3 January 2008 The Rest is History
While conducting research on the Kensington Soup Society, I uncovered some research concerning a family by the name of Williamson. Members of this family were major supporters and officers of the Soup Society. The Williamson family was made up of three brothers, all of whom became master machinists and founded a very successful Kensington business upon the site of a more famous colonial family’s estate.
As the American Civil War came to a close in the mid 1860’s, the three Williamson brothers (William C., John D., and George W.) started an iron works that soon prospered. The Perseverance Iron Works, a.k.a. Williamson Bros. Co., started out in business as early as 1867, located on East York Street, between Salmon and Richmond Streets.
The company could not have started much earlier then 1867, as William C. Williamson and his brother John D., were both naval engineers and served in the military during the whole of the Civil War. William mustered out in 1866, his brother John in 1865.
Both William C. Williamson and his brother John D., worked their way up through the ranks in the Navy before being honorably discharged when the war ended. William ended his Navy career as First Assistant Engineer (Master), his brother John as Acting Chief Engineer (Lieut-Commander).
With their background as machinists and their engineering skills polished from serving in the Navy, the two brothers became master machinists. The firm they created consisted of them and their older brother George W. Later on they took in John D. Williamson, Jr., William C.'s oldest son.
The company manufactured and repaired engines, boilers, and machinery of all kinds, including "improved horse hoisting machines for coal wharves." A Hexemer Insurance Survey, taken in the 1880's, stated they manufactured steam engines and hoisting and steering engines and that the company employed 60 workers, which included 5 boys. The machine shop was erected in 1882, the other buildings in 1874. The plant was run by steam power and used raw stock of iron, brass, and pattern lumber.
By 1883, Williamson Bros. Co., still on York Street, advertised that they:
"Manufacture Stationary and Marine Engines and Boilers of Every Description; Tanks, Sugar Cars, &c., Shafting, Gearing and Machinery in general. Patentees and Sold Manufacturers of Williamson Bros' Patent Frictional Geared Hosting Engines and Machines, specially adapted for Vessels, Wharves, Pile Drivers, Quarries, Factories, &c."
The 1890 Philadelphia City Directory shows Williamson Bros. (George W., John D., & William C.), as being located at 2735 E. York Street. In 1902 they contracted with William Steele & Sons to build a new plant for $100,000. Purchasing a lot on the west side of Aramingo Avenue, at 156 feet south of Cumberland, just north of York Street. Steel & Sons was to build a group of five buildings, consisting of two foundries, one 210 x 55 feet, the other 175 x 55 feet, a two-story brick storage and supply building, and two three-story shipping and storage buildings.
While the company progressed the brothers all became wealthy, so much so that in 1904, William C. and John D. Williamson helped to contribute to a fund for Charles H. Cramp when he was having financial difficulties with the family shipyard, owing various creditors over $335,000. The fund was created to protect the shares of stock in Cramp Shipyard that Charles H. Cramp owned, so that his debtors could not take control over the stock and possibly the company.
Perseverance Iron Works appears to have had to relocate a couple of blocks away because the city government wanted to widen Richmond Street from Norris to Cumberland Streets, by almost double (which is the way it is today). In June of 1902, a Philadelphia newspaper article states that the Perseverance Iron Works plant was being demolished after standing for a hundred years, however it would appear the company must have occupied a previously built building before the founding of Perseverance in about 1867.
This same newspaper article states that “the greater part of this old iron works will have to come down,” and that on the grounds of the old iron works stood the original stables of Joseph Ball, grandson of William Ball, who by most accounts is considered the founder of Port Richmond. In fact, only a couple of hundred feet away, at Richmond & Cumberland Streets, stood “Richmond Hall,” the mansion house for the “Hope Farm Estate” of William Ball. In 1729, William Ball had purchased “Hope Farm,” from Kensington founder Anthony Palmer and named the mansion house, “Richmond Hall,” after a London suburb. When the coal terminal came to Richmond in the early 19th Century, the area became known as “Port Richmond.”
10 January 2008 The Rest is History
William Street in Port Richmond today is a small street running between Tulip Street & Frankford Avenue. Back in the 1870’s it was part of Port Richmond’s Jewish settlement that centered on Tulip & Auburn Streets and came to be called “Jew Town.” William Street as it ran through this area was termed by historian Max Whiteman as being “the first exclusively Jewish street in Philadelphia.”
A little east of “Jew Town,” and geographically confusing things somewhat is Cambria Street, which sits just above William Street. Cambria Street also use to be called William Street (between Cedar Street and the Delaware River). In 1906, this section of William Street was changed to Cambria Street. Cambria Street today stops at Melvale Street, but in earlier years it went clear down to the wharves on the Delaware River, which by judging from older maps, would have added another block or so.
This section of William Street (Cambria today) between Richmond Street and wharves on river was a place that was known the world over by sailors. It was a legendary port stop, a place for sailors to drink, fight, and womanize. It was also known throughout Philadelphia as a rather nasty place with some of the toughest street fighters in the city.
In an old Public Ledger newspaper article of 1902, the writer wrote that Port Richmond’s William Street in the 1850’s to 1870’s was “a pretty lively place.” In the years just before and after the Civil War there was “no busier thoroughfare” in Philadelphia. On most every Saturday night William Street was crowded with hundreds of sailors of every nation and all along the riverfront was a “forest of masts, and almost every hour ships arrived from or sailed to the four points of the compass.” It is no wonder that Richmond became known as “Port Richmond.”
Every other house on William Street was a saloon, where “fiery brands of whiskey were sold over the bar to the throngs of sailors who crowded the rooms, with their cheap adornments and smoky ceilings.” William Street, Richmond Street, Bath Street, and other local streets in the area gave Port Richmond a reputation that was almost international. In every port where “sea going ships dropped anchors the name of Philadelphia’s most cosmopolitan section became a household word.” Every nation on the face of the earth was represented in the crowds of “seafaring men who jostled each other on the streets at night.”
The stores on Richmond and William Streets did a flourishing business and many illicit distilleries also thrived in the neighborhood with a good many folks making plenty of money in the trade. If the police tried to close one of the distillers, a near riot would generally break out and it was not unusual to see U.S. Marines with drawn bayonets marching down Richmond Street to quell the disturbances.
Needless to say, Richmond & William Streets was known for the “rough-and-ready fellows who stood around on the corners. Their fistic abilities became proverbial, and for a well-built man to say that he was from “Bloody Richmond” was enough to strike terror into the hearts of the toughest kind of a gang in any other part of the city.”
The United States Hotel sat on William Street near the river and many a fierce fight took place in their barroom, including an occasional murder. Taking a look at several articles on the period, we find one newspaper article of 18 May 1871, telling the story where William Foy went up to William Street resident Ebenezer Boice and asked it he wanted to buy some fish. Boice examined the fish and not liking what he saw, “contemptuously” threw them in the street. An argument ensued and Boice stabbed the fishmonger to death. Five days later, William McCaffrey was knocked down, kicked, and robbed while walking down William Street.
