Willow Grove Area Origins Explored at Historical Meeting

Dr. Millie Wintz gave a presentation this week on the history of Upper Moreland, tracing its roots to the very beginning.

“As you can see, one of the important things about Willow Grove is its position,” Wintz explained to a packed house. “As the African plate slid off, it stopped where the Wissahickon [creek] is now.”

She was referring to the Plate Tectonics Theory, and its relation to how it shaped the landscape of Willow Grove.

Comparing the merger of continental plates hundreds of millions of years ago to dried-up chocolate pudding, Wintz explained that the Willow Grove area is carved with many ridges that have since collected water to form the familiar creeks of today.

“That’s where the water mills were located,” she said of the industrial beginnings that whole communities in the area were built upon.

Wintz, who recently moved to Colorado to be with family, was a longtime resident of Upper Moreland. She is also a founding member of the , (UMHA) which invited her to be the first speaker of five Wednesday lectures taking place as part of the .

Wintz’s lecture, “From Manor of Moreland to 1887,” took place, May 4, at 7 p.m. in the Upper Moreland Township Building.

According to UMHA co-vice-president, Elaine Leibrandt, Wintz has been an important resource for the community for many years.

“She is the original archivist,” Leibrandt said of Wintz’s many UMHA duties. “She is part of the foundation of this association.”

Leibrandt said that Wintz has given this lecture and many others to schools, colleges and at the monthly UMHA meetings. She has also given tours around Willow Grove, and has helped to identify items for inventory, concerning the settling estates in Willow Grove.

She has also sewn two very large quilts, topographical in design, and detailed with the landscape of the Upper Moreland area, which she used to illustrate talking points during her lecture. On the quilt, she sewed patches of historical houses and images of important events throughout the region’s history.

Before returning to Colorado, Wintz will donate the quilts to be displayed at the Upper Moreland Library.

“Look at the magnificent artwork,” Richard Booth, Willow Grove 300 steering committee member said of the quilts. “They’re all sewed with the different houses and mills … you can see the ridges.”

Booth, who introduced Wintz, is in charge of the Willow Grove 300 historical events, which include the UMHA lectures and historical film series at the Upper Moreland Library.

Pointing to the quilts, Wintz showed how the creek mills had roads nearby that also followed the impact ridges. Familiar roads, such as Bustleton, Blair Mill, Old York and Frankford, follow such ridges.

In the late 1800s, the introduction of a new mode of transportation, the steam engine, would introduce an influx of residents and housing developments to Willow Grove. By 1890, people trying to escape the stresses of the city would often come to  Willow Grove to enjoy its famous mineral springs and newly built amusement park.

However, in 1684, Philadelphia was still a budding urban center and there were no boundaries marking townships or the like outside the city.

That very year, an entrepreneur by the name of Nicholas Moore purchased land that stretched from Frankford (then known as “The King’s Highway”) to Blair Mill Road, calling it “The Manor of Mooreland.”

Like her quilts, Wintz seamlessly sewed together stories of important historical events that helped continue to shape the Willow Grove area.

She told of how Mooreland-area Colonialists, not wanting to pay unfair taxes to England, hid their creek mills by creating a bumpy and hard-to-traverse road, then called “Middle Road,” now known as Huntingdon Valley Pike.

She explained how a map-maker, looking a the swampy area of land, known as “Round Meadow” changed the name to the more appropriate Willow Grove.

She even described that the atrocities of a surprise British attack on sleeping militiamen in the Revolutionary War battle of Crooked Billet, are not to be completely blamed by the British. New evidence suggests that the British forces were mostly made up of Torries, or colonial loyalists, who commenced with the defenseless massacre, with Wintz explaining that British soldiers are trained not to kill enemies, rather opting to wound them as it would take two enemy soldiers to carry off that one wounded soldier.

“New documentation is always coming up,” Wintz said. “History is always being re-written.

After her lecture, Wintz explained that public historical events, such as the UMHA lectures, are important resources for everyone.

“History is not just for identifying what they think of the past, but what the past is going to do for us,” she said. “We leave footprints today.”

Among those in attendance was Dick Sayer, Willow Grove 300 steering committee chairman.

“It was marvelous. The woman is astounding,” he said. I was very pleased, we had a full house tonight.”

For up-to-date information on Willow Grove 300 events, visit www.willowgrove300.com.

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More from the reporter’s notebook:

• The remaining four  UMHA lectures will chronologically cover the history of Willow Grove to the present.

  According to Richard Booth, sometime in the future, all five lectures will be broadcast on public access channels, likely by June.  The lectures will also be available on CD for purchase. The next UMHA lecture will be “Transportation History of Willow Grove,” Wed., May 11, and will take place in the Township Building at 7 p.m.

• Artifacts from the UMHA will be on display at the Willow Grove Park Mall, and will include 64 photos and other items hailing from the John Philip Sousa days. The UMHA exhibit at the mall will last until May 20, and will be apart of the mall’s Tri-Centennial Celebration May 19.

•  Tim Hoffman, secretary for the was in attendance at the “From Manor of Morealnd to 1887 lecture. During the brief question and answer portion, he announced Kiwanis’ plans on honoring the history of Willow Grove with the potential creation of a mini-golf course in Masons Mill Park, called “The Wonders of Willow Grove.”