If you drive towards Centre Square on Skippack Pike, you would notice the street name "Rabbit Run Road." Most of the streets names you would find around the Wissahickon Valley Region were named for a specific reason. For Rabbit Run Road, the street was named after a property that was called "Rabbit Run Farm."
The Land of Boehm
The home of Reverend John Phillip Boehm contained 200 acres on Skippack Pike and School Road. After his father passed away in 1759, Reverend Boehm sold the largest part of the land (150 acres) to Jacob Kurr. He lived on the property for 38 years. After his ownership, the land was passed on to various people until it finally reached Enos Roberts (1856/9-1920).
Fun Fact # 1: Enos Roberts was a descendant of both John Humphrey (paternal) and William John (maternal), two of the earliest settlers of Gwynedd with the Evans brothers.
Enos was born on November 25 to Nathan and Barbara Roberts. After his father passed away, his uncles took him in and raised him as their own. Enos would later become a successful farmer in Whitpain. As a result, he purchased 80 acres of land in Blue Bell on April 1, 1878 for $11,750. One month later he married Clara Ralston and had three children.
Francis B. Reeves
Francis Butler Reeves, II (1873-1958) purchased the former Roberts property some time after his death in the 1920s.
He was the son of Francis Brewster Reeves (1836-1922), a successful banker and merchant in Bridgeton, NJ. He was president of the Girard National Bank of Philadelphia since 1899, and head of the grocery business Reeves, Parvin and Company which his son Francis, II took charge of.
Francis Brewster Reeves served as a member of the Citizens' Permanent Relief Committee of Philadelphia since 1889. With this connection, he was commissioned to visit Russia in 1892, on behalf of the city of Philadelphia, to deliver flour during the famine crisis in Europe.
Fun Fact # 2: He was awarded gold and silver by Tsar Alexander III for his personal service. He wrote his book Russia Then and Now, 1892-1917 that detailed his experience helping the Russian people.
In 1935, Francis II's son, Francis B. Reeves, III (1901-1969), built an American Colonial-style home for his family with no architect involved (and only one mason). The house consisted of five rooms all on one floor with one room paneled with cypress. It was a modern house with running water and electricity, but with no telephone.
At their farm, they raised squabs (baby pigeons) that his wife watered to have them sold at the market. There were 1,500 pairs of pigeons at their farm.
Fun Fact # 3: His wife Peggy was a graduate at the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women. With her love for animals and nature, she took care of the vegetations and animals at the home: she tended the gardens, milked the cows, operated the tractor, sprayed the trees, picked vegetables, analyzed the soil, and planned crop rotation "as deftly as any man."
One Possibility Why the Name "Rabbit Run"
Bibliography
"625 School Rd, Blue Bell, PA 19422." Redfin. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://www.redfin.com/PA/Blue-Bell/625-School-Rd-19422/home/39123211
Bean, Theodore Weber. History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Volume 2. (Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1884): 1183-1184.
Fay, John W. The Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 8. (New York: The Press Association Compliers, Inc., 1918): 401-402.
"Francis B. Reeves, 3D, In Own-Built Home." Ambler Gazette. September 19, 1935. Page 4. https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/papd/islandora/object/papd%3Awivp-gazett_22907.
"The Home of Rev. Boehm." Ambler Gazette. November 23, 1911. Page 2. https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/papd/islandora/object/papd%3Awivp-gazett_10209.
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