By the year 1900, William Street from Richmond to the river had changed. Many of the dwellings were merely framed skeletons and the old U.S. Hotel was no longer around. The “swarthy sailors in great crowds” who sailed the tall ships were gone, replaced by the “big black coal steamers and barges.”
Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company renovated their William Street pier in 1900 and it was said to probably be the largest freight pier on seaboard, being 700 feet long and 170 feet wide. It could accommodate 12,000 tons in storage for coal, merchandize or grain. This pier was only a part of the 140 acres of this company’s operations in Port Richmond, the largest and best-equipped city freight station in the world.
17 January 2008 The Rest is History
If you have been asleep for the past week or so, you might not have noticed it, but there is another round of drama going on down at the Sugarhouse site. After Mayor John Street’s last minute permit of January 4th (given out in his last day of office) allowing the Sugarhouse to start grading the site in preparation for construction, the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission (PHMC) issued a stop work order on January 7th in a letter telling Keating, the developer, not to grade the site until after the Section 106 process is over.
While not an expert in the legal matters of the law, it is my understanding that the Section 106 process is the process whereby archaeological investigation must be done on sites where there is federal money involved, or where there might be a historically or culturally rich area, or in the case of the Sugarhouse site, where the project will be projecting out on the river, which brings in the Army Corps of Engineers.
The 106 process has a meeting scheduled for January 18th, where Sugarhouse reps, PHMC, the Army Corps of Engineers, Marble & Co. (the archaeology firm doing the historical investigations on the site) will meet with consulting parties (neighborhood groups, preservation groups, archaeology groups, etc.) and hash out if there needs to be further archaeological investigations done on this site.
It appears that PHMC may have been swayed by some of the recent research evidence carried out by the “History Boys,” an informal group of local history enthusiasts who were given that moniker by Inquirer reporter Dan Rubin. The group includes yours truly, as well as local resident Torben Jenk, a number of members of the Oliver Evans Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology and people like Dr. Bob Selig, a nationally known historian of the American Revolution. As well, many others have gotten on board with the project.
Local media picked up the story and it is starting to spread with great interest. First, we mentioned it here at the Star, in a couple of my columns last month, then the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Dan Rubin wrote about it in the Inquirer on January 10th. That night Channel 10 (NBC) picked it up and talked about it and that was followed by another January 11th Inquirer story that was run about PHMC issuing the work stop order until the Section 106 process was complete.
Casino representatives seem to dismiss the history of this Revolutionary War Fort as if it was just another ploy in the arsenal of anti-casino activists, like the red-bellied turtle, or the ground being an American Indian site (which in fact it is as evidenced by Native American artifacts, the relics of perhaps a summer camp, found recently in Marble & Co’s preliminary 2nd report), however the casino folks are far from the truth.
The only reason that the Fort is being made a hot topic right now by the “History Boys,” is that the “Boys” were appalled at the lack of any mention of the British Fort by the archaeology firm hired by Sugarhouse, A.D. Marble & Co. in their report titled, Phase 1B Management Summary Report and dated October 2007. This report only recently came into our hands and while being a full 87 pages long, it makes not one mention of this strategic and important Revolutionary War Fort.
It was only after this report was issued that the History Boys got involved. If you look at the record, you’ll be hard pressed to find the History Boys involved in the anti-casino effort, that group is a whole other group of concerned citizens and that topic is a whole other issue, which is not related to the history of Philadelphia’s occupation by the British Army during the Revolutionary War, an event that forced Washington’s famous camping at Valley Forge.
To show that the Fort had already been known by the History Boys for some time, one only has to read Rich Remer’s article, “Old Kensington,” where he wrote about the Fort being located in Kensington. This article was published in November 2002, when the Kensington History Project (Rich Remer, Torben Jenk, and yours truly) published five articles in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s Pennsylvania Legacies magazine. The Fort has always been there in the historical record for those that want to see it and the fact that Marble & Co. did not early on see the Fort is the part that was found to be truly odd by the History Boys, as one would think that the historical documentation part of the archaeology dig would be done first, before you ever put a shovel in the ground.
It’s hard to imagine even with all the industrial history that took place on the site over the last couple of hundred years including the blowing up and demolishing of the Sugar Refinery, that nothing of the Fort would be left, since the Fort in all likelihood would have been buried under ground, as most things over 200 years old usually are.
The fort was not a little tree house with a couple of guys sitting in it waiting for action. It was rather substantial, measuring roughly 120 feet square and there were plenty of skirmishes where American and British soldiers were killed and wounded, including some local citizenry.
To put the Fort in perspective, it would have sat on a plot of land that would have been a little smaller then Palmer Park, but slightly bigger then Old Brick Church, or almost the size of Penn Home (to give just a couple of local landmarks as reference points).
The Fort had a moat circled around it that was about five-foot deep and was fed by the high tide of the Delaware River. Above the moat there was a row of 12 foot long Chevaux-de-frises that surrounded the Fort on all sides. The Chevaux-de-frises were defensive measures, made up of tree trunks, sharpened to a point, pointing out towards your enemy and was used as an extra line of defense. After the Chevaux-de-frises there was the Fort’s walls, built of earth and probably timber and standing about six feet tall. Inside the Fort there was a fortified building, measuring approximately 20 feet by 40 feet with walls about 7 ½ feet tall and a pitched roof that measured almost 12 feet tall.
The fortified building instead the Fort appears to have looked like what one would think a barracks might look like, which brings me to another point. The Queen’s Rangers regiment was stationed at this Fort for almost a full ten months. It was their headquarters. There were at times 430 men in the regiment, thus that many troops must have left some sign of their presence behind them when they left and when they did leave, they would appear to have left from the nearby wharves in Kensington.
Besides the Fort, there was also an artillery battery just south of the Fort, perhaps ten feet or so at most. The battery measured about 60 feet wide and sat right on the banks of the Delaware River. It appears to have been manned by several pieces of artillery and faced the Delaware River, helping to prevent an advance by water. It also appears to have been able to have been used to protect advances on the local roads coming down from the north as well.
The British military took possession of Philadelphia on September 26th, 1777. By September 28th, less then two days later, it was reported that the Battery at Kensington (the one mentioned just above) was finished. This would seem to point to the importance of Kensington as being “the” strategic position to defend Philadelphia from the north, as Kensington was positioned where the main roads to the north and northeast parts of the county were located.
The British built a series of ten forts along the northern side of Philadelphia from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill River, roughly along the current Poplar Street. The British had actually improved on designs that had already been in place by the Americans in which the Americans started to carry out, but were forced to abandon and flee when the English took the city. The series of forts were connected by an abatis, a defense formed by placing felled trees lengthwise, one over the other and interconnected, with their branches facing the enemy.
