1

(Photo by Richard F. Hope)

Semple Building (323 Northampton Street, now American Dollar Store, Map Reference 55)

2-story brick building, modern façade facing Northampton Street with older brick façade facing Bank Street. Identified as having been constructed c.1880-1900.[1]

The building stands on the southeastern portion of Original Town Lot No.168, as drawn up by William Parsons when he established Easton in 1752.[2] The original purchaser of Lot No. 168 from the Penn Family was Mordicai Peirsol, in 1790.[3] Two years later, he sold to Jacob Shouse a 40’ strip of this lot at the corner,running alongside Bank Alley (now called Bank Street).[4] Peirsol retained the remainder of the lot.

Shouse, a house carpenter,resold the corner property in the following year (1793) to butcher Frederick Gewinner (also sometimes spelled Gwinner) for £ 500.[5] Gwinner was a substantial citizen in Easton. He died without a will (intestate) on 29 June 1806,[6] at age 46, leaving a widow and seven children.[7] His widow (Mary) and children inherited hissubstantial property. A proceeding was brought in Orphan’s Court to partition the property among the heirs. Gewinner’s eldest son, Peter, was awarded the corner property in 1811. Peter then proceeded on 9 July 1811 to swap land with his Mother: she gave him the 10’1” “Hunter” strip with its house,[8]in exchange for a “white frame” house and 23’ 4½” strip of land running alongside Bank Alley (plus some cash).[9]

The following year (1812), Mary Gewinner remarried, this time to extremely wealthy Easton merchant John Herster (1758 – 1856), an early Easton industrialist who built two mills and two distilleries along Bushkill Creek. He was a Burgess of Easton, County Treasurer from 1795 until 1801, and an incorporator of the Easton and Wilkes-Barre Turnpike Co. (1803), the Easton Water Co. (1817), the Lehigh Chain Bridge (1811), and the Easton Delaware Bridge Co.[10] Even in his 90s, he was remembered as being an “imposing figure”.[11] Herster’s daughter, Eliza, married John Tindall,[12] and that couple became leaders of Easton society in the mid-1800s.[13] Herster’s grandson by another daughter was Captain John Eyerman, who built the Eyerman Building that still stands at 444-48 Northampton Street.[14]

Mary (Gewinner) Herster entered into an elaborate Marriage Settlement Agreement and trust arrangement, in order to preserve her ability (despite her marriage) to manage her own property.[15] In 1828, using this trust arrangement, she sold her property to James Thompson, an Easton merchant, for $4,000.[16] Thompson was her son-in-law, married to her daughter, Mary Ann Gwinner.[17] In 1818, Thompson had opened his the office for his own “milling and distilling business” in his mother’s building at the corner of Northampton and Bank Streets.[18] Among other things, in 1825 Thompson and his step-brother-in-law, William Gwinner, purchased the Shoemaker Mill property along the Bushkill, which included a “Fulling Mill[,] Plaister Mill [and] Dwelling House”, for $4,000.[19] In 1831, William Gwinner sold his half-interest in the mills to James Thompson for $5,588.77 – reflecting a considerable appreciation in value, and the deed reflecting the mill’s conversion to a “Grist and Chopping Mill” and a distillery.[20] This mill complex evolved in the 19th Century into the Union Mill on the other side of the Bushkill, which eventually became the basic mill in the Binney & Smith (Crayola) mill complex.[21]

  • James Thompson’s home was in the building numbered 48 Centre Square.[22] His business appears to have been running a grist mill and distillery in Forks Township,[23] that later became known as Kepler’s Mill[24] and finally became the original Binney and Smith mill on the Bushkill.[25]

The Thompson Family retained their corner property on Easton’s Northampton and Bank Streets until 1875.[26] Meanwhile, a building “near” the Thompson property housed the drug store of Dr. Fickard,[27] which was apparently begun in 1825.[28] In 1851, that store became the Dickson & Semple drug and chemical house, and by 1855 the drug store of Archibald and Henry Semple.[29] Archibald N. Semple’s brother, Henry, left the firm briefly in an attempt to establish an independent store at a location South of the Square. However, he rejoined his brother in 1857, and the Semple drug firm became Semple & Bro. Henry Semple took over the entire business after brother Archibald retired in 1862, and expanded it to become both a retail and wholesale drug dealer.[30]

