Price House at 714 Montgomery was built by Joseph Price for his cousin Reese Price in 1803, so it's one of the oldest buildings in Narberth. Even more significant is what happened here.
Edward R. Price, whose family had arrived on Narberth's land in the first wave of Welsh Quaker immigration (1682), was born in this Price house, lived all his life in it and died in it. And inasmuch as this devout Quaker farmer in 1881 founded the town of Elm that became Narberth, this house can be considered Narberth's birthplace, because the idea and plans for establishing Elm as a town took shape in it. — Victoria Donohoe, Narberth—A History
Edward Price died in 1887, unmarried, without children, the last of his family. He willed the house built for his grandfather and many of its outbuildings to his long-time housekeeper Josephine Minick. Over the next thirty years, his farm was parcelled out to become the town of Narberth.
In 1911, Susan and John Mowrer purchased the house, now on a little over an acre. The former Susan Thomas was the granddaughter of William Thomas, whose estate, purchased from a Price ancestor 60-some years previously, became the Pennsylvania Railroad, Elm station, Anthwyn Farms and much of south Narberth.
From 1959 to 2022, it was owned by Lankenau Hospital as the Hamper Shop, a consignment and thrift store.
In 1998 the Lower Merion Historical Society erected a historic marker in the Montgomery Avenue right-of-way commemorating Joseph Price.
Notes
Joseph Price wrote several diary entries on the house's construction, including June 25, 1803: "…at Rees Price to Breakfast, & Raising the Rafters of the new house by the road, we had above 20 hands, Owen & Jonathan Jones, & Thomas Addams Presedent Adams Son" [Thomas Adams, son of former President John Adams]
We're not sure whom the postcard's title "The Fisher House" refers to. Return
Updated March 6, 2025.