On September 29th, 1777, British engineers began to mark out the defenses and by the 3rd of October, local inhabitants were employed to build the fortifications. There was talk that American prisoners of war were used in the building of the Fort at Kensington, but after following up on the information sent to him by John Hancock, General Washington does not appear to have found any evidence of it.
Front & Laurel Streets became the main entrance to enter Philadelphia from the north. It was at Front & Laurel that Front Street forked with one road going north to Germantown (Germantown Avenue) and the other two roads going northeast to Kensington (Richmond Street) and Frankford (Frankford Avenue). These were the three main roads for supplies and/or travel in and out of the city. The Queen’s Rangers, made up of Loyalists, appear to have been stationed in this area since as Loyalists (Americans), they might better know who to trust to let into the city and who to not, much more so then foreign troops like the Hessian (Germans) or British (English).
Running east on a line with Laurel Street between the Fort at Kensington and the fortified entrance at Front & Laurel Streets, there was a series of abates and three man redans, redans being a defensive fortification that has two parapets whose faces unite so as to form a salient angle toward the enemy.
And so it was for almost a full ten months, from September 26th, 1777 to June 17th, 1778, the city of Philadelphia was English again and Kensington was occupied by the Queen’s Rangers. The British appear to have occupied Philadelphia perhaps as more of a winter quarters for their army, then for any real strategic importance, although taking the largest city in the colonies had to have some effect on the American cause.
The British occupation forced Washington to camp at Valley Forge where his men froze during that much told story of a brutal winter. Washington probed the northern defensive fortifications of Philadelphia, but found them too strong to amount an attack on the city and thus while Washington’s Army froze at Valley Forge, Howe’s Army put up in heated brick homes with plenty of food and had the leisure to attend balls and concerts. As Hal Schimer (one of the History Boys) said, this is “the missing half of Valley Forge, the other half of the story.”
It is because of the importance of this Fort’s history to the story of American Independence, that the History Boys ask Marble & Co. and the Sugarhouse Casino, and our city and state’s trusted servants, to do a thorough investigation of this site. As Dr. Bob Selig (a History Boy) said,” this is the last chance to do it.” After the casino is built, there will be no other chance. To quote Torben Jenk (another History Boy), “The Patriots lived at Valley Forge, they fought and died in Kensington at Fort #1.”
24 January 2008 The Rest is History
Someone asked me the other day, if it was known that a British Revolutionary War fort use to occupy the Sugarhouse site, then why didn’t it come to the public’s attention sooner? Why now?
That’s a good question and the answer is simple. The fort is making the news now because Marble & Co., the archaeology firm hired to investigate the site by the Sugarhouse’s developer, did not mention the fort in their first two initial reports, titled 1A & 1B, an odd occurrence for a company hired to historically investigate the site. It was this event that prompted the latest round of talk about it in the media.
The fort was not a little known fact, as the historical record has literally hundreds of sources that document its existence.
I thought it might be good idea to pen a few paragraphs to help folks visualize just what the fort looked like and what the media is talking about. This picture is taken from a contemporary map of the fort.
The fort was not a little tree house with a couple of guys sitting in it waiting for action. It was rather substantial, measuring roughly 120 feet square and there were plenty of skirmishes in and around it where American and British soldiers were killed and wounded, including a local citizen of Kensington, Michael Christ, who was shot and killed while going to fetch water from a well.
It would have sat on a plot of land that would have been a little smaller then Palmer Park, but slightly bigger then Old Brick Church, or almost the size of Penn Home (to give just a couple of local landmarks as reference points).
The fort had a moat circled around it that was about five-foot deep and was fed by the high tide of the Delaware River. Above the moat there was a row of 12-foot long palisade or fraise that surrounded the fort on all sides. A “palisade or fraise" were defensive measures, made up of tree trunks, sharpened to a point, pointing out towards your enemy and was used as an extra line of defense. After the palisade or fraise, there were the fort’s walls, built of earth and supported by timber and standing at least six feet tall. Inside the fort there was a fortified barracks, measuring approximately 20 feet by 40 feet with walls about 7 ½ feet tall and a pitched roof that measured almost 12 feet tall.
The Brit’s Queen’s Rangers regiment was stationed at this fort for almost a full ten months. They were Loyalist troops and it was their headquarters. There were at times 430 men in the regiment, thus it is hopeful that that many troops might leave some sign of their presence behind them during a ten-month encampment.
Besides the fort, there was also an artillery battery just south of the fort, perhaps ten feet or so at most. The battery measured about 60 feet wide and sat right on the banks of the Delaware River. It appears to have been manned by a 12-pound canon and a howitzer and faced the Delaware River, helping to prevent an advance by water. It also appears to have been able to be used to protect advances on the local roads (Germantown, Frankford, & Richmond) coming down from the north as well.
The British military took possession of Philadelphia on September 26th, 1777. By September 28th, less then two days later, it was reported that the Battery at Kensington (the one mentioned just above) was finished. This would seem to point to the importance of Kensington as being “the” strategic position to defend Philadelphia from the north, as Kensington was positioned where the main roads to the north and northeast parts of the county were located with those roads being the main supply lines to the city.
Once the British took possession of Philadelphia, they built a series of ten forts along the northern side of Philadelphia from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill River, roughly along the current Poplar Street. The one at the Sugarhouse site was Fort #1, the main one. Fort #2 at Front & Laurel Streets was the main entrance to the city from the north. The series of forts were connected by an abatis, a defense formed by placing felled trees lengthwise, one over the other and interconnected, with their branches facing the enemy.
And so it was from September 26th, 1777 to June 17th, 1778, the city of Philadelphia was English again and Kensington was occupied by the Queen’s Rangers, while Washington was forced to freeze at Valley Forge.
31 January 2008 The Rest is History
My continuing historical research on the property where Sugarhouse Casino is proposing to build their casino, has shown that not only was their a British Revolutionary War fort built on this site, but that there was also a famous shipyard and an equally famous enterprise called “The Kensington Screw Dock,” which had as two of its initial investors James Mott, husband of abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Lucretia Mott, as well as Lucretia’s brother.
Samuel Bower (1760-1834) was internationally known as a shipbuilder during his Kensington shipyard’s existence from the 1780’s to the 1820’s when it built and repaired 379 vessels of all sorts of description, with some ships as large as 470 tons.
Bowers’ property had a 150 foot front on the east side of Penn Street, starting at 190 feet north of the north side of Laurel (Maiden) Street, with parallel north & south borders that ran from the east side of Penn Street into the Delaware River, or about near smack dab in the middle of the Sugarhouse site, an area not investigated by the archaeology report 1B of Marble & Co.
Many of Bowers’ new ships were built for the China and East Indian trade. His work was of such quality that during the Napoleonic Wars the Spanish government offered him the position of chief naval constructor.
After Bower retired he sold his shipyard property in 1830 to Thomas M. Coffin, Lucretia Mott’s brother, who with a group of investors, built the Kensington Screw Dock and Spermaceti Works.
