4 May 2006 The Rest is History

 

This column will bring to a close the historiography of Kensington & Fishtown. Previous columns took a look at historians of the community and what they did in the past; today we will look at what is happening now.

 

In April of 1996 the Institute for Service Learning, headed by Harry Silcox, published a book entitled, Kensington History; Stories and Memories. The book featured several chapters of narrative history, which set up the placement of oral histories taken by students of the local schools of the senior citizens at local senior centers.

 

Previous to the publication of this book three men had been meeting and working on the historical chapters of the book in order to place the oral histories. An idea was born to keep the project going. It was George Baker, Hampton Hoch, and Joseph Molmer all over again, except this time the fellows were named; Torben Jenk, Rich Remer, and Ken Milano.

 

Torben, Rich, and Ken found a common interest in the love of the history of Kensington and Fishtown and decided to continue to meet to research, lecture, write and publish the history of the communities. They formed a group that came to be known as the Kensington History Project (KHP).

 

Torben grew up for a time in Kensington, London, and had emigrated from England to Kensington, Philadelphia, in the 1980's. Rich's ancestors were Kensingtonians before the Revolution and they actually participated in the Revolutionary War on the side of the Americans. Rich's family however moved out of Kensington after the panic of 1837 and Rich grew up in the Northeast. Ken's mother's family had been Fishtowners and Kensingtonians for over 150 years, ever since they stepped off the boat from Bavaria in 1854.

 

How the KHP has evolved and developed is a story in itself and the real importance of it is that finally Kensington and Fishtown had historians for their neighborhood, and they were historians who were actually trained as historians. Rich Remer has a master's degree in history from the College of William & Mary and has studied intensely the shipwright and fishermen families, which made up the early families of Kensington and the early industries of the neighborhood. Milano graduated cum laude with an American History degree from Temple University and has focused on the 17th and 18th Century landed gentry and the breakup of their estates, as well as Anthony Palmer's life, and the founding of Kensington in the 18th Century. Torben Jenk specializes as a builder and besides architecture, has a background in industrial history through his membership in the Oliver Evans Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archaeology.

 

The varied interests of the three men almost laid out an outline of the history of the community. It was a perfect match and one, which has proved quite successful. With the different interests of the three men, they have been able to document and record an astonishing amount of information on the history and development of the Kensington and Fishtown communities.

 

Besides writing historical articles for the local community newspaper and publishing the Kensington History book, the KHP wanted to remedy the failure to scholarly document the history of the neighborhood. Through conversations and contacts over a course of time with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, they finally had the notice of those south of Vine Street when in the November 2002 issue of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's magazine Pennsylvania Legacies the KHP was featured with five historical articles on the history of Kensington and Fishtown.

 

Written by members of the KHP, the five articles are probably the best that have been written on the neighborhood. Done in a glossy four-color cover and loaded with pictures, illustrations, and images, the KHP finally was able to put out a worthy product for our great community, and offer some articles that were footnoted and quoting original primary sources. The magazine was distributed to a wide body of people including the members of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the Oliver Evans Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archaeology, the KHP's mailing list, as well as the KHP selling an additional 1000 copies. In all it was a great success with great feedback and helped to put Kensington and Fishtown back in the watch of the historical eye.

 

The "Internet" that strange and wonderful invention has allowed Kensington history to be heard beyond the boundaries ever imaginable. Through Internet list-serve genealogy groups and various websites, KHP members have been able to connect with descendants of many of the founding families of our community's 18th & 19th century history. The experiences of KHP has shown that the audience for Kensington & Fishtown's history stretches across America and as far as places like England, Australia & New Zealand.

 

 

 

11 May 2006 The Rest is History

 

Many Fishtowners know that Anthony Palmer is credited for being the founder of Kensington and we have Palmer Cemetery, Palmer Park, and Palmer Street all named in his honor. However, Palmer also had a large part in the founding of Port Richmond as well.

 

Palmer was a trader/merchant who came to Philadelphia via Barbados. He had been trading in Philadelphia as early as the 1690's. A fellow Barbadian, Captain George Lillington, owned a tract of land in Pennsylvania, which Anthony Palmer first purchased in 1704. Palmer paid Lillington 500 Barbados pounds for the property. Captain Lillington acquired the property between the 1697 and 1699.

 

In this three-year time Lillington purchased four continuous tracts of land situated on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River from several Swedes. The property was located north of the original city of Philadelphia in an area then known as "Shackamaxon." The land he bought was roughly the area between today's Aramingo Avenue & Dyott Street (then a creek called Gunner's Run) and the Delaware River, with an undetermined northern border that would have been a bit below Allegheny Avenue.

 

These Swedes who owned the land were the descendants of the original Swedish settlers who had first colonized the Delaware Valley in 1634. The entire tract Palmer purchased when combined amounted to 582 acres, which was quite substantial. This sort of package was not easy to acquire in Palmer's Barbados. Besides the cost factor, the availability of large tracts of land in Barbados was unheard of and was generally snapped up by the large planters.

