Susan Miers Smith: Berks Places: Morlatton Village in Douglassville, Amity Township, is site of Berks' oldest home

Mar. 28—Berks Places is a recurring feature that will focus on small villages and census-designated places throughout the county. History, nostalgia and local voices will shed some light on the quaint nooks and crannies of our area. Additional historical photographs accompany the online version of the articles.

Colonial-era buildings largely comprise Morlatton Village in Amity Township, just off Route 422 in southeastern Berks.

The Historic Preservation Trust of Berks County owns four stone structures there built in the 1700s, including the oldest home in the county still standing — the Mouns Jones house.

The two-story stone house was built in 1716 by a Swedish immigrant known as Mounce Jones and Mounce Jonas in Berks County deed records and Mans Jonasson in a Philadelphia pastor's journal and Morton L. Montgomery's "History of Berks County in Pennsylvania" published in 1886. Montgomery's book also refers to him as Mouns and Mons Jones. There is a 1924 metal historical market on the property that refers to him as Monce Jones.

However his names were spelled in the past, the Old Swede's House is now known as the Mouns Jones House. It has been owned by the Historic Preservation Trust since July 8, 1965, when Salvage Engineering Co. transferred the deed to it. Roy H. Schurr was the president of the company. He and his wife, Ida V., had transferred the 1.88-acre property as part of a larger transfer to the company in October 1959.

The property, which contained the Mouns Jones House and another smaller stone home nearby known as the bridge keeper's house and subsequently the Michael Fulp House, was deeded to the HPTBC with the stipulation that the homes be restored. The Schurr family would transfer two more tracts to the trust — a 39,694-square-foot one in 1970 and 9.4 acres in 1986.

According to HPTBC, the origin of the word Morlatton is unknown, but the name was originally spelled Molatton and may have derived from the Native American residents of the area known as the Lenni Lenape. They spoke the southern Unami dialect.

Swedish immigrants settled in the area of Morlatton Village after being granted 10,000 acres of land by William Penn in 1701.

A date stone on the exterior of the second floor of the Mouns Jones on the western side bears the date 1716. A May 15, 1721, deed, which was not recorded until 1772, shows Mounce Jonas conveyed 200 acres in Amity Township to his brother-in-law Andrew Leicon. Mounce had married Ingabor/Ingebor Laicon/Leicon/Leycon around 1690 according to the trust and other records.

The Jones property was located at an advantageous point on the Schuylkill River where it was easy to ford. A covered bridge would be erected there in 1832 by the Douglassville Bridge Co., according to the trust.

"Do you know where that bridge came from?" Berks County historian George M. Meiser IX asked during an interview last week. "It was the Lancaster Avenue bridge. In a flood it tore loose from the mounting and it floated down the Schuylkill. They fished it out and put it up at Douglassville. Out of nowhere they had a two-lane covered bridge, and that was unheard of."

The bridge met its demise in 1951 after being damaged by a fire.

The trust also owns the bridge keeper's house, now known as the Michael Fulp House, just a stone's throw from the Mouns Jones House. It is believed to have been built circa 1783.

The other two structures the trust owns in Morlatton are the George Douglass House, which dates to 1765, and The White Horse Inn, which dates to circa 1763.

"The Douglass Mansion is a great example of Georgian architecture," said Bradford Kissam, president of the HPTBC board, a trustee at the Berks History Center and president of the board of the Daniel Boone Homestead Associates. "It's not in the same class as say Pottsgrove. That is probably one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture outside of Colonial Philadelphia. But, George Douglass, I think, did very well by his endeavors to build a very beautiful stone Georgian for the period."

Brad Kissam, a Realtor who is an agent with RE/MAX of Reading in Spring Township, has been involved with the Historic Preservation Trust of Berks County for more than a decade and noted it has holdings throughout the area.

"While Morlatton is the focus of a lot of our attention, we are stewards for a total of eight 18th century buildings that are scattered throughout Berks County," he said.

There is extensive archive information about each of the historic properties available online at historicpreservationtrust.org.

"Well, obviously the Mouns Jones house is the jewel," Kissam said. "Not just for the Historic Preservation Trust, but for Berks County. There were many, many buildings in Berks County prior to the Mouns Jones House, but it is the oldest existing stone structure in Berks County."

He says the ongoing restoration work is the biggest change in Morlatton Village.

"I think that if anybody is familiar with the Mouns Jones house from just a few years ago, they will see a huge change in the river side of the building," Kissam said. "Up until the last three years or so, the river side door was at the far left-hand side of that building. Through research, we made a determination that at some point that had been moved. That door actually matched the opposite door, so it would have been in the center of the building. So we literally disassembled the entire river side of that building and rebuilt it, moving the door and now we're rebuilding what we think were the original-style windows."

"When I first went there it was in terrible shape," Meiser said. "It was virtually just stones lying around. Part of a wall was standing.

"Theresa Beard was the guiding light, God love her. Mrs. John Beard oversaw the preservation of that building. It was going to go downhill. There should have been a statue to her because she alone led the fight to preserve it."