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  • RMWHS | RARHD | Queen Anne Architecture

    afd11fc1-1d3a-44bc-b939-0a24ff0d7af5 Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Queen Anne Architecture The Queen Anne style was the dominant style of domestic building in the United States from about 1880 to 1900; and persisted with decreasing popularity through the first decade of the twentieth century. The style was named and popularized by a group of nineteenth-century English architects led by Richard Norman Shaw. The name is rather inappropriate, for the historical precedents used by Shaw and his followers had little to do with Queen Anne or the formal Renaissance architecture that was dominant during her reign between 1702 and 1714. Instead, they borrowed heavily from late medieval models of the preceding Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. The half-timbered Watts-Sherman House built in Newport Rhode Island in 1874 is generally considered to be the first American example of the style. A few high-style examples followed in the 1870s and, by the 1880s, the style was being spread throughout the country by pattern books and one of the first architectural magazines, The American Architect and Building News. Large-scale manufacture of pre-cut architectural details and the expanding railroad network by which they were shipped aided in the growth and popularization of the style. 108 Queen Anne buildings are generally comprised of multiple, intersecting volumes, resulting in more complex forms than their predecessors. These asymmetrical, complex forms are created by combining various volumes including cross gables, engaged towers and turrets, steeply pitched roofs with irregular shapes, and bay windows. Queen Anne buildings often include decorative brick or stonework, ornate gable detailing, shaped slate or wood shingle patterning, large porches with complex woodwork, multi-paned windows with clear and colored glass. The twin buildings at 6222 and 6224 Ridge Avenue, which date to about 1885, are excellent examples of the Queen Anne style as applied to semidetached buildings and have some detailing that might be better classified as the Stick style, a variant or close relative to Queen Anne (Figure 37). The three-story buildings are stone at the first floor, and fish-scale shingles at the second floor and mansard. The shingles create a vibrant pattern of light and shadow. The dormers in the mansard have highly unusual hoods or crowns supported by large brackets. The cornice is also supported by brackets and features fish scales. The second-floor windows are double hungs with small and large panes in the upper sash. The porch has turned posts with arched latticework panels between them. Other buildings in the saw-tooth row of twins also have Queen Anne features, but none characterize the Queen Anne style with the exuberance of those at 6222 and 6224 Ridge Avenue. Describe your image The house at 5535 Ridge Avenue, with its corner turret topped by a conical cap and finial, is another good example of the Queen Anne style. In addition to the turret, the mansard roof, bracketed dormers, and wrap-around porch all characterize the style. The house at 6904 Ridge Avenue is likewise an example of the Queen Anne style, owing to its turret, oversized dormer, and wrap-around porch. This information has been posted by RMWHS with the permission of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Sections: 1 Intro and Nomination Form 2 Boundary and Description 3 Statement of Significance 4 Native Americans 5 Patent Holders and Early Settlers 6 Ridge Road 7 Early Roxborough 8 Georgian and Colonial Architecture 9 During the Revolutionary War 10 Federal Architecture 11 Development of Manayunk 12 Greek Revival Architecture 13 Early 19th Century 14 Gothic Revival Architecture 15 Italianate Architecture 16 During and After the Civil War 17 Second Empire Architecture 18 Queen Anne Architecture 19 Turn of the Century 20 Conclusion and Bibliography 108 Drawn from Virginia & Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), p. 262-268. Top of page

  • Historical Maps 1681

    Historical Maps 1681 < Previous > Back to Historical Map List < Next > 1681 - Province of PA Source: URL: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division https://www.loc.gov/item/2006625100/ Full Name: A map of the improved part of the Province of Pennsilvania in America: begun by Wil. Penn, Proprietary & Governour thereof anno 1681 Visit the source URL to use zoom features, find additional formats, or download a high quality image.

  • Historical Maps 1816

    Historical Maps 1816 < Previous > Back to Historical Map List < Next > 1816 - Phila County Source: URL: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3824p.la000783 Full Name: Map of Philadelphia County : constructed by virtue of an act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed 19th March 1816 Visit the source URL to use zoom features, find additional formats, or download a high quality image.

  • shawmont-roll-of-honor

    Memorials of the 21st Ward < Back to Memorials List Shawmont Roll of Honor Memorial (Shawmont & Nixon) Address: Shawmont Ave & Nixon St, Philadelphia, PA 19128, USA Visitors: The Roll of Honor sits roadside and is easily accessible to anyone. Dogs are permitted, but must be kept on a leash at all times and picked up after per city law. The images below are not to be reproduced or used without prior written authorization of RMWHS - contact us .

  • RMWHS | Books On Our Area

    Roxborough Manayunk Wissahickon Historical Society provides lists of books about the Roxborough Manayunk Wissahickon area (and our neighbors) that may be of interest to our website visitors, local history researchers, and students of history. Books About Our Area Historic Architecture in Philadelphia: East Falls, Manayunk, & Roxborough by Joseph Minardi "This photographic story of three dynamic neighborhoods in Philadelphia's twenty-first ward traces the evolution of each community as defined by its architecture.... Brimming with nearly 500 full color photographs and archival images, and supplemented by selected biographies of the featured architects and firms, this book will charm history buffs, lovers of vintage architecture, and Philadelphia enthusiasts." Victorian Roxborough: An Architectural History by John C. Manton "This potpourri of architectural data is seasoned with a pinch of cultural scenery and a dash of social background to enhance the flavor of Roxborough's Victorian years." Do you have a book to recommend about Roxborough, Manayunk, Wissahickon, or our general area? Let us know. Books by Arcadia A list of books that address the Roxborough, Manayunk and Wissahickon area and our closest neighbors is provided for your convenience. Follow the links to the Arcadia website for a peek inside the books or to purchase. Roxborough Manayunk Along the Wissahickon Creek Philadelphia's Fairmount Park Chestnut Hill Chestnut Hill Revisited Mount Airy Germantown in the Civil War Remembering Germantown Philadelphia's Pencoyd Iron Works Germantown, Mount Airy, & Chestnut Hill Laurel Hill Cemetery Lower Merion & Narberth

  • RMWHS | RARHD | Turn of the Century

    99477795-38e3-434c-b69e-f61ee051751a Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Turn of the Century Although the Roxborough Railroad failed to provide access to the rural sections of Roxborough for suburban development, the construction of the Walnut Lane Bridge over the Wissahickon in 1907 and 1908 did better connect Roxborough to Germantown and open the way for development of the open land overlooking the valley (Figure 38). Until the bridge opened at the dawn of the automobile era in 1908, traveling between Germantown and Roxborough required the steep descent into the gorge and the equally steep climb out of it, an extremely difficult task in the era of horse-drawn carriages and wagons. Constructed by engineers of the City of Philadelphia, the concrete arch bridge, the longest single-span masonry arch in the world when completed, was considered an engineering marvel.109 While the Walnut Lane Bridge offered a convenient connection to Germantown, Roxborough’s boosters still wanted a direct connection to burgeoning North Philadelphia and to the downtown beyond that did not require negotiating the steep hill up the Ridge from the Schuylkill or the deep Wissahickon gorge. The Henry Avenue Bridge, which carries Henry Avenue over the Wissahickon and Lincoln Drive, was contemplated as early as 1912 as part of a subway extension plan, but was not implemented for nearly two decades. By the time it was implemented, the automobile had supplanted all other forms of transportation. After many years of planning and false starts, the bridge was designed by prominent engineers Ralph Modjeski and Frank Masters in collaboration with renowned architect Paul Cret in 1927, constructed in the early 1930s, and completed in May 1932. At the same time, Henry Avenue was extended from East Falls, across the Wissahickon, and through Roxborough to Ridge Avenue in the Andorra section. The wide, four-lane boulevard, which runs along the western boundary of the Wissahickon section of Fairmount Park, was designed for automobiles, not horses or trolleys, and opened the remainder of Roxborough for suburban development. Although the mass transit facilities were built into the bridge, no transit line was run along Henry Avenue and the bridge’s transit facilities were never used. Even before the bridge was completed, real estate agents were marketing suburban homes along Henry Avenue. For example, in 1927 real estate agents Mason & Bruhns advertised an “exceptional home ‘In the Open Suburbs of Philadelphia,’ 613 Walnut Lane at Henry avenue, adjoining the Wissahickon Valley and proposed golf course. New Henry Avenue Bridge will enhance value.”110 Describe your image In 1907, while the Walnut Lane Bridge was under construction, Fowler & Kelly published an aerial view of Roxborough from West Laurel Hill Cemetery drawn by Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler (Figure 39). The bird’s-eye, which includes the incomplete Walnut Lane Bridge, depicts Roxborough, with its dense suburban development in Wissahickon and Leverington and its open rural land to the north and east, in its final moments before the automobile would forever alter development patterns and the built environment in the lower northwest section of the city. Describe your image Figure 39. Thaddeus Mortimer, Birds Eye View of Manayunk, Wissahickon-Roxborough from West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1907, published by Fowler & Kelly, Morrisville, Pa., 1907. This information has been posted by RMWHS with the permission of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Sections: 1 Intro and Nomination Form 2 Boundary and Description 3 Statement of Significance 4 Native Americans 5 Patent Holders and Early Settlers 6 Ridge Road 7 Early Roxborough 8 Georgian and Colonial Architecture 9 During the Revolutionary War 10 Federal Architecture 11 Development of Manayunk 12 Greek Revival Architecture 13 Early 19th Century 14 Gothic Revival Architecture 15 Italianate Architecture 16 During and After the Civil War 17 Second Empire Architecture 18 Queen Anne Architecture 19 Turn of the Century 20 Conclusion and Bibliography 109 Contemporary accounts of the Walnut Lane Bridge also include “The Walnut Lane Bridge Across the Wissahickon Valley,” The Press, 27 April 1907; “Bridge Over the Wissahickon Creek and Its Main Span,” Public Ledger, 11 July 1907; “Bridge False Work Collapses; One Dead,” Public Ledger, 28 December 1907. On the design and construction, see George S. Webster, “Annual Report of the Board of Surveys,” in Second Annual Message of John E. Reyburn, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia ... for the Ending December 31, 1908 (Philadelphia, 1909), II, 328-329; George S. Webster and Henry H. Quimby, “Walnut Lane Bridge, Philadelphia,” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 35, no. 6 (August 1909): 587-625; “The Walnut Lane Bridge, Philadelphia,” Engineering Record 54, no. 20 (17 November 1906): 542-544; “Moving the Centering of the Walnut Lane Arch at Philadelphia,” Engineering News 58, no. 7 (15 August 1907): 168; “The Walnut Lane Bridge, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia,” Engineering Record 56, no. 9 (31 August 1907): 222-226; J.A. Stewart, “The New Bridge Over the Wissahickon at Philadelphia,” Scientific American 97, no. 22 (30 November 1907): 392-393; George Maurice Heller, “The Design of the Centering for the 233-Ft. Arch Span, Walnut Lane Bridge, Phila., Pa.,” Proceedings of the Engineers’ Club of Philadelphia 25, no. 3 (July 1908): 257-278; “The Effect of Temperature on the Walnut Lane Concrete Arch,” Engineering News 62, no. 15 (7 October 1909): 376; “Walnut-Lane Bridge, Philadelphia, Pa.,” The Builder 98, no. 3516 (25 June 1910): 727-730; “The Largest Single-Span Concrete Bridge in the World,” World To-Day 15 (December 1908): 1293; Frederic Blount Warren, “The Walnut Lane, Philadelphia, Bridge: A Majestic Concrete Structure,” Scientific American Supplement 66, no. 1715 (14 November 1908): 306. 110 Inquirer, 27 November 1927, p. 69. Top of page