 

There is no record of the exact date when Palmer first moved to Pennsylvania to take up residence, but by the year 1704 he owned property here and was starting to be considered one of the traders of note in the colony. It is clear that by the year 1709 he was a resident of Philadelphia County, as he is listed on a tax list of that year.

 

The Building of "Hope Farm"

 

Palmer called the estate he acquired from Lillington "Hope Farm." He made "Hope Farm" his countryseat and this is where he lived for the next 25 years. Over the course of this period, Palmer enlarged his estate. To the 582 acres, which he acquired from Lillington, Palmer added an additional 27 acres when his friend John Tonk died in 1717. Palmer was one of three inheritors of Tonk's property and he managed to buy out the other two. In 1729 Palmer added a further 11 acres from Benjamin Fairman, the only surviving heir to Thomas Fairman. Thomas Fairman was an early large landowner who bought his property from the Swede Lassie Cock. Fairman was also the original owner of the Fairman Mansion, a property that Palmer eventually bought and built his town of Kensington around.

 

Eventually, Palmer acquired another 56 acres from Fairman. These smaller acquisitions now gave Palmer a total estate of 676 acres. Palmer was finally reaching the landowner status, which had eluded his father in Barbados.

During this period Palmer may have begun to think of retiring from business. Records of his business dealings are almost non-existent for this time, which leaves one to believe he was moving from a merchant/trader to a landed gentleman. Living the life of a propertied gentleman with a countryseat on a private plantation was an idea encouraged by William Penn from the start of the colony. Palmer joined a class of gentlemen in the likes of James Logan and Isaac Norris who had working plantations.

 

One thing that seems certain is that Palmer was beginning to mimic the "customary English pattern of social mobility," which over a couple of generations turned "commercial wealth into land and a country seat."

 

The Selling of Hope Farm and the Founding of Kensington

 

In 1729 Palmer began the proceedings for selling his estate of "Hope Farm." Palmer probably decided to give up "Hope Farm" when he found out that inn holder Robert Worthington's property was coming up for sale. Worthington owned the much-desired Fairman Mansion estate. The Fairman Mansion estate bordered on the south of "Hope Farm," roughly the area bordered on the north by today's Aramingo Avenue and Dyott Street (then Gunner's Run), the Delaware River on the east, Columbia Avenue on the south, and with a western border comprised of Frankford Avenue, Norris Street, Belgrade Street, and York Street to Gunner's Run.

 

William Penn himself thought of acquiring this property in 1708. Penn's idea for the property was to "live there out of the noise of Philadelphia but in sight of it."

 

Next week we'll take a look at how Palmer's "Hope Farm" turned into Port Richmond.

 

 

18 May 2006 The Rest is History

 

As I wrote last week, Kensington's founder Anthony Palmer played a vital role not only in the founding of Kensington, but also in the development of Port Richmond. As we saw, it was Palmer who purchased a number of properties and consolidated them into his country estate, called "Hope Farm." Hope Farm eventually becomes the neighborhood we know today as Port Richmond.

When innkeeper Robert Worthington decided to sellout and relocate out of Pennsylvania, Palmer saw this an opportunity to purchase Worthington's much desired Fairman Mansion estate, an estate that William Penn himself thought of acquiring at one time.

 

The Fairman Mansion was originally built and owned by Thomas Fairman, the assistant surveyor for William Penn. Fairman came into the property through his wife, Elizabeth Kinsey. At this time (in 1729), the Fairman estate comprised the mansion house, which was located at today's Penn Treaty Park, plus an additional 191-1/2 acres surrounding the home.

 

Palmer purchased the Fairman estate and it was these 191-1/2 acres that he used to develop his town of Kensington by dividing it up into lots and selling to shipbuilders who were eager for waterfront property. However, in order to finance his purchase of the Fairman estate, Palmer needed a buyer for his Hope Farm property.

 

The buyer Palmer found for the Hope Farm estate was William Ball. Ball was a local merchant who bought Hope Farm from Palmer in April of 1729, for the amount of 2,140 pounds Pennsylvania currency. This represented a substantial profit for Palmer since he either bought or inherited most of the estate for 500 Barbados pounds. Along with the 676 acres of land, Ball acquired the messuage house, outhouses, orchard gardens, remaining rents and three slaves. The three slaves were said to belong to the messuage house and they were named Abraham, Hannibal and Phillis.

Palmer gave Ball six months to be able to get the mortgage for the full amount otherwise the property would revert back to Palmer. If Ball were to pay Palmer 1,000 pound sterling within six months Palmer would allow this to count as one 1,500 pounds Pennsylvania currency.

 

It is assumed that William Ball was able to acquire a mortgage for Hope Farm in the allotted time period. The property never reverted back to Palmer. Ball built a mansion on the property calling it "Richmond Hall," after a suburb of London, similar to what Palmer did directly below him by renaming the Fairman estate "Kensington," after another London suburb of that time. Over time the name of Hope Farm faded and Richmond came into use.

 

Using the money acquired from his sale of Hope Farm, Palmer in early January of 1730 paid cash for the former Fairman Mansion estate from Robert Worthington. Along with the mansion house the estate had the above-mentioned surrounding 191-1/2 acres that contained outhouses, stables, orchid gardens and a working plantation.

