Bixler Building (401 Northampton Street)

3

(Photos by Richard F. Hope, 2008)

(As repainted and repaired, photo 2009 by Richard F. Hope)

Pomp/Bixler Building (401 Northampton Street)

Deep 4-story, white brick building with dental roof cornice, in “Greek Revival” architectural style.[1] The “Bixler Building” legend appears above the Fourth Street entrance.[2]

The property is the southeastern portion of Original Town Lot No.217, as surveyed by William Parsons when Easton was formed in 1752.[3] This Lot was later carved up into smaller real estate parcels. Parsons reserved all of Original Town Lot 217, as well as Lot 218 (next to the West), for his own use. He initially built his residence on this property, facing Hamilton (now North Fourth) Street close to (but not on) Northampton Street, on ground that is apparently part of the Pomp / Bixler Building property today. Parsons’s residence “was probably the first house built in Easton after the erection of Northampton County in 1752.”[4] It was probably built of logs – and certainly was not the brick building on the property today, because the first brick construction in Easton was not begun until 1792.[5]

William Parsons (1701 – 1757) was the founder of Easton. He was apprenticed as a shoemaker in England as a boy; made his way to Philadelphia before his 21st birthday, and opened his own successful shop Philadelphia. He taught himself mathematics and surveying, and became one of Benjamin Franklin’s associates, becoming a charter member of Franklin’s Union Fire Company, and in 1734 the Librarian of Franklin’s Library Company. He also began making professional surveys in the 1730s, and was appointed Surveyor General of Pennsylvania from 1741-48.[6] In 1750-51, he was a dominant member of the team that settled the disputed boundary line between Delaware and Maryland.[7] In 1752, he was sent by his patrons, the Penn Family, to survey and lay out the new site for Easton, and remained in the new town as the Penns’s representative to sell land to settlers.[8] He remained to direct Easton’s affairs and (as a Major in the militia) the defense of Northampton County during the first years of the French and Indian War,[9] and died in Easton in 1757 in his new stone residence now numbered 60 South Fourth Street (the Parsons-Taylor House).[10]

Parsons, despite his pivotal role in founding the town, was not happy about his appointment to Easton,[11] and in any event was building a stone house for himself at the corner of Fourth and Ferry Streets (which he finally occupied in 1757).[12] He never bothered to obtain formal title to the property at the corner of Northampton and Hamilton (now North Fourth) Streets. Nearly two years after his death, his Executor obtained a formal patent to that land from the Penn Family for an annual rent of 14 shilling sterling, and sold the entire property in the following year to Meyer Hart.[13]

Meyer Hart was an original Easton settler in 1752 who became the town’s wealthiest merchant.[14] He was Jewish, but in 1755 he contributed 20 lbs of nails to the building of the first (log) schoolhouse which was also used by the German Reformed Congregation for their worship services, which the Church to this day commemorates with a Star of David on a stained glass window.[15] In 1760, Hart had purchased Easton founder William Parson’s log house, from Parson’s estate.[16] In 1764, he purchased a property on Northampton Street to the North of Hamilton (later, 4th) Street, which he may have used for his store building for ten years.[17] Meyer Hart began sending grain to Philadelphia in Durham boats in approximately 1770[18] – thus foreshadowing the great grain market trade that Easton would achieve after the Revolution.[19] In 1780, when Pennsylvania emancipated its Negro slaves, Meyer Hart owned five of them – although three were only children.[20] At the peak of his fortunes he owned “two houses, several slaves, a bond servant, six lots, a horse, a cow, and his stock in trade.”[21] He sold the store property North of Hamilton (later, 4th) Street in 1774.[22] It was Meyer Hart who gave the “lavish” ball in 1782 in the Easton Courthouse for General George Washington and his staff, which resulted in a social scandal after his daughter, Judith, married a Christian officer.[23] By that time, however, Meyer Hart’s business fortunes were declining.[24] He moved to Philadelphia in 1783.[25] In that year, he assigned some of his real property in an attempt to satisfy creditors, and in 1785 liquidated other out-of-town properties.[26] In 1787 he lost the two old Parsons property Lots in a Sheriff’s sale to Peter Shnyder, a tanner.[27] Shortly thereafter, Shnyder purchased a release of the annual rental fee from the Penn Family.[28] Peter Shnyder/Schnyder (1753 – 1823[29]) is probably the same person who served as one of the three Trustees of the German Reformed congregation to receive John and Richard Penn’s gift of land, on which the German Union Church was built in 1775-76.[30] He is reputed to have been Easton’s richest citizen in 1790, with a residence at the corner of Bushkill and Pomfret (later North 3rd) Streets.[31]

