First Telephone Switchboard
Village of Concordville: The First Telephone Switchboard in Concord Township K . Jester house, circa 1870, Resource # 174 on the Concord Township Historic Resources Inventory The Village of Concordville grew during the mid-late nineteenth century, with homes and businesses to support the growing agriculture in the township. Located at the intersection of Baltimore Pike and Concord Road, it still serves as an important transportation hub today. This photo shows the C. K. Jester home, dating to the 1870’s, located on the north side of Baltimore Pike, almost directly across from where Concord Road comes out to the Pike. It was the location of the first telephone switchboard in Concord, during the early part of the 1900’s. At that time, a call was placed by picking up the telephone handset and waiting for an Operator, who would say “Number Please”. You would give her the telephone number and she would connect you via a switchboard, an example of which is seen in the photo above. It was easy at that time to know the Operators in this small local exchange area. The early exchange for Concord was “Valleybrook”, followed by 4 numbers. When dial phones came to Concord in the 1960’s, phone numbers went to 7 digits, with Valleybrook being replaced by the new “Globe 9”, which later became known as “459”. August 2014
The Flood of 1971
Devastating flood waters struck Concord Township on September 13, 1971. The rain began on Sept 11 but was much harder on Sept 13th & water rose quickly. The Chester Creek and its branches & tributaries were flooded when a stationary front stalled over the local area. The destruction started in the western areas of Delaware County, including Concord, and continued downstream to Chester leaving a path of destruction. 450 Delaware County residents were left homeless, mostly in Chester where there was major flooding. This was very localized flooding. Other areas of Delaware County and the Philadelphia region were not affected. In Concord, three people lost their lives. David Lindsay drove into water on Concord Rd near Station Rd where his car stalled on the railroad tracks. His passengers, daughter, Jean Espey, and 2 year old grandson, survived. The child was rescued early on by Steven Sheppard, a 19 year old neighbor & his friend. The daughter made it to the railroad signal box and climbed to her safety. Mr. Lindsay and Steve Sheppard clung to nearby fence posts. As the fence washed away, Mr. Lindsay was carried downstream where his body was found when the water receded. Sheppard was left clinging to a fence post. Sheppard and Espey were rescued by Ralph Clark, an Australian with rough water rescue experience, after the firemen were unable to do so. William & Muriel Mitchell drowned when their car was washed away further down Concord Rd. where a branch of Chester Creek passes under the road near what is now Riviera at Concord. The flood waters washed away the Ward, PA Post Office. The small frame post office building was located in the middle of the parking lot behind what is now Il Granaio. The building washed downstream and was demolished when it hit the nearby railroad trestle on the Newlin Grist Mill property. Mail service was never restored at Ward. The Cheyney Rd. bridge over the Chester Creek was ripped away from its footings and the bridge dropped in to the creek. The Newlin Grist Mill suffered extensive flooding & damage. The Penn Central Railroad Octoraro line, which ran from Wawa through Concord to Oxford, was extensively damaged. The worst damage was a section of about 400 ft of the track along Polecat Road that was washed about 25 ft out in to the Chester Creek. The damage was so extensive that it has never been rebuilt.
Garnets Among Us?
Did you know this community once thrived as a local mining area? Garnets were the “gems” of the Concord/Bethel area and a heavily used mine once existed near the entrance of The Clayton Park picnic area off of Garnet Mine Road. You may enjoy the following article, which was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1992 and reflects direct quotes from our President Emeritus Ginny DeNenno. The article not only provides a wonderful historical perspective, but reinforces the importance for CTHS to continue to preserve those “nuggets” for future generations. Note in 1964 the Junior/Senior High School was formalized as a school district and given the name “Garnet Valley” after consulting with the Clayton Family as their successful farm “Garnet Valley Farm” had first held the name for many years. You might also find it interesting to read a letter to Edith Clayton Lloyd, dated January 20, 1971, from her sister Emeline. This letter tells about the mine and an interesting event that occurred in 1926 when lightening struck and killed many cows due to the garnet veins running through the area. Old Garnet Mines Are A Dig Through County’s History By Joseph S. Kennedy, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT POSTED: Philadelphia Inquirer – May 07, 1992 The garnet mines of western Delaware County, like the storied diamond mines of King Solomon, have been lost to time and legend. Both the mines and the miners are long gone. Only Garnet Mine Road and Garnet Valley School District serve as reminders of what more than 100 years ago was a unique mining operation. The garnet sand dug from the local mines was used for the mundane purpose of manufacturing sandpaper. According to Henry Ashmead’s 1884 History of Delaware County, it was John H. Smedley, a mineralogist from Middletown Township, who promoted the development of the garnet deposits on the Foulk Road estate of Charles Williams in Bethel. Smedley noted that the deposit, made up mostly of garnet sand with nuggets mixed in, made ideal abrasive material for use in grinding and shaping. After several years spent trying to get businesses interested in the deposits, Smedley succeeded in 1879 in arranging for the sale of the Williams estate to a New York state abrasives firm, Herman Behr & Co. The 47-acre site sold for $4,700, and mining operations began in the fall of that year. The mining operation was an open pit 200 feet wide by 85 feet deep. The sand was dug with hand tools, then bagged and hauled by horse and wagon to Boothwyn station. There, it was shipped by rail to the Behr Co.’s factory in Troy, N.Y. The garnet sand sold from $30 to $100 a ton depending on its quality. Miners also dug up a few garnet stones that were suitable for making jewelry. The Concord Historical Society has a few of the nuggets, polished and cut into gemstones. Ginny DeNenno, president of the historical society, said those stones had the dark red color consistent with quality garnet gems. “There simply were not enough nuggets found to make the operation pay,” DeNenno said. So it was the sand, the prime ingredient for sandpaper, that was the lifeblood of the mining operation. In November 