The Screw Dock was built about the years 1830-1831 and incorporated soon after as witnessed in the 1832-33 year’s session of the Pennsylvania legislature, which according to the official record the following men were the commissioners:
“That JAMES MOTT, WESTERN C. DONALDSON, SAMUEL C. BUNTING, THOMAS W. MORGAN, JACOB T. BUNTING, WILLIAM FENNELL JR., THOMAS S. RICHARDS, THOMAS M. COFFIN, and JONATHAN PALMER, are hereby appointed commissioners of the Kensington Screw Dock Company.”
Looking at this list of men who were to start up the Screw Dock and raise the initial capital, we see the names of James Mott and Thomas M. Coffin. James Mott was the husband of Lucretia Mott, while Thomas M. Coffin was her brother.
Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) was born at Nantucket and died in Philadelphia. She is buried at the historic Fairhill Cemetery (still open) located at 9th & Cambria Streets.
Lucretia Mott became active in the mid-19th century anti-slavery issues and the women’s rights movements. She organized the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 and worked on the Underground Railroad. She was closely associated with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and was one of the organizers of the now famous 1848 Seneca Falls Convention out of which the women’s rights movement was born. She was also a minister in the Society of Friends (Quakers).
Lucretia’s father was Thomas Coffin, a master mariner of Nantucket, who later moved to Boston, before coming to Philadelphia where he died in 1815. On Lucretia Mott’s mother’s side of the family, her 3rd Great Grandfather’s sister (Abiah Folger) was the mother of Benjamin Franklin.
Lucretia’s father Thomas Coffin had a business opportunity in Philadelphia that brought the family to this city. Lucretia married her teacher James Mott and joined the family in Philadelphia. James Mott went into business with Lucretia’s father, but her father died rather suddenly, so Mott then entered the cotton trade, then the wool trade, and invested in the Kensington Screw Dock and through these businesses gained a competency that allowed him and his wife to pursue their travels and advocacies in the women rights & abolitionist movements. Who would have ever thought that the Kensington investments of Mott would have helped the famous couple to gain a competence that allowed them to do the work that they became famous for the world over.
The Kensington Screw Dock was in existence from about 1830 through to the early 1880’s, when it was purchased by John Hilgert & Sons, a sugar refinery, whose operation was moved from the 1000 block of 5th Street, to the Screw Dock site. Soon after moving to the river, Hilgert’s sugar refinery was taken over by The Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company, which was later taken over by the National Sugar Refining Company, which the neighborhood knew as Jack Frost and which finally closed in 1982.
The Kensington Screw Dock & Spermaceti Works is too good a story to pass up, so next week’s column will take a closer look at just what a “Screw Dock” was and how did a “Spermaceti Works,” wind up in Fishtown?
7 February 2008 The Rest is History
As promised, this week I will let you know about another chapter in the history of the Sugarhouse Casino site, The Kensington Screw Dock Company. Founded in 1830, the screw dock throughout its almost fifty year history, was run by several different entities. Besides being able to repair ships, The Kensington Screw Dock also had a Spermaceti Works, a business that turns the Spermaceti of the Sperm Whale into candles, lighting oil, and other products.
In a newspaper advertisement of December 1833, we find the following description of the screw dock:
“Kensington Screw Dock, situated on Penn-street, Kensington, containing in front on said Penn-st. 150 feet, and containing that width into the river Delaware; together with all the improvements, consisting of a new brick building, 50 feet square, with all the machinery therein contained, forming the most complete establishment in the country for the manufacture of sperm oil and candles; a frame building 75 feet by 20 feet, both fronting on Penn-street. Also, blacksmith’s shop, tool house, stable and coach-house, carpenters’ shed, &c.; together with the screw dock, in complete order, and which has been in successful operation for the last two years, having raised during this time one hundred and fifty sail, from canal boats to ships of 600 tons burthen.
The description shows that by December of 1833, the company had already been in operation for at least two years.
In general, the way a screw dock worked is that a “vessel would be floated on to a timber platform, which is suspended from strong mainway pieces of beams on each side, laid on the quay walls, by 8 suspending screws of about 4 ½ inches in diameter.” The platform is capable of being sunk far enough below the surface of the water, to receive the ship. The platform has “several shores on its surface, which are brought to bear equally on the vessel’s bottom, to prevent her from canting over on being raised out of the water.” About 30 men are employed in working this apparatus, who, “by the combined power of the lever, wheel and pinion, and screw, are able in the course of half an hour to raise the platform, laden with a vessel… to the surface of the water, where she remains high and dry, suspended between the wooden frames.”
Many of these ships that came to the Kensington Screw Dock to get repaired were whaling ships. It sounds odd that Kensington, or even Philadelphia, would have a whaling history, but it did.
The Spermaceti Works that was set up at the Kensington Screw Dock allowed for ships to bring the spermaceti of the Sperm Whale directly to the screw dock, thus saving the time required in having to go back to New Bedford (MA) to have it refined, put in barrels, then shipped to Philadelphia for sale.
The whaling ship could dock at the screw dock in Kensington, unload its cargo, and have any repairs it needed done, then ship right back out to sea on another expedition, while the spermaceti would be refined and barreled right at the screw dock.
Spermaceti, or “head matter” of the Sperm Whale, was the prize product of the Sperm Whale. It is a liquid waxy substance present in the head cavities of the Sperm Whale. The spermaceti would be gathered from the head of the whale while the ships were at sea. An incision would be made into the head of the Sperm Whale and the oil would be bucketed out. In some cases, it was necessary for someone to have to climb into the head of the whale to collect the oil. As much as three tons of spermaceti might be extracted from a single large whale.
In the days before electricity, spermaceti was used to make candles and oil for lighting. Since spermaceti had a high burning point, burned cleanly and brightly, and since it did not smell when burned, it was considered a very valuable product. It was also used for sizing in wool combing, as a medical ointment, and in leather tanning and cosmetics.
The Kensington Screw Dock & Spermaceti Works lasted from 1830 to about 1881-82, when it was purchased by John Hilgert & Sons, a sugar refiner, who converted the old place into a sugar refinery, the first sugar refinery on the Sugarhouse Casino site. The various apparatus and machinery necessary for sugar refining and spermaceti refining made it a natural fit for sugar refining to take over the old spermaceti operation.
14 February 2008 The Rest is History
For the past month I have been writing about the history of the Sugarhouse site. We have seen how the British built a fort there during the American Revolution and how that site played a key role in the British defensive fortifications when they occupied Philadelphia from September 1777 to June 1778 and forced Washington to camp at Valley Forge.
After the British left Philadelphia and after the Revolutionary War was over, that area of Kensington was then developed further. The Sugarhouse site saw the shipyard of Samuel Bower, a world-renowned shipbuilder whose services was sought after by the Spanish government.