Peter Schnyder died intestate in 1823, and his heirs divided up the two old Parsons property Lots into smaller pieces of property, and sold them off separately.[32] In particular, two parcels were sold to Peter Miller, including a portion of Original Town Lot No.217 located at the corner of Northampton and Hamilton (now Fourth) Streets.[33] Peter Miller was Easton’s “merchant prince”[34] and one of the three “rich men of Easton”.[35] He died in 1847, at age 81.[36] His nephew, also named Peter Miller (of Ohio), inherited much of his real estate. In 1849, nephew Peter Miller used 2/5 of this inheritance to pay his agent in Easton, named Samuel Wilhelm,[37] and another part to settle the legal bills his two prominent Easton lawyers[38] who prosecuted a lengthy (and ultimately successful) lawsuit to annul one of the will’s charitable bequests, resulting in a landmark decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.[39] With the lawyers’ bills resolved, in late 1849 Miller and Samuel Wilhelm partitioned the remaining real estate to settle Wilhelm’s interests – this property being among those that Peter Miller himself kept. At that time, it was occupied by “John Dehart and others”.[40] Miller died shortly thereafter, in 1850.[41]

Shortly before Peter Miller (of Ohio) died, his agent concluded a contract of sale for this corner property to Peter Pomp. Unfortunately, the transaction had not closed before Miller’s death, and it took a private act of the Pennsylvania Assembly to authorize a completion of the transaction, which was concluded by a deed dated 1 April 1850.[42] At this time, a “large New Four Story Brick Building” at this location was “erected expressly for a Drug Ware House”, and was taken over by the existing drug business of Peter Pomp, which moved from a few doors away.[43] Pomp opened during December of 1850, with his “immense four story Building . . . jammed full of goods from garret to cellar”.[44] The following June, a local newspaper enthusiastically described “Pomp’s Chemical Palace” by proclaiming that:

“Mr. Pomp’s new building in Northampton street has been raised to its full height, and overlooks all other building in the vicinity. – In architectureal beauty it is one of the most imposing buildings in the Borough, and is an ornament to the street in which it is located. – Mr. Lawall and Mr. Pomp in erecting their new buildings, have done more to improve Easton than many others who make larger claims on the public consideration.”[45]

The building was pictured in an inset to a map of Easton published in 1855. That picture shows an imposing four-story building (as today) but with three window bays, with four square, high pillars (or possibly pilasters) topped by square capitals apparently supporting the front awning.[46]

The “Pure Drugs” store established by Peter and his son Charles Pomp at this location, at that time numbered 143 Northampton Street.[47] Pomp’s Drug Store gave the building its long-time designation of the “Pomp Building”.[48] “P. Pomp’s Drug Store” was, in fact, used by other merchants as an Easton landmark to direct their customers in 1855.[49]

Peter Pomp (1798 – 1856, whose full name was apparently Nicholas Peter Pomp) was a son of Rev. Thomas Pomp, long-time pastor of the German Reformed Church on North 3rd Street.[50] Peter Pomp also trained his younger brother, Thomas, as a druggist, before Thomas struck out on his own[51] and eventually established a competing store at what is now 343-45 Northampton Street.[52]

It appears that Peter Pomp was also the Conductor of the band of the Artillerists private military company, c.1824. John D. Weiss was the band leader at that time, and there were 26 band members. In 1833 the name was changed to the Citizens’ Band, with Pomp as leader. In 1844, it became the Easton Brass Band, substituting brass instrument for the woodwinds, with Peter Pomp as conductor and William H. Pomp as band leader. In 1852, “German silver instruments [i.e. cornets] were substituted, and the name again changed to . . . Pomp’s Cornet Band,” under the leadership of Pomp, with Thomas Coates as conductor.[53] Thomas Coates was the first cornet soloist in America, and became the long-time bandmaster of the Easton Band. He has been called “The Father of Band Music in America”.[54]

Peter Pomp died of “Softening of [the] brain” in 1856, at the age of 58.[55] His son, Charles Pomp[56] continued as proprietor at the drug store.[57] Charles died of an accidental fall in 1863.[58] By 1873, the drug store was being operated by D.E. Becker, and was renumbered the following year as 401 Northampton Street.[59]

