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Somerton General Store - Maple Ave

Log house built in 1734 - c 1918

1908 Somerton Baseball Team

Nicholas Moore of Moreland Manor, a close associate of William Penn and President of the Society of Free Traders, is believed to have located his Green Spring Plantation in the 1680's a little northwest of the intersection of today's Bustelton Ave and Byberry Rd, the center of today's Somerton. The first available notes of a settlement were written in 1720. Sometime previous to this a few houses were built on the western boundary of Byberry Township and the eastern boundary of Moreland Township. As the place assumed the appearance of a village, it was first named Smithfield. It contained about ten buildings, including a store, a tavern, and a blacksmith shop. Thomas Livesey surveyed the town in 1758. He describes the town as containing about eighty acres, with a Main Street, now known as Bustleton Avenue. The name Smithfield was changed to Somerton sometime between 1862 and 1876 when the post-office was established. The change was prompted by the control that Judge Sommers exercised over the region in owning substantial property on both sides of Bustleton Avenue where Leo Mall stands today. By this time the town consisted of thirty-five dwellings, a public school, a Methodist Church, three hotels, two shoemakers, a doctor, an undertaker, a general store and several artisans.

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