 

The Fairman mansion property was located directly south of Hope Farm, on the Delaware River, or roughly today's Fishtown. The creek, "Gunners Run" (today's Aramingo Ave.& Dyott street) was the dividing line between Hope Farm and the Fairman property, which Palmer would soon renamed, Kensington.

 

The southeastern area of Hope Farm, near the meeting of Gunners Run (Aramingo & Dyott Streets) and the Delaware River, came to be known as Balltown. There was some manufacturing established in Balltown by the time of the American Revolution, in particular a glassworks.

 

When William Ball died in 1740, he willed his property to his five children. Two of them took up the property, but the other three did not, since the land was not considered valuable on account of its swampy nature. Much of this land remained undeveloped from the time Ball died in 1740, until well into the 19th Century.

 

By the 1830's, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company was looking around for property on the Delaware River to develop a "mine-to-ship" transportation system for the coal regions in upstate Pennsylvania. It was not easy finding open space on the Delaware River in the 1830's, particularly since there was tough competition for riverfront property from other railroads. The Philadelphia & Reading saw the swampy land of Hope Farm as just the place they wanted. The Railroad purchased a large tract of land of the old Hope Farm estate along the Delaware River, above Cumberland Street. By the end of the 1830's the area started to take on the name of "Port Richmond," since it was now the main "port" for Pennsylvania's coal regions.

 

If not for Anthony Palmer buying up properties and consolidating them into one huge estate, the future Port Richmond may very well have not had the large open spaces that the Reading Railroad needed. In his own way, Palmer can be considered one of the fathers of today's Port Richmond.

 

25 May 2006 The Rest is History

 

Mike Cramer, of Bridesburg, wrote me inquiring about how local streets got their names and where he might find more information about the history of the naming of streets. From what I have read this is about how things happened.

 

Upon the consolidation of the county into the city in 1854, an effort was made to remove duplicated street names from the various 29 self-governing townships, districts, and boroughs that made up the former county of Philadelphia. An ordinance was passed to unify the nomenclature of the streets and to put single names to continuous streets. Due to this ordinance, hundreds of streets had their names changed.

 

Historically, street names can be categorized into various groups. These groups can consist of names for geographical features, names to honor famous people, names derived from the local Indians, names for precious stones, etc.

 

Geography has always played a roll in the naming of streets. Beach Street, running along the edge of the Delaware River is one such street. Canal Street, the traditional border between Kensington and Northern Liberties was named for a canal that ran there. Germantown and Frankford Avenues are called such because these "roads" ran towards those old colonial towns. As well, Richmond Street led from Kensington to Richmond. Upon the death of Stephen Girard, he left money in his will to lay out a street along the river to be called "Delaware Avenue."

 

There are many streets in our local neighborhoods that are named after the counties of the state of Pennsylvania. Starting at 1900 north in the addressing system, the east-west streets start to take the names of counties: Berks, Susquehanna, Dauphin, York, Cumberland, Huntingdon, Lehigh, Somerset, Cambria, Indiana, Clearfield, Allegheny, etc.

 

The naming of east-west streets north of downtown Philadelphia after counties of Pennsylvania, was counter balanced by the naming of east-west streets south of downtown after famous people, in this case, the governors of the state of Pennsylvania. Starting at exactly equal distance, the 1900 south addressing system starts with Mifflin Street for Thomas Mifflin, governor in 1790-1799. After Mifflin the streets are named southward in exact succession of the governors: McKean, Snyder, Wolf, Ritner, Porter, Shunk, Johnson, Bigler, Pollock, Packer, Curtin, Geary, Hartranft, and Pattison.

A number of local streets are named to honor people of the day. In Fishtown we have a number of streets named for former residents of the area: Hewson, Eyre, Day, Palmer, Norris, and Wilt are some examples.

 

Hewson is named for John Hewson, a local Revolutionary War hero and America's first calico printer of fabrics. The Eyres were well known Kensington shipbuilders. Day is named for Michael Day, a former District of Kensington commissioner and noted local philanthropist. Palmer is for Kensington's founder Anthony Palmer and Norris for Isaac Norris' family who owned a substantial amount of land in the area. Wilt is named for Alpheus Wilt, a famous local millwright who did a lot of the woodworking in Pennsylvania's state capital building. Girard Avenue was named for the wealthy merchant and philanthropist, Stephen Girard, who also happened to marry a local Kensington shipwright's daughter.

There are also a number of streets in the city that come down from the American Indians. Local streets like Shackamaxon, Dakota, and Aramingo are examples. Aramingo Avenue sits on top of an old creek called "Gunner's Run," and was changed to "Aramingo Canal" when it was attempted to make a canal out of the creek back in the 1840's. When the canal did not pan out, it was eventually culverted, blacktopped, and called Aramingo Avenue.

There was another whole group of streets named for precious stones at one point. Much like a suburban development today that gives fancy names to streets, the streets of Amber, Coral, Diamond, Emerald, and Jasper, fall into this category. The area where these streets were laid out was a rapidly developing textile mill district in the mid-19th century and blocks of houses were constructed for the mill workers.

