The Industrial Revolution is usually said to have started in England in the 18th century with the introduction of the steam engine, and to have spread from there to other parts of the world over the next century. It changed so many things that a full description of its effects would fill an entire course (or more). By substituting machinery for human and animal power, improving transportation, and increasing the consumption of resources and the production of goods, industrialization altered the way people lived. Generally, it increased life expectancies (although the benefits did not reach everyone) and the number of things that people owned. It reorganized work so that instead of making complete objects, factory workers repeated the same simple task over and over. Industrialization divided the country into urban and rural sectors, enabling farmers to make more money by selling to the townspeople. Improvements in the speed an economy of transportation enabled people to see more of the world than ever before. Industrialization had its downside as well: it made war more deadly, increased pollution, produced new kinds of accidents, and stimulated population densities that favored the spread of epidemic disease.

Canals and Railroads

In the United States, the arrival of a steam engine was usually the signal that industrialization had arrived in an area, but railroads were not the first efforts to improve the region's economic infrastructure. In an effort to extend the region's river system, the first attempts involved the construction of canals. One problem with river navigation is that water levels change, so the earliest canals were built along existing rivers to make them navigable for longer periods. The two examples in Chester County were the Brandywine Creek Canal (authorized in 1793, never built), and the Schuylkill River Canal (authorized in 1815, opened to Phoenixville in 1828).

Although no canal was ever built to West Chester, a prominent local resident, Dr. William Darlington, was appointed to the first Pennsylvania Canal Commission in 1825, where he served for two years including one as its president. Although Darlington had no particular expertise in canals, he was the first person from Chester County to obtain a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania (in 1804). He demonstrated his abilities as a physician by serving at the County Poorhouse, with a military regiment and on a merchant ship that sailed from Philadelphia to Calcutta. Afterwards, he settled in West Chester and married, became a trustee of the West Chester Academy (founded 1811), served as an officer during the War of 1812, was elected to Congress three times and conducted an inspection of the military academy at West Point in 1822. In other words, he had a national reputation, so when the state decided to form a commission to regulate canals, he was a logical choice. Later, his experience from that commission made him the unanimous choice to head the group that built the West Chester Railroad.

Although canals were a big improvement over unpaved wagon roads, they were still limited. Water ran low in late summer and froze up in the winter. Canal boats moved slowly, making them useful for moving heavy commodities that did not spoil, like lumber and coal, but useless for more fragile items like fresh food. In most places, canals were supplanted by railroads which operated at much higher speeds and all the year round.

William Everhart and early development

Although men like William Darlington were leaders of the community, newcomers began to make a mark in the 1820s. The most successful was William Everhart, a shopkeeper who was born in West Vincent. During his early years, he operated stores in West Vincent, Tredyffrin, West Whiteland and West Goshen before he bought a store in Gay Street in 1824. By then, he was no longer a complete outsider because he married Hannah Matlack, the granddaughter of one of the Borough's first farmers, in 1814. Everhart made his money by selling imported English goods -- ceramics in particular -- and he became something of a legend after he survived a shipwreck off the Irish coast, lost $10,000 in the process, and then declined to accept any of the money found in the wreckage because he could not swear that it was his.

By 1829, Everhart had recovered from his loss and had enough money to finance his greatest gamble. At the time, West Chester consisted of four squares surrounding the intersection of High and Gay Streets, and bounded by Church, Walnut, Chestnut and South (later Market) Streets. Beyond those four squares lay farms.

On February 19, 1829, Everhart bought the 102-acre Wollerton farm located west of High Street and south of Gay Street. [Read a partial transcription of the Everhart deed.] Everhart paid $16,000, or just over $155 per acre, which was high by the standards of the day -- Worthington had failed twice before to sell his farm by auction. Although there were many doubters, Everhart divided the land into building lots and on the first day he sold fifty lots for more than the original purchase lot. Everhart sold another twenty lots in 1830 and continued to hold land auctions into the 1840s. He also built more than a hundred brick homes on his lots, laid out Miner, Barnard, Darlington and Wayne Streets (named after his friends), extended South Street west and made it wide enough for a farmers market (leading to the renaming of the street about 1833).

Everhart's success inspired others -- Thomas Ogden, a cabinetmaker and Methodist church leader who developed the area between Gay and Market Street along New Street (including the stone houses that line the west side of the 000-block of N. New Street; farmer William Newlin sold five lots between Gay and Chestnut Streets in 1830; and farmer George Ashbridge sold lots on the north side of Chestnut west of High Street in 1831. In 1835, four investors from Philadelphia parcelled out the Matlack farm bounded by High Street, Gay Street, Phoenixville Pike, and Goshen Road.

Meanwhile, Everhart rapidly became the wealthiest man in the Borough, surpassing the Darlingtons, the Sharplesses and the other founding families. He built a new store for himself at what is now 101 W. Market Street, and the Mansion House Hotel on the opposite corner. He also became involved with railroad construction, served one term on Borough Council and supported other local politicians.

