The Borough’s Portrait Gallery

By George Lonsdorf
April 24, 2025

The Portrait Project 1934–35

Our Town, February 22, 1935:

A collection of photographs of Narberth burgesses and presidents of council from 1895, the date of the formation of the borough up to 1934, has been assembled and is now hung in the Council Chamber in Elm Hall.

The pictures were gathered by George B. Suplee, Borough Superintendent of Public Works, who suggested the gallery to Council. The idea was approved and Mr. Suplee instructed to gather them together. Over three months was required to collect the pictures as relatives had to be written to all over the country.

After the first 22 portraits were hung, the tradition continued and later officials joined the gallery, which moved from Elm Hall into Borough Hall when it opened in 1959. In 1998, the 5½″ × 3¾″ photos were framed in five sets of six. Those 30 portraits, of Council presidents through 1970, and burgesses* to 1965, are shown below.

* The office of Burgess was renamed Mayor by state ordinance in 1961, making Sterling Chain Narberth's final Burgess.

The Portrait Gallery 1895–1970

Links lead to records in Narberth People.

75 Years, 30 Men

Thirty men — Narberth's first female Council president was elected in 2002; the first woman mayor, 2022 — held one or both of the borough's two highest political offices during Narberth's first 75 years. Seeing them as a group begs some analysis and observations.

Three of this group held both offices. R. H. Wallace was Narberth's first Council president and later fourth burgess; Joseph Mullineaux, Jr. the second Burgess and fifth president. Narberth was much smaller then.

The third instance came in 1939–40, the annus horribilis for borough officials: William Fretz, Council president, died in office March 3, 1939, followed by Frank Schrepfer, burgess, on March 19, 1940. Curiously, both were in turn succeeded by the same man, Clarence Kaeber.

Richard Miller resigned as burgess in 1949, preferring the role of Borough Tax Collector. His replacement was Sterling Chain, who entered as burgess, but left as mayor, after the state standardized the title in 1961. Chain died in office after 15 years, 10 months, up to then the longest serving chief executive ever. (Dennis Sharkey served 22+ years as mayor, 1982–2005.) Joseph Tripician served longest as Council president, 16 years 1954–1970.

1909 was the annus juvenilis. That year the youngest burgess ever assumed office, 27-year-old Fletcher Stites, "Flick" during his pitching days on Narberth's champion semipro baseball club. Inaugurated the same year at 34 was J. Howard Wilson, the youngest ever Council president. The oldest to assume the offices during the first 75 years were Clarence Kaeber, burgess four months shy of 60, and Joseph Mullineaux, Jr., Council president at 67.

Who they were

Where they lived

…the year they took office.

Updated May 2, 2025.