 

Philadelphia's Department of Records has compiled a fairly useful website on the history of the city's streets. The address is: http://www.phillyhistory.org/HistoricStreets/ . You can type in the name of a street and find out the old name, new name, year recorded, location, and if it currently exists. You can also click on a button and a map of the city will pop up with the street highlighted. It won't tell you why a street was named, that info would come with reading several useful books that exist on the topic: Robert I. Alotta's Street Names of Philadelphia and Mermaids, Monasteries, Cherokees, and Custer: the stories behind Philadelphia street names. These two books are helpful, but they are by no means definitive.

 

While every street has its own unique history, it requires doing research to find out exactly why it was named.

 

1 June 2006 The Rest is History

Kensington as a founding place in the American vegetarian movement? It sounds rather odd, but is most definitely true.

"Be not among winebibbers, and riotous eaters of flesh. Prov. 23.20."

Verses from the Bible such as the above convinced a group of Englishmen to devote their life to vegetarianism and the Bible and at the same time weld the history of the vegetarian movement in America to our very own Kensington's history.

The story starts with the Rev. William Metcalfe who was influenced by the teachings of William Cowherd, a breakaway minister of the English Church. He began preaching strict adherence to the Bible, requiring members to proclaim themselves as "Bible Christians," as well as including vegetarianism and abstinence from intoxicating liquors.

Metcalfe became a minister and took charge of a small church based on Cowherd's principles in Salford, England. He and his congregation were enthused with the prospects of religious freedoms offered by America. With his flock of vegetarians, Metcalfe immigrated to Philadelphia in 1817.

At first, in the early years in Philadelphia, there was apprehension by other denominations towards Metcalfe's Bible Christians, seen as odd, with most folks focused on their vegetarianism. Over time however, "as individuals and also as an organization, they gradually acquired the respect and esteem of the educated and enlightened portion of the community...and frequently received most favorable comment in the public Press."

It took awhile to get organized, but eventually the first Bible Christian Church was set up on the west side of Third Street, above Girard Avenue, in about the middle of the block. It was an old frame schoolhouse removed to the plot of ground that was purchased by the church. It stood from 1823 to1844. This was eventually replaced on the same spot with a large brick structure built in 1845 and lasting until 1890, when the church sold the property.

Metcalfe, the church's founder and minister for the first 45 years (1817-1862), was succeeded on his death, by his son, Joseph Metcalfe, who died suddenly after only five years (1862-1867) as head of the church. Dr. William Taylor, grandson of William Metcalfe, became minister for a short time (1868-1873), and afterwards was replaced by a longtime vegetarian advocate, the Rev. Henry S. Clubb, who presided over the church from 1876 until his death in 1921.

It was during Clubb's tenure that the church removed from Kensington to a new church on Park Avenue, south of Berks Street. The church lasted there for the years 1891-1916, before finally removing to Clubb's home at 1023 Foulkrod Street, in the Northwood section of Frankford, where a number of the members of the church had removed to over the years.

For ten years Metcalfe labored, until 1830 when he caught the interest of Dr. Sylvester Graham, the famed Graham Cracker fellow and diet reformer, who was interested in the Bible Christian's vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol. At the same time Metcalfe began a correspondence with Dr. William A. Alcott, who also at that time publicly declared his conviction for vegetarianism. Alcott converted his cousin Bronson Alcott, to vegetarianism as early as 1835 and thus there were three influential voices of their day on board with Metcalfe's ideas.

It is said that Metcalfe had an enormous influence over Graham and Graham in turn would later have an enormous influence over John Harvey Kellogg, of breakfast cereal fame. Kellogg, while already an adherent to vegetarianism, became convinced by Graham's views on dieting and this helped to turn Kellogg's mind to food reform. Thus, Kellogg cereals and Graham crackers are today's healthy testaments to these early years of the vegetarian movement in Kensington.

Later, in the 1840's, Metcalfe, in corresponding with his counterparts in America, helped to organize the first vegetarian convention in America. The minister from Kensington, was elected President. Out of this convention the Vegetarian Society was formed. The Kensington Bible Christian Church was the host for the society's 5th Annual Meeting. At this 5th convention there were said to be 150 participants that feasted on a vegetarian banquet under a banner that proclaimed:

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. Gen. 1.29."

For 68 years the Bible Christian Church held services at their church in Kensington. Oddly enough, that sacred ground of the Vegetarian movement in America, was purchased by Burk Brothers, and much like the early tradition of the Catholic Church who built churches on ancient pagan sites, Burks built their slaughterhouse for the butchering of meats on top of the old Bible Christian Church's sacred ground.

 

8 June 2006 The Rest is History

With the gentrification of Fishtown and parts of Kensington, the influx artisans into the communities have been greatly expanding. This past May 6th, Kensington was treated to our very own first Arts Festival, which took place on Trenton Avenue, south of Dauphin Street. I had the opportunity to visit the Arts Festival. It was well attended, had live music and numerous vendors, as well as decent food to eat while you strolled along.

