Jones Building (22-24 Centre Square, Recently Bixler S Jewelers)

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(Photo by Richard F. Hope)

Jones Building (22-24 Centre Square, recently Bixler’s Jewelers)

3-story, 5-bay “Italianate” style[1] structure with projecting window pediments and bracketed roof cornice. The Jones Building was built here by the family of Attorney Matthew Hale Jones. Attorney Jones acquired the property as part of a legal fee for breaking a charitable bequest in the will of Easton’s “merchant prince”, Peter Miller. [See details below.]

The property was originally designated as Lot No.129 by William Parsons when he founded Easton in 1752. It was officially acquired from the Penn Family by Jacob Sickman (also spelled Sigman) in 1789, along with several other Easton properties including the eastern half of Lot No.130 next door (to the West). In addition to a previous metal (“in Specie”) payment of £ 76, an annual rental fee of “one Barley Corn” was also due on the first of March each year, “if Demanded”. Sickman’s occupation was listed as a cordwainer (shoemaker) by trade.[2]

A year later (in 1789), Sickman sold Lot No.129 and his eastern half of Lot No.130 to William Craig for £140 in paper money.[3] Craig had already purchased formal title to Lot No.128 (next door).[4] Coming from Northampton County’s Irish Settlement, Craig had originally presented the petition to the Pennsylvania Assembly requesting the creation Northampton County.[5] He was granted the first tavern/inn license in the new county.[6] Along with Easton founder William Parsons, Craig had been one of the county’s nine first court justices in 1752; he was elected as the county’s first sheriff, and held the important court position of Prothonotary in 1788-95 and 1797-98.[7] “He might be called the founder of what has become known as ‘The Court House Gang’, being the county’s first perpetual office holder.”[8]

At some point, William Craig left Easton.[9] In 1797, he transferred properties to John Craig, in a hastily drawn deed that is unclear exactly what properties it covered.[10] The Craigs owed money all over town, including £60 (plus $13.53 in damages) to Samuel Moore, acting as a trustee for Minne Gulick.

• This mixture of pounds and dollars indicates that this transaction falls in the midst of the transition from one currency to the other in the new American Republic.

Craig (along with others) also owed money “for erecting a Bridge over the River Delaware at the Borough of Easton”[11] – apparently referring to what became the Palmer Bridge, whose financial difficulties delayed its construction and opening until 1806.[12] William Craig’s property transfer to John did not protect the properties from seizure to pay these debts. In 1799, Northampton County Sheriff Henry Spering (acting in his official capacity on Court instructions) seized Craig’s Lot No.128, as well as the corner parcel composed of Lot No.129 and his half of Lot No.130, and sold them to George Frederick Wagener for £ 915. Two months later, Sheriff Spering confirmed the transaction back to court, in a Sheriff’s Deed dated 25 March.[13] The very next day (26 March), Wagner resold these properties back to Sheriff Spering personally, for the very same £ 915 sale price,[14] making it clear that the Sheriff’s involvement in the transaction was entirely self-interested!

Henry Spering’s family had lost their homestead on Easton’s Centre Square during the Revolution, when his father, John Spering Sr., hadabandoned his wife and four children to restore his allegiance to his King, and sailed for England. Thereafter, John Spering’stwo daughters were indentured as servants to families with solid Revolutionary credentials: one to Andrew Kichlein (son of Colonel Peter Kichlein who commanded the “Flying Camp” regiment that fought in the Continental Army at the Battle of Brooklyn), and the other to Jacob Arndt (brother of Captain John Arndt, from Col. Kichlein’s regiment).[15] also developed good credentials with the new Revolutionary government. Spering’s older son (John Jr.) saw active serviceduring the Revolution in the “Continental Line” – the core of General Washington’s Continental Army – and served during major battles including Brandywine and Monmouth.[16] The younger son, Henry, may also have served in the army during the Revolution – at least according to family history later in Henry’s life.[17] He certainly saw service in the Pennsylvania militia shortly after that War, as a volunteer private (substituting for another person),[18] rising in subsequent years to a rank of captain.[19] Based in part on John’s Revolutionary War service, Henry Speringsucceeded in obtaining an Act from the Pennsylvania General Assembly dated 22 November 1782 restoring his family’s “Wooden House” and property to the four Spering children.[20] Henry subsequently acquired his siblings’ shares to become the property’s sold owner,[21] and obtained a formal deed from the Penn Family in 1791.[22]

