My Genealogy Hound

CHARLES C. SLIFER. One of the most remarkable men in Flourtown and in Montgomery county is Charles Cooper Slifer, who resides in a beautiful home on the Bethlehem turnpike in that ancient village. On May 24, 1904, Mr. Slifer was eighty-three years of age, and he has had very little sickness in the course of his life. He has always been an active man, and has very seldom had any occasion to take medicine of any kind, his steady habits and even temper keeping him in excellent health, such as is seldom enjoyed by persons of his age.

Abraham Slifer (father) was reared near Quakertown, and died near Flourtown in 1874, in his eighty-fourth year. His wife was Elizabeth Cooper, of Coopersburg, from whose family that place takes its name. Her father was an immigrant from Germany. She died in her seventy-third year. The parents of Charles C. Slifer, after their marriage, about the time of the second war with England, resided on the old Slifer homestead. Abraham Slifer kept the old Roberts hotel at Quakertown for many years, and it was while he was the landlord, in 1814, that the Light Horsemen, of whom he was one, were called on to assist in expelling the British forces from the country. The members of the troop met one night at the tavern, expecting to leave the place the next morning, but, when the day dawned, orders came countermanding the march, as peace had been made between the two countries. Abraham Slifer was originally a Democrat, but subsequently affiliated with the Republican party.

Later the parents of Charles C. Slifer removed to Salford township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, and there Charles C. was born. The family did not long remain in Salford, for in 1823 they removed to Flourtown, which was even then an old settlement, but not as large as it is at the present time, for the long line of market, hay and mill teams, from Bucks, Northampton and Lehigh counties poured down “the Great Road,” as the turnpike was then called, in an apparently never-ending stream towards Philadelphia. The father took charge of the Bald Eagle hotel, which was closed many years ago, and a large business was established. At times the yards and pike were filled with teams, and the hotel with teamsters. At that time the property was owned by the Johnson family of Germantown who resided just opposite the historic Chew property of Revolutionary fame, around and in which raged the battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777. In 1830 the family removed to the old Kline property of forty acres, comprising land lying along the Plymouth Railroad and the Springhouse and Chestnut Hill turnpike. The farm also included the site of the present Springfield Presbyterian church and cemetery. About 1836 Mr. Slifer returned to the hotel property, but not as a tenant, for he had purchased the sixteen acres and forty perches, which the deed calls for and the buildings, from the Johnson estate, and was then owner as well as landlord. He continued in the hotel business at the Bald Eagle stand until 1847, when Charles Cooper Slifer assumed proprietorship. Previously, however, the father had erected for himself a home on the tract of land adjoining the hotel, and removed to the new property about 1841 or 1842. There he continued to reside until his death in 1874.

Charles C. Slifer in 1876 made extensive improvements and alterations to the Mansion House. Among them were a bath room and modern conveniences, a mansard roof on the building, and others. Having made his residence complete and modern in its arrangement, he continued to live in it, but still conducted the hotel. From 1847 until 1872 he was the sole proprietor. Charles Slifer sold grains and feed to the farmers who traveled up and down the turnpike between their farms and the city of Philadelphia, making his hotel their headquarters. Of seven thousand loads of hay which passed down the turnpike in a single year, not less than thirty-five hundred, or half of the whole number, were weighed on his scales, and nearly all these teams made his hotel their regular stopping place. He served 1175 meals in a single week, and in the same length of time sold between four thousand and five thousand bushels of mill feed. One contract for bran alone made by him was for twenty thousand bushels. Tons and tons of oil cake were disposed of to the farmers during the winter season. Having conducted a very profitable business, however, which the opening of the North Pennsylvania Railroad somewhat curtailed, and which was diminishing year by year, in 1872, after the stand had been operated continuously by father and son for just half a century, the son decided to retire from business, and enjoy the fruits of his energetic and successful life in his old age. He is a director in the Chestnut Hill Railway Company. In politics he is a Republican.

September 24, 1863, Mr. Slifer married Eliza D., daughter of Major John Dager, of Barren Hill. Through this marriage Mr. Slifer became connected with the Freas family, who were relatives of the Dager family. Fine oil paintings of some of the members of this family hang in Mr. Slifer’s home in Flourtown, and the walls of his home are also adorned with paintings of his father and mother. In October, 1901, Mrs. Slifer, after an illness of five years, died, at the age of over seventy-three years, beloved by all who knew her. She was a member of the Barren Hill Lutheran church in Whitemarsh township, and every Sunday when she was able was taken in her wheeled chair to the services in Zion Lutheran church, at Flourtown, when she could not otherwise have attended. Mr. Slifer was for twenty-five years a trustee of Zion Lutheran church, and a regular attendant at the services, contributing very largely of his means and time ta the support of the church, and laboring in every field of church enterprise. In 1896, at his own request, he was relieved of this duty, which he had faithfully performed for so long a time. He still retains his interest, however, and his devotion to all the material and spiritual requirements of the church. Mr. and Mrs. Slifer had no children, but they adopted a daughter, Mary Smith Cooper Slifer, who came into the family at the age of about five years, lived to womanhood, and died in her twenty-seventh year, in 1894, and was buried in the Union cemetery, Whitemarsh. She had two sisters, whose burial was from Mr. Slifer’s own house when they died.

In Union cemetery, at his own expense, Mr. Slifer has erected one of the handsomest monuments to be found in that churchyard. It overlooks the resting place of his wife, and is an exquisite piece of workmanship. The figures of the shepherd and his lamb are beautifully chiseled. The foundations required thirteen tons of stone and concrete, which was allowed to settle one year before the superstructure was placed in position. There are four different kinds of granite that enter into the construction of this beautiful monument, the base being of Westerly granite. The monument is a work of art in every respect. Not far distant, in the old part of the cemetery, and to the rear of the present beautiful home of the Zion Lutheran congregation, are the graves of the brothers of Mr. Slifer, as follows: Daniel, born November 4, 1813, and died November 1, 1881, aged seventy years, eleven months and twenty-eight days; Thomas W., born February 8, 1831, died October 26, 1836, aged five years, eight months and eighteen days; Frances, born February 25, 1825, died April 25, 1833, at the age of eight years and two months; Henry, died in infancy. One sister Ellamina (Logan) was buried in Philadelphia.