It was all rather strange to this life long resident, seeing the younger generation of tattooed ladies and pierced men walking up and down Trenton Avenue, milling about, and generally making themselves comfortable sitting on the ground. My kids loved it, they got free balloons shaped liked swords, and I was quite pleased with the influx of new neighbors and the energy they bring.

As might be expected, artists are not new to Kensington; they might just look a bit different today. My mother's brother, Martin Kaelin (Sr.) had been a painter and art teacher his whole life. He grew up on the 1100 block of Germantown Avenue from the late 1920's thru the 1950's. His fascination with New Orleans, early brass bands, and street life were at the heart of his paintings, and brought him into contact with many of the jazz greats of New Orleans (he would eventually count as his personal friends Louis Armstrong, Al Hirt, and the Jaffes, founders of Preservation Hall, to name a few).

If we took a trip back to the 19th century, we would find that Kensington was home to one of America's most famous landscape artists, the being the painter Thomas Moran (1837-1926).

Born in England, Moran's parents immigrated to Philadelphia in 1844. His father Thomas Moran, Sr., was a handloom weave and Kensington had a reputation for handloom weaving, so it was a natural draw for him.

Starting out near 4th & Master Streets in 1844, the Moran family had at least a 25-year relationship with Kensington. From 4th & Master in the 1840's, we then find the Morans in 1851 living on 5th Street, below Jefferson, in Kensington, where they had been enumerated in Kensington's 3rd Ward in the 1850 Census.

During the Civil War years of 1861 to 1864, Edward Moran, Thomas' older brother, and also an artist, was listed at living at 915 E. Sergeant Street. Sergeant Street in 1861 is described as being located "west from Frankford Avenue above Cumberland Street." The 900 block of Sergeant street would presumably be somewhere between Frankford Avenue and Kensington Avenue. The numbering system in the 1860's was different then what it is today. It would appear that Edward Moran was enumerated in the 1860 Census in the 10th Ward, Eastern District, but moved back to Kensington the following year and stayed there during the war years.

Edward's more famous brother, Thomas Moran, and his other siblings and parents were living at 927 N. 11th Street in 1861, before moving to 8th & Coates (Fairmount) Street area in 1862, an area where they stayed to at least when Edward Moran left Kensington and joined them there by 1870. By the 1870 census it appears that all of the Moran family members were out of Kensington and had moved closer to town, to the Northern Liberties and East Popular areas, or downtown, where the Moran boys would eventually set up studios along the more prominent streets in downtown Philadelphia.

Thomas Moran's early education would have taken place in Kensington. He came to America at about the age of seven and did not start his career in art until about the age of fifteen, when he began apprenticing as an engraver. Starting out at 4th & Master in an industrial setting and having Moran become America's most famous landscape painter seems odd, but perhaps it was the drudgery of the congested and polluted neighborhood that made Moran seek solitude and beauty in nature?

Moran's real reputation took hold after he took a number of trips to paint the landscapes of the American West, mostly done while on government surveying expeditions. One of his paintings entitled, "The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" hangs at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, along with a companion piece of his entitled, "The Chasm of the Colorado." His paintings of the western United States fascinated the people back east. The pictures were large and grand and brilliant with color. Moran's paintings of Yellowstone were said to be responsible in convincing Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant, to lay aside this area as America's very first national park.

Last week I wrote about Kensington's involvement in the founding of the Vegetarian Movement in American, and this week I'm writing about Kensington and the founding of the American Park System. Is there no end to the energies of our residents!

 

15 June 2006 The Rest is History

This week, like last, I'll keep the topic on art in the neighborhood, with the focus on one of Fishtown's famous native sons of the art world, Albert C. Barnes, who built one of the best art collections in the world.

Barnes was also famous for his temperament and it's quite possible that that famous chip on his shoulder towards the "art establishment," a chip as famous as his collection, was developed while growing up on the streets of Fishtown.

His father was John Jesse Barnes, of Irish background, whose family had immigrated to Pennsylvania in colonial time. He was a butcher in his youth and it is said that he worked along side the famous transportation magnate, Peter A. B. Widener, before Widener made his wealth in that field.

When the Civil War broke out Barnes' father enlisted in the 82nd Infantry Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. During the battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, he was wounded in his right arm, the wounds being so bad he had to have the arm amputated.

Barnes father collected his pension from the government, but did not let a little thing like a lost arm get in his way of making a living, he became a one-armed postman.

Barnes father met and married Lydia A. Schafer and together they had four children, all boys.

Albert C. Barnes was born on January 2nd, 1872, in a small house on today's 1400 block of Wilt Street, between Memphis and Gaul Streets. In 1872, Wilt Street was still known as Cork street and the Barnes' family lived at 1466 Cork, a two-story brick home on a row house block.

Barnes spent the first 10 years of his life growing up in Fishtown, which at that time was pretty much the way it is today. Back then (1870's) the residents would have been made up of mostly English, Scots-Irish, and Irish, with some Germans. From Fishtown, at the age of 10 years old, Albert C. Barnes moved with his family to "The Neck," a rather nasty area of deep South Philadelphia, where Barnes was forced to learn to box to get respect from the neighborhood kids.

