Roxborough
Manayunk
Wissahickon
Historical
Society

Local Landmarks Additional landmarks will be added as they are completed. If you have images you'd share or would like to help us create a profile for this section, please contact us. RMWHS welcomes volunteers. Shawmont Station Shawmont Station is the oldest surviving passenger station in America and the oldest building owned by any railroad, in the World. It was a schedule stop until 1991 and then a whistle stop until 1995. Structural restoration began in 2023. Read More Leverington Cemetery Since the first recorded burial in 1703, more than 12,000 souls have been laid to rest on this land during the last 320 years. The residents of Leverington Cemetery include some of the first settlers of the area, Revolutionary soldiers massacred at Woods' Barn as well as soldiers from every war since, and the generations of people who played a part in building the communities around it. Read More Bethany Lutheran Cemetery The cemetery opened in 1847 and was a part of the churchyard for the first Bethany German Lutheran Church (Bethanien Kirche) which was erected here in 1850. After a fire destroyed the wood church, a new one was built nearby and this land was used exclusively for burials which continued here until 1955. The cemetery holds an untold number of early German immigrants and at least 9 Civil War soldiers. Read More

Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Intro and Nomination Form Read More Boundary and Description Read More Statement of Significance Read More Native Americans Read More Patent Holders and Early Settlers Read More Ridge Road Read More Early Roxborough Read More Georgian and Colonial Architecture Read More During the Revolutionary War Read More Federal Architecture Read More Development of Manayunk Read More Greek Revival Architecture Read More Early 19th Century Read More Gothic Revival Architecture Read More Italianate Architecture Read More During and After the Civil War Read More Second Empire Architecture Read More Queen Anne Architecture Read More Turn of the Century Read More Conclusion and Bibliography Read More

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

Historical Maps 1854 < Previous > Back to Historical Map List < Next > 1854 - Consolidated Phila Wards Source: URL: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3824p.ct008335 Full Name: An outline of the newly consolidated city, showing the boundaries of the wards : according to the act passed by the Legislature, Jany. 31st, 1854 Visit the source URL to use zoom features, find additional formats, or download a high quality image.

2cd924c3-529b-4ccb-9cf2-96ff92f7418a Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Greek Revival Architecture The Greek Revival style of architecture was the dominant style for American domestic architecture between about 1825 and 1850. Archaeological investigations of the Classical World including Ancient Greece in the early nineteenth century as well as Greece’s war for independence (1821 to 1830) aroused interest in Greek architectural forms in the United States. Americans associated the forms with their new democracy. Philadelphia was the first city in the United States to adopt the Greek Revival style, as evidenced by Benjamin Latrobe’s Bank of Pennsylvania of 1801 and William Strickland’s Bank of the United States of 1818. Pattern books and carpenter’s guides by Asher Benjamin, Minard Lafever and others spread the style. Greek Revival buildings typically have gabled or hipped roofs of shallower pitches than their predecessors, broad cornices, and entry or full-width porches supported by classical columns. The Valentine Keely House at 8144 Ridge Avenue is the most stylistically pure Greek Revival building in Roxborough (Figure 24). Built in 1844, the symmetrical, five-bay Valentine Keely House has a portico supported by Doric columns, a hipped roof with a shallow pitch, and half-height third-floor windows separated by a string course from the façade below to give the appearance of a classical entablature. Advances in roofing technology in the early nineteenth century, especially the development of metal roofs, allowed for roofs with shallower pitches. Earlier cedar shake roofs required a steep pitch to effectively shed water. With the shallower pitched metal roofs, rooftop dormers gave way to half-height third-floor windows, creating more usable space in garrets. The half-height third-floor windows became a hallmark of houses constructed in rural areas around Philadelphia in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Describe your image Numerous examples of Greek Revival houses with half-height third-floor windows can be found along and around Ridge Avenue. The houses are usually three or five bays wide and often have open, full-width front porches. They are built of Wissahickon schist, which is either left uncovered or finished with smooth stucco. They often have double, gable-end chimneys. Good examples can be found at 5635 Ridge Avenue and 7101 Ridge Avenue (Figure 25). 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

Memorials of the 21st Ward < Back to Memorials List WWI & WWII Memorial (Hattal-Taylor VFW) Address: 376 Lyceum Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19128, USA Visitors: This memorial is located outside the Hattal-Taylor VFW and can clearly be seen from the sidewalk and street. If you wish to gain closer access, contact Hattal-Taylor. The images below are not to be reproduced or used without prior written authorization of RMWHS - contact us .