  • The Semple Drug Store’s locationwas then listed as 121 Northampton Street.[31] It was renumbered 327 Northampton Street in 1874.[32] This would appear to be the address of the eastern part of the modern Rader Building lot (until recently occupied by the Weller Center).
  • 323 Northampton Street – the modern address of the Semple Building at the corner with Bank Street – was the number assigned tothe office of James Thompson.[33] No.325 was assigned to Stephen Shnyder’s “segars” store in the 1874 street renumbering.[34] At that time, No.325 was probably also in the building at the corner.[35]

James Thompson died in 1874.[36] In 1875, Semple purchased the corner property from James Thompson’s estate,[37] and replaced the “dilapidated” building on it with a 4-story, “splendid brick edifice”, which was ready for occupation in 1876.[38] Semple’s “splendid” drug store edifice is clearly visible in a photograph taken c.1881, showing the 4-story building with decorative quoin stonework at the façade’s corner, and three bays of imposing stone window decorations facing Northampton Street.[39] Semple’s drug store was listed at No. 323 and 325 in 1881.[40] The property was specifically and repeatedly referred to as the “Semple Building” between1901 and 1925.[41]

  • A photograph of Northampton Street dated to 1900, and a drawing from 1917, also appear to show the Semple Building as a tall, 4-story building with an even taller extension of the façade beyond the roof line, and three bays of windows facing Northampton Street. In the picture, the shorter building with the striped awning is on the other (eastern) corner with Bank Alley.[42]

Semple and Rader Buildings in 1900

(From Photo of Northampton Street[43])

In 1884, Henry’s son (William O. Semple) was admitted to partnership in the family business, after becoming an honor graduate from the University of Pennsylvania. He practiced as both a physician and pharmacist.[44]

By the early 20th Century, while the Semple Drug Store continued at 323 Northampton Street,[45] the part of the Semple Building listed at 325 Northampton Streetbecame the location of the Knickerbocker Brace Co., which made a non-elastic combined suspender and shoulder-brace.[46] The inventor of the brace, A. Irving Walthorp[47] of New York City, obtained a patent in 1882 and did some limited manufacturing, but N.A. Johnson purchased the product in that same year and moved its manufacture to his Easton factory at 333 Church Street.[48] In 1893, the company claimed to be manufacturing “more combined braces and suspenders than any other concern in the United States”, with nationwide sales as well as international orders[49] that expanded when the brace was introduced into continental Europe in 1895.[50] By 1901, the company had moved its factory and offices to the Semple Building, using the 325 Northampton Street address.[51] The company remained at that address until at least 1925,[52] and continued in business until 1927.[53]

Henry Semple died on 27 May 1913, leaving undivided interests in his drug store property to his wife and children. The drug store continued in business, owned by Henry Semple’s estate[54] and apparently run by Henry’s son, William. An attempt by three daughters in 1922 to partition the property was denied in Orphan’s Court,[55] and the following year the Semple Drug Store proudly boasted that it had been “Sixty-Three Years in Business”, 47 of those years in the Semple Building.[56] However, in 1930 the F.& W. Grand 5-10-25 Cent Stores, Inc. (then owner of the Rader/Drinkhouse Building next door[57]) offered $170,000 for the Semple Drug Store property. In view of this offer, the Semple Family received Court permission to sell.[58] After the sale, the company immediately sold this property to a holding company,[59] which provided space in it (at 325 Northampton Street) to the A.S. Beck Shoe Corp.,[60] a company operating a large chain of shoe stores.[61]

Unfortunately, a few years later brought the Great Depression. In 1934, the F. & W. Grand company went into bankruptcy. The Trustee in Bankruptcy sold off both the Rader and Semple properties to a corporate buyer,[62] which soon thereafter resold the pair of properties to the H.L. Green holding company.[63] H.L. Green continued to lease space in the Semple Building to the A.S. Beck shoe store until 1972.[64]

It has been ascertained from pictures of Northampton Street that the 4-story tall Semple Building was in place at least as late as 1917,[65] and that the top of the building (including a distinctive projecting roof façade) had been removed at least by the 1940s.[66] In the absence of photographic evidence, or recollections, other circumstantial indications have been sought to suggest a date when this might have been done. City Directories show that the number of Semple Building occupants were reduced from 4 in 1937 to 1 in 1942 (only the Beck shoe store),[67] perhaps indicating the removal of the upper floors. During the summer of 1939, the owner, H.L. Green, was conducting similar renovations at the Rader/Drinkhouse Building next door,[68] which seems to give a likely time within our period.

  • More specifically, the A.S. Beck shoe store tenant placed an advertisement in the Easton Express newspaper every Friday during the summer of 1939,[69] except one: no such ad appears in the paper for 14 July 1939. Perhaps this was the week that the store was closed for renovations. In an earlier, less regulated period, building projects could often be completed much more quickly than they are today.