After three years in the Neck, the Barnes family moved to the 1300 block of Tasker Street, also in South Philadelphia, where at 13 years old Barnes was accepted into Central High School, which at that time still gave B.A. & B.S. degrees to its graduates. Barns graduating class included the Ashcan painters John Sloan and William Glackens, whom he would become better friends with in later life.

After Central High, Barnes attended the University of Pennsylvania, getting his M.D. Degree in 1892. At this point, Barnes began to make a number of trips to Germany, the leader in the sciences and pharmacology at that time and where he enrolled at Heidelberg in courses on therapeutics and pharmacology.

After returning to America, Barnes went into business with Herman Hille, who he had met in Germany, using a makeshift laboratory in an old stable at 13th & Spruce Streets in downtown Philadelphia. Soon, Barnes perfected his discovery of Argyrol, a "silver protein compound that he hoped would be more antiseptic, and less caustic, than silver nitrate," that was then being used for all sort of ills.

Barnes' Argyrol became a huge success and he became quite wealthy. Over time Barnes became an avid collector of art, particularly Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, at a time when they were not yet getting the recognition they would get later in the century. His collection of paintings, in particular his Renoirs, Matisses, Cezannes, and Picassos, number in the hundreds. He is also credited with "discovering" Soutine and Modigliani. His art collection is considered one of the finest collections in the world.

Not bad for a kid from Wilt Street.

In addition, Barnes developed his own philosophy of aesthetics, which became the foundation for the Barnes School and Museum, which were run by his "rigid and controversial principles." He name is always associated with the adjectives "controversial" and "idiosyncratic" and it is said that he left "more ill will than any other single figure in American art." Gertrude Stein said of Barnes, "He did literally wave his cheque book in the air."

Barnes died in a car accident in 1951.

What seems to have upset the cultured classes the most about Barnes is that he was not afraid to speak his mind and if you were offended, he really didn't care. He was a self-made millionaire with a Fishtown background and like most working class folks, he was never afraid to speak his mind, which the middle and upper classes tend to be socially bound by.

 

22 June 2006 The Rest is History

On the small hill along the Memphis Street side of Fishtown's Palmer Cemetery, sits a number of tombstones rather closely packed together. The gravestones belong to the Eakins and Moser families, with one being that of Christiana Moser, a local Fishtown girl, the daughter of a butcher, who had married a downtown fellow, named Samuel Eakins. They married in the year 1830, at First Presbyterian Church of Kensington, and made their home on Palmer Street, near Richmond.

While the tombstones look rather ordinary, they represent a small piece of a fascinating story, which only now is becoming known. That story is the U.S.S. Alligator, the first submarine of the United States Navy.

Recently, I was contacted by a retired navy man to do some genealogical research on his ancestor, Samuel Eakins. Eakins had married the Moser girl from Fishtown. As it turns out, Samuel Eakins was the first acting master of a naval submarine in the history of the United States Navy and a major effort by various government agencies and private organizations are underway to try to find the Alligator, which had sunk in the Atlantic Ocean during the Civil War. My client was putting together the biography of Eakins to go along with the underwater archaeological investigations that are currently progressing.

The creator of the Alligator was a French immigrant, Brutus de Villeroi, a self-described genius (as evidenced on the U.S. Census) who had a history in submarines going back to the 1830's in France, where it is stated that he was the math teacher for none other then Jules Verne, the science fiction writer, famed for his underwater book, "Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," published in 1870 and featuring a submarine.

De Villeroi contacted the American government upon arriving in Philadelphia in 1861. Actually, he was taken into custody by Philadelphia's harbor police when he tried sailing one of his "infernal machines" (a submarine) up the Delaware River during the early stages of the Civil War.

After explaining his ideas and getting permission to go ahead with his project of building a sub, he contracted for the government, with the Kensington shipyard of Neafie & Levy for the construction of "one iron submarine" in November of 1861. Neafie & Levy's shipyard sat at about where the PECO plant is today, just north of Penn Treaty Park.

According to naval historians, the Alligator was "the most technologically advanced weapon in the Union naval arsenal, incorporating technology not usually associated with the Civil War Navy: a diver's airlock, tanks of compressed air for adjusting the altitude of the boat, a large crew of twenty men, and an air scrubbing system to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It's mode of attack--electrically-detonated limpet mines placed by its diver."

By early May of 1862 the submarine was launched. It was 40 foot long, 6 foot high, and 4 and half foot wide, and painted green, hence the name Alligator. In June of 1862, Samuel Eakins, the husband of a Fishtown gal, was put in charge as the acting master.

During the summer and winter of 1862, the Alligator had a civilian crew, with Eakins in charge. Eakins, a civilian, had a background as a diver and had previously worked for the Czar of Russia, salvaging Russian ships lost during the Crimean War.

In the early Spring of 1863 the Alligator was given the assignment to destroy underwater obstacles that were blocking and barring the waters around the port of Fort Sumpter in Charleston Harbor. While the Alligator was being towed towards its destination for its assignment, a violent storm erupted around Cape Hatteras, SC, already known as the "graveyard of the Atlantic," for all the lost ships in that area. During this storm the Alligator was cut loose, so as not to let the ship and crew that was towing her sink, and thus the history of the Alligator came to an end at the bottom of the Atlantic.