The West Chester Railroad

Until 1832 the only route to Philadelphia was via wagon roads, unlike Chester or Norristown, which had connections by water. On December 10, 1831, local attorneys Isaac Darlington and P. Frazer Smith called a meeting at the Turk's Head Hotel to discuss West Chester's response to the "Main Line of Public Works," a state-funded project to connect Philadelphia to Pittsburgh using a combination of rivers, canals and rails. The state's plan called for the Main Line through the Great Valley several miles north of the Borough, and the group feared that the town would die if it were bypassed.

West Chester's location on high ground between two rivers made it uneconomical to build a canal to reach the Main Line (too many locks; not enough water). The only alternative was to build an improved road. The designers of the Main Line faced a similar problem between the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers, and they decided to construct a road paved with parallel wooden rails topped with iron, over which a horse could draw heavily loaded wagons. The West Chester group decided to do the same thing and applied for a state charter to create a "railroad" to connect to the Main Line at a convenient location.

"Railroad fever" was already strong in the coal regions of Pennsylvania at that time, and West Chester's business community was enthused about speculation thanks to the success of William Everhart's development of the Wollerton farm. When West Chester Railroad stock went on sale on March 22, 1831, people fought for places in the line and the issue was oversold in less than two hours.

The tracks were completed in September 1832, but service to Philadelphia had to wait until the Main Line was completed in October 1833. The WCRR used horses to pull wagons over nine miles of wooden rails topped with iron strips, where they joined the Main Line at "Intersection" (later Malvern) for the rest of the journey to Philadelphia. The trip took about three hours, a great improvement over the full-day trip normally required by wagons on dirt roads, and that meant farmers around West Chester could more readily sell perishable goods in the city. It also freed up farm land closer to Philadelphia for other uses, so in the long run, innovations like the WCRR allowed Philadelphia to expand.

Note: The early directors of the West Chester Railroad included Dr. William Darlington (described above), Ziba Pyle (chief burgess 1825-30), Jonathan Valentine (assistant burgess 1833-35), and William Williamson, Joseph Hemphill, Jonathan Jones, Elihu Chauncey, P. Frazer Smith and Samuel C. Jefferis -- all members of West Chester's old guard.

Everhart started out by lobbying the state legislature to reduce the price of stock shares specified in the West Chester Railroad charter. Darlington and his colleagues resisted by claiming that it was "less wasteful" to sell fewer shares at a higher price. Reducing the number of stockholders, however, made it harder for the Everhart faction to gain control of the board.

Everhart's next effort was to obtain a charter for the "West Chester Extended Railroad" to build a spur across town from the terminus of the West Chester Railroad. The WCRR directors fought back with a lawsuit, and then altered their line to make the connection as inconvenient as possible. Everhart built it anyway in 1836, but it closed after only a few years.

Everhart's first foray into politics took place in 1831 when he got five of his allies elected to Borough Council. (They voted to build the new farmers market on his land in W. Market Street.) Everhart's allies continued to dominate Borough Council and, as the dispute between the West Chester Railroad and the "Extended Railroad" reached a head, Everhart ran for Council himself. He won, and his colleagues immediately chose him to be the Chief Burgess and gave their approval to his railroad. When Everhart and two other men went onto West Chester Railroad property to start surveying their line, their opponents had them arrested for trespassing. The judge was Dr. Darlington's brother and he found them guilty, but perhaps fearing an appeal, fined them only six cents each plus six cents in court costs.

Everhart left Borough Council after only two years (1836-7), but he also served a single term in the US Congress in 1853-4. Otherwise, he remained content to run his various businesses -- mercantile and construction -- until his retirement in 1867. He died a year later.

The 1837 Depression

By the end of 1836, the atmosphere in West Chester was positively exuberant. With the town expanding and the railroad revolutionizing relations with Philadelphia, investors and entrepreneurs flocked to the town to produce silk, open stores, create transportation lines, and expand existing operations. The National Bank of Chester County, which opened in 1814, completed a neo-classical marble building on N. High Street using a design by Thomas U. Walter. The Borough opened its first taxpayer- funded public school that same year. The Chester County Cabinet of Natural Science moved into a building on S. Church Street. Expectations were high.

That all changed in 1837 when America suffered its first economic depression. The Panic of 1837 grew out of the demise of the Second National Bank that led to inflation, speculation in land and imported goods, and ultimately, a huge foreign debt. When foreign banks foreclosed, American state banks had to close. The loss of savings and shortage of credit triggered an economic depression that lasted from 1837 to 1843.

Locally, the Panic meant that there was no money for day-to- day transactions, since banks no longer accepted paper money and there were not enough coins in circulation. Everyone, from craftsmen and merchants to the new Borough businesses suffered from the loss of business. For instance, the "West Chester Transportation Line," which operated wagons on the West Chester Railroad, was forced to sell its rolling stock and look for someone to lease its warehouse. The Bank of Chester County closed its doors and lost half of its capital. The West Chester Railroad stopped paying dividends to its stockholders, and had to mortgage its property in order to stay open.