H.L. Green continued to own the Semple Building, as well as the Rader Buildingnext door, until 1978, when they sold both buildings to Andrew and Frances Cusano.[70] The Cusanosalso purchased the adjacent Drinkhouse property (that had been leased for inclusion in the Rader Building) from another seller in the same year.[71] One year later, The Cusanos re-subdivided their assembled real estate parcel, by creating a grand Rader/Drinkhouse Building parcel that also included property shaved off the Semple Building in the rear,to the corner of Church and Bank Streets. This assembled Rader/Drinkhouse Building parcel was sold off to Northampton County.[72] The Cusanos retained only the remaining corner of the Semple Building property at the corner with Bank Street.[73] The Cusano Family heirs continue to own the Semple Building into the 21st Century,[74] leasing to a series of tenants including Grollman’s women’s store from approximately 1982-90,[75] and later an American Dollar store.[76]

  • Andrew Cusano was the owner of The London Shop established in the Hay Building at 339-41 NorthamptonStreet, which was later owned and run by his son Robert Michael (“Mike”) Cusano.[77]

In 1999, the City of Easton was approached by an unnamed developer “with the idea of turning North Bank Street between Northampton and Church streets into a pedestrian mall with possibly five new stores”.[78] Since that time, the block has in fact been turned into a mall, while a store (Just Around the Corner) and a pottery art gallery have been established on the East side. As of 2009, however, no separate shop entries have yet been established on the West side, other than a private entrance to the former Weller Center at the rear of the block.

In 2014, the Cusano Family sold the Semple Building for $337,500 to Luan of Kosova LLC,[79] a limited liability company whose mailing is in Pittstown.[80] A renovation was planned and approved in January 2015, to include the addition of a steel superstructure and concrete floors[81] to turn the building into a restaurant that is to include two floors of dining area inside, and more outdoor dining on the roof[82] under a retractable peaked roof made of glass, “similar in appearance to a greenhouse.”[83] The plan calls for numerous window and door openings onto Bank Street.[84] Demolition work began in October.[85]However, the work still under way on 24 February 2016,when first floor joists failed during a rainstorm, causing a large part of the wall next to Bank Street to collapse,[86] and taking out part of the sidewalk and a street light on Bank Street in the process.[87] The Northampton Street façade, and much of the wall along Bank Street, had to be removed by hand, although the party wall with the Rader Building next door remained. The work resulted in a delay opening the Easton Public Market in the Rader Building next door.[88] The rebuilt Semple Building is to be called the “Oak House” (or, per the Mayor, the “Oak Steakhouse”).[89]

[1]City of Easton, Pennsylvania Historic Resource Survey Form, Attachment: Building Description Survey Area 1 Zone D (City Council Resolution approved 12 May 1982)(identified as 325 Northampton Street).

[2]Compare Northampton County Tax Records map, (showing a 65.12’ front on Northampton Street beginning 23.38’ from Bank Alley, and extending all the way back to Church Street with an extension at the rear of the property to Church Street) with 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)(Lot No.168 (at Bank Alley) and Lot No.167 each with 56’ front on Northampton Street and 220’ depth to Church Street).

Doing the arithmetic, Chidsey’s map shows that Lots 168 and 167 combined to produce a frontage of 112’ on Northampton Street. The modern Tax Records map values show that the first three properties West of Bank Alley produce a combined frontage only 1’ different, as follows:

Semple Drug Store Bld. (323 Northampton St.)23.38’

Rader Bldg. / Weller Center (325-27 Northampton St.)65.12’

Hay Bldg. (London Shop, 339-41 Northampton St.)24.5 ‘

Total Frontage on Northampton St.57.0 ‘

[3]Deed, John Penn the Younger and John Penn the Elder to Mordecai Peirsol, G1 244 (10 Apr. 1790)(52’ frontage on Northampton Street X 220’ along Bank Alley); accord, Chidsey, The Penn Patents, supra.

[4]Deed, Mordecai (Rebecca) Peirsol to Jacob Shouse, A2 186 (5 Nov. 1792)(eastern part of original Town Lot No.168, with 40’ frontage on Northampton Street X 220’ along Bank Alley). See generally separate entry for the Semple Building at 323 Northampton Street.

[5]Deed, Jacob (Catherine) Shouse to Frederick Gewinner, G3 105 (23 Nov. 1793)(sale price £ 500).

[6]Deed, Mary Gewinner to Peter Gewinner, G3 97 (9 July 1811)(recital).