Historical Maps 1861 < Previous > Back to Historical Map List < Next > 1861-1865 - Civil War Military Source: URL: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3824p.cw0358100 Full Name: Military map of Philadelphia 1861-1865 Visit the source URL to use zoom features, find additional formats, or download a high quality image.

7d8c98b4-f576-44c6-9419-0207810462ac Main Street Manayunk Historic District Map Note: RMWHS has divided the original maps into smaller sections so that viewers can of the original map, RMWHS had divided it into smaller sections to allow viewers to open full screen and permit details to be legible. Describe your image Section A: Flat Rock Dam, Lock Keeper's House, Upper Lock (Click to open full screen) Describe your image Section B: Upper End of Flat Rock Road & the Fountain Street Bridge (Click to open full screen) Describe your image Section C: Leverington Street & Green Lane Bridges, Upper Main Street (Click to open full screen) Describe your image Section D: Cotton & Lock Street Bridges, Lower Main Street (Click to open full screen) 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

Memorials of the 21st Ward < Back to Memorials List Wissahickon War Memorial (Sumac St & Rochelle Ave) Address: Rochelle Ave & Sumac St, Philadelphia, PA 19128, USA Visitors: The Wissahickon War Memorial and grounds are situated on the corner of Rochelle and Sumac and open to the public. There is a gate each street to gain access -- the gate on Sumac Street leads to a ramp up and into the memorial while the gate on Rochelle Ave has a few steps to get up. (See photos below.) The ramp, steps, and all paths are flag stone and care should be taken. Dogs are not permitted except for working service dogs. Please be mindful of others who are there to mourn or pay their respects. The images below are not to be reproduced or used without prior written authorization of RMWHS - contact us .

ac9cfc6e-1300-43dd-bd97-f4aa9fbc7ea4 Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Statement of Significance The Ridge Avenue Roxborough Thematic Historic District satisfies four Criteria for Designation (a, c, d, and j) as delineated in Section 14-1004(4) of the Philadelphia Code, the City’s historic preservation ordinance. Paraphrasing the Criteria, the Ridge Avenue Roxborough Thematic Historic District: (a) Has significant character, interest and value as part of the development, heritage and cultural characteristics of the City, Commonwealth and Nation and is associated with the lives of persons significant in the past; (c) Reflects the environment in an era characterized by distinctive architectural styles; (d) Embodies distinguishing characteristics of architectural styles and engineering specimens; and, (j) Exemplifies the cultural, political, economic, social and historical heritage of the community. The period of significance of the Ridge Avenue Roxborough Thematic Historic District spans from 1681, when William Penn began conveying land to the original purchasers, to 1908, the dawn of the automobile age, when the completion of the Walnut Lane Bridge opened the southeastern section of Roxborough to new forms of residential development. From 1681 to 1839, Roxborough persisted as a linear village along Ridge Road with an economy based on agriculture, milling, and providing services to travelers. From 1839 to 1908, Roxborough slowly transitioned from a linear village surrounded by large tracts of open land to a suburban community of homes for managers, business people, and artisans who traveled by foot and on omnibuses, trolleys, and trains to jobs in Manayunk and beyond. 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

We share the names of those whose personal histories have touched the lives our members, friends, and communities, so that their lives may be remembered, honored, and celebrated. Those honored below have been recorded in the Archive's In Memoriam book and have become a part of our permanent history. We thank those who have made an In Memoriam donation to RMWHS -- either financial or of historic items and local memorabilia -- for their generosity. The individuals honored are listed here and are recorded in the In Memoriam remembrance book in the RMWHS Archive. You do not need to be a RMWHS member to be honored or to donate. Donations of any amount are accepted. RMWHS is a 501(c)(3) public charity. Funds generated from In Memoriam donations will be put toward preservation, restoration, and/or beautification projects in our neighborhoods. This may include our local cemeteries and war memorials. We thank you for your generosity. Contact us if you wish to honor someone by making an In Memoriam donation . In Memoriam Remember - Honor - Celebrate Received in 2025 John Charles Manton Received in 2024 John Davis Received in 2023 Gertrude J. Frishmuth Miriam McCurdy Mary Longaker Keely Everhart Bert Laudenslager* Jim Poupard* Received in 2022 Jack Fasy Robert & Edith Yarnall* Received in 2021 Paul Walter Russell Ripka Jo Cauffman* Helen Wong Frank & Mary Trimborn Nick Gilbert* Ted Lada* Mary Ann & William Buchanan Received in 2020 Robert & Edith Yarnall* Harry A. Olson* Wendy Weight *RMWHS Member

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.

