Club History

Sturgis Ingersoll

1897-1971, with emphasis on early decades.

         At eight o’clock on the evening of September 17, 1897 a group of neighbors met at the residence of Mr. J. Waln Vaux at the northeast corner of the Penllyn Pike and Gypsy Hill Roads and organized the Penllyn Club. There were present: Mr. Vaux of Windrige Farm, Mr. Morgan Churchman, Mr. Cheston Morris of Deep Run Farm, Mr. Richard Cadwalader of Stonege, Mr. Henry E. Drayton of The Cedars, and Mr. Henry McKean Ingersoll of Annadale Farm. These gentlemen might have discussed the then threatened war with Spain, their horses, cows, chickens, and crops, but instead they gave attention to the formation of the club, naming Mr. Vaux as President, Mr. Henry McKean Ingersoll as Secretary and Treasurer constituting themselves the Board of Governors, appointing a house and grounds committee and instructing the secretary to send out an agreed upon prospectus to “certain persons, a list of whose names was agreed upon.” I find no trace of the prospectus or list; they would constitute interesting items on reflecting other social history of our neighborhood. Prior to this memorable meeting five hundred dollars had been subscribed, - one hundred dollars each from Mr. Vaux, Mr. Henry McK Ingersoll, Mr. Charles E. Ingersoll of Forest Hill, Mr. Frank E. Bond of Spring House Farm and Mr. Morris,-as a fund to initiate the activities of the Club. 

Let it be remembered that in those days there were no automobiles, the Penllyn Pike was a privately owned macadam turnpike coated in the summer with one or two inches of fine, white powdery dust, a toll gate at its north west juncture with the Gypsy Hill Road, presided over by the ancient Emma, -two cents a vehicle, one for a bicycle, one for a saddle horse. It was a horse culture, -horse drawn plows, cultivators, and hay wagons, riding and driving for pleasure and necessity, wives meeting at Penllyn station in runabout, pheaton, or tandem dog cart their husbands returning from town in the afternoon commuting steam train fifty-five minutes from the Reading Terminal. 

These were the early days of golf in Philadelphia and the uppermost plans of the organizers was a golf course (or links as such were called in those days) and a place where the members and their children could meet in neighborly social intercourse. There was no thought of polo or a swimming pool, - perhaps a word or two for a tennis court…..

Golf at Penllyn

In the fall of 1897 seven dollars was expended on a landscape architect “for laying links”, dozens of golf balls were bought; lumber from Craft for stiles to enable ladies to negotiate the fence bisecting the course; and money appropriated to hire a golf professional at forty dollars a month, -her was never hired!

At a meeting in April 1899 it was reported that it would cost $700 to make “a new golf links.” The golfers were told to raise the money. 

A year later the golf committee reported, “that five golf greens had been sodded, two fields seeded, eight bunkers made and that the golf links were in excellent condition!” It was also reported that “a cricket crease had been made”.

The golf days were, however, numbered. In the spring of 1902 the suggestion that the golf course be abandoned was overruled but by the fall of 1902 the course was returned to the cows and golf died. I suppose there had never been a worse golf course, but during its life of five years well over a thousand golf balls had been sold. 

Incorporation and the Clubhouse

In June 1900 the club was incorporated by charter issued by the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County for the purpose of “social enjoyment and the encouragement of cricket, golf, tennis, and other athletic sports.” No mention of polo or swimming! I remember in those days there was one grass tennis court under the trees with its south line about where is now the children’s pool. The Charter hangs in the Club house. The incorporators and officers were: Richard Cadwalader, President, Henry McKean Ingersoll, Secretary and Treasurer and Messrs. Henry E. Drayton, Francis Bond, Francis Chambers, Edward B. Smith Thomas Robins, Henry P. Vaux, Thomas Cadwalader and Harry Hart.

In January and February 1903 subscription books were opened to issue bonds for funds to purchase the Club property. It was known as Sycamore Farm, with house dated 1786, long part of the extensive “Wharton Estate.”The distinctive features of the twenty five acres was the well designed eighteenth century Pennsylvania farmhouse, large sycamores which still are with us, and a groove of tall white pines which have little by little diminished leaving but a few standing. The purchase price, consummated in February 1903 was approximately $6400. 