[7]Ethan Allen Weaver, Northampton County in the Revolution Newspaper Notes and Sketches 83 (copied from the original scrapbook at the Easton Public Library)(from obituary in Northampton Farmer and Easton Weekly Advertiser, Sat., 5 July 1806.

[8]Deed, Mary Gewinner to Peter Gewinner, G3 97 (9 July 1811)(sale price $1,500 for “Frame Messuage Tenement” on property with 10’1” frontage on Northampton Street, running alongside “Rebecca Peirsol, Mordecai Peirsol and William Peirsol’s Stone Dwelling House now the property of Doctor John Erb” to the West).

[9]Deed, Peter Gewinner to Mary Gewinner, G3 98 (9 July 1811)(sale price $5,500 for property strip 23’ 4½” (on Northampton Street) X 220’ (on Bank Alley), including a “white frame Messuage Tenement”, from property partitioned to Peter Gewinner by Orphan’s Court).

[10]John Eyerman, Genealogical Studies: The Ancestry of Marguerite and John Eyerman 54 (Eschenbach Printing Company 1902).

[11]Floyd S. Bixler, The History with Reminiscences of the Early Taverns and Inns of Easton, Paper read before the Northampton County Historical Society on 25 Oct. 1930, at 21 (Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society 1931).

[12]Id.

[13]For a history of Mr. and Mrs. John Tindall, see entry on the Tindall Family Residence as part of the separate entry on the Mayer Building, 1 Centre Square.

[14]See separate entry for the Eyerman Building at 444-48 Northampton Street, and sources cited therein.

[15]See, e.g., Trust with Phillip A. Mattes to EffectAgreement in the Nature of a Marriage Settlement between Mary Gewinner and John Herster, C4 221 (6 Feb. 1812). These arrangements are described at length in Deed, Phillip H. Mates, Trustee of Mary Herster, and John (Mary) Herster, to James Thompson, D5 447 (17 June 1828).

[16]Deed, Phillip H. Mattes, Trustee of Mary Herster, and John (Mary) Herster, to James Thompson, D5 447 (17 June 1828).

[17]Seeid.

[18]“Obituaries”, Easton Express, Fri., 10 July 1874, p.3, col.4; see also Article, “The New Numbers”, Easton Daily Free Press, Friday, 21 Nov. 1873, p.3 (323 Northampton Street assigned to J. Thompson’s Office).

[19]Deed, John (Catharine) Shoemaker to James Thompson and William Gwinner, B5 47 (23 Apr. 1825).

[20]Deed, William Gwinner to James Thompson, G5 307 (1 Apr. 1831).

[21]See Richard F. Hope & Virginia Lawrence-Hope, Easton PA: The Lower Bushkill Mills 200-15 (Lulu Press 1st ed. 2012)(and numerous sources cited therein).

[22]Article, “The New Numbers”, Easton Daily Free Press, Friday, 21 Nov. 1873, p.3 (“Jas. Thomson”, residence). This had been 95 Centre Square before the renumbering. Jeremiah H. Lant, The Northampton County Directory for 1873 123 (1873)(James Thompson).

[23]Joan Steiner, The Bushkill Creek 27 (Bushkill Stream Conservancy typewritten MS 1996); see Deed, William H. (Sophia C.) Tompson and John Frederick Thompson, Executors of the Estate of James Thompson, to Tilghman Kepler, A15 73 (23 Mar. 1875)(both executors were sons of James Thompson).

[24]SeeRev. Uzal W. Condit, The History of Easton, Penn’a83, 84 (George W. West 1885 / 1889).

[25]See Deed, Edwin D. (Matilda) Schortz to Edwin Binney and c Harold Smith, H31 330 (25 July 1902); Deed Poll, Milton Laufer, Sheriff, for Tilghman Kepler, to Edwin D. Schortz, A29 334 (17 Apr. 1899).

[26]See Deed, William H. (Sophia) Thompson and John Frederick Thompson, Executors and Devisees under the Will of James Thompson, to Henry B. Semple, G14 528 (23 Mar. 1875).

[27]Frank B. Copp, Biographical Sketches of Some of Easton’s Prominent Citizens 261 (Hillburn & West 1879); see also Deed, Bank of Pennsylvania to John Carey Jr., C5 62 (20 Apr. 1826)(regarding what became the Drinkhouse/Moyer property at 333 Northampton Street, whose property description recites that to the East (i.e. just West of the Semple property) stood land that in 1826 was “in the Occupancy of Dr. C.A. Fickardt”); Deed, John (Christiana) Carey, Jr. to John Drinkhouse, F5 340 (20 Jan. 1830)(same, next door property occupied by “Dr. Fickardt”).