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 .

e8ab28c4-0111-4d3d-abc3-e94af591c2b9 Main Street Manayunk Historic District The Industry of Venice Island The pattern of physical growth and development in Manayunk during the 19th century was determined by the location of the Manayunk Canal, as a transportation route and power source. With the decline of the canal and the increasing importance of railroad transportation, the construction of a railroad spur adjacent to the canal maintained Manayunk as an important industrial location. Industrial development and redevelopment occurred during the 19th and early 20th centuries in response to changes in technology and market condition favoring new industries. Describe your image After completion of the canal, Venice Island, located between the river channel and the canal, became the principal location for Manayunk industry. By the 1860s, a substantial number of mill complexes had been developed both on the eastern and central parts of Venice Island, and the south side of Main Street, near the lower locks. Principal mill structures at the lower locks included the Roxborough Mills, and the Littlewood and Lancaster Mill. Cotton mills clustered in an area cast of Green Lane Bridge, while west of the Leverington Street Bridge, a wider variety of mill industries developed including paper mills (Flat Rock Paper Mill), grist mills (Mt. Vernon Grist Mill), and Knitting Works (Pennsylvania Knitting Works). Coal was now the major source of power for the mill complexes with the Philadelphia and Norristown Railroad servicing the coal depots on the south side of Cresson Street. Describe your image Over the next fifteen years, development continued along the eastern and central parts of Venice Island as far west as Fountain Street. Major mill complexes east of Green Lane included the Schuylkill Cotton Mill at Rector Street, Hardings Paper Mills and Ripka Cotton Mills at Carson Street. Typically, each mill had operation on both sides of the waters, linked by bridges across the canal, with the mill offices located on the Main Street side. By 1875, a substantial number of paper and wood pulp mills has been constructed west of the Fountain Street Bridge. Among these mills were the American Wood Pulp Co., Flat Rock Mills and Philadelphia Pulp Works. Race channels, cut across Venice Island from the canal to the main channel, supplied water for each mill. Gas became a new source of energy for Manayunk industries, provided by the Manayunk Gas Works located on Venice Island, east of the Leverington Street Bridge. In the 1880s, rail transportation became increasingly important and a second rail line serving Manayunk, the Pennsylvania Schuylkill Valley Railroad, was completed. Before 1818, Flat Rock Road and the canal had provided the only direct means of transporting raw materials and finished goods to and from the Island mills. Now, the transformation of Venice Island industry transportation from water to rail transportation was complete with the construction of the Venice Island branch of the Reading Railroad on the tow path right of way, and the elimination of the canal tow path system. At the turn of the century, most of the mills were still in operation, although new types of industry began developing with the construction of the railroad spur to Venice Island. With increasing competition from textile production in the south, and a reorientation of Manayunk industry to pulp, soap, and chemical production, further development and redevelopment occurred in the first two decades of the 20th century. Some major textile mills remained, such as Imperial Woolens and Elton Textiles Mills, while new industries such as the Zane Soap and Chemical Co., National Waste Co., and the National Milling and Chemical Co. (NAMCO), opened. No significant new industrial development occurred in Manayunk after the 1920s, heightening the decline in importance of Manayunk as an industrial center. Today, Venice Island provides both industrial and recreational uses. While the west end of the Island remains industrial, some of the old, abandoned textile mills at the east end have been cleared for active recreational uses. Although many of the older mills have been demolished, these Venice Island sites may at some future time yield valuable archaeological information relating to 19th century industrial technology. 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

