AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
owned by my grandfather, Joseph Whitaker, and his partners, Benjamin and David Reeves, composing the firm of Reeves & Whitaker, and managed by him very successfully from 1829 to 1847. It was a dirty town. The streets were unpaved and were cut into deep ruts by the huge six-horse teams which hauled the iron ore from the Chester Springs to the works, made up of pig iron furnaces, puddling mills and a nail factory. The sidewalks were made of black cinder. Dogs and pigs wandered about at their will. There was no authority to check the disorders of a somewhat rough community. In 1847 my grandfather withdrew from the firm and built a handsome residence upon the opposite side of the Schuylkill River in Montgomery County, to which Bayard Taylor gave the name of Mont Clare. Thereupon my father undertook to get the town incorporated into a borough. The effort led to a bitter local contest. The firm, now Reeves, Buck & Co., were opposed because it meant increased taxation and a certain loss of control, and they had the aid of all of their employees, who composed the greater part of the male population. Meetings were held, pro and con, for which Bayard Taylor printed the handbills. Heated speeches were made and violent letters were written. Before one legislature the effort failed, but the next granted a charter, and in 1849 the borough of Phœnixville started upon its career, with my father, who, after a spirited contest between the friends and opponents of the movement, had been successful in the election, as its first burgess. Public service is very often an unsatisfactory proceeding accompanied by ingratitude and followed by discomfort. To pay for the charter and expenses, he gave his individual note, which the town council, at the suggestion of Vanderslice, declined to provide for, and he was compelled to meet it himself. I preserve the paper as a memento. As burgess he was soon confronted with a situation out of the ordinary.
