Editing Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania (section)

===18th century===
In 1754, Benjamin Davis received a license to keep an inn on Ridge Pike at Plymouth Creek. This inn, the Seven Stars, was shown on maps as early as 1759. It was demolished in 1975 to make way for the Midcounty Expressway.

Early records indicate that one person was elected as "road supervisor" and tax collector. The roads were mostly dirt, and repair and maintenance was often auctioned off to the lowest bidder, usually a farmer who had large properties and kept many men and horses, and the smaller farmers worked on the roads for them.

Tax records show that many taxpayers worked out their taxes on the roads. From 1846 to 1854 the road supervisor was paid one dollar per day for his work as supervisor and collector of taxes. Men working on the roads received $.80 per day and boys received $.40 per day. For the use of a double team of horses with a wagon or cart, one was paid $1.75 per day.

During the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]], in May 1778, the Plymouth Friends Meetinghouse served as a temporary military hospital. General [[George Washington]], then at [[Valley Forge]], learned that a British force intended to seize the area and cut off movement of the [[Continental Army]]. He sent [[Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette|Marquis de Lafayette]] and 2,100 troops to counter. They camped around the meetinghouse on the night before the May 19 [[Battle of Barren Hill]]. The next morning the British arrived with a massive force of 16,000, and tried to cut off any escape route. Lafayette instead took advantage of the Americans' knowledge of local roads, and escaped with minimal casualties.

<blockquote>Plymouth Meeting House is the name of a village situated at the intersection of the Plymouth and Perkiomen turnpikes, on the township line.  On this [Plymouth] side is the meeting house, school house and four houses; and in Whitemarsh two stores, a blacksmith and wheelwright shop, post office and twenty-four houses. The houses in this village are chiefly situated along the Perkiomen or Reading pike, nearly adjoining one another, and being of stone, neatly white washed, with shady yards in front, present to the stranger and agreeable appearance. In the basement of the Library building the Methodists hold worship. This is an ancient settlement, whose history dates back nearly to the arrival of William Penn, and is marked as a village on Lewis Evans' map of 1749. The post office was established here before 1827. In 1832 there were but ten houses here. &mdash; ''History of Montgomery County'' (1858).<ref>William J. Buck, ''History of Montgomery County within the Schuylkill Valley'' (Norristown, PA: E. L. Acker, 1859), p. 81.</ref></blockquote>