Bryn Athyn, PA 19009

In its early days, the area including Bridgeport, Upper Merion Township and West Conshohocken was called Ammasland. William Penn’s daughter, Letitia, owned a grant of land here called Manor of Mount Joy, and offered it to pioneers from the mountainous districts of North Wales for ten cents an acre and an annual rental of 25 cents per hundred acres. They settled as close to Bridgeport as the present blast furnace at Swedeland. In 1712, Mats Holstein, a 35-year-old Swede, led a group of 32 settlers up the Schuylkill River and each one bought from 600 to 1000 acres from the Welsh landholders. Holstein’s tract lay farthest up the river. For the first two years he lived with his wife and children in a log house along the river. Then he constructed a stone house in the middle of his tract and the house is still standing off Crooked Lane just outside King Manor. Four succeeding generations of the Holsteins were born in that house. After building the stone house, Mats Holstein stretched a rope across the river at the site of his log house and the river crossing became known as Swedes’ Ford. He also laid out a road through his property and it, too, became known as Swedes’ Ford Road. When the Holsteins installed a ferry service about 1760, the road was extended to King of Prussia to intersect a similar highway from the Welsh settlement in Tredyffrin. Travelers on foot or horseback who wanted to use the ferry often encountered delay. The boat would be on the other side of the river, and it was necessary to blow a horn to summon the ferryman. He would be working on his farm. When the boat was on the Norristown side the travelers found it pleasant to adjourn to the tavern Holstein erected on the site of the log house. It was called Swedes’ Ford Tavern. Swedes’ Ford is immensely rich in memories of the American Revolution. It was of strategic importance. After the battle of Brandywine, Sir William Howe moved his British soldiers across Chester County toward Lancaster Road with the idea of approaching Philadelphia by crossing the Schuylkill at Swedes’ Ford. Washington immediately ordered a French engineer, General Louis Du Portail, to lay out fortifications on both sides of the river at Swedes’ Ford. Despite heavy rains, Du Portail accomplished his task. General Washington broke away for a while from his troops at Whitemarsh to inspect the redoubts. They were well profiled, faced with planks, formidably fraised, and the spaces between them closed with strong abatis.