Memorials of the 21st Ward Launched in 2022, "Memorials of the 21st Ward" provides a profile page for each of the 8 memorials within the 21st Ward. Each profile will be expanded in the months and years to come as both old and new images and newspapers clippings are added as well as a history of the memorial. If you would like to contribute an image or information for any of the memorials, please contact us . Also, if we have missed a public memorial within 21st Ward, please let us know. Some are tucked away and not well known and we'd like to help change that. Memorials of the 21st Ward RMWHS reminds all visitors to be respectful not only to the memorial and the grounds, but also of the others who may be there remembering loved ones lost, for whom these special places were created to honor. 21st Ward War Memorial (Gorgas Park) Learn More Civil War Soldier Memorial (Leverington Cemetery) Learn More Korean & Vietnam War Memorial (Hattal-Taylor VFW) Learn More Old Glory Memorial (Germany Hill) Learn More Revolutionary Soldiers Memorial (Leverington Cemetery) Learn More Shawmont Roll of Honor Memorial (Shawmont & Nixon) Learn More Wissahickon War Memorial (Sumac St & Rochelle Ave) Learn More WWI & WWII Memorial (Hattal-Taylor VFW) Learn More

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

Historical Maps 1869 < Previous > Back to Historical Map List < Next > 1869 - Survey of Wissahickon Source: URL: Free Library of Philadelphia https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/65525 Full Name: Map of the Survey of Wissahickon Creek from its Mouth to Paul's Mill Road Defining Boundaries of Land Appropriated by the Commissioners of Fairmount Park, ca. 1869, Map Visit the source URL to use zoom features, find additional formats, or download a high quality image.

Historical Maps 1862 < Previous > Back to Historical Map List < Next > 1862 - Atlas of Phila (Manayunk) Source: URL: Free Library of Philadelphia https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/12336 Full Name: Atlas of the City of Philadelphia, 1862, Section 22 [Manayunk] Visit the source URL to use zoom features, find additional formats, or download a high quality image.