After Bower’s shipyard, in 1830, the Kensington Screw Dock and Spermaceti Works were built. From 1830 to the early 1880s there was a fifty-year plus history of whaling ships being repaired and built in Kensington, as well as spermaceti oil of the Sperm Whale, being refined and sent to market for candles, oil lamps, cosmetics, etc. The family of famed abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Lucretia Mott, were early investors in this spermaceti works.
Once the days of the Kensington Screw Dock were over, John Hilgert & Sons took over the site and moved their Girard Sugarhouse to the property, converting the old spermaceti works into a sugar refinery. The subsequent refineries that took over the site (Pennsylvania Sugar in 1883 & National Sugar in 1947) brought on a one hundred year history of sugar production in Fishtown.
The history of the site since 1984, the year sugar production was halted, has been one of abandonment, toxic waste, and a failed implosion that took place in 1997. Since that time it has been cleared and remains an empty lot. The last couple of years have seen a proposal for a casino to be built.
It wasn’t just a fluke that the British happened to occupy this site during the Revolution. It appears the Sugarhouse site had always held a strategic importance, going back to ancient times, due to the confluence of major roads and river travel routes.
It turns out that this area of Fishtown was always strategic for Native Americans. Three ancient routes of the Lenni Lenape all converged on this site. The ancient indian trails of Germantown and Frankford Roads, as well as an old ferry system of canoes, connected Shackamaxon to the other Lenape settlements in the Delaware Valley.
The archaeological investigations that have been conducted thus far on the Sugarhouse site have found an intact ancient Native American site, dating back to about 1500 B.C. There are only four Native American sites that have ever been identified in the inner city (the heavily built up area) of Philadelphia and with this site being so close to William Penn’s famed Treaty with the Indians (Penn Treaty Park), this site offers a unique opportunity to not only understand the history of the Native Americans before the Europeans arrived, the “precontact period,” but to also understand the fifty plus years of the “contact period,” when the Europeans lived side by side with the Native Americans.
Before William Cooper ever started his ferry from Camden to Shackamaxon, the Lenape had already had in place a canoe ferry from their Arasapha settlement on the Jersey shore to Shackamxon. This fact is recorded in several books, including George R. Prowell’s mammoth History of Camden County, which states, “Intercourse between Shackamaxon, where the pioneers of Penn’s colony, under Fairman, the surveyor, and Markham, the deputy-governor, and Pyne Point [Camden County] had long been established by canoe ferry between the Indian settlements at those places….”
Prowell goes on to say that William Cooper (who took over this Lenape ferry after the arrival of the Europeans) was “present at the treaty of Penn with the Indians in 1682, at Shackamaxon, opposite his house.” Cooper’s ferry house at Pyne Point still survives and one can see it in the distance from the Delaware River shore at the Sugarhouse site.
The ferry between the New Jersey side of the river, where the Native Americans originally had a settlement at Camden called Arasapha, and a point on the Sugarhouse site at Shackamaxon Street landing, lasted throughout much of the history of this site. Much later, the Kensington and New Jersey Ferry Company was organized in 1866, by local shipbuilders William Cramp, Jacob Neafie, and others. They operated a ferry between Camden and Shackamaxon street. The company began operating its first boat, the "Shackamaxon," on July 28, 1866.
The Sugarhouse site was a main intersection for three ancient routes of the Native Americans. Is it any wonder then that only four inches underground the archaeologists have found American Indian artifacts? The whole Fishtown community should call for a complete investigation of this site.
21 February 2008 The Rest is History
South of Berks and running east and west there is a small street call Wilt. It appears and disappears. The street runs one bock from Wildey to Girard and then disappears and picks up again at Gaul running to Tulip. If you go across Front Street, there is also two more blocks of Wilt between Howard and Hancock Streets. Further west there are other sightings of Wilt, between 6th and Marshall and between 31st and 32nd.
Another piece of Wilt Street, a rather odd piece, is an unpaved dead end alley that runs eastward from Belgrade. As a kid we called it “pig alley.” Not sure why it was referenced that way, if it was a place where pigs once traveled or were kept, or simply that sloppy folks lived back in that alley. An old map previous to1897 shows the alley, but without a name.
In Fishtown, previous to 1897, this tiny street between Gaul and Tulip Streets was called Cook, and the piece between Girard and Wildey was called Keyser, or Collar. City planners uniformed the name and called it Wilt in 1897. But why Wilt? Why not Cook, Keyser, or Collar?
It turns out Wilt was a prominent Fishtowner (1114 Columbia Avenue) and thus honored by having the street named for him. Alpheus Wilt was born in 1814 and died in 1896. He was the son of William Wilt and Matilda Dungan. Alpheus' father was a blacksmith, from Lower Dublin Township, then in Philadelphia County, but apparently he was more of a drunkard then a blacksmith, as Alpheus' mother divorced his father in 1828 and William Wilt died in 1865 as a pauper while living at the Philadelphia Alms House’s Men’s Medical Ward.
It would appear that Alpheus’ mother divorced his father when he was only 14 and that Alpheus was apprenticed out at the early age of 11. He went through life without much formal education, but still went on to become a truly self-made man. Through his own hard work and industry, he established one of the finest millwork firms in the State of Pennsylvania.
Alpheus Wilt married Anne Maria Fulmer (1815-1896) in 1837, at First Presbyterian Church of Kensington. Mary Wilt was the daughter of John Fulmer and Catharine Day. The Day family was a well-known Kensington family with one member, Michael Day, being a one-time commissioner of the District of Kensington. The Day family much like the Wilt family has their name honored with a small street in Fishtown, Day Street.
Wilt was considered a devoted leader of First Presbyterian Kensington. He served on the board of trustees and while serving acted as the treasurer at one point. He also was on the building committee for the new church.
Wilt’s firm, A. Wilt & Sons, was located at 711 to 725 N. Front Street and also had a planning mill at 714 Beach Street. The company had many facets to their business including; cabinet and mill work, turning, planning, working wainscot, as well as always having on hand for sale an assortment of millwork. They specialized in the manufacture of cabinet and millwork for churches, banks, stores, offices, and railroad station fixtures.
In 1906, they were considered the oldest firm in this line in Philadelphia. Thomas G. Cogill established the business in 1844. In 1855 Thomas G. Cogill and Alpheus Wilt formed the partnership of Cogill and Wilt, Wilt apparently having worked with Cogill previously. In 1864 the firm became A. Wilt & Son when Wilt took over the firm and brought his eldest son into the business. In 1885 the firm became A. Wilt & Sons when two other sons joined the firm.
Alpheus Wilt died on April 7th, 1896 and was buried at Cedar Hills Cemetery. Wilt’s sons carried on the firm after his death.
The company was very well known and furnished the work for many notable buildings in Philadelphia, such as the Presbyterian Board of Publication Building, Drexel Building, Church of Our Lady of Mercy, Church of St. Thomas, Arcade Office Building, and the Perry Building. Other noted buildings outside of Philadelphia included Lafayette College at Easton, the Roman Catholic Church & College Buildings at Villanova, St. Andrew's Protestant Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, and Trinity College in Washington, DC.
