Philip Storm was born on the Rhine in Bavaria, Germany. Sept. 12, 1829, and was a son of John and Elizabeth (Shaffer)Storm. who was a farmer; also sold wine, wheat, tobacco and hops. He died in 1832. Philip Storm attended the schools of his native country according to the German curriculum. At the age of fourteen years he learned the tailor trade and followed it until eighteen years of age. In 1848 he left Antwerp, and after a voyage of fifty days he landed in New York. He located in Elizabethtown New Jersey, and from there walked the entire distance to Catasauqua. Pa. After loading coal on boats along the wharf at Mauch Chunk, for 1858, and there was employed in limestone quarries. In October, 1862, he enlisted in Company D, 176th Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry, for nine months service. The regiment did provost duty at Suffolk and Norfolk and was honorably discharged at Philadelphia, Aug. 18, 1863.

After his return to civil life he became the foreman of the Catasauqua Manufacturing Company, in which he remained until in 1889, when he was a travelling representative of he company in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey. Delaware and New York. He was in the employ of the company twenty-six years. In 1892. he erected a large brick residence at the corner of Lehigh and Bridge Streets, Catasauqua. He also erected seven other houses in his time. Mr. Storm was councilman, burgess in 1881, and re-elected the three successive years; served as health officer of Whitehall since 1893, and at the Republican county convention in 1875 he was honored with the nomination for sheriff of the county. From 1893, up to the time of his death, on May 10. 1913, he was the superintendent of the Fairview Cemetery, having been re-elected every year.

He has served the Lutheran Church as an elder for about a quarter of a century. He was a prominent Free Mason, member of the Catasauqua chapter the Allen Commandery, KT. No 20; and on April 24, 1912, he was made a member of Rajah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., being a the time the oldest Shriner ever admitted in the United States. His grandson ,Thomas Storm of Pottstown, was made a Shriner at the same time with him member of Fuller Post, No. 378. G. A. R. In 1874, Mr. Storm paid a visit to the Fatherland. In 1851 he married Gertrude Koch, a native of Germany, who was born in 1827, died in 1883. They had five children, namely: John, mentioned later; William, of Pottstown Sarah, married to A. E. Seyfried, deceased; Mary, married to Peter Grishert; and Lavinia married Allen Heckman of Catasauqua. Mr. Storm married second, Sarah A. (Trollinger) Miller, widow of John P. Miller, of Allentown.