, sometimes resulting in an embarrassing situation. In 1933, the visiting Rold Gold Bloomer Girls from Tacony bested the boys of the Baptist church, 7–5. Betty Sell was the opposing pitcher who pitched five innings for the Bloomers and, in the sixth inning, threw out a Baptist runner at the plate from deep center field.

  The Funny

  While Conshohocken baseball fielded some of the county’s greatest players, as mentioned earlier, the town didn’t always take the sport so seriously. A headline from August 8, 1941, in the Conshohocken Recorder says it all: “Trick Donkeys Make ‘Donkeys’ out of Local Men in Baseball Game.” A paragraph from the article reads:

  The score was Conshohocken Lions 3, Business Men 2, in the annual thrilling, spilling, milling, Burro Baseball Game staged under the auspices of the rip roarin Lions. An Audience that overflowed the grandstands and numbered dozens of standees howling with continual glee as the players hit, fell from balking donkeys, missed base by a donkey’s nose, and engaged in all the novel athletics that a Burro Baseball Game affords. The game was held at the Conshohocken Athletic Field for charity.

  Another fun annual outing in the early part of the last century was the annual Thin Men versus the “Fattys.” The Penn Club of Conshohocken for many years hosted the event that involved over-the-hill baseball players. The thin ballplayers were on one team, while residents who were, shall we say, a little beefy played for the other team. Over the years, members of the Penn Club would travel to different locations—always with a watering hole nearby. In 1913, according to the Recorder, Broad Axe was the site. The headline and part of the article read like this:

  “Thin Men Defeat The ‘Fattys’ At Baseball. Penn Club Holds Last Outing of The Season at Broad Axe.”

  “Has Beens” Show a Good Return To Form But The Fat Men Led Until The Heat Overcame Them.

  Straight as the crow flies journeyed the members of the Penn Club to that old historical place, called the Broad Axe. Built on the old Indian trail, that winds its way down to the hills and valleys, through which runs the Schuylkill River.

  The Broad Axe has a history of its own
. The original Hotel was owned by a widow named Mrs Betty Hatchet. Known near and far for her beauty, wisdom ways, and especially for the quality of Ale.

  And that, my friend, is what made the two-hour journey to the ball field worth it: the quality of ale. The Thin Men were led by Captain William Little, who owned the opera house once located at First Avenue and Fayette Street, while the “Fattys” were led by Fred J. Broomhall, burgess of Conshohocken. Harrison, Jones, Tracy, Carroll and Bodey started for the Fat Men, while Siegler, McGrath, Ruth, Donnelly and Hellinger played well for the Thin Men. Following the 8–6 Thin Men victory, all would enjoy dinner at the Broad Axe, and following dinner, most of the members of the Penn Club would go to Willow Grove Park and enjoy music and dancing.

  Still Funny

  The Washington Fire Company became one of the best firefighting units in the state of Pennsylvania, but back in the 1880s, it seems as though it was somewhat of an embarrassment to the community. The Washies decided to form a baseball team and travel to other towns, carrying the good name of Conshohocken with them to challenge other fire companies to nine innings.

  In the early 1880s, our proud firemen traveled to Chester to take on members of the Franklin Fire Company. The Chester newspaper gave a great account of the game:

  The Washington boys of Conshohocken put out a big fire with celerity, but they are not there so to speak when it comes to playing ball with the Franklin Fire laddies of Chester. By arrangement, nines from the two companies met at Houston Park yesterday afternoon in a friendly contest on the diamond, and before four innings were played it was painfully evident that the visitors would be very badly left.