ICYMI: Hatboro's Poet Laureate Honors Area

HATBORO, PA - Hatboro’s poet laureate, Allan M. Heller, wrote the following poem about the borough in September of 2014.

With more and more events taking place in honor of Hatboro’s tricentennial in 2015, we’re republishing his poem, commemorating the borough and its history, here below.

The poem was originally published on the borough’s official website:

Tricentennial

A hatter named John Dawson back in 1715

Unknowingly, and posthumously, named our modest town

Which might have been called “Dawsonville,” if he could have foreseen

That this once tiny settlement would come to such renown.

The Crooked Billet Inn is gone, and Mr. Dawson, too.

A bustling borough has replaced a dozen scattered farms.

Instead of crickets chirping in the night, more likely you

Will hear the whistling or the trains, and firehouse alarms.

A grade school and a monument commemorate the clash

Where we knocked heads with British forces, and were soundly beat.

We head the road of cannons, saw the muskets fire and flash.

When all the smoke and flame had cleared, but few were on their feet.

When the borough was but 40, 38 wise men

Decided that a library was long since overdue.

The building came in 1850. Much has changed since then.

Ancient books and manuscripts share spce now with the new.

No more Loller Academy, that once prestigious school

Its prominent bell tower rising high into the sky.

Transitioned into borough hall, but still the tower rules.

Thus demonstrating once again some landmarks never die.

300 years have brought much change, and yet, old buildings stand

Reminding us of bygone times, foundations of today.

Remember “all our yesterdays,” historians demand.

Illuminate the past and keep oblivion at bay.