  • RMWHS | RARHD | Early 19th Century

    0c66d294-f32d-4281-b999-89b4759f758d Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Early 19th Century Despite the explosive growth in Manayunk in the first half of the nineteenth century, Roxborough remained during these decades a linear village along Ridge Road with an economy based largely on agriculture and milling. However, many Roxborough farms were diversifying, supplementing their incomes with stone quarrying, lumbering, and other commercial activities. Real estate advertisements offer a window into activities in Roxborough. In 1836, a 40-acre property near the six-mile stone on Ridge Road was offered for sale. It included a three-story stone house, a stone barn with stabling for four horses and 12 cows, a grain house, cart house, poultry house, hog house, corn house, two apple orchards, and a “kitchen garden, well set with Strawberries, Raspberries, &c. [from which] 170 quarts have been picked in one day.” The property included several acres of timber and “quarries of excellent turnpike stone.”66 In 1839, “a valuable small farm,” a 57.5-acre property on “the Philadelphia and Norristown turnpike road” at the western edge of Roxborough Township, was offered for sale. It included a stone dwelling, “a good large barn with stabling sufficient for eight cows and four horses,” an apple orchard, three springs, and land “in a good state of cultivation and all under good fence.” The property also included “3 acres of good young thriving timber” and “a good Stone Shop, formerly occupied as a Weaver Shop.”67 Also in 1839, a 33-acre farm, “situate on the Ridge Turnpike Road, in Roxborough township, nearly opposite the Sorrel Horse Tavern,” was offered at public sale. The advertisement declared that the “land is in a good state of cultivation and has a body of valuable timber.”68 Hinting at changes, an 1844 advertisement offered a 22-acre farm in Roxborough Township “on a public road leading from Ridge pike to Flat Rock Bridge and Manayunk,” that, in addition to the usual stone house, barn, and spring house, included “a stream of water running through the Farm, sufficient for steam machinery.”69 At about the same time that the farm was advertised with a water source sufficient for steam machinery, omnibus lines connecting Roxborough and the City of Philadelphia with reliable, relatively inexpensive, daily transportation were initiated.70 A line was established in 1840 with omnibus service every day but Sunday leaving Amy’s Hotel in Roxborough at 8:30 a.m. and returning to Roxborough from the Black Bear Inn on S. 5th Street near Market Street at 3:30 p.m. The fare was 20 cents (Figure 26).71 A line was established in 1842 with omnibus service leaving the Sorrel Horse Inn in Roxborough for the City of Philadelphia via Wissahickon, Falls of Schuylkill, and Laurel Hill at 6:30 a.m. and returning to Roxborough from the Merchants’ Exchange at 3rd and Walnut Streets at 1:45 p.m. The fare to Roxborough was 25 cents.72 While the first of the two omnibus lines was named the Farmers’ Line, its primary customers would not have been farmers, who carted their fruits, vegetables, and meats to market in wagons. Instead, the riders would have been a new breed of Roxborough residents who had frequent and sometimes daily business in the city. While the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad had facilitated commuting from Manayunk and the lowest reaches of Ridge Road to the City of Philadelphia as early as the mid 1830s, the omnibus lines of the early 1840s opened up all of Roxborough to commuting.73 Describe your image The introduction of the omnibus lines on Ridge Road in the early 1840s indicated that Roxborough, which had been a farming and milling community for nearly 150 years, was transitioning. As early as 1839, the beginnings of suburbanization were evident in Roxborough. That year, Charles Jones and T. Mason Mitchell advertised development lots for sale on Green Lane, just off Ridge Road, that were measured in square feet, not acres. The 50-foot wide lots, which were between 150 and 250 feet deep, were promoted as having attractive views, a healthful environment, convenient to the railroad and turnpike, and in the proximity of several churches and the Village of Manayunk. The advertisement promised: “The Lots will, when built upon, be sufficiently large for handsome gardens attached to each. This, on viewing the neighborhood, will prove a desirable and safe investment to many persons, either for summer or permanent residences.”74 The advertisement made no mention of barns, meadows, fruit trees, spring houses, or other farm accoutrements. The development lots on Green Lane were intended for commuters, who walked to Manayunk or took the train or omnibus to the city. They may have been the first suburban housing lots laid out in Roxborough Township. Although the omnibus lines and suburban house lots portended changes coming to Roxborough, Charles Ellet’s Map of the County of Philadelphia from Actual Survey of 1843 indicates that Roxborough remained a linear village running along Ridge Road (Figure 27). The map clearly shows that, outside of densely developed Manayunk, Roxborough Township was sparsely populated with few roads running east and west off the main spine. The Ellet map of 1843 identifies the main commercial and institutional sites in Roxborough. It depicts four inns, all on Ridge Road: the Leverington Hotel near Green Lane, Roxborough Hotel at Gorgas Lane, Buttonwood Tavern at Livezey’s Mill Lane, and Sorrel Horse Tavern above Ship Lane. The 1843 map depicts three manufacturing facilities associated with the textile industry: the Gorgas Cotton Factory on Gorgas Lane at the Wissahickon Creek; Haley's Dye Works on Gorgas Lane; and Rees' Print Works on Eliza's Lane. The map calls out five mills along or near the Wissahickon: Wise’s Mill and Livezey’s Mill on the upper Wissahickon; a spice mill and the Rittenhouse Paper Mill at the confluence of the Wissahickon with Paper Mill Run; and Robinson's (misspelling of Robeson’s) Mill on the Wissahickon at the crossing of the Ridge Road. The map notes the Roxborough Poorhouse in the Old Plow Tavern on Ridge Road below Shur's Lane. It calls out the Baptist Church as well as the German Reformed Church at Ship Lane. The German or Dutch Reformed Church was founded in 1835 and transitioned to the Roxborough Presbyterian Church in 1854. The map identified a schoolhouse at the intersection of Wise’s Mill Road and Livezey’s Mill Lane. The school, known as the Heiss or Yellow School House, was established in 1812. The map called out the hall of the Roxborough Masonic Lodge, No. 135, located on Ridge Road at Shur's Lane. The fraternal organization had been founded in 1813.75 An 1851 inventory of tax-exempt property in Philadelphia County listed all such properties in Roxborough, again portraying the rural area as sparsely populated. The 1851 inventory included the Roxborough Baptist Church and Burial Ground, Dutch Reformed Burial Ground, Lutheran Church, a volunteer fire brigade called the Good Intent Engine Company, the poorhouse or almshouse, three schoolhouses, and two tollhouses associated with the Ridge Road Turnpike.76 Like Ellet’s map of 1843, John Levering’s Plan of the Township of Roxborough of 1848 depicts Roxborough as a linear village along Ridge Avenue, but also shows the very beginnings of suburban development along Green Lane as well as High Street (Lyceum Avenue).77 Houses on relatively small lots on a grid of streets first appear in Roxborough on the 1848 map. Suburban development was occurring along Ridge Avenue as well, especially in the lower section near the Wissahickon railroad station and other transportation options. For example, in 1850, a real estate advertisement offering a property at the corner of Ridge and Hermit Lane (now 559 Righter Street) extolled its easy access to transportation. “The situation is high and healthy, with a daily communication to and from the city, by Stages passing the door, or by Omnibuses connecting the Railroad at Wissahickon Railroad Bridge, and half a mile therefrom, and within half a mile of the Manayunk Steamboat Landing, affording an hourly conveyance to of from the city—thereby making it a desirable private Country Residence, or for a man of business, whose location is in the city.”78 While men of business may have commuted to Manayunk for managerial positions in the mills as early as the early 1840s, by 1850, men of business were living in Roxborough and commuting to the business center in the heart of Philadelphia. Describe your image As Roxborough began its transition in the 1840s from a farming and milling community to a suburb for the industrial area flourishing at nearby Manayunk, several institutions were established to support the growing population. In 1841, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Roxborough Lodge, No. 66, was established. The fraternal organization erected a hall at the northwest corner of Ridge and Lyceum. The Roxborough Lyceum, an educational organization that housed a consortium of libraries, was chartered in 1854 and erected a building on Ridge across from the Odd Fellows Hall in 1856. The Lyceum became the Roxborough Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia in 1896. The German Lutheran Church was established in 1845 at Pechin and Martin Streets, on the boundary of Manayunk and Roxborough. The current church at the site dates to 1902. The Ridge Avenue Methodist Church was established in 1847. The first Methodist services were held in Yellow School House, before a church building was erected at Ridge and Shawmont. St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church was established in 1859 and a large church complex on Ridge near Shur's Lane was begun in 1862, when the sanctuary cornerstone was laid. The Church was consecrated 1863 and a tower added in 1871. The church was enlarged and a parish building constructed in 1874. The church was enlarged again in 1885 (Figure 32). Farther to the north, St. Alban's Episcopal Church was established in 1859 and a church building was erected on Fairthorne, just off Ridge, in 1861. In 1854, the City and County of Philadelphia were consolidated, ending more than a century and a half of independent government in Roxborough Township and incorporating the emerging suburb into the City of Philadelphia. With the consolidation, the newly annexed portions of Philadelphia were divided into wards. Roxborough comprised part of the 21st Ward, which included Roxborough, Manayunk, and Penn Township (East Falls and Allegheny West). In 1860, the 21st Ward had a population of 17,159. Samuel Smedley’s Atlas of the City of Philadelphia of 1862 shows that during the decade leading up to the Civil War, Leverington had emerged as a neighborhood in its own right within Roxborough, with twelve blocks of suburban development bounded by Ridge, Krams, Manayunk, and Martin on the west side of Ridge and more subdivision and construction along Leverington on the east Ridge (Figure 28).79 Describe your image This information has been posted by RMWHS with the permission of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Sections: 1 Intro and Nomination Form 2 Boundary and Description 3 Statement of Significance 4 Native Americans 5 Patent Holders and Early Settlers 6 Ridge Road 7 Early Roxborough 8 Georgian and Colonial Architecture 9 During the Revolutionary War 10 Federal Architecture 11 Development of Manayunk 12 Greek Revival Architecture 13 Early 19th Century 14 Gothic Revival Architecture 15 Italianate Architecture 16 During and After the Civil War 17 Second Empire Architecture 18 Queen Anne Architecture 19 Turn of the Century 20 Conclusion and Bibliography 66 Public Ledger, 3 December 1836, p. 3. 67 Public Ledger, 19 January 1839, p. 4. 68 Public Ledger, 30 October 1839, p. 4. 69 Public Ledger, 24 December 1844, p. 4. 70 Stagecoaches had traveled Ridge Road since the eighteenth century. For example, in 1834, a stagecoach line ran regular service between the City of Philadelphia and Norristown, leaving the City at 3:00 p.m. daily and arriving in Norristown “early the same evening,” and leaving Norristown for the City at 7:00 a.m. An announcement of the line noted that “Passengers will be taken up and set down in any part of Philadelphia or Norristown.” Philadelphia As It Is (Philadelphia: P.J. Gray, 1834), p. 125. 71 Public Ledger, 14 November 1840, p. 3. 72 Public Ledger, 7 July 1842, p. 3. 73 Competing with the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad for commuters to Manayunk, J.W. Funck offered a combination rail and boat service to Manayunk as early as 1848. He operated railroad passenger cars from 3rd and Willow Streets to Fairmount, where passengers connected with a steamboat to Laurel Hill and Manayunk. The service ran at 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. and then every 30 minutes from 1:30 p.m. through the afternoon. See Public Ledger, 21 June 1848, p. 4. 74 Public Ledger, 24 April 1839, p. 1. 75 Horace H. Platten and William Lawton, The History of the Roxborough Masonic Lodge, No. 135 (Philadelphia: The Centennial Committee of the Roxborough Masonic Lodge, No. 135, 1913). 76 Elihud Tarr, Memorial of the Commissioners of the County of Philadelphia to the Legislature upon the Subject of the Laws Exempting Certain Property from Taxation, Together with a Schedule of Exempt Property (Philadelphia: The County Commissioners, 1851). 77 John Levering, Plan of the Township of Roxborough with the property holders' names &c. Manayunk, published by M. Dripps, 1848. 78 Public Ledger, 26 July 1850, p. 4. 79 Samuel L. Smedley, Atlas of the City of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1862). Top of page

