![]() ![]() The Chelten Hills Drive Bird Sanctuary was acquired in parcels by Cheltenham Township from 1928 through 1944. (The Wyncote Bird Club was incorporated as the Wyncote Audubon Society in 1977 its records are held at nearby Old York Road Historical Society.) The club was active in the preservation of Crosswicks Wildlife Sanctuary and Briar Bush Nature Center, as well as the Chelten Hills Bird Haven. Soon after the National Audubon Society was founded in 1905, the Wyncote Bird Club formed in 1914 for the preservation of birds and the environment. The Wall House is also verified as having been a stop along the Underground Railroad for enslaved African Americans escaping from the South prior to the Civil War.Įastern Montgomery County is not just a place of sanctuary for humans. The first organized anti-slavery protest in the Americas, the Quaker Germantown Protest of 1688, had its second public reading from the Wall House. The association between Quakers and anti-slavery activity is well-known, and the Quakers of Cheltenham Township were no exception. Friends often chose to hold their meetings there until Abington Meeting House was built in 1702. Instead, they found their sanctuary at the Wall House. They were invited to join meetings for worship in Frankford and Byberry, but the distance was prohibitive. ![]() Richard Wall and other early settlers in the area were members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The first section of the Richard Wall House was built in 1682, the same year Cheltenham Township was established. For over 330 years, the Richard Wall House and surrounding Eastern Montgomery County, Pennsylvania have been a place of sanctuary-for Quakers, slaves, and birds-but not for horse thieves! ![]()
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