To replace the lost currency, the Borough borrowed $36,000 and issued small denomination banknotes which were were backed by its ability to tax. That eased things locally, and other efforts eased the crisis nationally, so that by 1839 the Panic appeared to be over. Then a bad harvest in England triggered a second crisis in 1839 which lasted until 1842. Confidence did not return until early 1843.

The West Chester & Philadelphia Railroad

By the time that the Depression ended, the West Chester Railroad was in bad shape. It had sold all of its rolling stock, mortgaged real estate, and ceased paying dividends. Even worse, it had powerful enemies on the Pennsylvania Canal Commission who wanted to force them out of business because the WCRR's horse- drawn wagons interfered with the use of steam locomotives on the Main Line railroad. When the dispute reached the legislature, farm interests backed the West Chester company while urban interests backed the state company. Unable to prohibit the West Chester Railroad from using horses, the Canal Commission fought back by charging them high rates for the use of their track between Malvern and Philadelphia.

West Chester businessmen, particularly men associated with William Everhart, protested the Canal Commission's action. They found allies in Philadelphia and Delaware County who were willing to invest in a competing railroad. After a failed attempt in 1848, they received a charter for the West Chester & Philadelphia Railroad in 1850. The problem was twofold -- by 1850 railroad construction required much more money that in 1831, especially since this line -- three times as long as the first one -- needed several expensive bridges to cross tributaries of the Delaware River. In addition, the owners of the WCRR waged a successful campaign to undermine investor confidence in the new company, and for the next eight years, the company struggled to raise money. That led to lawsuits between stockholders, a boardroom coup, bankruptcy and court-ordered receivership, but on November 11, 1858, the first train reached West Chester on the new line. The final cost was more than $1.2 million dollars.

While the second railroad was under construction, the first railroad revived, and in the process contributed another innovation to the Borough. A new board of directors hired Samuel Painter as the railroad's superintendent in 1843. During his lifetime, he stared several businesses, and in 1850 he founded the West Chester Telegraph Company to connect West Chester to the line that ran along the Main Line. In addition to providing a connection to a growing national telegraph network, Painter hired Emma Hunter as the Borough's first operator. She is usually referred to as the first woman telegraph operator in the US, if not the world, and she must have exchanged messages with the young Andrew Carnegie when he was a telegraph operator in Pittsburgh.

The Civil War

With two competing railroads, West Chester was poised for another period of economic progress. But before that got underway, national events interfered once again. The Civil War began in early 1860.

Locally, the Civil had few direct effects since West Chester was far from the battlelines. But the indirect effects were many, especially in a town dominated by Quakers who opposed war as a matter of principle. One was a division that developed within the Society of Friends in 1827 over how to respond to slavery. The "Hicksite Friends" (named after Elias Hicks) were the majority in Chester County -- they advocated a more aggressive stance against slavery. By 1828, the West Chester Friends had divided into two camps, each with their own meeting house an later on, their own burial grounds. [ Note: The Hicksites met on N. High Street and buried their dead on W. Rosedale Avenue. The "Orthodox Friends" met on W. Chestnut Street and buried their dead north of town.]

Another indirect effect was felt by West Chester's private academies, many of which served the children of the South's landed gentry. Also, before and during the war, the Underground Railroad passed through Chester County, although not directly through the Borough, which was too dangerous for fugitives who would stand out in a town with constables and courts.

The war's direct effects included bitter local controversy and the departure of roughly one-fifth of the town's able-bodied male population to serve in Pennsylvania regiments. The debate about the war started two weeks after Fort Sumter surrendered on April 13, 1861, when the Chester County Times accused the Borough's Democrats of treason and the Jeffersonian printed their rebuttal that Lincoln and the radical abolitionists had pushed the South into war.

Several military units were formed in the Borough, which sent more than 300 men to the Union Army. The most famous was the 97th Regiment commanded by Henry Guss, the owner of the Greentree Tavern. The Borough also turned over ten acres of the Chester County Agricultural Fairgrounds, on what is now the site of West Chester University residence halls. Military units formed at what became known as "Camp Wayne" and trained there before heading off to the war.

Although construction and agriculture suffered from the loss of labor to the army, merchants probably benefitted from the influx of military units. The greatest beneficiary of the Civil War in West Chester was Uriah Painter, the son of Samuel Painter (who started the telegraph company), who went to war as a correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He had the dubious good fortune to witness the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run, and the presence of mind to hop a freight train to Baltimore before telegraphing his story to Philadelphia. Because the government shut down all communications out of Washington DC, the nearest town, in an effort to prevent the news from demoralizing the North, Painter's newspaper was the first one to print the story. After overcoming charges of treason for reporting such horrible news, Painter acquired a reputation that enabled him to become a powerful figure in Washington DC during the second part of the 19th century. He will appear again later in this course.

There are also some references to problems between the soldiers and the local community, but most people preferred to forget about that, as this quotation from the 1881 History of Chester County by J. S. Futhey and Gilbert Cope suggests: