History of the Site
Why Do We Call it the Strassberger Homestead?
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Rueben Strassburger was born in 1823 in Bridgetown, Bucks County. This is the area now known as South Perkasie. Rueben was the son of the well-known and successful businessman Reverend John Andrew Strassburger. Rueben taught briefly at a one-room schoolhouse in Perkasie. In 1845, he met Elizabeth Zeigler Schwenk, daughter of Jacob Schwenk of Schwenksville at a young people’s frolic. Using money Rueben received from his father, and possibly a dowry from Mr. Schwenk, he purchased the site we now refer to as the Strassburger Farmstead. It was probably built by either Jacob Hartzel of John Moyer around 1830. At the time, the property contained 42 acres, the 1830s bank barn and the original brick household. |
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Rueben was not a farmer, but a store owner and businessman, so he built another structure on the property to house his tenant farmers. It was a very small, two-story wood building. He also added on to the brick building, making his store with an entrance facing the Bethlehem Pike. Rueben’s brother was a tailor who at times lived here, and he sold clothing in the store. It also contained a shoe shop at times. Rueben and Elizabeth had seven children while living in Hilltown. During the Civil War, large quantities of supplies consisting of boxes of food, bandages, etc., were forwarded from this Hilltown store to the Union troops and prisoners in the South. In 1869, he disposed of the store and home and took his family to Schwenksville, where he engaged in the coal and lumber business with his brother-in-law, Abraham Schwenk. The business was named Schwenk & Strassburger. In August of 1872, Rueben Strassburger was accidently killed by falling from a railroad car in his warehouse. |
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