The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-12-06
VALLEY FORGE AS IT IS.
MAY PoSSILLY BE TURNED INTO 4
 PUBLTC PARK.

At Valley Forge the Washington Inn
 and number of dwelling houses are to
 be sold at auction at the end of the
 month. These sales, says the Philadel-
 phia Record, close a long chapter of de-
 cline in the history of the picturesque
 old village, and the friends of the place
 hope that the new chapter soon to be-
 gin will be one of prosperity. They
 have ground for their hope in the pub-
 lie park that will soon be established on
 the historic camp grounds and in the
 trolley line that will run through Val
 ley Forge.
 To the lover of old and picturesque
 things Valley Forge appeals. There are three mills long since deserted, fall
 ing into ruins. There are rows of de-
 serted houses In a clump of bushes
 some broken boats lie.
 Two or three acres make space sufli-
 cient to hold all that to told the hotel, the two gray, empty streets and the
 flor sale or rent" signs of this tiny viii
 lage. The place is steeped in an atmos-
 phere unimaginably calm and still. A
 billygoat, the beard under his chin stuck full of burrs, loafs at the lone
 corners where two streets meet, and if
 srangers happen along he will pursue
 them.
 Nature has been very kind to Valley
 Forge. She shows her utmost beauty to the village. The airs that blow through it are clear and pure. The sky seems bluer there than elsewhere. A noble forest rises upon one side and +1 C,1,, stream, winding between green banks. And thus inclosed by sky and stream and forest, the Ito let signs, the hotel and the billygoat dream.
 The history of Valley Forge, it's rise, it's fall and it's expected second rise may be gathered at the hotel which Albin Shaw keeps. Its revolutionary history, set forth in a familiar collo- quial way, may be gathered at the old Potts House, where Washington's headquarters were, and where B. R. Hampton is caretaker. Albin Shaw told all he knew of Valley Forge in the bar-room of the hotel yesterday after noon, and Benjamin Rossiter, a veteran of the civil war, helped him out when his memory failed. Shaw darted into an inner room every little while and re- turned with armloads of relics--old lamps hatchets, cannon balls, pieces of wood. Before he was done talking the bar was piled so high with these an- cient things that only the top of the young mans head was visible behind them.
 Many years ago, before Valley Forge had either name or being, certain td- venturous and brave men settled there, built houses and began to till the soil. These were the families of the Pottses, the Browns the Stephens, the Har- wards, the Matsons the Moores, the Morrises and the Wilkinsons. These families owned farms during the en- campment of the continental troops, | and their descendants, very prosperous people, still own, in some cases, the i same farms. Of the Stephens, the l Moore and the Harvard families this is true.
 A. Stephens long before the Revolu- | tion, built forge in the neighborhood. | It was power forge and it was put up on the shore of Valley Creek. Stephens | made merchant iron there and Albin l Shaw had piece of the water wheel he | used-a worm-eaten gray board four or | five yards long;
 Albin brought the board from his ar chives yesterday and thumped it down on the bar with pride. He would not l part with it, he says at any price, A professor last summer desired to buy it | The grooves can still be seen in it where the water buckets hung and its big-headed nails have the irregular ity and roughness that give individuali- ty and charm to all handmade things. Those nails, says Benjamin Rossiter, 1 are better than modern ones. They | would split the mean wood which mod ern men use. From the forge upon Valley Creek it is easy to see how the name of Valley Forge was born.
 The rise of Valley Forge was due to the building of three mills there A big white mill on Valley Creek, with a kind of belfry like that upon meeting house, was built first. A brick mill, lower down the creek and nearer to the river, was built next, and afterward shoddy mill was erected over against these three plants were running Valley ' pI St idd oNcl uNe uuIuItu lHIltDl- tants, It has now not more than one hundred and twenty-five. There was It one time, furthermore, gun facto- ry there, where flint-locked rifles and : horse pistols were turned out
 The brick mill was built by Nathan { and Caleb Jones. They made flour in t until 1865, when Isaiah Knauer . bought it and turned it into a paper nill After some years John Penny packer succeeded Isiah Knauer, and he n his turn was succeeded by the Amer { can Pulp and Paper company This | enlarged the mill and began ( m huge scale and with many four shes to make paper by some strange 1 process out of palm leaf. The palm ( eaf paper was to have been a very l wonderful and lucrative stuff, but it | howed, unfortunately, upon being I made, certain imperfections-little | lazed spots. The American Pulp and l Taper company tried earnestly to do Ic way with the glazed spots but it could s lot Therefore they gave up the mill, 2 lhich John Hay bought [ The place was run in turn then by ! lay, by John Knapp & Co.,, and by c Bros, who made parch- 1ent paper. Eigth years ago this last rln abandoned it, and il has been '
 rfyf- n