People/Organizations | Horsham Preservation and Historical Association

Isaiah Lukens

“Lukens was the town clock maker and general machinist. No man of that period better known or held in higher esteem” George Escol Sellers171 Isaiah Lukens was born August 24, 1779 in Horsham and is known for many fine clocks he made for notable buildings such as Loller Academy in Hatboro, PA, the State House/Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Germantown Academy, and many others. Less well known is his interest in air guns and medical equipment He was also one of the founders of the Franklin Institute, and a member of American Philosophical...

Samuel and Sarah Penrose

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Graeme Park in Horsham, PA was established in 1720 by the Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith. Keith called his plantation Fountain Low. Originally about 1,800 acres, parcels were sold off in the 1730s after Keith returned to England. His son-in-law, Dr. Thomas Graeme acquired 835 acres of Fountain Low in 1737 and renamed this parcel Graeme Park. Graeme turned his park into a summer retreat and during the period of the 1760s it became a stop for many of the more prominent people in Philadelphia. Dr. Graeme’s daughter, Elizabeth, inherited the property in 1772 upon her...

Morris and Mary Penrose

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Not much is known of Morris Penrose. He was born on March 14, 1860, the second child of Abel and Sarah Penrose. Morris never married but did become the fourth generation of Penroses to farm Graeme Park. His sister Mary Penrose married William Carothers on April 16, 1913. Carothers was 23 years older and died two years later. Mary returned to Graeme Park following his death. She died in 1953. When Morris’ father Abel Penrose died on July 10, 1893, his will directed that the property could be purchased by his two sons, Morris B. or William Penrose, either jointly or individually,...

Samuel Carpenter

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Samuel Carpenter Samuel Carpenter was born in Horsham, Sussex, England. He was baptized in the Church of St. Mary’s in Horsham on November 20, 1649. He purchased 5,000 acres of land from William Penn, probably on August 4, 1684. 4,200 acres of this lie in what is now Horsham Township, which was established as a municipal entity by a vote of the people in 1717 and named after Carpenter’s birthplace. Carpenter was the youngest son of John Carpenter, the Sheriff of Horsham, who was murdered while on duty in Horsham on August 9, 1671, and his second wife Sarah (maiden name unknown). Samuel...

Howard T. Hallowell

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Howard T. Hallowell Howard T. Hallowell, a native of Horsham, founded the Standard Pressed Steel Company, now known as SPS Technologies. Mr. Hallowell was born on June 30, 1877, at Hallowell, Pa. Hallowell was working as a draftsman at the American Pulley Company in Philadelphia in 1900 when he witnessed an industrial accident where a brittle cast iron shaft hanger broke. He designed a better hanger from pressed steel and patented it in 1901. The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia115 awarded Hallowell the John Scott Legacy Award for this same invention in 1906. In 1903 Hallowell left...

Justinian K. Hallowell

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Justinian K. Hallowell The village of Hallowell was at the intersection of Governor’s Road and the Doylestown-Willow Grove Turnpike in Horsham Township, Pa. It was one of five small villages that made up the township. The area became a crossroads after the 1830s when the turnpike north of the area became a public road. Justinian Hallowell, born in 1855, established the Hallowell Hotel in 1880 and at some point a post office also called Hallowell. The following information is according to My Genealogy Hound, and based on a family biography published in the Biographical Annals of Montgomery...

William and Hannah Penrose

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William and Hannah Penrose William Penrose is the second generation of Penroses to own and farm Graeme Park. William Penrose, the third child and second son of Samuel and Sarah Penrose, was 19 when he moved with his parents from Richland Township to Graeme Park in 1801. His older brother, Abel, remained in Richland. His older sister, Gainor, would marry Richard Jarrett (son of Jonathan and Hannah (Mather) Jarrett) of Horsham. He married in 1810 at age 28 to Hannah Jarrett (daughter of William and Ann (Lukens) Jarrett), also of Horsham. William and Hannah moved into a new home – a large...

Governor Sir William Keith

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Sir William Keith Sir William Keith (1680-1748) was the deputy governor of the province of Pennsylvania under William Penn’s widow, Hannah Callowhill Penn. “Keith was descended from that great feudal family of that name, the head of which, for about six hundred years, was Marischal to the King of Scotland, in ancient times sitting with the Constable at the monarch’s right hand in Parliament.”89 William Keith was the eldest son of Sir William Keith of Ludquhairn, and was born at the family home of Boddam Castle, near Boddam in the extreme north east of Scotland. He studied at Marischal...

Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson

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Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson Dr. Thomas Graeme acquired what was to become Graeme Park in 1739 sort of from his mother-in-law Lady Ann Keith (see Graeme Park timeline). The estate, then called Fountain Low, was pretty much wilderness with a large building which may have been sitting vacant due to Governor Keith’s and Lady Anne’s never ending financial problems. Dr Graeme, over time, transformed the estate by adding gardens, a 300 acre deer park, and converting this building into the beautiful, colonial mansion we know today as Keith House. The Graemes used Graeme Park as a summer retreat...