Ambler, Pennsylvania

The historical territory of the Lenape Native American tribe was in the Delaware Valley in an area spanning from Cape Henlopen in Delaware, north to the lower Hudson Valley in southern New York. The area in the south, including present-day Philadelphia and nearby Ambler, was the home of Unami-speaking Lenape.[4] The Lenape established a peace treaty with Quaker William Penn in the 1680s.[5]

The original grant of land from William Penn to William Harmer

William and George Harmer are listed among the Quakers who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1682.[6] In 1716, William and George Harmer purchased a 408-acre tract from William Penn, an area including most of what now is Ambler Borough.[7] They are credited as the first landholders to actually settle in the area.[8] William Harmer built a grist mill powered by the Wissahickon Creek, "the first commercial venture in the Ambler area".[9] He also built a stone dwelling with casement windows and diamond shaped leaded glass, near what is now the intersection of Butler Pike and Morris Road. After his death in 1731, the house, mill, and property were sold to Morris Morris and his wife Susanna Heath Morris.[9]

Residents sought permission from The Crown to build roads in the area. The first road built in Ambler, now known as Mt. Pleasant Avenue, was developed in 1730. It went from Harmer's Mill to North Wales Road, which is now Bethlehem Pike.[7] Butler Pike was created in 1739, and went through the town, which was known at that time as the Village of Wissahickon, named after Wissahickon Creek.[10]^: 7

The area at the crossroads of Butler and Bethlehem Pike was roughly the village center. It was first known as Gilkey's Corner, named for an inn which was built around 1778 and managed by Andrew Gilkinson (or Gilkeson). After 1878, the area was known as "Rose Valley".[11]^: 32

As of 1790, Jonathan Thomas purchased half an acre of land from Gilkinson and sited a tannery at the intersection,[11] causing a nearby creek to be nicknamed "Tannery Run".[7] As of 1810, the tannery was sold by his son, David Thomas, to Joseph Rutter.[11] As the "Rose Valley Tannery", it is mentioned as being one of the oldest in the county.[12] It later became the property of Alvin Faust and the firm A. D. Faust Sons.[11][12]

Between 1750 and 1850, industries developed throughout the watershed, using local waterways to provide power and carry away waste. The area supported nine mills, producing flour, timber, paper and cloth.[10]^: 7 They are identified by Dr. Mary Hough as Plumly Mill (first owned by William Harmer), Fulling Mill (owned by Andrew and Mary Ambler), Thomson's Mill, Reiff Mill, Wertsner Mill, Hague Mill, Burk Mill, a Silk Mill, and a Clover and Chopping and Saw Mill.[11]^: 9–32 However, as steam power replaced water power in the 1870s and 1880s, the mills were unable to compete, and were abandoned.[11]^: 27

Mary Ambler, who turned her Ambler home into an impromptu hospital following the Great Train Wreck of 1856

In 1855, Wissahickon station became a stop on the North Pennsylvania Railroad line.[10]^: 7 On July 17, 1856, the town was the site of a disastrous train accident, known as the Great Train Wreck of 1856. The northbound Shackamaxon, a picnic excursion train, and the southbound Aramingo collided head on, killing 59 people instantly, and injuring another 86 passengers. Mary Ambler, a local Quaker resident, walked two miles to the crash site, bringing medical supplies and directing rescue efforts.[13] She turned her house at Tennis Avenue and Main Street into an impromptu hospital for nursing the survivors.[13][14] Thirteen years later, in 1869, the railway company renamed the station Ambler in her honor. The post office followed suit, and when the borough was formally incorporated on June 16, 1888,[15] it too took the name of Ambler, in honor of Mary Ambler.[10]^: 7

The Keasbey & Mattison Company plant in Ambler, c. 1900

In 1881, the Keasbey and Mattison Company, whose business included the manufacture of asbestos, moved to Ambler from Philadelphia. Ambler's location along the railroad line was a primary consideration in the location of Keasbey and Mattison Company in Ambler, as it meant that raw asbestos could be easily brought in from Quebec and finished products sent out to markets. Another consideration was the availability of magnesium carbonate, from local dolomite mines.[16] The original K&M factory was built as of 1883.[17]

When the company arrived, the town consisted of "70 houses, 250 residents, a drug store, general store and a few other businesses."[18] Keasbey and Mattison invested heavily in the town, bringing in Southern Italian stoneworkers to build 400 houses for workers and managers, as well as offices, an opera house, the Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church,[19][20] and Mattison's personal estate, Lindenwold Castle.[21][22] Many of the Italians stayed in Ambler, helping to form its cultural identity. Maida, Calabria is the town's sister city today.[23] The company also employed African Americans, originally from West Virginia, in the less-desirable wet-processing areas of the asbestos plant. They tended to settle in west and south Ambler.[7][16]

By World War I, Ambler was known as the "asbestos capital of the world".[24] However, the Great Depression took its toll, and the company was sold to an English concern, Turner & Newall (T&N), in 1934.[21] The plant continued to operate under the K&M name.

