Seven Drown in a Souderton Quarry

 

If you were to drive along the East Township Line Road Between Souderton and Hatfield, you'd notice an array of cheerless, nondescript industrial buildings and the occasional grove of scrubby, stunted trees and scraggy brush. Your mind might conjure up images of what the landscape must've looked like two centuries ago, when most of this  area was dotted with farms owned by the families of Welsh immigrants, or later, when Souderton became an important stop on the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad. Miles from the nearest river or sizable body of water, you'd never imagine that this landlocked spot was the scene of one of the deadliest drownings in the history of Montgomery County.

The morning of Sunday, June 8, 1930, was gray and rainy when a Studebaker sedan departed Philadephia. At the wheel was 45-year-old Ralph Cupitt, who was driving six members of the Wisham and Nabors families to Telford, just north of Souderton, where they had planned to spend the day with Mrs. Leidy Pressman. Mrs. Pressman's sister, 69-year-old Emma Wisham, was one of the passengers in the car. Accompanying Emma to Telford were her two children, Elmer and Ella, both 45 years of age; Mrs. Helen Wisham, the wife of Elmer; Harold, their 11-year-old son, and little Thelma Nabors. Thelma was the three-year-old daughter of Mrs. George Nabors, who was another one of Emma Wisham's daughters. Dressed in their Sunday best, the party departed the Nabors home in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. After placing his little girl in the car, George waved goodbye and watched the Studebaker disappear into the misty haze. He would never see his daughter alive again.

By the time the party reached Hatfield that afternoon, the drizzle had turned into a mighty rainstorm, obscuring the vision of the driver, Ralph Cupitt. They knew they were just a few miles away from their destination, but Ralph had found that he had somehow lost his way. Presently, the party found themselves on the rural, poorly-paved Township Line Road, just below Souderton, heading in the right direction-- although they did not know it. A moment later they came to a sharp left turn. Ralph, convinced they were lost, pulled over.

If Ralph had only taken along a map-- or if the roads had been better marked-- he would've realized they were on the shoulder of the southern terminus of the Souderton Pike. Had he chosen to continue up that road, he would arrive in downtown Souderton within two minutes, where he could turn right onto Broad Street and proceed to adjacent Telford without trouble. Or, had he chosen to continue along the Township Line Road just another thousand feet or so, he would arrive at the intersection with County Line Road, which would eventually become Main Street in Telford. Although Ralph Cupitt and his six passengers didn't know it, they were just two or three turns away from reaching their destination. If only the rain would stop!

What happened next is still a matter of speculation, but authorities believed that the eleven-year-old Harold Wisham got behind the wheel, presumably at Cupitt's request, in order to allow Cupitt a better look at the road. However, it appeared that Harold had somehow managed to put the car in reverse, and when he pushed on the accelerator, the Studebaker crashed through a wire fence, rolled down an embankment, and plunged into an abandoned quarry-- taking all the passengers with it.

Around nine o'clock the following morning, Lester Alderfer, son of the quarry's owner, drove his truck to the edge of the quarry to dump garbage. When he saw the body of a woman floating on the surface of the quarry he notified Souderton police, who, in turn, notified Montgomery County authorities. By this time, State Police had already begun searching for the missing motorists after they had failed to arrive at the Telford home of Mrs. Leidy Pressman. They had spent the previous evening searching hospitals in Philadelphia, Bucks, and Montgomery counties, and when they got word that a body had been found floating in an abandoned quarry, they raced to the scene, convinced that they had located the missing party from Germantown. The victim was soon identified as Emma Wisham.

Monday was spent trying to locate the other victims. After local authorities grappled the water for several hours, they were able to recover the body of Emma's daughter-in-law, Ella Wisham. But after failing to find either the Studebaker or the additional victims, local police sent a call to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for divers. Two divers, Wilson Keith and Charles Kuster, were selected by Navy Lieutenant E.S. Craig, and arrived on the scene the following morning.

By Tuesday morning, thousands had gathered around the quarry to watch with gruesome fascination as the divers plumbed the 50 feet of water and recovered the bodies, one by one. The last victims found by the dive team, shortly after midnight, were Mrs. Elmer Wisham and her son, Harold, who was discovered inside the vehicle behind the steering wheel. The car was then lifted out of the water by a crane from the Phoenixville Utilities Company. 

Detective John B. Stevenson of Montgomery County observed that the car's gear shift lever was in the reverse position, and concluded that 11-year-old Harod Wisham had been operating the vehicle at the time of the accident. Based on his findings at the scene, Stevenson surmised that Harold had lost sight of the road during the rainstorm and had turned the car around, with its rear to the edge of the quarry. He had probably attempted to shift into second gear, but had accidentally put the car in reverse. This mistake caused the car to lurch backward over the sheer rocky cliff, causing the vehicle to plummet rear-end first thirty feet to the surface of the water, and fifty feet from the surface of the water to the bottom of the quarry. 

The exact time and manner of the accident has never been determined, as every person inside the automobile met their death almost instantaneously.

Interestingly, this was not the first time a body had been pulled from the Alderfer Quarry. Eight years earlier, in April of 1922, divers recovered the remains of a missing taxi driver, George Berge, from the same body of water. A few weeks before his disappearance, Berge had confided to a friend from Hatfield that he planned to "junk" his taxicab in the quarry and collect the insurance money. It was supposed that Berge had failed to get out of the car in time while in the process of carrying out his scheme.

At some point, the old Alderfer Quarry was filled in, and every trace of it obliterated by the passage of time. Today, there is no visual evidence of the death pond which claimed at least eight lives, just as there exists no evidence that can solve the mystery of what happened on the afternoon of June 8, 1930.

 

Sources:

Carbondale Daily News, April 11, 1922.
Harrisburg Telegraph, June 9, 1930.
Perkasie Central news, June 11, 1930.
Allentown Morning Call, June 11, 1930.