De Villeroi, the Alligator's creator, died in 1875 and his more advanced technology of submarines died with him, as well the United States interest in submarines would not be revisited for the next 40 years.

This fascinating story of the U.S.S. Alligator can be read about more deeply and followed at the website of the Office of Naval Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, http://www.sanctuaries.nos.noaa.gov//alligator/hunt2004/m_history.html The two groups are spearheading a project to raise the submarine from the floors of the Atlantic, just as soon as they find it. You can also read about the "Hunt for the Alligator" at The Navy & Marine Living History Association's website, which has a number of excellent illustrations: http://www.navyandmarine.org/alligator/index.htm

 

29 June 2006 The Rest is History

The Church of Emmanuel and the Good Shepherd closed this past Sunday. The final service was held and the de-consecration of the church will take place on July 17th. For those of you who love church architecture, stainglass, or local history, this might be the final time to come and see one of Kensington's most unique churches.

The church is located at Collins & Cumberland Streets and has a history that dates back to the year 1868, to a Sunday School organized by Joseph M. Christian and William Tardiff. In March of 1869, a parish was formed, and two months later it was admitted into the union with the Episcopal Diocese of Philadelphia as The Church of the Good Shepherd.

In 1872 the first building, a metal frame structure, was constructed at the present location and stood until 1889, when the cornerstone was laid for the current brownstone building.

In 1994, the Emmanuel Episcopal Church of Kensington, another local church that was shuttered, merged with The Church of the Good Shepherd. After the merger of 1994, the new name of the church became The Church of Emmanuel and the Good Shepherd and services were held at The Church of Good Shepherd's building.

Besides the building itself having an extremely attractive interior, with elaborate stain-glass windows that are real jewels, the church can lay claim a very interesting history. Its first rector was the Reverend John A. Goodfellow, who presided over the church from its original construction in 1872, to the day he died in 1933, an incredible 61 years. It is stated that this is the longest ministry of any one particular minister in the city of Philadelphia.

The Rev. Goodfellow was born in Philadelphia on December 1st, 1846. He graduated from the Philadelphia Divinity School in 1870. He served briefly at St. John's Parish, Camden, NJ, where he met his future wife, Emma Janiver Hurlbut (1843-1928).

Before coming to The Church of the Good Shepherd, Goodfellow also served briefly at St. Clement's, in Wilkes Barre, PA. In March of 1872, he became the Rector of Good Shepherd and became a staple in the community for the next sixty plus years. His long duration in Kensington endeared him to many. It is said that people of all faiths came to him for his counsel; he was the "Priest of Kensington."

As part of his duties as rector of the church, he baptized 2954 people, married 1007 couples. He also oversaw the funerals of 2272 souls.

Finally, after 61 years as rector of the church, the Rev. Goodfellow died on February 13th, 1933. Twelve years after the death of the Rev. Goodfellow, his parishioners were still thinking about him and with the help of his many friends, they had a new organ built as a "living tribute to him." In 1945 the organ was dedicated and Goodfellow's friends graced the organ with a plaque that honors their long time minister.

The Rev. Goodfellow married Emma J. Hurlbut on February 12th, 1872, a month before he took over duties at The Church of the Good Shepherd. Emma had been a parishioner of his at St. John's in Camden. Emma was the great grand daughter of Col. David Hall (1752-1817), of the Delaware Line, a famous Revolutionary War hero.

Another interesting aspect of The Church of the Good Shepherd that took place during the ministry of the Rev. Goodfellow, was the impact that the church had on the home front support of American troops during World War One. During this time church houses were used directly for recruiting volunteers to fight in the war. It is stated that "the parish house of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd was used from June to November, 1918, as the headquarters of Local Board No. 28..." and that "nine hundred men, exclusive of those inducted for special service were sent through Local Board No. 28, and all were examined and drilled in the parish house. A welfare committee was organized and every man received a kit, containing various knitted garments, etc., and a box lunch to take with him on his trip to camp. The Church of the Good Shepherd holds a unique place among churches of the city for this special piece of service, and no expense was spared to prove to the men the interest which the neighborhood felt in them."

With the passing of The Emmanuel Church of the Good Shepherd, Kensington loses yet another of its churches. Can we expect another denomination to take it over? Or will this sacred place become just more fodder for the designer class that has taken up quarters in a number of our churches?

 

6 July 2006 The Rest is History

This past Saturday I led a tour through Kensington for the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC). This particular tour of Kensington sets off the first Saturday of the month at 9:30 AM from the corner of 5th & Market Streets, and I have been leading the tour since this past May and will lead the remaining tours through October.

While the tour is entitled Northern Liberties, Fishtown, and Kensington, the three sites that are actually visited are in Kensington. The Northern Liberties and Fishtown neighborhoods are simply passed through and commented on, while we wind our way up to Kensington from Center City.