By far one of the most important jobs that Wilt performed was the State Capital Building in Harrisburg, including the fitting up of the House & Senate Chambers, the Supreme & Superior Court Rooms, the House & Senate Caucus Rooms, the Treasury Department Room, and many of the rooms of the Heads of Departments all in Mahogany, also the Grand Executive Reception Room in English Oak.
28 February 2008 The Rest is History
The Section 106 process can sometimes be seen as a complicated affair, however it is actually quite simple and a straightforward process. Under certain circumstances, the federal government mandates that archaeological investigations be completed at sites where development may have an impact on cultural or historical resources. The idea is to dig up what is there and record it before it is covered over by new development.
It is rare that a Section 106 process ever stops a development project; at most it might slow it down. Unless there is some unforeseen find, the archaeology work should have no effect on the developer’s timeline, as a good developer factors the time involved into the schedule of the project.
The consulting parties to the Section 106 process on the SugarHouse Casino site are a mixed group, all with their own concerns. They range from folks like John Connors, the founder of the Penn Treaty Park Museum (www.penntreatymuseum.org), whose concern is how the proposed casino will affect Penn Treaty Park, to Maya K. van Rossum who represents the nonprofit group The Delaware River Keeper, a group that advocates for the entire Delaware River watershed.
The Delaware Nation, who once inhabited the Delaware Valley, is being representing in the process by Kerry Holton (President), Tamara Francis (Cultural Preservation Directory) and her assistant Somier Harris. The Delawares once had their capital at Shackamaxon, but are now based in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Their concerns are primarily that 200 or so Native American artifacts have been found so far.
Two other members of the consulting party are Hilary Ragan, representing the civic group, Northern Liberties Neighbors Association, and Jeremy Beaudry, representing the non-profit group Neighbors Allied for the Best Riverfront. Ragan is on record as wanting to relocate the casino (Philadelphia Inquirer, “Nutter Revokes Casino’s License,” by Marcia Gelbert); as well Jeremy Beaudy has been photographed at anti-casino events carrying anti-casino signs (hallwatch.org website has photo of May 21st, 2006 Anti-Foxwood Casino Rally).
Other members of the consulting party are folks that you would expect on an archaeological dig in Philadelphia, The Preservation Alliance and the Philadelphia Historical Commission. These downtown organizations rarely get into the neighborhoods, so it’s great to have them join in a dig that is this rich for cultural and historical resources of Kensington and Fishtown.
The professional archaeology community is represented in the Section 106 process, with representatives of the Pennsylvania Archaeological Council and the Philadelphia Archaeological Forum. Both of these organizations have already responded to the Army Corps of Engineers with critical letters about the work carried out in Marble & Co.’s 1A and 1B Reports (I have copies of these letters). They have not yet responded to the 1BII Report, which Marble & Co, recently issued a month late.
Torben Jenk makes up the last member of the consulting party. Torben is a 25 year resident of South Kensington. By profession he is a builder, having restored hundreds of 18th & 19th Century structures throughout Philadelphia and its suburbs. Mr. Jenk is one of the founders (along with Rich Remer and myself) of the Kensington History Project (KHP), an informal local history group founded in 1996 when they collaborated with Dr. Harry Silcox on the book Kensington History: Stories and Memories. After the publication of that book, the group continued to meet, conducting research, lecturing, and publishing on the history of Fishtown and Kensington. Jenk’s excellent website is the best on the Internet for Philadelphia’s industrial past: www.workshopoftheworld.com
Last week’s Star (February 21, page 5) ran a piece titled, “You Should Know.” It mentioned that I was a member of “a research team aiding a consulting party that is providing comment on a required archaeological dig at the proposed SugarHouse Casino property.” However, the disclosure was not full enough, as it could have been taken to mean I was working for any of a number of consulting parties listed above.
Let the record state that I am working with my fellow founder of the KHP, Torben Jenk. We are a community-based group that takes neither a pro nor con stance towards casino construction, any comments to the contrary are false and can be construed to be a malicious attempt to discredit our findings. The KHP has worked together collaboratively long before casinos were ever mentioned for our community. For 13 years they have been revealing the rich history of Fishtown and Kensington not only to our neighbors, but to folks across the city and country.
Because of the historical significance of the Sugarhouse site, Hal Schirmer, Denis Cooke, Dr. Robert Selig, and others are assisting the KHP. All have an interest in the American Revolution, with Dr. Selig being a professional historian who is nationally recognized in the field (www.xenophongroup.com/vita/selig/selig.htm).
6 March 2008 The Rest is History
Since the 17th Century, historians and linguists have argued over the origins of the word Shackamaxon. The earliest mention of Shackamaxon appears to be by Peter Lindstrom, a 17th Century Swedish explorer, who sailed down the Delaware River compiling a survey of the Delaware Valley in 1654-55. At this time, Lindstrom titled the Lenni Lenape settlement at Shackamaxon on his map as “Kacamensi.”
Lindstrom’s map was reprinted in a 1925 translation of his work called Geographia Americae, with an account of the Delaware Indians based on Surveys and Notes made in 1654-1655. The work is an interesting piece, particularly for the “contact period” when Native Americans and Europeans were living side by side.
Some think Shackamaxon to be derived from “shachamek, shakamik, or w’shackamek,” which literally means “it is a straight fish,” an eel. The suffix “ink” or in this case “mek or “mik” is said to mean “at or where,” hence Shackamaxon would mean “at the place of eels.” Since eels were plentiful in the Delaware River, the meaning had some substance. However, there is a larger group who has seemed to win the argument. They have placed Shackamaxon as being derived from “sakima, sachemen,” meaning “chief, or king” and with the suffix “ink” meaning “at , or where,” hence Shackamaxon would be translated as “where the kings are,” or “at the meeting place of kings.”
This later definition would appear to hold more weight, particularly when looking at the history of Shackamaxon, as it is the place where the chiefs did meet in 1682. Tammanend, the head sachem of the Turtle Clan of the Unami tribe of the Lenni Lenape, made his “treaty of amity and friendship” with William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. It was an event that is memorialized by today’s Penn Treaty Park.
Tammanend belonged to the Native American peoples called the Lenni Lenape. There were three groups within the Lenape. The northernmost group of the Lenapes, the Munsee group, occupied the area where the Delaware River begins, or where Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York come together.
The Unami, the central group of Tammanend, occupied the northern region and central New Jersey, and the adjoining portions of eastern Pennsylvania woodland along the Delaware River and parts inland. The Unami southern border reached to an area just below the future city of Philadelphia.
The southern most group, the Unalactigo, inhabited both sides of the lower Delaware River below Philadelphia including the Delaware Bay area and what would currently be northern Delaware, southeast Pennsylvania, and south Jersey.
