My Genealogy Hound

THOMAS B. GEATRELL. George Geatrell, a native of the Isle of Wight, was the founder of the Geatrell family in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He landed at Philadelphia on July 20, 1821. He entered the county by way of the Bethlehem turnpike on foot, with all his personal property slung in a pack on his back. He first found employment at Flat Rock Dam, which was then in course of construction, and later went to Springhouse. He passed through Chestnut Hill and Flourtown, making an occasional inquiry of the farmers for work. He did not allow repeated refusals to discourage him, but made his way to the village of Springhouse, where he found employment with a Quaker resident of the vicinity, William Foulke, a member of one of the oldest Gwynedd families, his ancestor, Edward Foulke, having come from Wales in 1698, and settled in the vicinity. Mr. Geatrell worked for William Foulke from 1825 until 1830, his wages being a hundred dollars a year and board.

Mr. Geatrell married, in 1823, Ann Bartlett, also a native of the Isle of Wight, and continued at work in the vicinity. In 1830 he purchased a small farm of John Slingluff, in Whitpain township, not far distant. He retained it one year and farmed it, selling it at the end of that time. He then rented a small farm on the Skippack turnpike, near the village of Blue Bell, where he remained one year and then removed to the farm now owned by J. Sims Wilson, also in Whitpain township, where he remained until 1834. He then removed to the Saunders Lewis farm, also in Whitpain township, where he was engaged in farming as a tenant for the long period of twenty-one years. In 1855 he retired from farming, and went to live with his son Thomas, who was at that time engaged in farming in Horsham township, in Montgomery county, where he remained one year, and in 1856 he purchased the property now occupied by his grandson George, son of Thomas, at Penllyn.

George Geatrell was a member of the Whig party, and took an active interest in local politics. He and his family were members of Boehm’s Reformed church, at Blue Bell. He was known as an intelligent and industrious farmer, and enjoyed the respect and confidence of the entire community. For many years until his death, in 1868, he served as an elder in Boehm’s church. The children of George and Ann Geatrell: Thomas Bartlett, born March 19, 1824, while his parents resided at Springhouse; Elizabeth, and Mary. Elizabeth was the mother of George G. Hoover, formerly of Norristown, where he practiced law, but more recently of Washington, where he held a position under the national government.

Thomas B. Geatrell’s early life was spent on the farm with his parents, his education being obtained at the schools of the day, such as they were, in that neighborhood. In 1850, he engaged in farming for himself on his father’s property, but remained there only one years, at the end of that time purchasing and removing to the Iredell farm in Horsham township. There he was engaged in farming, butchering and attending the Philadelphia markets. He thus continued until 1870. The farm contained more than a hundred acres, including 28 acres of woodland. He attended the Callowhill street market for twenty years, and later the Germantown market, which really consisted in going from house to house to wait upon customers. When he retired from the active work of the Horsham farm in 1871, he was succeeded by his son George, who remained on the farm only a few years and returned to Penllyn, where he has for many years conducted the business of an auctioneer, real estate and general business agent, attending to the settlement of estates and other matters involving care and ability. Since 1883, Horace A. Geatrell, another son of Thomas B. Geatrell, has occupied the Horsham farm, and has conducted it successfully, operating it as a dairy.

Thomas B. Geatrell was educated partly at the old Eight Square School, in Gwynedd township, on the Bethlehem turnpike, but he had also as a teacher John Murray, who was proprietor of the store at Springhouse. He also went for a time to a school at Mount Pleasant, in Whitpain township. Mr. Geatrell is a member of Boehm’s Reformed church at Blue Bell, and was for many years one of its trustees and later an elder. He was one of the organizers of the Ambler National Bank, and for a period of seventeen years one of its directors. He now lives with his son George in the house bought by his own father in the days of his retirement. Notwithstanding his burden of eighty years he is still an active man, and maintains his interest in the happenings of the vicinity with which he is so familiar. Mr. Geatrell married, December 25, 1848, Elizabeth, a daughter of Joseph and Ann (Jackson) Ashton, the father being a farmer and hotel keeper at Dunk’s Ferry, on the Delaware river, near Bustleton. Mrs. Geatrell was born May 17, 1828, and was the youngest of four children. Her mother died in 1842, and her father in 1849. The children of Thomas B. and Elizabeth Geatrell: George, born December 8, 1849, married Caroline, daughter of Abram and Caroline (Nice) Kulp, and resides at Penllyn; Mary, born September 23, 1852, married R. Comly Wilson, of near Newtown, Bucks county, and died when she was about nineteen years of age; Horace A., born August 23, 1860, married Mary Smith, and resides on the homestead farm in Horsham township; Anna, born December 13, 1866, married, February 26, 1885, Robert Comly, of Horsham township, a farmer, originally, but now resides at Gwynedd, where he is merchant and postmaster.