Charles E. Hires’ Rose Hill

Rose Hill, home of Charles E. Hires, on Highland Avenue and Montgomery Pike, Merion. The house sat on 20 acres of parklike grounds with five acres of lawn. It is now the site of Temple Adath Israel. Hires later lived on Buck Lane in Haverford.

Charles E. Hires is best known as the originator of Hires Root Beer, a soft drink which gained great popularity in the 1870s. Hires began his career as a pharmacist and sold a variety of health remedies and flavoring extracts before introducing root beer as a healthful and refreshing alternative to beer.

He also sold ginger ale which was called champanale. While soft drinks were at the heart of his enterprise, he was a pioneer in manufacturing condensed milk and had factories in towns near dairy centers including Malvern, Pennsylvania. His Purock Water Company distributed spring water around the region and Hires water coolers were found in many Philadelphia area buildings. Hires’ sugar plantations in Cuba supplied his bottling plants around the country.

Hires is seen as one of the pioneers of modern advertising, using trade cards and then magazine, newspaper and radio advertising to sell his products. Hires Root Beer was a staple of most soda fountains and an item popular for home production.

Charles Hires’ first wife, Clara Kate Smith Hires (1852-1910), mother of his six children.

Hires’ first wife was Clara Kate Smith, a Quaker lady, who was the mother of his six children. Their children attended local Quaker schools…his sons rode horseback to Haverford School. After 35 years of marriage, Clara died and Charles went through an agonizing period of grief.

After his second marriage to “Miss E,” Emma Waln, member of a prominent old Quaker family, Hires financed the restoration of Merion Friends Meeting, wrote a history of that historic house of worship, and was actively involved with Friends’ Central School’s move to Lower Merion Township.

Hires’ five children pursued various careers. His son Charles worked his way up through the company to become its president in 1923. His home was on Remington Road in Wynnewood. Harrison worked for the family company but also had a lively interest in the arts, writing several books of poetry. Son J. Edgar was an engineer and in the 1920s and 30s lived on Linwood Avenue in Ardmore. Next door lived his sister, Linda, a graduate of Wellesley who was trained as an architect. The youngest daughter, Clara, became a botanist.

The clan gathers, c. 1925. Charles (seated right of center) holds grandson Bill. Emma Waln Hires, in floral hat, is to the right.

A fishing trip with the boys, c. 1930. (from left) John Edgar, Harrison, the captain, Charles, Jr., |and father Charles.

Notable Neighbor

My grandfather, Charles E. Hires, had 21 acres in Merion Station, acquired it in 1894 and the name of the property was Melrose. There’s now a synagogue there, Adath Israel (Old Lancaster Road and North Highland Avenue).

When I remember him, of course, he was living on Buck Lane (Haverford) after 1906 or so. His first wife, Clara Kate Smith, died in 1910 and he married his second wife, Emma Waln, a Quaker. She had been a teacher at Friends’ Central School and had taught Aunt Linda Hires. Grandfather was very much in sympathy with Quakers, but he didn’t sign up as a Quaker until he remarried.

I started my school career at Friends Central in third grade and grandfather was one of the people instrumental in having it move out to City Avenue…the old Morris house.

Grandfather had started the business back in the 1870s. My father was in the root beer business, too. I remember he told me that his first job was summer employment. I worked one summer, after I was in first year of Montgomery School, and father said, “Now I’m starting you off at $12 a week. My father started me off at $8 a week.” In those days, this was 1936, you worked half a day on Saturday too. There was this line of bottles that kept coming toward me on a moving platform, a metal conveyor belt. And right in front of me would be boxes coming along, and I’d take two bottles out and put them in and when you filled the box you pushed the box on, and another box would come into place. All day long. Someone said, “Treat this guy just like anybody else, and forget about the fact that his name is Hires.” I remember being called to task at lunchtime, because I was so exhausted I would lie down whenever I could at lunchtime. They said, “You don’t want to do that. That’s not setting agood example. You want to get out there and play baseball with the other guys.”

I worked for the Hires Company for a year after a year at Harvard.

—William Hires

[After Mr. Hires’ service during World War II, he graduated from Haverford College in 1949. He was called back to duty during the Korean conflict and served as a psychologist in Virginia. After thirty years in the military, his post-retirement stint was dean of academic studies at Curtis Institute.]

—Written by John M. Groff