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Montgomery County, PA
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Created on September 10, 1784 from part of Philadelphia
County. Named perhaps for Montgomeryshire in Wales, for
the Revolutionary hero Gen. Richard Montgomery, or for
two legislators named Montgomery who advanced the bill
to create the county. Norristown, the county seat, was
laid out in 1784 and incorporated as a borough on March
31, 1812. It was named for Isaac Norris who owned land
there.
 Settled
since 1685, the first residents were Germans, mainly
pietists, in Germantown. Welsh, Scotch-Irish, English
(mostly Quakers), and Swedes flocked to the area. The
opening of the Schuylkill Canal in 1825 boosted the
economy, followed by railroads. The Pennsylvania
Railroad’s Main Line passed through in the 1860s, giving
rise to an elite residential area, “the Main Line.”
Intelligent farming has always been practiced on the
county’s good soil. Iron works arose in Norristown,
Pottstown, and Conshohocken, and leather tanning was
very important until the 1930s. Bernard McCready began a
large textile factory in Norristown in 1826, with an
enormous factory. Cigars, carriages, and paper were
nineteenth-century Montgomery specialties, and marble is
still quarried. From about 1900 to the 1970s steel,
machinery, textiles, rubber, electrical, chemicals, and
paint manufacturing were strong. The county is still a
manufacturing giant. In 1992 it had the highest “value
added from manufactures” figure of any Pennsylvania
county. This was an amazing 9 ¼ billion dollars—more
than double the figure for any other county. In
addition, much personal income comes in from residents
who work in Philadelphia. The county has the highest
personal income rate and lowest percentage in poverty of
the sixty-seven counties. Eighteen percent of the land
is still farmed, and the county ranks eleventh in cash
receipts from field crops. Both Republican Gov.
Hartranft and Democratic presidential candidate Winfield
Scott Hancock were natives.
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