Besides the Lenape being made up of three territorial groups, there were also three different matrilineal clans that were present in the groups; the Turtle, Wolf, and Turkey. The Turtle Clan was the most important and usually the sachem, or chief of the tribal councils was from this clan and thus Tamanend was the tribal council leader and it was he who treated with William Penn, at the Lenape’s capital of Shackamaxon. Hopefully the recent archaeological investigations at the SugarHouse site will help us to find out more about the original inhabitants of our neighborhood.
Today the name of Shackamaxon has all but disappeared. Fishtown still has a street honoring that ancient Lenape settlement of Shackamaxon and while Shackamaxon Street today runs from Frankford Avenue to the Delaware River, butting up against the SugarHouse Casino site, it wasn’t always that way.
Shackamaxon Street was originally cut out only from Frankford Avenue to Richmond Street, the rest of the way being private land. Shackamaxon Street probably represents one of the oldest streets in Fishtown. There is some evidence that it actually may have been called “Greenwood Lane,” after an early property owner, before changing to Shackamaxon.
Shackamaxon Street dates to at least the 1750’s, as Rich Remer, one of the founders of the Kensington History Project and a colleague of mine, dates his original ancestry back to the 1000 block of Shackamaxon. The homes at 1028 and 1030 Shackamaxon were the original homes of his ancestor, Godfrey Remer, who emigrated from the Rhineland as a teenager. Godfrey occupied these homes by the 1760s and 1770s and Remer reports that they were built in the 1750’s.
The homes sit next to I-95 and were lucky to survive the bulldozing of the neighborhood when I-95 was built. Anthony Garvan’s Philadelphia Historic Salvage Project documented Fishtown with various archaeological studies during this time. Altogether, Garvan conducted studies from Palmer Street down to South Philadelphia’s Washington Avenue.
13 March 2008 The Rest is History
Last week we looked briefly at the upper end of Shackamaxon Street, this week we’ll take a look at the lower. By the 19th Century, with Kensington growing, there was a petition taken up by citizens of the neighborhood to have Shackamaxon Street extended from Richmond Street (then called Queen) through to the Delaware River.
Folks in the area began to complain that they had to go a full two squares out of their way to get to the riverfront, which greatly inconvenienced them and since the area was not built up yet, it would be cheaper to cut a road though now (in 1816) then later, when perhaps development might incur.
Officials agreed and Shackamaxon was cut through. Land surveys and illustrated road petition surveys show that Shackamaxon Street cut right through the old Bachelor’s Hall property, however the old structure, burnt in 1775 and built on top of, sat just south of the new piece of Shackamaxon street and thus was not touched.
According to Benjamin Franklin scholar, Prof. Leo Lemay, Bachelor’s Hall was “formed for fellowship and pleasure before 1728.” If this is true, then that would mean that Bachelor’s Hall predates not only the learned societies of the American Philosophical Society and Library Company of Philadelphia, but also would be contemporary with Franklin’s own “Junto Club,” which is said to be founded in 1727.
Prof. Lemay states that members of Bachelor’s Hall were Franklin’s friend Robert Grace, as well as Griffin Owen, Lloyd Zachary, Isaac Norris, Jr., and Charles Norris. Philadelphia annalist John Fanning Watson adds Robert Charles, William Masters, John Sober, and P. Graeme to the list. As well, George Webb, who Franklin taught the art of printing, was a member. Some of these men were also in Franklin’s “Junto Club,” as well as early members of those two other learned societies in Philadelphia already previously mentioned.
It is to George Webb that we know a lot of what little there is know about Bachelor’s Hall. Webb penned a poem that celebrated Bachelor’s Hall and his mentor Benjamin Franklin printed it up in 1731. It was appropriately titled Bachelor's-Hall.
Bachelor’s Hall had its share of luminaries visit the place. The Hall would allow ministers from time to time to come and preach in Kensington and according to a contemporary journal kept by a follower of the Moravian Church, on February 4th, 1742, “Bro. Ludwig preached in Bachelor’s Hall …with marked effect.” Brother Ludwig is Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) generally known as Count Zinzendorf, a German nobleman. He was the leader of the Moravian movement.
Later, in 1771, the Rev. John Murray, a Universalist minister, preached at Bachelor’s Hall. Murray had been shut out from all the pulpits in Philadelphia, but was welcomed by members of Bachelor’s Hall. Who would have thought that Kensington at such an early age was a place for liberal minded men?
Another noted person who visited Bachelor’s Hall was John Bartram (1699-1777), once called “the greatest natural botanist in the world.” Once source states, “the first botanic garden, for the cultivation of plants having medicinal properties, was established at Bachelor's Hall.” It is quite possible that these plants were gathered from the local Native Americans and that even Bartram may have cared for this garden.
Bachelor’s Hall is said to have been a square brick building. Since Paine Newman is known to have built his brick smith shop on top of the old foundation and his smith shop was 30 feet by 70 feet, then the Hall in all likelihood was a 30-foot square structure.
The Hall was said to be of considerable beauty and was used chiefly for balls and late suppers. Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia, states that Bachelor’s Hall, “had a fine open view to the scenery on the Delaware.” It stood on the east side of Hall Street, later Beach Street, still later Delaware Avenue, and sat just south of Shackamaxon, or within the now well known historic area of the SugarHouse site, near the northwest corner.
Christopher Marshall noted in his diary on April 4th, 1775, “This morning a fire begun at nine o’clock, at Bachelor’s Hall, which soon consumed the building.” Other sources state that all the wooden portions were destroyed, which would seem to indicate that it was a brick building as previously described, but perhaps had a wooden roof and interior.
Besides Webb’s poem on the Hall in its early years, the burning of Bachelor’s Hall inspired several poems, one by Hopkinson, another by Thomas Paine (author of Common Sense) titled, “Impromptu on Bachelor’s Hall, at Philadelphia, being destroyed by Lightning, 1775.”
20 March 2008 The Rest is History
Many who have studied the history of Kensington in colonial and revolutionary times are well aware of the three Eyre brothers, Jehu, Manuel, and Benjamin, who came down from Burlington, New Jersey previous to the Revolution, and built shipyards in Kensington. They helped to make Kensington a shipbuilding center of Colonial America. By following the history of this family, we find that one of their descendants also contributed to the development of Kensington during the time when it was self-governing (1820-1854).
Abraham P. Eyre was born about 1810, the son of Jehu Eyre and Mary Elizabeth Kraft. This Jehu Eyre’s father, also named Jehu Eyre, was one of the three brothers mentioned above. The senior Jehu Eyre (c.1737-1781) served with distinction in the Revolutionary War, making him somewhat of an important figure in America’s history.
Abraham P. Eyre is first found living on his own when he was enumerated in Kensington’s 5th Ward in1840. In 1850, Eyre is listed as a wharf builder, with real estate at $80,000, which increased to $175,000 by 1860, or $4.3 million in today’s money. Eyre married Ann Boyce and by 1850 the couple had at least five children.