In England in 1924, doctors reported the first case of asbestosis, a chronic illness caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibers.[25] By the 1950s, evidence linking asbestos to cancer was mounting. Richard Doll, an epidemiologist at Turner and Newall, reported (in spite of company pressure) that people exposed to asbestos for 20 or more years had a 10 times higher risk of developing lung cancer than the general population. Also, a formerly rare and almost always fatal cancer, mesothelioma, was reported in epidemic proportions near asbestos mines in South Africa. In the 1960s, the British Journal of Industrial Medicine indicated that simply living near an asbestos factory, or in an asbestos-insulated building, increased mesothelioma risk.[21]

Turner & Newall operated the factory until it closed in 1962, then sold the property to CertainTeed Corporation and Nicolet Industries.[26] By 1973, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), began to restrict the use of asbestos, stopping the sale of insulation spray in 1973, and of solid asbestos insulation in 1975.[21] In 1974, Nicolet held a competition, offering a $20,000 prize for the proposal of a "feasible commercial application" for its waste chalk piles.[27] Nicolet filed for bankruptcy in 1987.[24] By 1989, most remaining products were banned, under the 1989 Asbestos Ban and Phaseout Rule. Although the Ban was struck down in 1991, few asbestos-based products remain in the domestic marketplace.[21]

Federal-Mogul, an American automotive supplier, purchased the remaining assets of Turner & Newall in 1998.[28] As health concerns about asbestos became widely known, it too found itself in Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to asbestos liability.[29]

The reservoir parcel of the BoRit Asbestos Superfund Site was remediated and repurposed as the Wissahickon Waterfowl Preserve[30]

A 2011 study by the Pennsylvania Department of Health reviewed data from 1992 to 2008, and reported that mesothelioma was diagnosed 3.1 times more often in Ambler residents than in other Pennsylvania residents. The higher rates were attributed to previous asbestos exposure in the factories.[21]

In Ambler, where more than 1.5 million cubic yards of asbestos waste were discarded in a 25-acre area known as the "White Mountains",[21] contamination remains an issue.[31] From 1973 to 1993 the United States EPA oversaw remediation of the BoRit Asbestos waste dump,[32] also known as the "Ambler Asbestos Piles".[21] It was proposed to the National Priorities List (NPL) as a Superfund site on October 10, 1984, and formally added to the list as of June 10, 1986. Various remedies were completed as of August 30, 1993 and the site was consequently deleted from the National Priorities List on December 27, 1996, after remediation.[33] The site is reviewed every five years by the EPA.[21]

Local government has made redevelopment of the sites a priority. A 2005 proposal for a 17-story condominium tower was withdrawn after community opposition to the project. One of the concerns was asbestos waste at the location. In 2009 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated the proposed development as part of a second Superfund site, the BoRit Asbestos Site.[21] The site includes an asbestos waste pile, an 11-acre pond and a former park.[32] The EPA estimated that it would complete the initial cleanup phase at the BoRit site as of 2015.[21]

In 2013, Heckendorn Shiles Architects and Summit Realty Advisers successfully converted the derelict factory and smokestack of the Keasbey & Mattison company into a LEED Platinum Certified multi-tenant office building, the Ambler Boiler House. The adaptive reuse project won support from the EPA's Brownfields Program and the EnergyWorks program. The renovations cost $16 million, and have resulted in a building with substantial green features including a grey-water system, geothermal energy, solar panels and a reflective roof system, and high-efficiency glass.[21][34]

Act II Playhouse is a 130-seat professional theatre founded in 1998. Act II has been nominated for 31 Barrymore Awards and has won six.[52]

Founded in 1951, the Ambler Symphony Orchestra currently performs several concerts per year under the musical direction of WRTI program director Jack Moore.[53]

Originally opened in 1927 as a Warner Brothers movie theater, the recently restored and renovated Ambler Theater is a non-profit, community owned movie theater that shows independent, art and limited-distribution films.[54]

The Family, Industry and Agriculture, a 1939 Works Progress Administration mural by Harry Sternberg in the old post office

Post office murals were produced from 1934 to 1943 in the United States through the Section of Painting and Sculpture, later called the Section of Fine Arts, of the Treasury Department. The murals were intended to boost the morale of the American people from the effects of the Depression by depicting uplifting subjects.[55] The murals were funded as a part of the cost of the construction or renovation with 1% of the cost set aside for artistic enhancements.[56] In 1939, artist Harry Sternberg completed the mural The Family, Industry and Architecture for the town's post office. The artist and his family are the main figures in the painting.

• Kathleen "Kay" McNulty Mauchly Antonelli - an Irish computer programmer and one of the six original programmers of the ENIAC, one of the first general-purpose electronic digital computers.
• Herbert Raudenbusch Amey, Jr. - a United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and Silver Star Medal recipient who served in World War II.
• John Di Domenico - Comedian, actor, and writer
• Martin Kilson - an American political scientist. He was the first black academic to be appointed a full professor at Harvard University
• Tanoh Kpassagnon - American football defensive end for the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL)
• John Dallas Cecil Ford - an American Negro league pitcher in the 1910s.
• Michael F. "Mike" Gerber - a former Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, representing the 148th Legislative District from 2005 to 2012.
• Elwood Lewis Richie - a professional baseball player who played pitcher in the Major Leagues from 1906 to 1913. He would play for the Chicago Cubs, Boston Doves and Philadelphia Phillies.
• Curtis Thomas Simmons - an American former professional baseball left-handed pitcher, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1947 to 1950 and 1952 to 1967.
• Jane Zhou - an American sloth enthusiast noted for having the world's largest private collection of sloth memorabilia.
• David J. Sloane - an American former professional ice hockey defenseman. He played in one National Hockey League (NHL) game with the Philadelphia Flyers during the 2008–09 season.
• Ruth Williams - a pitcher who played from 1946 through 1953 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.