Henry Spering made use of his political skills to achieve a succession of public offices. He wasappointed Easton’s first Postmaster for four years, beginning in 1793. He became Northampton County Sheriff from 1797 until 1800.[23] He then served as County Prothonotary (from 1800 until 1821). At various times he was Northampton County’s Recorder, Register, and Clerk of Sessions.[24] He served as Chief Burgess of Easton in 1804-05 and again in 1806;[25] and finallybecame a Brigadier General of militia during the War of 1812.[26] General Henry Spering died on 6 January 1823 at age 67.[27] His burial in the Lutheran burial ground [at 4th and Ferry Streets] was “attended by an unusual large train of friends, and the three volunteer companies of Easton, accompanied with solemn music, performed by the bans attached to the ‘Easton Artillerists’ & ‘Easton Union Guards,’ and the firing of cannon.”[28]

In the month before his death, Henry Spering’s lawyer, George Ihrie, visited him at home, and found him “lying on his sofa”. Spering assured his lawyer that he “felt quite well except a little pain in the back”, but nevertheless “a conversation took place . . . respecting person[s] dying without having made wills”. George Ihrie’s later affidavit account (with some needed punctuation added) is remarkably descriptive of the conversation about Spering’s will.

[Ihrie] “observed[:] one of these days[,] General[,] you will drop off without having made yours[.] [H]e said it was true he had not yet made his[,] but as soon as he was able to be up[,] he would prepare a memorandum of it and get deponent [Ihrie] to draw one[,] that he intended to give the house he lived in and the lot thereto belonging to his daughter Mary Cooper . . . .”[29]

Spering made no mention of how he wanted his other property handled, and “that was the last time” George Ihrie saw Spering before Spering’s death. No request for a formal will was ever made. However, apparently as a result of this conversation, Spering did write out a single paragraph on less than half a page of paper, willing “to Mary J. Cooper the hous ]house] Lot the appurtenances Situat in the great Square of the borouf [borough] of Easton . . . .”[30] After Spering died, this partial will was attested by George Ihrie and by John Erb (his physician) as being in Spering’s handwriting, and it was probated as his will.[31] Because it contained no mention of Spering’s other property, the rest of his real estate passed under Pennsylvania’s “intestacy” law in common shares to all of his four children.[32] This led to the curious (and otherwise apparently contradictory!) statement in certain legal documents that Henry Spering had “Died Intestate except so far as by a Certain Instrument of Writing purporting to be the Last Will and Testament of the said Henry Spering”.[33]

Henry Spering’s oldest son, lawyer Charles F. Spering, petitioned Orphans Court in 1824 to split up(“partition”) the common interests of the siblings in his father’s property into separate pieces.[34] A committee set up by the Sheriff to split up and appraise the real estate into separate pieces. Henry Spering’s former residence – where Mary Cooper was left in possession – was not included for consideration by the committee, but the rest was divided into three “Purparts” and assigned values.[35] Each of the four Spering children refused to take any of the resulting “Purparts” of property at the assigned valuations, and so they were offered for sale to the public.[36] In 1825, Lot No.129 and the half of Lot No.130 owned by Henry Spering (which had been divided into separate “Purparts” by the committee) were sold to Peter Miller for $1,820.[37] [The committee had appraised these two Purparts at $1300 and $650, respectively, for a total of $1950.][38]