Status: Structural improvements began in 2023 Shawmont Station 7700 Nixon Street, Philadelphia, PA, USA Owner: SEPTA Status: Structural improvements began in 2023 Visitors to the station are urged to be cautious. Access to the property is not permitted and parking is not available below Shawmont Ave. If you do visit, park on Shawmont Ave and walk down -- but be careful crossing the tracks as this is a working train line. History The following timeline was created by John Johnstone, Historian, Shawmont Station Advocate, RMWHS member. __________________ 1825 - Nathan Nathans, Center City Philadelphia lawyer, purchases land bordering Schuylkill Navigation Company's Towpath, along the Schuylkill River at a Sheriff's Sale, in Roxborough Township, above the Flat Rock Dam, formerly owned by the Criedlands. 1826 - After returning from England, Architect, William Strickland writes his "Reports on Canals, Railways, Roads, and Other Subjects", made to the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvement. The Schuylkill Navigation Company completes laying their Schuylkill Turnpike between Domino Lane in Roxborough and Montgomery County, previously known as The Pebble Road. Nathan Nathans builds his vacation home on a small section of land between the Schuylkill Turnpike and Towpath, close to the Schuylkill River. 1827 - The Schuylkill Navigation Company maps it entire system between Schuylkill County PA, and Philadelphia, including prior land purchases for their towpath, as well as mapping their turnpike roads and bordering buildings. Visible on map is Nathan Nathans' country home. 1830 - Nathan Nathans sells his land and vacation home to John Wise, local Miller, but remains legal executor of Mr. Wise's estate. 1832 - The Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad operate Philadelphia's first passenger train between 9th& Green Streets, Philadelphia, and Germantown, utilizing Mathias Baldwin's steam locomotive, "Old Ironsides". 1833 - Architect William Strickland and Engineer Henry Campbell design the Norristown branch of the Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad and construction begins. 1834 - Horse-drawn passenger trains operate from 9th and Green Streets to Manayunk on a set of single tracks, while tracks are laid northwest to Norristown. Nathan Nathans sues the Philadelphia, Germantown, and Norristown Railroad, for damages associated with laying tracks in front of John Wise's house. 1835 - The Norristown Branch is completed, and passenger trains make their way to Norristown. Nathan Nathans loses lawsuit to Railroad, and John Wises' house and property are sold to Henry Croskey, local Lumber Merchant and Passenger Railway Enthusiast. Mr. Croskey creates a runoff stream leading to the Schuylkill River on his property during his lumbering process and names it "Green Tree Run". He also builds an access road between the Ridge Turnpike in Upper Roxborough and the Schuylkill Turnpike and names it "Green Tree Lane". He names his newly acquired house by the Railroad, "Green Tree Station", which he facilitates for passenger service and freight service for his lumbering business, while using the Schuylkill Navigation Company for lumber transport as well. At Green Tree Station, Mr. Croskey houses Schuylkill Navigation Company workers overnight, who load large shipments of lumber onto barges, making it a "mixed use" building. 1836 - Engineer, Henry Campbell designs and sells steam Engines to the Railroad for the Norristown Branch. Freight branches are extended to the Plymouth Limekilns from Conshohocken and to a King of Prussia Quarry from Norristown. Campbell's poorly designed engines easily de-rail on grades and sharp curves. Mathias Baldwin produces more engines for the railroad, and steam engines fully replace horses on the Railroad. The Norristown Branch becomes double-tracked to facilitate high traffic. 1837-1840 - Henry Croskey continues to purchase nearby land for his lumbering business and builds his new homestead on a hill above Green Tree Station. He is noted to have made vast improvements to the area and to have facilitated the Railroad, Turnpike and Waterway, consistent with Pennsylvania's Internal Improvement plan. Both the Coleman and Crawford stagecoach companies start transporting passengers from the Ridge Turnpike to Railroad stations on the Norristown Branch. 1842 - The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad open passenger and freight service between Broad and Cherry Streets, in Philadelphia and Pottsville, PA, with a branch to Port Richmond, on the Delaware River, for coal transport. Their Main line runs along the West Bank of Schuylkill River, opposite to the Norristown Branch of Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad. 1843 - The Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad combine freight and passenger services with the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, with mutual access to the Delaware River docks at the foot of Noble Street, from the 9th and Green Street terminus. Henry Croskey opens a second business at the Railroad dock, utilizing the Railroad for lumber transport between Green Tree Station and the Delaware River. The Schuylkill Navigation Company loses revenue to the Railroads, which run from the Coal Regions in five hours, as opposed to the Navigation Company, taking six days. 1850 - A freshet causes flooding from the Schuylkill River and the Flat Rock Bridge below the Flat Rock Dam, between Lower Merion and the Schuylkill Turnpike, is destroyed. To facilitate travel close to the two points, a ferry is operated upstream between Rose Glen Station in Gladwyne, and Green Tree Station. 1853 - Henry Croskey moves to Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, though his lumbering business is maintained in Roxborough. Mr. Croskey becomes a leader in planning for intercity, public rail transportation. 