The Goodman and Clothier real estate office at the northeast corner of Haverford and Essex played an outsized role in the earliest development of Narberth, and not just for the dozens of lots and houses the firm built and sold here. In the late 1890s these included the 100 block of Conway, Narberth's earliest working-class housing, the Arcade Building on Haverford Ave. between Forrest and Essex, and 224-226 Haverford, which housed Davis's, then Mapes.
The building was the site of
- regular meetings of the Narberth Park Association 1888–1895
- Narberth's first municipal election February 19, 1895? See below…
- the first meeting of Narberth's first Borough Council March 4, 1895
In October, 1895, Council moved its meeting place to the Narberth Public School on Essex Avenue which had been acquired by the School Board from the Lower Merion Township School District. This was not a very satisfactory meeting place since the Reverend Philip L. Jones, then President of the School Board, objected to the use of tobacco during Council meetings in the schoolhouse. A return to the Goodman and Clothier Real Estate Office was logical in view of that restriction.
— Our Borough (1945), page 14
The Borough's First Election Site
The 1895 Charter of Narberth into a Borough (PDF facsimile, page 390)
…decrees and fixes the first election in said Borough for the election of the officers provided for by law at the office of the Elm Land Association situate on the northeast corner of Essex and Haverford Avenues in said Borough on the third Tuesday in February, A.D. 1895…
The most pertinent map of the period shows the Goodman & Clothier land office at this location. The only possiblity for the Elm Land Association, also known as the Elm Land Improvement Association, would seem to be the "Elm Impr. Co." lot up the block, empty until 1928 when the Baird apartments (today Brenton Hall) were built. Based on the map and the office's documented uses, might the decree refer to the same building?
Updated January 23, 2026.