Peter Miller was known as one of the three “rich men of Easton”,[39] the town’s “merchant prince” and a noted “philanthropist”.[40] Miller’s residence was on Northampton Street, on the site of the present Two Rivers Landing.[41] When Peter Miller died in 1847, at age 81,[42] his property was inherited by his nephew (also named Peter Miller, of Ohio), except for some large charitable bequests.[43] Nephew Peter Miller hired an agent in Easton to manage his properties there, and two of Easton’s most prominent attorneys to challenge one of the will’s charitable bequests creating a trust for the accumulation of income to make loans to “Farmers of industrious and sober habits”, and for eventual use to build a hospital. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, voided this bequest as a violation of the legal “rule against perpetuities”. Nephew Miller’s lawyers in his successful challenge were James Madison Porter and Matthew Hale Jones,[44] both of whom had mansions on North Third Street.[45] In 1849, nephew Peter Miller used 2/5 of this inheritance to pay his agent in Easton, named Samuel Wilhelm,[46] and another 1/5 to his two prominent Easton lawyers (presumably to settle his legal bills).[47] Within two months, the lawyers agreed to return their general 1/5 interest in all the inherited real estate[48] in exchange for complete ownership in certain of the properties; the property at what became 24 Centre Square was among those that went to the lawyers.[49] A few days later, the two attorneys split up their properties between them, allotting this property (among others) to Matthew Hale Jones.[50]

• For his share of the legal fee, Judge Porter (the founder of Lafayette College, among other things) got other properties, including the one at the corner of Centre Square and 3rd Street,[51] on which his son built the “Porter Block” which is incorporated in the Alpha Building that stands there today.[52] The two attorneys also jointly sold a strip of land partly located on the western side of Centre Square to the Borough of Easton.[53]

The building that stands on the property today is theJones Building,[54]which was built as a commercial investment by Easton lawyer Matthew Hale Jones.[55] Attorney Jones (1811-83) was a noted Easton lawyer and District Attorney,[56] who also purchased and expanded Chippy White’s old hotel building at the corner of Centre Square and North 3rd Street and used it for his family mansion and office building. His grandson later converted it into the Hotel Huntington.[57]

Matthew Hale Jones probably built the existing Jones Building by 1858,[58] and likely after 1852.[59] A lithograph from the 1850s shows that before the Jones Building, a smaller building (apparently a single story) stood on the spot, at that time housing “Stillwell’s Printing Office”. Next door (in the corner of the Square’s SW Quadrant) was a marble yard.[60]

Valois Lithograph, Centre Square SW Quadrant

Attorney Jones’sCentre Square structure was identified as the Jones Building repeatedly in the City Directories of the early 20th Century.[61] The property continued to be owned by the Jones Family’s heirs long into the 20th Century[62] and the “Jones Building” name continued to be used in directories until at least 1962.[63]

The Jones Building was used from the beginning for a variety of commercial purposes. In 1863 (during the Civil War) and into the 1870s, this was the location of Henry A. Sage’s wholesale liquor store, at104 Centre Square (Northampton Street).[64] It was also the location of John D. Sigman’s hardware and cutlery store in the early 1870s, with the address of 102 Northampton Street.[65] With the adoption of the modern street numbering scheme in 1874, Sage’s store was assigned the modern address of 24 Centre Square,[66] while J.D. Sigman & Co.’s hardware store was assigned the modern address of 22 Centre Square.[67] The modern tax records list the property on which the Jones Building stands as 22-24 Centre Square.[68]

• In 1874, Henry A. Sage lived at 5 Lehn’s Court.[69]

