The Goshenhoppen and Green Lane Turnpike, completed in 1851, ran from Green Lane to the Berks County village of Treichlersville (Hereford).  Back then it wasn't much more than a trail full of hoof prints and wagon ruts from the tri-weekly

The Stone Tavern in Herefordville (Chapel) was a terminal point for passengers traveling, by stagecoach, from Sumney- town.

stage-coach that ran from Norristown to Shimersville.  Several small towns straddled that road throughout the Upper Perkiomen Valley.  Among them was a quaint village that seemingly hasn't changed much since those days.  It was the hamlet that welcomed you into Berks County, called Herefordville. 

            Of the dozen or so original buildings that made up the town, many of them still exist.  Among them are the public house, lumber shed, general store, and tinsmith shop.  Though no longer used for their originally constructed purposes, they remind us of the past.  What isn't there anymore is the building for which the town was renamed.

            Around 1800, the major landholder in that area was John Hillegass.  He decided to sell off some of his land and hopefully build a settlement there.  The lots were eventually sold to people with names like Schultz, Bobb, Deischer, Moyer, Butz, Huber, Eschbach, Beiry, Wagner, and Sallade.  The town was named Herefordville.  We know it today as Chapel.  There are some who think the town may have originally taken the

The home of Francis Shiffert, the village tinsmith, that also housed a hardware, plumbing, and heating business that continued into the 1950's.

name of Hillegassville, but so far I have found no evidence to verify that. 

            The village had an impressive public house, complete with a tavern.  First owned by local shoemaker Elias Ritz, the hotel eventually became the property of John Hillegass, who enlarged the building to include a general store.  When the mercantile outgrew its quarters, Hillegass constructed a brick building across the street to house it.  A post office was established in the store in 1890. 

            By that time Treichlersville had become Hereford, and the post office there bore the name of the latter.  With a Hereford Post Office already in existence nearby, postal authorities felt that a Herefordville Post Office would only confuse folks.  So, they took the initiative to name the new postal facility Chapel, in recognition of the Herefordville Union Chapel which was located a few doors away.  The Chapel post office closed in 1935.  The general store lasted a few years longer, into the 1940s, before it also became a memory.

The name of the post office in Herefordville was changed by postal officials to Chapel after a post office was opened in Treichlersville (Hereford) to avoid confusion.

            Among the local folks who called Herefordville their home was Dr. Henry Bobb.  After his graduation from the University of Pa. in 1868, the good doctor took over the public house and named it Henry Bobb's Hereford Hotel.  Dr. Bobb also practiced medicine in this Berks County community for seven years before moving to East Greenville.  There he opened the Eagle Drug Store on Main Street, and became the first druggist in that borough. 

            Another local celebrity was local schoolteacher James Sallade, founder of the Hereford Debating Club.

            For many years the chapel itself was a center of activity for the village.  It was constructed around 1889.  Until his death in 1892, a Schwenkfelder minister by the name of Joshua Schultz conducted services every Sunday evening in high German.  The chapel was also host to a singing school and musical performances. It has been reported that Sunday school meetings in the early 1900s were regularly attended by more than 160 persons.  It is not known when the last service was, but most believe it was in the 1920s or 30s.  Sitting vacant and deteriorating for a quarter of a century after that, the house of worship that gave the town its name was torn down in 1953.

            Across the street from the current Hereford Elementary School stood a one-room schoolhouse.  A school building had occupied that site since before 1850.  The last of the school buildings to be erected there was razed after 1957.  Up until that time it was still used for grades three and four. 

            One of the village's businesses was Shiffert's tinsmith, hardware, plumbing and heating establishment.  Locals traveled to the store to purchase stovepipes for the coal-fired heater in their homes.  The ornate building was constructed by tinsmith John Shiffert in 1894.  The business continued to operate well into the 1980s, under the leadership of John's son, Francis Shiffert.