Apparently in the early 20th Century, Easton character “Professor” Albert Newhart “walked across a rope stretched between the Central Hotel and the Pomp Buildings.”[60] Mr. Newhart was, among other things, a competition distance walker,[61] tight-rope walker, clairvoyant,[62] “Pow-Wow Doctor [a Pennsylvania Dutch faith healer[63]] and Palmist”.[64] His advertisement in 1907 proclaimed that he did:

“more business than any other palmist. Advice given on business. Married couples reunited. Pow-wowing and palm-reading without charge, although presents accepted. Best time for pow-wowing at new or full moon. Office hours – 9 to 11 a.m., 1 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m.”[65]

Perhaps most importantly, Albert Newhart was also the father of Moetta Newhart, the principal “Madam” of Easton’s nationally-known brothels on Pine Street during the Prohibition Era.[66]

The building was identified in 1925 (during the tenure of Arthur B. Bixler) as the “Bixler Bldg., formerly Pomp Bldg”).[67] Bixler’s Jewelers moved into the first floor of the building in 1911,[68] and acquired the building from the Pomp family in 1919.[69] However, Bixler’s moved again to its recent location in the Jones Building of Centre Square in 1925.[70]

[1] City of Easton, Pennsylvania Historic Resource Survey Form, Attachment: Building Description Survey Area 1 Zone C (City Council Resolution approved 12 May 1982).

[2] The Bixler family did not currently take credit for adopting the name during its brief tenure in the building. Interview with Joyce Mitman Welken, President and Co-Owner, Bixler’s Jewelers.

[3] Compare A.D. Chidsey, Jr., The Penn Patents in the Forks of the Delaware Plan of Easton, Map 2 (Vol. II of Publications of the Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society 1937) with Northampton County Tax Records map, www.ncpub.org.

[4] A.D. Chidsey, Jr., A Frontier Village 234-35, 240 (Vol. III of the Publications of The Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society 1940).

[5] See Rev. U.W. Condit, “History of Sitgreaves Street”, Easton Daily Free Press, Friday, 28 Aug. 1896, p.3, col.3 (Cudjo House identified as first brick building in Easton); James Wright, “Sitgreaves Street has some of Easton’s oldest building”, Easton Express, Sunday, 11 Sept. 1988, p.C-2 (Cudjoe House identified as first brick building in Easton, modern address given as 63 Sitgreaves Street); Ethan Allen Weaver, “Historical Sketches Relating to Easton and Eastonians No.III”, in Historical Notes First Series 9 (copied in Easton Public Library June 1926)(indicates first brick house in Easton was built by Sitgreaves in 1792 on Sitgreaves Alley to the North of Northampton Street, without identifying Cudjo as the occupant); Ethan Allen Weaver, “The Forks of the Delaware” Illustrated xi (Eschenbach Press 1900)(same).

[6] Chidsey, A Frontier Village, supra at 77-83.

[7] Chidsey, A Frontier Village, supra at 83-84.

[8] Chidsey, A Frontier Village, supra at 84-85, 89.

[9] Chidsey, A Frontier Village, supra at 89-93.

[10] See separate www.WalkingEaston.com entry for the Parsons-Taylor House, at 60 South Fourth Street.

[11] See Chidsey, A Frontier Village, supra at 88.

[12] B.F. Fackenthal, Jr., ”The Homes of George Taylor, Signer of the Declaration of Independence”, Paper read before the George Taylor Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, at Easton, PA, 6 Dec. 1922, at 21 (copy at Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society); see separate www.WalkingEaston.com entry for Parsons-Taylor House at 60 South Fourth Street.

[13] Deed, Timothy Horsfield, Executor of Will of William Parsons, to Meyer Hart, C1 15 (21 Mar. 1760)(reciting a Patent from the Penn Family in Patent Book A19 133 dated 20 Nov. 1759); see Deed, Peter (Elizabeth) Shnyder, et al., Heirs of Peter Shnyder (Sr.), to Jacob Weygandt Jr., A5 406 (21 Apr. 1824)(recitals). See also Northampton County Warrant P29 issued to Timothy Horsfield, Executor of the Will of William Parsons (30 Oct. 1759, returned 20 Nov. 1759), indexed online for Northampton County p.136 Warrant No.29 at www.phmc.state.pa.us/bah/dam/rg/di/r17-88WarrantRegisters/NorthamptonPages/Northampton136.pdf, survey copied at Survey Book C155 242 (returned 20 Nov. 1759)(William Parsons, entry of Timothy Horsfield’s name is struck out).