1857 - Henry Croskey sells Green Tree Station and grounds of approximately seven by ten perches, to the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad, for one dollar. He also sells his estate above Green Tree Station to Thomas Shaw, inventor, who would invent several permanent improvements for the Railroads. The University of Pennsylvania begins having boat races on the Schuylkill River, between Green Tree Station and Spring Mill, through to the early Twentieth Century. The Railroad builds a freight station across the tracks. 1870 - The wealthy Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, who permanently leases the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad, absorb a financially troubled Schuylkill Navigation Company. Green Tree Station receives several upgrades to include a tin, fireproof roof with remodeled chimneys, an addition to house a permanent Station resident, its central doorway & stairway are removed and replaced with a bay window, housing a telegraph. Windows facing its platform are converted into doorways, one of which for a waiting room. Scored concrete is painted white and its passenger platform roof replaced. 1873 - With the Pennsylvania Railroad having a station in nearby Chester County, also named "Green Tree", Green Tree Station in Philadelphia County, is changed to "Shawmont", named after nearby resident and inventor, Thomas Shaw. 1874 - Henry Croskey opens and is President of the horse-drawn Ridge Avenue Railway, operating from North Philadelphia into Roxborough and Barren Hill, which eventually becomes electrified in 1884 - The Pennsylvania Railroad opens their Schuylkill Branch for service, which parallels the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad's Norristown Branch and Main Line, between Manayunk & Pottsville, PA, with through service to Wilkes Barre. They also open their own Shawmont Station, 300 feet north of the Philadelphia & Reading's. 1894 - Thomas Shaw develops an inclined railway to travel between Manayunk and Roxborough, but it never materializes. 1909 - The Brendel Family moves into Shawmont Station as permanent tenants/station masters. 1916 - The last freight barge travels down the locks of the Schuylkill River, though the locks remain open for recreational use. 1921 - The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad close passenger operations on the West Side of the Schuylkill River, below Bridgeport, and use that section exclusively for freight. The Norristown Branch is used for all local and express passenger trains between Philadelphia's Reading Terminal and Reading/Pottsville/Williamsport Lancaster/Harrisburg/Gettysburg/Shippensburg. The ferry between Rose Glen Station and Shawmont Station is closed. 1929 - The shutters on the windows of Shawmont Station are removed and put into storage. Scored concrete on front façade is replaced with flat concrete. 1940 - All locks along the Schuylkill River are closed. No recreational boating is permitted between Shawmont and East Falls. 1950 - The Reading Railroad cuts back passenger service from Williamsport to Shamokin. 1960 - The Pennsylvania Railroad cuts back passenger service from Norristown to Manayunk. Their circa 1884 Shawmont Station is removed, though that line continues to carry freight. 1963 - The Reading Railroad cuts passenger service to Shamokin and Harrisburg. Other than local commuter trains, the only express trains travelling Reading's Norristown Branch are to Reading and Pottsville. 1972 - Though Hurricane Agnes causes flooding along much of the Schuylkill River, Shawmont Station is spared. 1974 - Shawmont Station receives its last paint job. 1976 - Conrail takes over the Reading Railroad's passenger operations. 1979 - SEPTA takes over Conrail's passenger operations and the Norristown Branch becomes the R6 line. SEPTA extends Pennsylvania Railroad's Schuylkill Branch ¾ mile to Ivy Ridge from Manayunk and tracks North of that completely close for freight service, following abandonment by Conrail. Abandoned tracks above Port Royal Avenue in Shawmont are paved over into a bike path to Valley Forge. 1981 - SEPTA cuts back passenger service from Pottsville to Norristown. 1986 - SEPTA cuts back Pennsylvania Railroad's Schuylkill Branch from Ivy Ridge to Cynwyd and a new Ivy Ridge Station is put on the R6 Norristown Branch, one mile south of Shawmont. 1991 - Shawmont Station is no longer a scheduled stop, but a whistlestop. Its waiting room is closed. 1995 - Shawmont Station is no longer a whistle stop but remains occupied. 2008 - Through the work of Historian John Johnston and Preservation Architect William Breard, Shawmont Station is placed on Philadelphia's Register of Historic Places, as the oldest passenger railroad station in America. The effort required the personal collection of documents and materials from across the state. 2013 - The last of the Brendel's descendants, move out of Shawmont Station, after occupying the Station for 104 years. SEPTA decides to have the Station restored and submits historical railroad documents to John Johnstone. 2014 - Research and documents show that Shawmont Station, originated as an 1826 country house, and is not only the oldest passenger railroad station in America, but also the oldest building owned by any railroad, in the World. *2021 - SEPTA calls for bids for the restoration work needed at Shawmont. *2023 - The $1.26M structural rehab to shore up the building began on January 18 by Contractor Donald E. Resinger. *Updates added by Georgie Gould Gallery of Photos Restoration Photos by Amanda Robinson, SEPTA Project Manager Additional Items 1884-08-20 Philadelphia Inquirer 2008-02-23 Phila Daily News 1885-06-19 The Times

