With grit and gumption, the residents of Germantown propelled their community from a sleepy backwater to a thriving urban neighborhood. Through charming first-person accounts and fascinating narratives culled from
sixty years of the Germantown Crier, readers may catch a glimpse of the feisty Germantowners who proudly honor their past without ceasing to move forward. Meet cantankerous Ann Shermer, a nineteenth-century Bethlehem Pike tollkeeper who enforced the fare with the help of her trusty flintlock pistol, and the town's enforcer of morality, "civilizer" Samuel Harvey. Whether a tale from the storied King of Prussia Inn, which housed greats like George Washington and Gilbert Stuart, or a memory of a childhood encounter with Louisa May Alcott, each vignette in this collection crafts a poignant portrait.
Judith Callard is the editor of the Germantown Crier, the magazine of the Germantown Historical Society. She is the author of Germantown, Mount Airy, and Chestnut Hill (Arcadia 2000) and coauthor of A Farm in Jefferson County, New York: Charles Eberle's Diary 1821-1825 (Four River Valleys Historical Society 2005). She has lived in Germantown for forty years.
Irvin Miller, retired university physics teacher, volunteers in the library of the Germantown Historical Society. Besides assisting researchers, he has cataloged the glass plate collection and prepared a number of indexes. He is the author of “Doorways of the Germantownship” (Germantown Crier, vol. 57, no. 2, Fall 2007). He has lived in Germantown for over sixty years.