A Town is Born
A Brief History of Lansdale’s Early Years
Unlike many towns in the suburban Philadelphia area, Lansdale is not a community with colonial roots.
At the time of the Revolutionary War, what is now Lansdale was undeveloped rural countryside, a mix of woods and open fields with clay-laden soil that was generally unsuitable for crops. The tract was known as “The Mud Hole”.
There were no municipal borders in those days; some of the land was in Hatfield Township to the north, the rest in Gwynedd Township to the south. Most of the land was owned by Welsh immigrant Jenkin Jenkins, who passed it along to son John Jenkins I in the early 1740s.
John, who came to America with his father in 1729, chose to permanently settle on the expansive tract. He built a log house in 1746 near the headwaters of the Towamencin Creek for his growing family. But that’s just the beginning of Lansdale’s history. Click “Read More” to learn how the Jenkins farm grew into a village then a booming town.