  • RMWHS | MSMHD | Main Street Manayunk

    19ed4f31-8ca3-4476-b9f4-bc35ce342470 Main Street Manayunk Historic District Main Street Manayunk Although the industrial areas of Venice Island were substantially developed by the 1870s, Main Street did not reach the peak of its development as a commercial and retail center until the early 20th century. In the mid-19th century, Main Street served as the principal land route for the transportation of people and goods in and out of Manayunk. It initially developed as a residential street and business center, responding to the industrial growth of Venice Island. In 1850, the Girard College and Manayunk horse drawn streetcar line operating on Main Street was completed linking Manayunk to the city via Ridge Avenue. At this time, the south side of Main Street was largely open to the canal. Bridges at cross streets connected Main Street to Venice Island. The north side of Main Street was almost fully developed between Pensdale and Carson with residential development on side streets north of Main Street extended as far up as Silverwood Street. Describe your image Through the 1870s, industrial development on Venice Island continued and the business center grew as commercial development spread along the south side of Main Street between Lock and Grape Streets. Much of this growth came in the form of mill offices. With the increasing importance of Main Street as a business center, hotels developed on the north side of Main Street, near the railroad station, and also banks, such as the Manayunk National Bank at Levering and Main. By 1890, development of the south side of Main Street extended west to the 4300 block of Main Street, including the Manayunk Trust Co., at 4336 Main Street. By the close of the century Main Street had become the commerce and institutional center for Manayunk. Describe your image Main Street in the early 1900s remained a business and commerce center tied to Venice Island industry rather than a retail shopping district. By the 1920s, the south side of Main Street was fully developed, breaking any visual link between the commercial district and the canal industrial zone. However, as suburban residential growth occurred in Roxborough the character of Main Street shifted to retail shopping and entertainment catering to local trade. The Empress Theater was constructed on the site of the last remaining hotel on Main Street at 4439, and department stores such as the Foster Department Store at number 4268 and Propper Brothers at Levering Street north of Main Street. Describe your image The Depression years brought the closing of many mills in Manayunk and the decline of Main Street as a community retail center. New retail activity concentrated first on the strip shopping district along Ridge Avenue, and then in the freestanding shopping centers, further west on Ridge Avenue. After a long period of decline evidenced by many vacant stores, there is renewed interest in the commercial strip, as antique shops, and restaurants, seeking out low rent locations, have established businesses on Main Street. Recently, one of the larger structures on Main Street has been renovated for professional office use. This information has been posted by RMWHS with the permission of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Sections: 1 Intro and Nomination Form 2 Description 3 Significance of Manayunk 4 The Schuylkill Canal 5 Schuylkill Navigation Company 6 Manayunk Canal 7 Economic Development 8 Manayunk Social Development 9 The Industry of Venice Island 10 Main Street Manayunk 11 Bibliography 12 Boundary Details 13 Map Top of page

  • RMWHS | Contact Us

    Contact the Roxborough Manayunk Wissahickon Historical Society via mail or our online form. CONTACT US Research Notice Privacy & Use - Your personal information will be protected in accordance with the RMWHS Privacy Policy. However, the research done by our volunteer archivists/genealogists is property of RMWHS and may be shared/discussed with other RMWHS members, visiting students, researchers, etc., at the discretion of RMWHS archivists/genealogists. Credit, Citation, & Copyright - You may also share/discuss the results of the research RMWHS provides but any credits, citations, and/or copyright notes on any materials we provided to you must remain intact, including third-party citations. Contact us if you have questions. Image Requests - We are happy to work with you to find the images you need. However, to avoid the RMWHS Image Collection being misused, everyone will need to sign a Photo Usage Agreement . This includes but is not limited to: RMWHS members, students, teachers, researchers, non profit organizations, businesses, press, etc. (Learn more.) Donations for our efforts are very appreciated. Our volunteers work without pay and all monies donated will be used for continued preservation of the Archive and expanding/enhancing our efforts to share our history with the community. RMWHS and its archivists reserve the right to decline any requests that would unduly tax our volunteers' time or are beyond the scope of RMWHS focus and/or resources. Covid hit us -- please be patient. We will not share your personal contact information beyond the RMWHS team member or fulfillment partner that needs to address your inquiry or research request. RMWHS Privacy Policy. Full Name Email Phone Subject Your message Upload File Upload supported file (Max 15MB) Have an image or item you need identified? Making a digital donation? Sharing an old news clip? Something else? Upload it here and please explain any details we need to know in your message above. Thanks! Select all that apply: * This is feedback only - no response is necessary. Please send me membership info. Please contact me about making a donation. I would like research assistance. I have read the Research Notice and accept the terms. Submit Thank you for your interest in RMWHS