Since Eyre had a famous grandfather and was quite wealthy, he was held in high stature in Kensington and was elected to be the President of the District of Kensington (1836-1840), or what we could call the mayor of Kensington. Before becoming President, he had already been serving as one of the Commissioners.
Abraham P. Eyre was also the earliest known President of the Kensington Soup Society, holding that position from at least 1854 to 1861. He is listed as one of the Board of Incorporators on 18 April 1853 and in all likelihood he was the founding President of that society.
The Philadelphia Directory for 1861 has Abraham P. Eyre listed as a wharf builder, living at 422 Richmond. In the same directory is listed Franklin Eyre, also a wharf builder, at 430 Richmond, just a couple of doors away. The firm of Franklin Eyre & Son (Franklin & George F. Eyre), wharf builders, was listed at this same 430 Richmond Street address. There is a George F. Eyre, the presumed son of Franklin, listed as a wharf builder and living in 1861 at 1126 Palmer Street. Another Eyre, Jehu W. Eyre, is another wharf builder, living at 1326 Beach Street. The Eyre family had gone from building ships in the 18th Century, to building wharves in the 19th Century.
Back in 1839, Abraham P. Eyre is recorded as having built a wharf for the shipping tycoon Thomas P. Cope. In 1840, when his presidency of Kensington ended, he was appointed assistant warden to the Port of Philadelphia by the Pennsylvania Governor and was reappointed in 1841 and 1842 and was appointed to be the actual warden in 1846.
In 1841, the District of Kensington elected him to be a school director. Eyre was also on the Democratic ticket for the District of Kensington Commissioners’ election of October 1843 and with four other Democrats received more votes then the Whig candidates.
In March of 1844, two months before Kensington’s Anti-Irish Catholic Riots, Eyre spoke to a mob at a Nativist meeting held at Kensington’s Commissioner’s Hall (Frankford & Masters). In 1845, he served on the City & County of Philadelphia Committee that was formed to propose an event, or parade to honor the death of President Andrew Jackson. Eyre and John Robbins were also on the committee for the city and county that welcomed then President James Polk to Philadelphia in 1847.
Eyre seems to have had his hands in almost all of the institutions of Kensington, as he is seen as serving as a director (in at least 1858) for the Howard Fire and Marine Insurance Company. As well, he was one of the founders of the Kensington Mutual Fire and Marine Insurance Company, incorporated in 1854. When the Kensington Building Association was founded in 1847, Abraham P. Eyre was elected President at their first meeting. Eyre is even found giving his support to a group of Philadelphians who supported Pope Pius the IX, to establish the Constitutional Reforms that were in progress in the Papal States. The group, met at the Chinese Museum in January of 1848.
Abraham P. Eyre died 10 Dec 1877, near his then home, near West Point, Virginia, at the age of 67. His funeral was from his sister’s residence, Mrs. Anna M. Heller, of 2421 N. 11th Street, Philadelphia. Eyre’s body was interned at South Laurel Hill Cemetery. Eyre’s sister Anna had previously married Amos Heller.
27 March 2008 The Rest is History
We read last week about Abraham P. Eyre, the grandson of 18th Century Kensington shipbuilders and how those later generations of Eyres went into the business of wharfbuilding. This week we’ll take a look at another a local wharfbuilder, who also was a lumber merchant.
About the year 1793, when the Yellow Fever was making its way through Kensington, Eli Garrison, the future Kensington lumberman and wharfbuilder was born. Garrison first shows up in the Philadelphia City Directory as early as 1818, on N. 2nd Street, above Poplar. He would have been about 25 years old at this point in time and already in business.
In the early 1820’s, Eli Garrison is found employed in building Fort Delaware, at Pea Patch Island down on the Delaware River. He had at least a three-year contract with the Federal Government as a wharf builder and to do the pile-driving on this project.
Later, between 1830 to 1840, Garrison is found living in Kensington’s 4th Ward and according to Roberts’ map of 1838, Garrison had his lumber wharf and business two wharves north of today’s Laurel Street, or right in the middle of where SugarHouse proposes to build their casino.
In 1837, Eli Garrison was the chairman of the Democratic Whigs for the 4th Ward of Kensington. He also served in the 1830’s as an “Assessor” in the 4th Ward. In the 1840’s, Garrison was found being politically involved running on the “Rough & Ready” ticket, where he finished in the middle of the pack, behind the Democrats, but ahead of the Nativists, which were strong in what was then called “East Kensington,” but now Fishtown.
A newspaper advertisement by William Carman, of the Camden Steam Saw Mills, published in Philadelphia’s North American and United States Gazette, on 4 July 1853, has within the advertisement that Carman’s lumber is superior to any that has lately been on the market, having been:
“…selected by one of the oldest pioneers on the Susquehanna River, who has resided many years in the forest himself, and felled many trees of the same character, I refer to our old and worthy citizen, Eli Garrison, Esq., Kensington.”
This advert would seem to show that Garrison, besides having been previously employed as a wharfbuilder, was also in the lumber business and that he was well known in the Delaware Valley. One has to imagine that Garrison would have used quality lumber and his skills as a wharf builder, to build one strong wharf for himself to operate from in Kensington, although this is some evidence that he may have taken over “J. Eyre’s wharf” and perhaps renovated it.
In 1860, Garrison is found living at 1031 Shackamaxon Street. The 1860 Census has him listed as a retail lumber dealer, with real estate of $10,000. His personal estate of $10,000 would have a value today of between $250,000 to over $1,000,000 depending upon what price indicators you use. This 1860 Census shows Garrison listed as being born in New Jersey and living with his wife, children, and grandchildren.
Besides business and politics, Eli Garrison had a philanthropic aspect to his life. He was found to be one of the incorporators of the Kensington Soup Society and served as a manager of that society for the years 1853 to 1870, being the Vice-President of the Society for all that time.
Garrison also had a hand in another Kensington institution, the Kensington National Bank. As early as 1840 he was one of the directors of this early bank of Kensington, that used to sit on the SugarHouse Casino site, before moving to where Wachovia Bank is today at Frankford & Girard Avenues. Over the years, a number of the other Kensington Soup Society managers served as directors for this local bank, famed for having paid a dividend for all of its years in existence.
By 1870, Garrison is found in the census with the services of a domestic servant to help him and his wife in their later years. A couple of doors from Garrison, at 1027 Shackamaxon, was David Duncan, the coal merchant, who also served on the founding Board of Managers of the Kensington Soup Society. Shackamaxon Street at this time had many of Kensington’s leading citizens as its residents.
There is a newspaper mention that the estate of one Eli Garrison was being probated at the Orphans Court in Philadelphia. This was listed in the paper on 16 April 1879, with David R. Garrison as the administrator. This would appear to be Eli Garrison, the given name and surname would match, as would the time frame of his death.