393e91fa-fd1f-4e7d-808f-7377809b3f8a Ridge Ave Roxborough Historic District Development of Manayunk As the John Hills map shows, the land in Roxborough Township along the Schuylkill River was virtually uninhabited in 1808. Almost all development in Roxborough at the time was located along Ridge Road and around the several mills on the Wissahickon Creek. Manayunk had not yet been established in the first decade of the nineteenth century. However, with the discovery of anthracite coal in 1790 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, 80 miles upstream on the Schuylkill River, and the subsequent discovery of a method for igniting anthracite coal in 1808, development of the Schulkill bank in Roxborough progressed quickly in the early nineteenth century. In 1810, the Flat Rock Bridge was constructed at the base on Domino Lane across the Schuylkill River to Montgomery County.61 Domino Lane, which ran down from Ridge Road, was officially confirmed in 1819.62 In 1815, the Manayunk & Flat Rock Turnpike Company was chartered to build a roadway along the Schuylkill from Ridge Road west of the Wissahickon Creek to the Flat Rock Bridge, thereby opening Manayunk for development. Most significantly, in 1815, the Pennsylvania Legislature chartered the Schuylkill Navigation Company to build a system of canals, dams, and slackwater pools along the Schuylkill River from Philadelphia to the coal mining region at Pottsville, Pennsylvania. The company built 120 locks and the first ever canal tunnel. The Flat Rock Dam in Roxborough, a part of the canal system, was completed in 1819 and not only facilitated transportation on the river, but also served as a significant source of water power for mills. Despite several financial and technological setbacks, the canal system between Philadelphia’s Fairmount Water Works and Reading became navigable in 1824. The first boatload of coal arrived in Philadelphia in 1825. An extension of the canal to Port Carbon, at the mouth of Mill Creek in Schuylkill County, completed in 1828, made the Schuylkill River Pennsylvania’s most efficient mode of transportation for anthracite coal for the following decade and a half. By the early 1840s, some 500,000 tons of anthracite coal was being transported annually to Philadelphia using the Schuylkill River (Figure 21). Taking advantage of the water power furnished by the Flat Rock Dam, John Towers built the first mill in Manayunk in 1819, the year the dam was completed. Charles Hagner built a second mill in 1820. Two mills were erected 1821 and five more in 1822. Almost overnight, the mill village of Manayunk emerged along the east bank of the Schuylkill in Roxborough Township. From 1817 to 1824, the population of Manayunk grew from 60 to nearly 800 people, and by the late 1820s the community had become known alternately as the “Lowell of Pennsylvania” and the “Manchester of America.” In 1827, engraver C.G. Childs noted the rapid development of Manayunk, reporting that: The thriving little village [of Manayunk] is situated on the banks of the river and of the canal, at the distance about six miles from Philadelphia. It derives its name from the aboriginal title of the Schuylkill, and owes its origin to the improvements which have been made upon that stream. Within the last twelve years, the spot which it covers was singularly wild and secluded. High and barren rocks overhung the river, crowned by thickets which were scarcely broken; and the broad projecting cliff, which gave for a time the name Flat Rock to the early settlement, remained nearly inaccessible, as when it was the chosen encamping ground of the Indian hunter. Manayunk is now [in 1827] the scene of active and extended business. It contains sixteen manufactories, five of which give motion to sixteen thousand spindles, and to two hundred and fifty power looms,— two schools, a neat and capacious place of worship, four taverns, and about two hundred tenements, which accommodate some fifteen hundred inhabitants. 63 Describe your image Following on the heels of the development of the canal system and the concomitant water power system that ran the mills, a second early nineteenth-century technological breakthrough advanced the development of Manayunk. In 1832, the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad initiated train service between 9th and Green Streets in Philadelphia and the center of Germantown, one of the first train lines in the country. By the fall of 1834, the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad had constructed a branch into Manayunk. Horses pulled the first trains into Manayunk, owing to a lack of available steam engines. By the spring of 1835, the Manayunk line had been extended to Norristown along the east bank of the Schuylkill River. The trains not only transported raw materials and finished goods to and from the mills of Manayunk, but also significantly reduced the travel time between Roxborough Township and the City of Philadelphia, portending the suburban development that began in the middle on the nineteenth century (Figure 23). During the 1830s and 40s, textile manufacturers built mills in Manayunk and the Falls of Schuylkill at a feverish pace.64 In the short term, Roxborough Township remained primarily rural even while the land around the Manayunk mills was quickly and intensively developed for industrial, residential, and commercial uses. Evidencing its growth, Manayunk was erected as a borough in Roxborough Township on 11 June 1840. The official boundaries of Manayunk did not correspond with established streets, but would roughly correspond to the current lines of Hermit Street at the south, Pechin Street at the east, Parker Avenue at the north, and the Schuylkill River at the west. On 31 March 1847, Manayunk Borough was separated from Roxborough Township. In 1830, Roxborough Township including Manayunk had a population of 3,334. By 1840, it had grown to 5,797. In 1850, after Manayunk was separated from Roxborough, Manayunk had a population of 6,158, while Roxborough’s was only 2,660, even though Roxborough was geographically much larger (Figure 22).65 Describe your image 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 61 The Flat Rock Bridge was washed away in a freshet in 1850 and not rebuilt. “Some Quaint Old Bridges,” The Times, 7 June 1896, p. 20. 62 Domino Lane, Ridge Road to Schuylkill River, 24 June 1819, Road Dockets, vol. 8, p. 96. 63 Views of Philadelphia and Its Vicinity Engraved from Original Drawings (Philadelphia: C.G. Childs, 1827), n.p. 64 Cynthia J. Shelton, The Mills of Manayunk, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. 65 John Daly and Allen Weinberg, Genealogy of Philadelphia County Subdivisions (Philadelphia: City of Philadelphia, Department of Records, 1966), p. 6, 7, 94. Top of page