  • RMWHS | MSMHD | Description

    8ab1c646-8d62-4a9f-9683-6695bc5acf66 Main Street Manayunk Historic District Description The Main Street Manayunk National Historic District is located on the north bank of the Schuylkill River, approximately 5 miles northwest from the center of Philadelphia. The community of Manayunk has retained a strong individual physical identity. Geographically, Manayunk and the adjacent communities of Roxborough and Wissahickon are separated from other sections of Philadelphia to the east, by the steep ravine of the Wissahickon Valley. Main Street is located within the narrow flood plain of the Schuylkill. North of Main Street, the topography rises steeply to Ridge Avenue on the crest between the Schuylkill and Wissahickon. Because of the geographical and cultural isolation of Manayunk, the physical appearance of the townscape and individual buildings differs markedly from those of similar eras built in other sections of the City. While Philadelphia residential and commercial buildings are typically red brick, those of Manayunk are commonly constructed of random coursed stone, Wissahickon Schist, either exposed or faced with stucco. It is the combination of steep topography, and white painted, pitched roof, stucco row houses which epitomizes the physical character of Manayunk. Describe your image The clear hierarchy of land use developed in Manayunk followed construction of the canal. The principal mill buildings were located on Venice Island between the Schuylkill River and Canal, though many of the major mills had operations on both sides of the canal, linked by bridges; often mill offices were located on the south side of Main Street. In contrast, commercial uses -- such as offices, hotels and banks, and mixed residential/ commercial buildings tended to concentrate on the north side of Main Street. Residential construction, typically in the form of attached 2- or 3-story row houses occurred on the side streets off the north side of Main Street. While the earliest development consisted of mill buildings and worker housing, later 19th century development included a broader range of commercial uses, including banks, warehouses, and retail stores, particularly at the west end of Main Street, corresponding to Main Street's developing role as a full retail and business center. Little development or redevelopment occurred in Manayunk after the turn of the century, and the overall physical appearance of the Main Street historic district has changed little since this time, although many retail and business uses have been replaced with lower grade warehouses, and storage uses. The earliest buildings remaining in Manayunk are mills of the 1840s and 1850s, and worker housing of the same era. Several of these mills remain on the Main Street side of the canal, at the east end of Main Street. The finest remaining mill building within the historic district is that located at 4268-72 Main Street, originally known the Blantyre mill. The two, 3-story pitched roof buildings, set at right angles to Main Street were constructed in 1847, of random stone rubble, with cut stone quoins, and brick arches over the window openings. An unusual feature are the fanlights in the gable ends facing Main Street. Describe your image Other important early mills include a 2-story building at 4050 Main Street, constructed about 1850 (originally the Roxborough Mills), a 4-story building at 4100 Main Street (formerly the Dexter Mills - dyeworks) and the rear buildings are facing the canal at 4208 Main Street (formerly Economy Mills). These buildings are typically long, narrow span structures of random stone rubble, often with a later stucco facing, and shallow pitch roofs. Window openings commonly have brick arch lintels, while windows are typically wood, arched head double hung with 4/4 or 12/12 lights. Another noteworthy loft building located on the north side of Main Street at 4313 in a 3-story, 6-bay structure built in 1859 of Wissahickon Schist. The building has segmentally arched brick labels over each window, and wood double hung windows. Describe your image Examples of housing of this era remain, both on Main Street, and on the narrow side streets. The housing is utilitarian, working class attached housing, Vernacular in style, although exhibiting distinct characteristics of formal design styles. The earliest housing is typically constructed in a Vernacular Federal style, while later housing is of a Vernacular Italianate style. The earliest remaining residential buildings are located at 104-106 Levering Street, constructed about 1840. These are 3-story, 2-bay, Federal style, stucco over stone rubble, pitched roof structures. The 2nd floor windows are double hung wood with plan frame, and the 3rd floor windows are casements. 103-105 Pensdale Street is a group of small Vernacular style worker houses built circa 1860. Built of stone rubble faced with stucco they have double hung 2/2 arched head windows and decorative wooden cornices. In contrast to the early simple random stone and stucco mills, later commercial buildings are commonly of brick, exhibiting the richer detailing typical of the late Victorian era, and are similar to such buildings in Philadelphia Some of these later buildings were manufacturing facilities, but many reflected the increasing importance of Main Street as a business and retail center. The finest example of a later industrial building is 4236 Main Street, an elegant 3-story, 3- bay brick loft constructed about 1890. The 1st-floor storefront incorporates a cornice, and central entrance flanked by pilasters. Crowning the building is a heavy wood cornice. 4346 Main Street is the former Manayunk Trust Company building, a monumentally scaled, single story banking hall, built in 1890. Constructed of brick, the building has pilasters with decorative capitals and consoles, stone cornices, and monumental scale windows with a stone surround enhanced with Greek key design. 4360 Main Street is a heavy 3-story, 5-bay brick warehouse constructed about 1890. The Romanesque detailing includes paired semi-circular headed windows on the 3rd floor, Palladian style 2nd floor windows, brick pilasters and a molded tin cornice. A similar style 2-bay, 4-story Romanesque style brick warehouse is located on 108-12 Levering Street. Noteworthy retail buildings include 4356 Main Street, an elegant 2-story building of 1880, featuring extensive use of glass. The ground floor consists of large storefront windows and recessed entrance way, with decorative metal transom panels above. The 2nd floor has large, fixed sash with transom lights, metal faced dividing mullions, and molded metal cornice. Describe your image Finally, there are some interesting turn of the century commercial buildings. 4437 Main Street is a handsome single story brick bar built in 1903. The facade incorporates a decorative ogee arch stepped brick gable parapet, with metal trim. 4323-24 Main Street, the Nickles Building of similar date, is a 2-story, 2-bay brick retail store with elegant, curved glass display windows, and a large ornate metal cornice and parapet. Describe your image This information has been posted by RMWHS with the permission of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Sections: 1 Intro and Nomination Form 2 Description 3 Significance of Manayunk 4 The Schuylkill Canal 5 Schuylkill Navigation Company 6 Manayunk Canal 7 Economic Development 8 Manayunk Social Development 9 The Industry of Venice Island 10 Main Street Manayunk 11 Bibliography 12 Boundary Details 13 Map Top of page

  • RMWHS | Visit the Archive

    ​​The Archive is located within the Roxborough branch of the Philadelphia Free Library at 6245 Ridge Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19128. Street parking only. Admission to the RMWHS Archive is free -- but it is open by appointment only. Please contact us to make an appointment. Appointment Required - Contact Us Now Virtual Research Consultation Upon Request The BEST research support we can offer is via Zoom as we can share digital resources (including tip sheets, shortcuts, digital/indexed books, & images) that are not accessible in the Archive. In-Person Visits to Archive: September - May (and for special circumstances) Location & Parking - The RMWHS Archive is inside the Roxborough branch of the Philadelphia Free Library located at 6245 Ridge Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19128. Free street parking is available -- Hermitage Street recommended. Admission is free. Masks - Our volunteer may ask you to wear a mask in the Archive. It is a small, tight room and there is little personal space. Please understand our volunteers give time, energy, and skills to help the public and a request to mask up is a small kindness you can pay them if they ask. Thank you! Visitor Limit - Please note that due to limited space, the Archive can only comfortably accommodate 2 visitors at any one time. No Wheelchair Access - While the main Library entrance is wheelchair accessible, much of the Library including the narrow Archive entrance is not. Please consider a virtual visit instead -- it can be far more beneficial for research and sharing historic items in great detail as many visual images have been scanned. No food, drink, or pets permitted. Open by appointment. Admission free.

