Fallsington Library Celebrates Official Grand Reopening

The Fallsington Library Company held its official reopening ceremony with an afternoon reception and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday. While the building reopened last January, the official ceremony was held last weekend.

Various local authorities and library patrons helped cut the ribbon to the library last Saturday including Robert Harvie, chairman of the Falls Township Board of Supervisors, Jeff Dence, Falls Township supervisor, Paul Keller, Fallsington Library board member, Robin Prestage, library board president, Sheri Putnam, library board vice president, and Eleanor Backes, longtime library patron of Fairless Hills. Young patrons included Fallsington residents Alyssa McGurrin, Elizabeth Kappil, Rachel McGurrin and Magdelena Hadly.

The major restoration project encompassed improvements to the 130-year-old building on Yardley Avenue in historic Fallsington, including enhanced interior lighting, restored bookshelves, a new roof, energy efficient windows and doors, new front steps and exterior and interior painting.

"The recent renovations and restoration mean a new lease of life for this historic building which has played and continues to play an important role in the Falls community, not only as a free lending library but also as a meeting place for local organizations," said Prestage. "A friends of the library group has been formed and will aid in our ongoing promotional and fundraising efforts. We are also seeking donors to help with adding new furniture and some audio-visual equipment to our meeting rooms."

Now that the library's upstairs ballroom-size room has been restored and redecorated, it is available to rent out as a meeting room to local organizations and groups. The room holds approximately 100 people while a meeting room downstairs holds about 25 to 30 people, according to Prestage.

The Fallsington Library Company was founded in 1800 and chartered in 1802, with a collection of 238 volumes. For the next 70 years, the books were housed in various locations including village spare rooms, the tavern and finally, a large room in the Gambrel Roof House. Local villagers acted as the librarians. In 1878, the Classic Revival building was constructed, with the help of a $5,000 matching grant from Fallsington-born philanthropist Isaiah V. Williamson who had a fondness for books.

Born on a farm near Fallsington in 1803, Isaiah Williamson attended Friends School. When he was 15 years old, Williamson started as an apprentice to Harvey Gillingham in the Gillingham Store at Fallsington's Meetinghouse Square in the 1820s. Seven years later, Williamson left this general store with $2,000 in savings and moved to Philadelphia. Williamson soon became Philadelphia's foremost dry-goods merchant. His philanthropic pursuits included The Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades in Media.

Williamson often used the library growing up and felt the village should have a real library building. Once the official library was built, it became the focus of social life for the village until the 1950s when the Levittown library was built. That library was started with a donation of books from the Fallsington library.

For more information about the library visit their website.