1900, freezing temperatures burst the lines of the steam pump that kept water out of the pit. Water built up rapidly, thousands of dollars worth of machinery was lost, and Behr Co. decided to close its mine. But that did not spell the end to garnet mining in the area. In the 1890s, while Behr’s mine was still in operation, a new mine was started by American Glue Co. of East Wampole, Mass., which also manufactured sandpaper. The “new mine” was on the Fulton farm, just across the road from the “old mine.” Concord Historical Society files indicate that the last surviving miners of the “new mine” gave a program to the Garnet Valley Home and School Association in 1960. The four surviving miners, by then all in their 80s, described the “new mine’s” operation. Like the old mine, it was an open pit, about 40 feet deep. At the bottom of the pit, tunnels or drifts were dug outward, according to the four main points of the compass. The tunnels were usually about 50 feet long. The garnet sand was dug out by pick and shovel, loaded onto hand-operated railcars and pushed to the center of the pit. From there, the sand was lifted to the surface by large wooden buckets and taken to the processing building. There, the sand was beaten, crushed and washed. Next, it was dried. When dry, the sand was poured into bags of 165 pounds each and carted off to either the Chester Heights or Boothwyn station for shipment by rail to the company’s factory in Massachusetts. To do the work, the mine employed 15 men full time as laborers, carpenters, machine operators and teamsters. The new operation closed in 1906 because, according to the miners, the company found a desirable supply of garnet sand closer to its manufacturing site. Over the years, both mines filled with water, and the new mine was used as the Bethel Township dump. According to DeNenno, the mines were filled in with the construction of the Conchester Highway in the late 1940’s. Revised January 2022
The Gil Nunzi Story
Memoirs of a Dante Orphanage Resident, Gil Nunzi circa 1944-1950 Gil Nunzi found CTHS through the internet and discovered that Dante Orphanage, in which he had spent so much time, was on our website and being used as our Township Municipal Offices. He contacted CTHS to share his story with us. Gil found himself at the Dante Orphanage toward the end of WWII, in 1944, at the age of 6, because his mother was unable to care for him. By that time, Dante had evolved into a home for families who could not care for their children, but which had at least one parent. Gil relates his memories of his time at Dante: “At least I would not go hungry and had a place to sleep. The first day when I arrived at the school I didn’t know what to expect. One of the Sisters came and took me to my room and showed me my bed, my bed table, and then took me on a tour of the school. The boys were on the right side of the building and the girls on the left. There was a large dining room and kitchen on the first floor [where today the Township Municipal Offices are located: the fireplace which can be seen in the reception area indicates where the dining area was, and the kitchen is where the Township Assistant Manager’s office is located]. The church was on the second floor. The rooms on the 3rd floor were taboo [where the sisters and Father Dominick lived]. After a couple of years, I became an Alter boy and served with Father Dominick who for me was a Saint. ~ Photos were taken in front of Dante, alone and with his mother ~ On the days when our parents were allowed to come, and that was just once a month on a weekend, my mother would give him a couple of dollars, then when Father Dominick gave me a lesson on the clarinet he would give me 25 or 50 cents from the money my mother gave him till it was gone. That money was then used to buy some candy from one of Nuns who had a small business there. On different occasions, Father Dominick would take us on hikes and then there was a water hole on the other side of the road where we would go swimming. This went on until someone donated two houses for the school in Sea Isle City. The girls’ house was on the front beach and the boys’ house was behind it about 50 yards. All of the food was cooked in the girls’ house and then brought to the boys’ house. We would spend about two months there in the summer and then return to the school. While we were at the school we had Mass every Sunday, Stations of the Cross every Friday, and the Rosary every evening before we had to do our homework. While doing our homework, one of the Nuns would sit in the classroom and control our homework: you were not allowed to speak, and if we did, then we were punished with a ruler. Gil relates his recreational time at Dante, although he does not recall any time spent in the Maplewood Gymnasium, which was built before the Orphanage and is now the Township Community Center. We had plenty of time to play outside as we had different seasons i.e. baseball, marbles, Baseball and Football cards, then there was the Cowboy and Indians. In winter we would go sledding – there was a small hill behind the school which led to the Pigpen just off to the left of it. Oh, there was a barber that would come once a month and cut our hair. We were allowed to go home for Christmas and Easter – can’t quite remember but I think it was two weeks for Christmas and one for Easter. There was an elderly lady that would come and get me to pick apples. I thought it was great as she would give me 25 Cents for every bushel that I filled, plus extra for raking her lawn, plus my mid-day lunch. Behind the school there was also a basketball court. To the right of the school going up to the Caretakers house and Father Dominick’s, I remember there was a monument or a bust of Dante. Yes we did have our good times and bad times, and yes, I had a great respect for Father Dominick and some fear for the Nuns as some of them were good and others weren’t. The boys took most of the trips with Father Dominick and we were happy to be with him. As for being with the nuns they were very, very, very strict and we had to obey them to the tee. When we would go with Father Dominick there was one store he would take us to to buy some ice cream. I really can’t remember but I could be wrong and the store was located up the pike called the four corners. [this was likely the Concordville Post Office and General Store on Baltimore Pike in the village of Concordville, not far from Dante, where Lane Signs now resides] Gil left Dante after 6 years and 9 months. He went on to attend school in Maryland and eventually entered the US Military, retiring in 1981 in Germany, where he now resides, having served 26 years in the military. In closing, from his communication with us: “I wish you all the best of health and happiness and may God bless you and yours. Take care. I remain sincerely, Gil” ~ Photos show Gil in military uniform, and with his wife today ~