  • RMWHS | RARHD | During and After the Civil War

    cdf5e0e2-93bd-4999-8428-e83a218be741 Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District During and After the Civil War During the Civil War, manufacturing generally and textile manufacturing specifically flourished in Manayunk and throughout Philadelphia, creating great wealth and effecting great change. “In Philadelphia, which was perhaps the largest center of manufacturing in the country, 58 new factories were erected in 1862, 57 in 1863, and 65 in 1864; and the building inspectors reported that those erected in the last-named year were generally very large.”84 In Manayunk, for example, Sevill Schofield’s carpet and yarn mill, which made blankets for the Union Army during the Civil War, employed 32 and was capitalized at $15,000 in 1860, but, by 1870, employed 314 and was capitalized at $200,000.85 As industrial Manayunk burgeoned, the managerial class, which ran the mills, pushed up the ridge into Roxborough, building their residences beyond the dirt and noise of the factories and the crowded rowhouses of the millworkers. As the mills expanded, traffic between the city and northwest Philadelphia increased. The section of Ridge Road running through North Philadelphia, just outside the downtown, began to be called Ridge Avenue in the 1850s. By the 1860s, the name Ridge Avenue began to be used in Roxborough. An advertisement in the Inquirer in July 1861 for “Country Boarding at Roxborough … for the Summer, in a private family, on Ridge avenue, above the sixth mile stone” may be the first use of the name in print to refer to the section of the road in Roxborough.86 The Ridge Avenue passenger railway line was started in 1858 and became fully operational the next year. It ran from Arch Street at N. 2nd Street to Manayunk by way of Ridge Avenue. The Ridge Avenue Passenger Railway Company was on formed 8 March 1872 by the consolidation of the Girard College Passenger Railway Company, which was incorporated in 1858, and the Ridge Avenue & Manayunk Passenger Railway Company, which was incorporated in 1859. Under a proviso in the charter of the Ridge Avenue Passenger Railway Company of 1872, the railway company purchased the Ridge Turnpike Company for $15,000. Subsequently, the Court of Quarter Sessions freed the turnpike from toll, signifying that the thoroughfare was transitioning from a country road into a city street.87 The Roxborough Passenger Railway Company was chartered on 15 April 1869, granting it the right to construct a trolley system from the Wissahickon Station on the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad line to the Sorrel Horse Tavern north of Port Royal or Ship Lane. Train travel to northwest Philadelphia increased as well. In 1847, 69,443 passengers passed through the Wissahickon and Manayunk stations of the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad. By 1860, the annual ridership at the two stations had jumped to 211,883. By 1870, the annual ridership had more than doubled during the ensuing decade, climbing to 455,542.88 Describe your image On 9 April 1873, the state legislature chartered the Manayunk & Roxborough Incline Plane and Railway Company, authorizing it to construct and operate a standard streetcar line powered by “horse or dummy engine” on Ridge Avenue from the Wissahickon to Barren Hill in Montgomery County. The new company was also authorized to construct and operate “an inclined plane from any point on Levering Street, in Manayunk, to extend to the top of the hill in Roxborough … and to run and haul cars by a stationary steam engine up and down said inclined plane.”89 The novel inclined plane proposal was celebrated. “This will be something new for this city, it being the first road of its kind that has ever been built here. … At first undoubtedly the timid ones will be afraid to patronize the new road, but after they have learned that the inclined planes in the western part of the State have been in operation for a long time without a single accident … they will ride up and down in the queerly shaped cars with the same feeling of comfort and security that they now experience in a street car.”90 Despite the enthusiasm for the novel technology, only the standard streetcar line on Ridge Avenue was constructed. The inclined plane up Levering Street from Manayunk to Roxborough was never built. Describe your image On 14 April 1868, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania approved a measure to take much of the land bounding the Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia as an addition to Fairmount Park to ensure the protection of the purity of the water and the preservation of the beauty of its scenery. Over the next several decades, the Fairmount Park Commission acquired more than 2,000 acres of land in the creek valley and systematically demolished most of the industrial facilities as it returned the Wissahickon Valley to its natural appearance. In the 1930s, the Works Project Administration, a New Deal agency, demolished the remaining mill buildings, removing the last traces of what had been one of the most industrialized landscapes of eighteenth-century America and constructing rustic buildings for recreational uses.91 At about the same time the City began acquiring the valley of the Wissahickon Creek to protect the Schuylkill River’s water quality, it also began construction of a reservoir system in upper Roxborough. By the end of the 1850s, the Philadelphia Water Department determined that the northwestern section of the city, including Roxborough, Manayunk, and Chestnut Hill, would need to be served by its own water works. The high ground in this area was far above the reach of existing reservoirs in the city, which supplied water by gravity. Wells in populated areas were becoming unpalatable and in many cases unhealthy. “Manayunk and Roxborough [contain] a population numbering about twelve thousand,” Henry P.M. Birkinbine, chief engineer of the Philadelphia Water Department, wrote in a report to City Councils on 8 September 1859. “Of these, at least three thousand are operatives employed in the different factories. This part of the city is much in need of a supply of water for culinary, manufacturing and sanitary purposes, and for protection against fire, as the property in the manufactories is of great value, and now almost entirely without protection against fire…. From the dense population of parts of the district, the wells have become so contaminated, that the water in but few of them is now fit for culinary purposes. The necessity of a supply for manufacturing and mechanical purposes is evident.” Birkinbine proposed a water works along the Schuylkill, with a pumping station above the Flat Rock Dam at Shawmont and reservoirs located higher up the steep banks of the river, which would provide water by gravity through distribution mains in the streets. This system would serve not only the immediate vicinity, but other areas of the city as well. Construction began on these works after the end of the Civil War, with the pumping station at Shawmont completed in 1869. The steam-powered pumps forced water uphill into a reservoir (about 366 feet above city datum) located at present-day Eva and Dearnley Streets in Roxborough. To increase the capacity of the Roxborough Works and allow water to flow by gravity to a larger part of the city, the pumping station on the Schuylkill was expanded in the 1890s, and a much larger reservoir was built higher up the ridge (the Upper Reservoir, about 414 feet above city datum), along Port Royal Avenue about a block from Ridge Avenue. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the City constructed slow-sand filter plants at the Lower and Upper Roxborough Reservoirs. Once it went into operation citywide in 1909, the filtration system greatly reduced the incidence of waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever, which had been transmitted by the untreated (and sometimes sewage-tainted) river water. By the 1940s, rapid-sand filters began to supplant slow-sand filters as the technology of choice for water purification systems. By the early 1960s, filtration plants elsewhere in the city had been updated with this new technology as well as other automation features. More efficient and powerful electric pumps also meant that water could be delivered to the highest parts of the city from other pumping stations and reservoirs. “Unsuited to the needs of a modern city, the [Roxborough] water works were rapidly becoming obsolete and their capacity was too limited to meet future community growth,” stated the 1962 annual report of the Water Department. That year, the pumping station and two filter plants were closed down, and the upper reservoir was drained of its 147 million gallons. Today, underground storage basins at the Upper and Lower Roxborough sites are now filled by the pumps of the Queen Lane plant.92 Describe your image The City Atlas of Philadelphia by G.M. Hopkins clearly shows that Leverington had emerged as an identifiable suburban residential district by 1875 (Figure 33).93 West of Ridge Road, between Levering Street at the south, Leverington Avenue at the north, and Manayunk Avenue at the west, a highly developed suburban neighborhood of large detached and semi-detached houses was nearly built out by 1875. East of Ridge, large suburban houses were depicted on the 1875 map on Leverington and other streets. Smaller suburban houses, primarily twins, were evident on Dupont, Monastery, Roxborough, and other streets extending east from Ridge. In 1875, large estates including those of Dr. William Camac and J.V. Merrick occupied southernmost tip of the ridge in the Wissahickon neighborhood, mirroring the grand estates across the valley, on the southern bank of the Wissahickon along School House Lane. Little had changed in the remainder of Roxborough, which persisted as a linear village along Ridge Road surrounded by farmers’ fields. The 1875 map depicted the Wissahickon & Barren Hill Horse Railway running the length of Ridge Road out into Montgomery County, with a horse car barn west of Port Royal or Ship Lane, at the former Sorrel Horse Tavern. The population of the 21st Ward grew considerably in the late nineteenth century, from 13,861 in 1870; to 18,699 in 1880; to 26,900 in 1890; to 32,168 in 1900.94 In the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, much of the remaining open land adjacent to Manayunk in the Wissahickon and Leverington sections of Roxborough, south of Fountain Street was subdivided and built upon, primarily for residential use. For example, by 1885, large single and twin Second Empire houses lined Sumac and Rochele in the Wissahickon neighborhood, provided elegant housing for managers associated with Manayunk’s textile mills and the Pencoyd Iron Works, which was located across the Schuylkill River in Montgomery County, but linked to Roxborough by bridges. However, large pockets of open land remained south of Fountain, especially to the east of Ridge Avenue. Commercial and institutional buildings were primarily located on Ridge Avenue. To the north of Fountain Street, Roxborough remained a linear village along Ridge Avenue with zones of denser development around Shawmont Avenue and Manatawna Avenue. Away from Ridge Avenue, north of Fountain Street, the land continued to be farmed as it had for nearly 200 years. During the decades after the Civil War, numerous religious and other institutions were established in the Leverington and Wissahickon neighborhoods of Roxborough to support the growing population. The Central Methodist Episcopal Church was established on Green Lane west of Ridge Avenue in 1870. The Leverington Presbyterian Church was established in 1878 and consecrated its first church building at Leverington and Ridge in 1880. The Wissahickon Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1882; the congregation consecrated its church building at Terrace and Salaignac Streets in 1883.95 The Wissahickon Baptist Church, on Terrace near Dawson, was established in 1884 at a mission chapel. The church building was erected in 1889.96 St. Stephens Episcopal Church at the corner of Terrace and Hermit was established in 1886 from a mission that was formed in 1871. The Talmage Reformed Church at Pechin and Rector was formed in 1889. Wissahickon Presbyterian Church at the intersection of Ridge and Manayunk was organized in 1892 and the church building was completed in 1894. The Galilee Baptist Church, an African-American congregation, incorporated in 1899 and constructed a church building to designs by architects Kennedy & Kelsey at the corner of Roxborough Avenue and Mitchell Street in 1901.97 During this period, only one church was established to the north, in the sparsely populated rural section of Roxborough; the Manatawna Baptist Church on Ridge Avenue was established in 1872.98 In addition to churches, several religious-based social service agencies were established in the southern sections of Roxborough during the late nineteenth century. St. Timothy’s Working Men’s Club and Institute was founded in 1872 to provide social and educational opportunities for working men. The club’s building, located at the intersection of Ridge Avenue, Terrace Street, and Vassar Street, was designed by architect Charles M. Burns Jr. and completed in 1877 (Figure 34). It included a library with reading and billiard rooms. The club hosted baseball and cricket teams and offered free night classes in mechanical drawing, engineering, and chemistry. The club ceased operations in 1912 owing to declining membership. The Roxborough Home for Women was established in 1887 on East Leverington to provide housing and support for Protestant women. The Memorial Hospital and House of Mercy of Saint Timothy's Church, Roxborough opened in 1890. By 1896, the name was changed to St. Timothy's Memorial Hospital and House of Mercy, Roxborough and, in 1920 to the Memorial Hospital, Roxborough. Located at Ridge Avenue and James Street, the hospital was built on land and with funds donated by J. Vaughan Merrick. The hospital was under the control of St. Timothy's Protestant Episcopal Church until 1920.99 Describe your image As George W. and Walter S. Bromley’s Atlas of the City of Philadelphia of 1895 shows, Manayunk and Lower Roxborough, south of Fountain Street, continued to be densely developed during the later nineteenth century as a suburban residential district for people employed in Manayunk and downtown Philadelphia. Commercial activity in Roxborough was primarily confined to Ridge Avenue. Away from Ridge Avenue, Upper Roxborough as well as the eastern reaches of Lower Roxborough along the Wissahickon, which were inaccessible to commuters, remained open land.100 Describe your image In the late nineteenth century, Henry Houston, a wealthy businessman and real estate investor with connections to the Pennsylvania Railroad, began to acquire large tracts of open land in Upper Roxborough.101 Houston also held large tracts of land in Germantown, Mt. Airy, and Chestnut Hill and had built the Philadelphia, Germantown & Chestnut Hill Railroad (now the Chestnut Hill West line) in the 1880s to provide easy access to the land west of Germantown Avenue for suburban development.102 About 1890, Houston and others began promoting a suburban commuter rail line in Roxborough to open the rural land for suburban development. In July 1891, William F. Dixon, a paper manufacturer, City Councilman, and 21st Ward powerbroker was granted a charter for the Roxborough Railroad Company, which authorized it to build a line 10 miles long from the Philadelphia, Germantown & Chestnut Hill Railroad line at Chelten Avenue and Pulaski Street in Germantown, across the Wissahickon, through the eastern and northern reaches of Roxborough, and into Montgomery County, where it would connect with the Trenton cut-off (Figure 35).103 As Dixon explained, the railroad was intended to “open up a territory of the city which is now virtually isolated, and one which is badly in need of railroad facilities.”104 Survey work and negotiations for the right-of-way were initiated in the summer of 1891. In 1892, the Pennsylvania Railroad, which also operated the Philadelphia, Germantown & Chestnut Hill Railroad, agreed to manage the Roxborough line. The railroad project, however, hit several snags including property owners who “demanded exorbitant prices” for their land. Evidencing the troubles, the police were called to prevent the railroad from breaking ground in 1893.105 The project languished. In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad abandoned the Roxborough Railroad project because “it was finally determined that the costs of the right of way would be far in excess” of $80,000, the amount the railroad had agreed to pay in 1892. Charles E. Pugh, the First Vice President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, explained to Philadelphia’s Mayor John Reyburn that “the advent of electricity has made the trolley car the proper medium for doing this character of work, and the facilities of the steam railroads, already very crowded, should be depended upon for taking care of long distance travel.”106 This information has been posted by RMWHS with the permission of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Sections: 1 Intro and Nomination Form 2 Boundary and Description 3 Statement of Significance 4 Native Americans 5 Patent Holders and Early Settlers 6 Ridge Road 7 Early Roxborough 8 Georgian and Colonial Architecture 9 During the Revolutionary War 10 Federal Architecture 11 Development of Manayunk 12 Greek Revival Architecture 13 Early 19th Century 14 Gothic Revival Architecture 15 Italianate Architecture 16 During and After the Civil War 17 Second Empire Architecture 18 Queen Anne Architecture 19 Turn of the Century 20 Conclusion and Bibliography 84 Emerson Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1910), p. 94-95. 85 Cited in Table 8.1 in Philip Scranton, Proprietary Capitalism: The Textile Manufacture at Philadelphia, 1800-1885 (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1883), p. 296-297. 86 Inquirer, 13 July 1861, p. 5. 87 “A Defiant Corporation,” Inquirer, 12 June 1888, p. 2; “The Ridge Line Leased,” The Times, 1 July 1892, p. 1; “The Ridge Line Leased,” The Times, 19 August 1892, p. 1. 88 Cited in Table 2-2 in Jeffrey P. Roberts, “Railroads and Downtown: Philadelphia, 1830-1900,” in William W. Cutler III and Howard Gillette Jr., eds., The Divided Metropolis: Social and Spatial Dimensions of Philadelphia, 1800-1975 (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1980), p. 41. 89 Laws of the General Assembly of the State of Pennsylvania Passed at the Session of 1873 (Harrisburg: Benjamin Singerly, 1873), p. 883-884. 90 “Proposed New Railway from Manayunk to Roxborough,” Inquirer, 25 April 1874, p. 2. See also “New Passenger Railway,” Inquirer 12 August 1873, p. 2; Inquirer, 4 January 1875, p. 6; Inquirer, 9 September 1893, p. 2. 91 David R. Contosta and Carol Franklin, Metropolitan Paradise: The Struggle for Nature in the City Philadelphia's Wissahickon Valley, 1620-2020 (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph's University Press, 2010). 92 Adapted from Adam Levine, “Watershed History: Roxborough Water Works,” Watersheds Blog, Philadelphia Water Department, 19 May 2011. 93 G. M. Hopkins, City Atlas of Philadelphia, Vol. 2, Wards 21 and 28, 1875. 94 In 1867, the former Penn Township portion of the 21Ward, with School House Lane as the dividing line, was split off to form the 28th Ward. Act of 14 March 1867, §1, P.L. 460. Population numbers from: John Daly and Allen Weinberg, Genealogy of Philadelphia County Subdivisions (Philadelphia: City of Philadelphia, Department of Records, 1966), p. 100. 95 “Wissahickon M.E. Church,” Inquirer, 30 October 1883, p. 2. 96 Inquirer, 11 January 1889, p. 7. 97 “Baptist Church Can Incorporate,” The Times, 29 December 1899, p. 3; “The Latest News in Real Estate,” Inquirer, 24 November 1900, p. 15; “New Church to Cost $13,000,” The Times, 3 December 1900, p. 11. 98 Inquirer, 18 May 1872, p. 2. 99 “A Generous Gift,” The Times, 19 March 1890, p. 6; “The Merricks’ Munificent Gift,” Inquirer, 12 June 1890, p. 5. 100 George W. & Walter S. Bromley, Civil Engineers, Atlas of the City of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley and Co., 1895), plates 32-34. 100 George W. & Walter S. Bromley, Civil Engineers, Atlas of the City of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley and Co., 1895), plates 32-34. 101 On Henry Houston, see J.M. Duffin, A Guide to the Henry Howard Houston Estate Papers, 1698-1989 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, The University Archives and Records Center, 1989). 102 The Philadelphia, Germantown & Chestnut Hill Railroad was incorporated on 2 January 1883 and 6.75-mile line between Germantown Junction and Chestnut Hill was constructed in 1883 and 1884. 103 “William Dixon’s Railroad,” Inquirer, 18 July 1891, p. 3; “Surveys for a New Road,” Times, 23 July 1891, p.4; “The New Trenton Cut-Off,” Inquirer, 10 September 1891, p. 4; “Roxborough’s Railroad Extension,” Inquirer, 11 September 1891, p. 8; “Roxborough’s New Railroad,” Inquirer, 29 October 1891, p. 4. 104 “Councils’ Committee at Work: The Roxborough Railroad Seeking a Route,” Times 11 September 1891, p. 6. 105 “A Railroad Checked,” Inquirer, 17 May 1893, p. 2. 106 “Roxborough Line Will Not Be Built,” Inquirer, 25 June 1910, p. 7. Top of page

