Welcome to Hatboro-Horsham Area

History of Hatboro and Horsham

     Horsham Township is a home rule municipality in Central Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The township, incorporated in 1717, is one of the oldest original municipalities in Montgomery County. It has been governed by a Home Rule Charter since 1975 and is therefore not subject to the Pennsylvania Township Code. Population was 26,147 at the 2010 Census.
    Horsham Township is made up of several community areas including Horsham (19044), and portions of the Hatboro (19040), Ambler (19002), Chalfont (18914),And North Wales (19454).
     Named after the town of Horsham in Sussex in the South of England, it is one of several townships in Montgomery County whose name and size were determined by master survey lines drawn by William Penn’s engineers as they first plotted this part of the colony for sale and settlement.
    In 1864, the entire township of 17 square miles was made available to individual purchasers. Samuel Carpenter, from the town of Horsham, in Sussex England after which the township was named, purchased 9,200 acres within the present boundaries of the township.
    In 1709, Carpenter, then Treasurer of Pennsylvania, began to sell tracts of land to migrating Quakers. In 1717, Horsham Township was established as a municipal entity by a vote of the people.
    In 1715, John Dawson, a hatter from England, came to Hatboro, and built a house that later became the Crooked Billet Inn. The small village was at that time called the Billet. The Billet became known as Hatborough in 1740.
   In the 1750’s Hatboro was a farming village of about fifteen houses on the Old York Road. York Road, a former Indian trail, was the stage coach route between Philadelphia and New York. A mill, tavern, tannery, saddlery and a furniture maker were the main businesses. Most business was carried on by the barter of goods and services. There was no church and only a small school.
   In the summer of 1777 George Washington and his officers stopped for dinner at the Crooked Billet Tavern. He bought his grain from the old grist mill that is now the Old Mill Inn. It is said that hats were made in Hatboro for the Revolutionary War Soldiers.