Polo

With the approaching demise of golf the energetic young men of the Club turned to polo. The game was played at Bryn Mawr and the Philadelphia Country Club – why not at Penllyn? 

The grading and seeding of the polo field, and the installation of the sideboards and goal posts must have cost a considerable sum. There are no records of such charges in the Club’s books. Doubtless the promoters of polo raised a special fund and carried though the project as an undertaking separate from the administration of the Club proper. 

The first entries with respect to polo were “Oct. 24, 1901 keep of pony $6. -credit Oct. 24, 1901 rolling polo field $21.” 

Polo continued until the beginning of the first World War, at times actively, at times in a desultory fashion….

Swimming

President Henry E. Drayton proposed the building of a swimming pool. It was a rather radical idea as there were no pools in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. We boys swam daily in the somewhat contaminated Wissahickon Creek with resultant boils for most of us every summer. 

It took some time for the idea to catch on, but in the late summer of 1905 the pool was built for $2,000, specially subscribed by the members. The charge for a swim and towel was ten cents, a charge that, in spite of inflation, remained the same for decades. 

The pool was the same length as the present pool but only half of its width. The southern half of the present pool was the original. It was fed by a weak flow of artesian well water and by a ram pumping a biggish trickle of creek water. It took many days to fill the pool with the result that is was rarely if ever emptied. Chlorine and such materials were items of the future. 

Before the pool was ever full the water would be black-green, nothing to be seen as much as three inches below the surface. This fact was joy to us boys – all day long we would play cross tag with the pursued diving and swimming underwater, with the resultant inability of the pursuer to follow his course. 

The water was somewhat lukewarm – how different from today. 

Baseball 

During the ten years before the First World War baseball played a great part in the lives of the teenagers. Many an afternoon was spent in shagging flies on the polo field. Every Sunday in the Philadelphia Inquirer there was a page devoted to advertisements of games wanted by teams of age specified in the ads. We had a team and would invite teams of appropriate age to come to the Club to play. 

Penllyn and Equestrian Pursuits

The returned soldiers and sailors were an energetic lot and resurrected polo. For about three years we played valiantly. Some of the ponies were carriage horses, which had been retired as such with the coming of the automobile. 

A popular sport in those days, enjoyed by men, women, and children, were mounted paper chases. Two hares would leave the polo field and with clipped newspaper, lay a course of eight or more miles, with the return to the polo field. There would be on a Sunday afternoon thirty to fifty hounds, the mounts being hunters, retired carriage horses, polo ponies, and Shetlands. 

A marked change came over the community in the early and middle nineteen twenties. The use of the automobile became universal. The Penllyn Pike and Bethlehem Pike in deplorable condition due to neglect through the war years were taken over by public authorities and rebuilt. Practically all the secondary dirt roads were macadamized. It was part of Henry Ford’s campaign, supported by Governor Pinchot, to take the farmer out of the mud but a sad result was that “hack” riding came to an end except during periods before and after growing crops. There were no longer any dirt roads for casual cantering. 

Another marked change during these years was the effect of the exodus from the city. Before the war most of the members had town houses in the winter and country houses for the summer. The automobile changed that way of life. Walnut, Locust, Spruce, and Delancey Streets, including Rittenhouse Square, were deserted by their householders and became areas of office buildings, and skyscrapers, and the old residences left standing were converted into apartments or shops. 

The Club always maintained close relations with the Whitemarsh Valley Hunt Club. The two Clubs had many members in common. Beginning in 1905 the Hunt Club for decades had an annual race meet. 

In the spring of 1920 a powerful tractor and trailer mower were purchased for mowing the polo field. This took us a step further from the horse and buggy days. For years mowing the polo field with a plodding horse had taken most of the caretaker’s- now termed steward’s-time.

Into the Wild Blue Yonder…

During the end of the twenties we became aeronautically minded. There was a period of great activity on the polo field with gliders. The manned glider would be attached with a long rope to a Model T Ford. The car would run on the polo field for a couple of hundred yards and the rope would then be detached and the glider would soar a few hundred feet over the countryside. For a time it appeared as if gliding would become an important popular sport. It did not. In those days great excitement would be caused by Harry Drayton or Morgan Lott landing their planes on the polo field.