  • RMWHS | RARHD | Federal Architecture

    cc6f3200-62a2-414c-a075-1dc5b15d74ec Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Federal Architecture The Federal style of architecture, which emerged after the Revolutionary War, is closely related to the earlier Georgian or Colonial style, but Federal buildings are lighter and more delicate than their predecessors, which were generally weighty with stout detailing. Like the earlier houses, Federal houses are generally side-gabled, two-story, symmetrical boxes. Wissahickon schist remained the predominant building material, but the stone was sometimes faced with stucco. The Federal style was employed in Roxborough Township from the 1780s through the 1820s. The Levering-Jones House at 6341 Ridge Avenue, which also served for a short time as the General Washington Tavern, is an excellent example of the Federal style (Figure 20). Built about 1796 by William and Martha Levering, the house was converted to a tavern in the early nineteenth century. It was later converted back to a residence and was the boyhood home of prominent historian Horatio Gates Jones Jr. The house was restored to its original appearance in the twentieth century. Its side-gable, symmetrical façade, pedimented door surround, and pedimented dormers with Gothic windows are all hallmarks of the Federal style. The Starne-Smick House at 7552 Ridge Avenue, built about 1795, is another good example of a Federal style house in Roxborough. Although without the high-style embellishments of the Levering-Jones House, the Starne-Smick is a large, well-preserved, significant example of the style. The Joseph Ozias House of 1811 at 7953 Ridge Avenue is another example of a well-preserved Federal style house. The cut-stone front façade with quoins at the corners is an interesting feature of this otherwise modest residence. Describe your image This information has been posted by RMWHS with the permission of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Sections: 1 Intro and Nomination Form 2 Boundary and Description 3 Statement of Significance 4 Native Americans 5 Patent Holders and Early Settlers 6 Ridge Road 7 Early Roxborough 8 Georgian and Colonial Architecture 9 During the Revolutionary War 10 Federal Architecture 11 Development of Manayunk 12 Greek Revival Architecture 13 Early 19th Century 14 Gothic Revival Architecture 15 Italianate Architecture 16 During and After the Civil War 17 Second Empire Architecture 18 Queen Anne Architecture 19 Turn of the Century 20 Conclusion and Bibliography Top of page

  • RMWHS | Research Assistance

    Research assistance is provided by volunteer archivists who are available by appointment only. Detailed research assistance is available for a nominal fee that supports the preservation of the RMWHS Archive. Research Assistance RMWHS can provide you with resource assistance/guidance for your local history, property, or genealogical questions/projects -- however, our volunteer Archivists cannot take on an entire research project for you. To request a call from our Archivist, please fill out our contact form. Be sure to check voicemails for our call back -- we obviously can't help you if we can't reach you. If your request is a Leverington Cemetery look up or quick fact check, please include all necessary details (who/what/when/where/etc.) and we'll get back to you. Donations for our efforts are appreciated. Donations will be used to preserve, expand, digitize, and improve the Archives. Sylvia Myers Georgie Gould Image Requests We are happy to work with you to find the images you need. However, to avoid the RMWHS Image Collection being misused, everyone will need to sign and comply with a Photo Usage Agreement (PUA) . This includes but is not limited to: RMWHS members, students, teachers, researchers, non profit organizations, businesses, press, etc. This applies to: all images -- including RMWHS photos, slides, maps, film, video, etc. -- as well as those already posted on our website. all intended uses -- including but not limited to: personal/private use (such as genealogies), academic research, educational presentations, publication of any kind, use on website, local publicity, non profit use, etc. Posting of RMWHS images on social media not permitted beyond RMWHS official use. Contact us with any questions. Again, we are trying to protect our collection and in today's digital age, this is now a necessity.