Henry A. Sage was a grandson of Adam Lehn,[70] who had owned the land surrounding Lehn’s Court.[71] After attending the Vanderveer Academy and public schools in Easton, he taught school for a time. He then learned the printing trade by working on The Jerseyman in Morristown, NJ, later returning to Easton to work on the Sentinel. In 1858, he opened his own liquor business – “Sage’s family liquor store” – located in the Masonic Hall building now numbered 44 South 3rd Street, at the NE corner with Ferry Street.[72] Although Henry Sage’s liquor career was interrupted by a brief service in the Union Army during the Civil War,[73] by 1863Sage’s liquor store had moved to the Jones Building in Centre Square.[74] As the liquor business prospered, Sage entered other ventures as well. In 1871, he established a horse car trolley line from Centre Square to shops on the South Side of the Lehigh; the Easton Transit Company later took over that line. In 1878 he entered a “harness manufacturing business”[75] – apparently succeeding as the owner of Henry Bender’s leather and harness business in Military Hall (now 353-55 Northampton Street).[76] The liquor business also moved to 348 Northampton Street at about this time.[77] Henry A. Sage was an Easton schools director for 13 years, and at the time of his death at age 80 in 1913 was the oldest living Mason in Easton.[78]

The Dry Goods Houses

In the 1880s, William G. Stewart & Son’s wholesale dry goods and notions business was located in this building.[79] William G. Stewart was one of three sons of wire manufacturer John Stewart[80] living in a row on North Second Street.[81] He was born in Easton in 1827,[82] and worked as a merchant at least by 1855, probably for iron merchant and “gentleman” John Green, in the building at the corner of Spring Garden and North 4th Street.[83] (William’s brother, Edward, had worked for John Green until 1854.[84]) In 1860, William apparently began his wholesale dry goods and notions business.[85] By 1877, Stewart had added his son, Frank W. Stewart, to the firm, and changed the name to W.G. Stewart & Son.[86] By 1883, the store was located in the Jones Building at 24 Centre Square.[87] William G. Stewart retired by 1897,[88]and died in 1909.[89]

• His son, Frank W. Stewart, had also left the dry goods business by 1900 to become a real estate and insurance broker.[90] By 1910, Frank W. Stewart (now a widower) was no longer in his home at home at 111 North 4th Street; instead he and his son, Frank W. Stewart Jr., had become boarders in the Karldon Hotel[91] (located at he NW corner of 3rd and Spring Garden Streets[92]). Three years later (in 1913), Frank Sr. shot himself in his office “over Rader’s store” after a long illness. Frank Jr. heard the shot and rushed in to discover his father’s suicide.[93] Rader’s Store was located at 327 Northampton Street, in the second building West of Bank Alley.[94]

James W. Correll succeeded to the W.G. Stewart & Sonwholesale dry goods business in 1896 or ’97, and remained until 1899.[95] Correll was born in 1852[96] in Forks Township. At the age of 17, he began to work in Jacob Hay’s dry goods store,[97] where he met fellow employee Floyd Bixler. In 1880, theyformed their own dry goods partnership;[98] the Knecht Building (at 20 South Third Street) was built a few years later in part to fulfill their needs.[99] Correll was also a member of the Easton City Council from 1889 – 96, and was the President of the Council in the last two years.[100] After he left City Council – and after about 16 years in partnership with Bixler – Correllwithdrew from the partnership and opened his own wholesale businessin the Jones Building, occupying most of the space.[101] Based upon his street address, Correll’s store occupied the western street-level store of the Jones Building. In order to obtain even more space, he also built a new brick building at the SW corner of Bank and Pine Street (part of the location now occupied by the Easton Parking Garage), and moved there in October 1899.[102] Correll’s new store apparently replaced George D. Lehn’s livery stable at that location,[103] and was also presumably built on the additional address of 313 Pine Street that he had obtained from the Stewarts.[104] The City Directory would later refer to that property as the “Correll Building”.[105] He also brought two of his sons into the firm.[106]

In 1899, the same year that he moved to the Correll Building, James Correll ran for Mayor of Easton, but lost to Dr. B. Rush Field. In 1916, Correll “discontinued” his firm[107] due to bankruptcy. His wife had to repurchase the family home at 75 North 4th Street from Henry D. Maxwell, the Trustee in Bankruptcy, in that year.[108] Thereafter, Correll “lived retired”. He was one of the organizers of the Pomfret Club in 1885, and remained a member for 40 years.[109] An avid fisherman, he also organized the Easton Anglers’ Association with stove merchant E.B. Mack.[110]