  • RMWHS | RARHD | Gothic Revival Architecture

    900b2961-dce5-49a4-8644-344cdeebb707 Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Gothic Revival Architecture The picturesque Gothic Revival style was popularized by landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing’s Cottage Residences, first published in 1842 and reprinted in many editions in the mid and late nineteenth century. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American architecture styles, including Georgian, Adam, Federal, and Greek Revival, were predicated on Classical forms and vocabulary. In the early nineteenth century, as industry grew, rural areas transitioned into suburbs, a middle class emerged, and the field of architecture was professionalized in the United States. Those architects proposed a new architectural vocabulary appropriate for housing in suburban environments. In 1837, architect Andrew Jackson Davis (1803-92) published Rural Residences, in which he drew from British sources to champion the Gothic Revival style for domestic architecture for the first time in America. Rural Residences was influential, but the Gothic Revival style for American domestic architecture was catapulted into collective national consciousness by landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-52), a friend and collaborator with Davis, who published A Treatise of the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1841), followed by Cottage Residences (1842), and The Architecture of Country Houses (1850). In his books, Downing popularized the modest-sized, inexpensive detached cottage in a suburban or rural setting. Downing’s pattern books provided multiple design suggestions for this type of dwelling, ranging from a small suburban cottage to a villa in the Italian style. By the mid-1840s, the picturesque Gothic or Gothic Revival style of architecture began to increase in popularity for residences, largely due to Downing’s pattern books. Downing’s Cottage Residences is considered “one of the most widely used books in American architectural literature.”80 Downing’s The Architecture of Country Houses, a companion to Cottage Residences, has been called a “seminal” book in American architecture. According to the National Historic Landmark nomination for the Rotch House, a Gothic Revival house in New Bedford, Massachusetts designed by Davis in 1845, “the publication and eventual dissemination and popularity of Downing’s Country Houses became a watershed event in the evolution of American domestic architecture, and today cultural historians recognize the book’s significant consequences for the shaping of popular taste in the pre-Civil War period.”81 While his books included many details of house and landscape designs, Downing provided the designs as suggestions, which a builder could adapt to the site and the needs of the homeowner. Downing’s books, in collaboration with Davis, who provided many of the architectural designs and illustrations, inspired the design of numerous cottage residences in rural and suburban settings, leading to an era characterized by these types of Victorian cottage residences. A rural, rather than urban, setting was considered important to the Gothic Revival style, as the building was intended to be compatible with the natural landscape, not situated on a narrow urban lot.82 The primary distinguishing characteristic of the Gothic Revival style is the centered cross gable roof with decorated barge boards. Other characteristics include finials, steeply pitched roofs, pointed arch lancet windows extending into the gables, and open entry and full-width porches with flattened, pointed Gothic arches. One of the best examples of the Gothic Revival style in Roxborough is the Amos Barnes House at 559 Righter Street, at the intersection of Ridge, Righter, and Hermit. Constructed of Wissahickon schist about 1856, the Barnes House effectively represents the Gothic Revival style with Victorian Cottage elements, as reflected in the center cross gable decorative barge board at the roofline. Originally, the building had a full-width front porch and lancet window at the gable (Figure 29). Other excellent examples of the Gothic Revival style on Ridge Avenue include the houses at 5508 Ridge Avenue, which includes the centered cross gable, arched gable windows, and full-width front porch; and 8029 Ridge Avenue, which includes the centered cross gable, lancet windows, and a highly ornamented, full-width, front porch. The building at 8029 Ridge Avenue is unique in that it is clad in wood shiplap siding rather than masonry. Also, rather than decorative bargeboards, it has bracketed cornices, linking it to the Italianate style as well. Describe your image This information has been posted by RMWHS with the permission of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Sections: 1 Intro and Nomination Form 2 Boundary and Description 3 Statement of Significance 4 Native Americans 5 Patent Holders and Early Settlers 6 Ridge Road 7 Early Roxborough 8 Georgian and Colonial Architecture 9 During the Revolutionary War 10 Federal Architecture 11 Development of Manayunk 12 Greek Revival Architecture 13 Early 19th Century 14 Gothic Revival Architecture 15 Italianate Architecture 16 During and After the Civil War 17 Second Empire Architecture 18 Queen Anne Architecture 19 Turn of the Century 20 Conclusion and Bibliography 80 Adolf K.Placzek, “Preface to the Dover Edition,” in Andrew Jackson Downing, Victorian Cottage Residences (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1981), p. iii. 81 Peggi Medeiros and William E. Krattinger, National Historic Landmark Nomination for William J. Rotch Gothic Cottage, designated February 17, 2006, p. 9. 82 Leland M. Roth, A Concise History of American Architecture (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1979), p. 100-103; Virginia & Lee. McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), p. 200. Top of page

  • RMWHS | RARHD | Patent Holders and Early Settlers

    d033a9c0-a465-4a11-93fd-ac6d8f6de40e Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Patent Holders and Early Settlers Between 1681 and 1685, William Penn conveyed more 4,000 acres of land in lower northwest Philadelphia to 11 original purchasers. Most of the land was located to the northwest of the Wissahickon Creek, in what is now known as Roxborough and Manayunk, but a small portion of the original 11 parcels was located to the southeast and east of the creek, in what is now known as East Falls and Mt. Airy. The names of several of the original purchasers are identified on Thomas Holme’s Map of improved part of Pensilvania in America, divided into counties, townships and lotts. of 1681 (Figure 5). The original purchasers did not settle the land between the Wissahickon Creek and Schuylkill River, but instead held the properties as investments. Over the next six decades, the original 11 parcels were subdivided numerous times, and by 1741 had been carved into 43 lots. Europeans began settling in the area in the 1690s. In 1676, Andrew Robeson, his wife Elizabeth, and their son Samuel emigrated from Great Britain, settling in Gloucester, South Jersey. Robeson served in South Jersey as the Surveyor General and Judge. In 1690, they moved to a property called “Shoomac Park” near the mouth of the Wissahickon Creek, in what is now East Falls. They obtained the estate from Joshua Tittery, who had obtained it from Robert Turner, William Penn’s original grantee. Robeson erected a house and renamed the estate “Roxburgh,” after his birthplace, Kelso, Roxburghshire, Scotland. Robeson became Chief of Justice in Pennsylvania and was instrumental in the establishment of Roxborough as a township. Robeson also operated a flour mill on the Wissahickon. After the deaths of Robeson, his wife, and son in the 1690s, the property passed to nephew Andrew Robeson Jr. The Robeson family held the property until 1864, when John and James Dobson, the well-known carpet manufacturers, purchased it. The old mill burned in 1866. The Fairmount Park Commission took much of the property in 1872 for the Wissahickon branch of Fairmount Park. 3 The old Robeson house was used as a hotel and public house known as the High Bridge Mansion in the late nineteenth century and as a restaurant in the twentieth century. In 1956, the Fairmount Park Commission approved its demolition, concluding that it had “no particular architectural design nor historical significance.” 4 Describe your image John Kelpius, a Bavarian religious leader who espoused millennial and universalistic doctrines, arrived in Philadelphia in 1694. He and his followers settled and lived as hermits in small huts in the woods adjacent to Wissahickon Creek, near Roxborough’s present day Hermit Lane. 5 The hermits conducted religious services in the wooded area overlooking the Wissahickon.6 Kelpius died in the first decade of the eighteenth century, and his followers eventually disbanded. 7 Although the name Roxborough, or Rocksburrow, has been attributed to Kelpius, who wrote about "foxes burrowing in rocks,” the area was named by Robeson for his native land, Roxburgh, Scotland. Brothers Gerhard and Wigard (Wickert) Levering arrived in Pennsylvania from Holland during the summer of 1685 and first settled in Germantown. Wigard Levering purchased 200 acres in Roxborough in 1691 and moved to the area, where he farmed. He purchased another 300 acres in 1697 in the area that came to be known as Leverington. He prospered and died a wealthy man in 1744. 8 Wigard’s eldest son William was born in Germany in 1677 and came with his family to Pennsylvania at the age of eight; he was 15 when his family moved to Roxborough. In 1717, Wigard gave William a large tract of land, which consisted of the unsold portions of Wigard’s speculative land holdings in Roxborough. William was a farmer like his father, but engaged in other ventures as well. He built the Levering Hotel, Roxborough’s first hotel, in 1731. He also gave land on which Roxborough’s first school was built in 1748. 9 He died in 1746, having amassed a valuable estate. 10 Wigard’s son Jacob was the first of his 12 children to be born in Roxborough. In 1717, Wigard granted Jacob 85 acres of land, which abutted the along the Schuylkill River in the area of Green Lane, extending to Levering Street and comprising much of present-day Manayunk. Jacob lived on this land, first in a log cabin, and then in a stone house that he built in 1736 on the northwest side of Green Lane. Besides farming, Jacob was also engaged in industrial undertakings. He owned a distillery in Roxborough and a saw mill on the western side of the Schuylkill River in what is now Montgomery County. Jacob died in 1753 with an estate valued at the substantial sum. 11 Wilhelm Rittinghausen, born in 1644, learned the papermaking trade in Mulheim, Germany, while working at his uncle Mathias Vorster’s mill. The two men later went to Holland, where they were employed in a Gelderland mill near Arnhem. In 1688, Mr. Rittinghausen, by now a Dutch citizen, immigrated to British North America and changed his name to William Rittenhouse. In 1690, he established a paper mill in Roxborough on the Paper Mill Run or Monoshone Creek, a tributary of the Wissahickon Creek. The mill was located near the confluence of Paper Mill Run and the Wissahickon, about 1.6 miles above the point where the Wissahickon flows into the Schuylkill. 12 Joining him in the venture were three partners, Robert Turner, Thomas Tresse, and a printer named William Bradford. Rittenhouse developed a successful mill, owing to his ability to organize financial backers as partners and a printer-partner as a contractual customer for the products. Previous to Rittenhouse’s operation, all paper was imported from Europe and taxed accordingly. The new mill provided a local source of printing, writing, and wrapping paper, as well as pasteboard. All of the mill’s fiber for hand papermaking was obtained from discarded rags and cotton. The paper that came from the Rittenhouse mill during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was made by hand, each sheet crafted separately. First, workers pounded rags into pulp in stone or iron mortars using trip-hammers. After pulp was placed in frames, it needed several days to dry completely. The final product carried the Rittenhouse watermark. In 1706, Rittenhouse bought out the other partners and became sole proprietor of Rittenhouse Paper Mill. Rittenhouse proved that papermaking in America could be a viable, economically sound business. Rittenhouse died in 1708 and left the paper mill to his son, Claus. The business prospered at the site, and was operated by six generations of family descendants. Rittenhousetown grew up around the mill. For 20 years, Rittenhouse Paper Mill was the only paper mill in the Colonies. In 1710, William Dewees, who was married to Claus Rittenhouse’s sister, built a mill nearby in Chestnut Hill, having learned the trade at Rittenhouse Paper Mill. In 1729, the Willcox Ivey Mill was built in Chester County. Forty years after the founding of Rittenhouse Paper Mill, the number of printers and paper mills grew exponentially. The Rittenhouse family monopoly in paper was over, but Rittenhouse’s descendants continued making paper on the Monoshone Creek until the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution, when the development of the Fourdrinier, with its endless web and cylinder papermaking, changed the industry forever. 13 Among the many prominent members of the Rittenhouse family, David Rittenhouse (1732-1796) was an astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, fabricator of scientific instruments, and public official. Rittenhouse was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the first director of the United States Mint. Several eighteenth and nineteenth-century buildings survive at the Rittenhouse Paper Mill site including the Rittenhouse Homestead (1707), the Bake House (1725), the Abraham Rittenhouse Home (1720), and the Enoch Rittenhouse Home (1845) (Figure 6). The Rittenhouse complex was not included in this thematic district because of its distance from Ridge Avenue, but it precisely represents both the early mill culture and early architectural styles in Roxborough Township.14 Describe your image Between 1746 and 1747, Joseph Gorgas built one of Roxborough’s more impressive surviving residences on a large tract of land bordering the Wissahickon Creek, which he purchased from Benjamin Shoemaker. Gorgas was a Seventh Day Baptist and wished to have an isolated residence for meditation and solitude, as well as for pursuing his grist mill business. The stone house is three stories, with an adjoining grist mill and saw mill. When it was built, it was one of the largest residences in the area and may have been one of the first three-story homes in the immediate vicinity of Philadelphia.15 The Gorgas property was not included in this thematic district because of its distance from Ridge Avenue, but it certainly represents a high point of Georgian architectural achievement in Roxborough Township.16 Describe your image Other early Roxborough families included the Righter, Livezey, and Houlgate families.17 The earliest settlers were primarily engaged in farming and milling. Grist mills, located on the Wissahickon and its tributaries, were the most common type of industry in eighteenth-century Roxborough. In 1779, there were at least eleven mills in the area, eight of which were grist mills.18 Glen Fern, the Thomas Livezey House, still stands on the east bank of the Wissahickon. Constructed in 1733-39 and added to later in the eighteenth century, the house evidences many characteristics of the Georgian style. Livezey, who purchased the property in 1747, operated one of the largest mills in the colonies. In addition to the house, the foundation of the mill and the associated dam survive. Glen Fern was not included in this thematic district because of its distance from Ridge Avenue, but it precisely characterizes both the early mill culture and early architectural styles in Roxborough Township.19 This information has been posted by RMWHS with the permission of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Sections: 1 Intro and Nomination Form 2 Boundary and Description 3 Statement of Significance 4 Native Americans 5 Patent Holders and Early Settlers 6 Ridge Road 7 Early Roxborough 8 Georgian and Colonial Architecture 9 During the Revolutionary War 10 Federal Architecture 11 Development of Manayunk 12 Greek Revival Architecture 13 Early 19th Century 14 Gothic Revival Architecture 15 Italianate Architecture 16 During and After the Civil War 17 Second Empire Architecture 18 Queen Anne Architecture 19 Turn of the Century 20 Conclusion and Bibliography 3 Kate Hamilton Osborne, An Historical and Genealogical Account of Andrew Robeson of Scotland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and of his Descendants from 1653 to 1916 (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1916), 6-14. 4 “Park Commission OKs Destruction of Shoomac Mansion,” Inquirer, 12 December 1956, p. 17; “Senator Stiefel Sues to Preserve Shoomac House,” Inquirer, 20 December 1956, p. 19. 5 John Fanning Watson and Willis Pope Hazard, Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the Olden Time: or, Memoirs, Anecdotes, and Incidents of Philadelphia and Its Inhabitants from the Days of the Founders (Philadelphia: E.S. Stuart, 1899), 458-460. 6 Horatio Gates Jones, The American Historical Record, and Repertory of Notes and Queries Concerning the History and Antiquities of America and the Biography of Americans, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Samuel P. Town, 1873), 3. 7 J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1884), 1319. 8 Horatio Gates Jones, The Levering Family; or, a Genealogical Account of Wigard Levering and Gerhard Levering, Two of the Pioneer Settlers of Roxborough Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: King & Baird, 1858), 3-12. 9 Ibid., 187. 10 Ibid., 18-21. 11 Ibid., 22-25. This nomination draws liberally from Emily Cooperman and Claire G. Schmieder, “Historic Context Statement for Neighborhood Cluster 2,” prepared for the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, 2009. 12 James Green, The Rittenhouse Mill and the Beginnings of Papermaking in America (Philadelphia: The Library Company of Philadelphia and Friends of Historic RittenhouseTown, 1990), 5; Horatio Gates Jones, “Historical Sketch of the Rittenhouse Papermill; the First Erected in America, A.D. 1690,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 20 (1896): 317. 13 Green, The Rittenhouse Mill, 3-5; Jones, “Historical Sketch of the Rittenhouse Papermill,” 322. 14 Rittenhouse Town was designated as historic and listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places on 26 June 1956 and on 7 June 1973. 15 Unfortunately, the HABS data pages for The Monastery are not among the documents in the Library of Congress’ Historic American Building Survey collection. Julius Friedrich Sachse, The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, 1708-1742: A Critical and Legendary History of the Ephrata Cloister and the Dunkers (Philadelphia: P.C. Stockhausen, 1899), 284-285. 16 The Joseph Gorgas House, the Monastery, and associated outbuildings was designated as historic and listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places on 26 June 1956. 17 Information about the original and early purchasers as well as “Map Showing the Roxborough Tracts Bought by the First Purchasers” and “Map Showing the Roxborough Tracts Purchased by Early Settlers” is provided in: Joseph Starne Miles and Rev. William H. Cooper, A Historical Sketch of Roxborough, Manayunk, and Wissahickon (Philadelphia: George Fein & Co., 1940), p. 75-79. 18 The grist mills were owned by the Robeson family, John Vanderen and Martin Rittenhouse, Nicholas Rittenhouse, William Rittenhouse, Abraham Rittenhouse, Peter Care, John Gorgas, and Thomas Livezey. The Rittenhouse papermill was in operation, as well as a fulling mill owned by Matthew Houlgate and Christian Snyder and an oil mill owned by Benjamin Gorgas. Jones, The Levering Family, 187. 19 Glen Fern was designated as historic and listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places on 26 June 1956. Top of page

  • RMWHS | Web & Privacy Policy

    The information on the RMWHS website is presented for informational and educational purposes only. Use of this website is subject to the provisions of this privacy policy. If you have questions about the site or our policies, contact us. RMWHS Website & Privacy Policy Disclaimers The information on the RMWHS website is presented for informational and educational purposes only. Use of this website is subject to the provisions of this privacy policy. While we cannot guarantee the website will be error-free, we will make every reasonable effort to make content accurate, reliable and complete. This includes correcting any errors that are brought to our attention. If you have questions about the site, our privacy policy, or wish to bring an issue to our attention, contact us . Website Statistics Statistical information is collected as users navigate the site -- this information is analyzed in aggregate and does not contain personally identifiable information. This analysis helps us to improve our site. Collection of Personal Information Your use of the site is anonymous except in the instances where you voluntarily choose to complete the contact us form. The information you provide in the form is used to respond to your inquiries and execute the requests you make. We may also use your information to follow up/verify the receipt of requested information or to inform you of upcoming activities, special events, and other programs and projects. After completion of your request, if you wish to have your contact data deleted from our records, you can contact us. Emails & Subscription Lists C urrently the RMWHS does not provide any subscription service or email blast to the public. Security As with any website, the confidentiality of any communication or material transmitted to/from this website over the Internet cannot be guaranteed. Accordingly, RMWHS is not responsible for the security of any information transmitted via the Internet. You assume the sole and complete risk for using this website and must make your own determination as to these matters. Cookies Cookies are small files that a website or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser to enable the site or service provider to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. We use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. Privacy We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your personally identifiable information to outside parties. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our society business, addressing your requests or completing other transactions. All third parties whom are involved have also agreed to keep your information confidential. Third-Party Links Our site may contain links to third-party websites. These third-party websites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites. Revisions to Our Web Policies Please note that the RMWHS may revise its privacy policy at any time. We encourage you to periodically visit this page to review our most current policy. Your continued use of the site shall constitute your acceptance of any such changes to this policy. This policy was last modified January 1, 2021. Tech Issues or Questions Contact us.

  • Historical Maps 1982

    Historical Maps 1982 < Previous > Back to Historical Map List < Next > 1982 - Manayunk Canal (Part 1) Source: URL: Free Library of Philadelphia https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/48041 Full Name: Manayunk Canal, 1982, Map 1 Visit the source URL to use zoom features, find additional formats, or download a high quality image.

  • Bethany Lutheran Cemetery

    Status: This is a historic cemetery and no longer open for new burials. Bethany Lutheran Cemetery 378 Martin Street, Philadelphia, PA, USA Owner: Lutheran Church of SE Pennsylvania Status: This is a historic cemetery and no longer open for new burials. Visitors should see the sign posted on the cemetery gate. No pets are permitted. History German-speaking Lutherans of the Roxborough, Manayunk, Wissahickon area organized the Bethany German Lutheran Church (Bethanien Kirche) in 1845. The cemetery located at 378 Martin Street was opened in 1847 and the last burial took place in 1955. While the precise number of individuals buried in the cemetery is not known as the records have been lost, there were 73 grave markers that were transcribed and added to findagrave.com. However, the actual number buried in the cemetery plot is likely several times that given the size of the cemetery, growth of the congregation, and the number of deaths that would have occurred over the 104 years. RMWHS Archivists found evidence that at least than 9 Civil War soldiers are buried at Bethany Cemetery. Ongoing research will be done by RMWHS to add what is known of others buried here. If you have burial records, newspaper articles, obituaries or documentation of someone buried at Bethany, please share the information with RMWHS. Gallery of Photos

  • Historical Maps 1862

    Historical Maps 1862 < Previous > Back to Historical Map List < Next > 1862 - Atlas of Phila (NW) Source: URL: Free Library of Philadelphia https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/12334 Full Name: Atlas of the City of Philadelphia, 1862, Section 20 [Northwest] Visit the source URL to use zoom features, find additional formats, or download a high quality image.

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