The three sites that are visited during the tour include the new Coral Street Arts House, a low cost artists' housing complex at Hagert & Coral Streets, Yard's Brewery, who took over one of the old Weisbrod & Hess Brewery buildings a couple of years back, at Martha & Hagert Streets, and an urban farm called Greensgrow, at Gaul & Cumberland Streets, where they have turned an old brownfield into an oasis of healthy vegetables and flowers.

Yours truly conducts an historical lecture during the ride, giving a background of the history of Kensington, while pointing out the various historical buildings, geographical sites, and a general background of how the various neighborhoods of the Northern Liberties, Fishtown, and Kensington came about.

At the Coral Street Arts House you get to tour a couple of the studios of the artists who reside there, and if there is a show in the exhibition area, you can view that as well. The Arts House is a development project of the New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC), a community non-profit group that has been around since the 1980's.

The Arts House is located in a former textile mill. Founded in the 1850's to provide yarn for outwork for the local handloom weavers of the neighborhood, William Beatty produced ginghams, diapers, and miner's flannels. The original mill burnt down in the early 1880's and was rebuilt, with the current structure dating from that time.

The whole area around the Beatty Mills became a fairly well known mill district. This area was fairly empty in the 1850's, and as the old Norris estate of Fairhill was being broken up, businessmen were able to buy whole square blocks to build their mills, which ensured that Kensington would become a major manufacturing center.

After touring the Arts House you walk a block to Yard's Brewery, where I give a little lesson in Kensington beer history. During the course of Kensington's history, beer historian Rich Wagner found that there have been 85 different licenses taken out by brewers, which brewed under 138 different company names, at 98 different addresses. Today only one still remains, and that one is Yard's Brewery, the only brewery left in the city of Philadelphia.

Yard's is located in the old Weisbrod & Hess Brewery. Weisbrod & Hess can be dated back to the year 1880. By 1882 they moved to Frankford & Hagert and here they built a brewery complex along Martha Street, from Hagert to York.

Weisbrod & Hess are said to be the first brewery to put beer in bottles. The brewery did not last that long after Prohibition and various companies have used the buildings over the years until Yard's Brewery came in 2002.

The tour of Yards is excellent if you have never taken a tour of a brewery, and from what I've heard, the tasting room is quite good as well!

After the brewery you are off to Greensgrow, where you get to tour their urban farm, and hear about the various systems of growing they use. You also got the opportunity to buy the various products grown on the premises, either outdoors, in their large greenhouse, or brought in by one of their partners.

The lot where Greensgrow is located was an old brownfield, an industrial site, contaminated over the years and abandoned. Through the NKCDC, Greensgrow was able to lease the lot and bring it back to life. This particular lot was the home of Pearlman Brothers, a smelting firm that dates back to at least 1910. By the 1920's, they evolved into the Empire Galvanizing Company and the Empire Zinc & Chemical Company, which proceeded to pollute the land for a number of years before it was abandoned by later firms.

If you want to see how new life is being breathed into Kensington's old buildings and lots, then you should take this tour. All three sites are located in Kensington's 31st Ward, an area that is the heart of the New Kensington CDC's efforts in the community. For more information on the tour, check out GPMTC's website: http://www.gophila.com/

 

13 July 2006 The Rest is History

This past Saturday I attend a family picnic and it confirmed to me that a family picnic really is a wonderful way of collecting data for compiling your genealogy, as well, it's a great way of strengthening family ties that are constantly being pulled apart in the modern world we have today.

This was the second time I attended one of the picnics, the other time was back in 1999. In 2000, the picnic fell on the weekend I was married and I was off on my honeymoon to Quebec. After that summer of 2000 my own nuclear family life started and after two kids here I am seven years later, attending my second family picnic.

What's a Milano Family Picnic you wonder? It's a very large extended family gathering. At some point, not sure when, but it could have been about twenty-five years ago, family on my father's side started a family picnic as a way of keeping in touch with each other.

 

The Milano family started out in South Philadelphia (8th & Federal), when in 1911, Francesco Milano immigrated from Pietraperzia, Sicily. In the early 1940's after the death of the original immigrant couple (Francesco and his wife Rosaria Puzzo), the Milanos, like many families when the parents die, started to drift apart. By the 1950's when the Walt Whitman Bridge opened, many of the Milanos left South Philly and settled in South Jersey. There were also some that went west and northwest to Montgomery and Delaware Counties.

By the 1980's with the family pretty well dispersed all over the Delaware Valley, some folks decided it might be a good idea to start a family picnic as a way for everyone to get together at least once a year and thus the picnic started and continues to alternate between South Jersey and Delaware County

The picnic in 1999 had about 85 people there; this year it was a little smaller, but there are probably over a hundred cousins in the Delaware Valley, with most of them coming from my grandfather's brother Vincenzo, as he had six sons.

For someone like me who really likes family history, it was a lot of fun. For most of my life I was not very close to my father's family. My paternal grandfather married an Irish girl from St. Louis, and thus when his mother wanted to move back to St. Louis, my father wound up living a good deal of his youth in that city, which in turn made him a bit distant from his cousins in South Philly. When my father moved back to Philadelphia and met and married the woman who would eventually become my mother, he proceeded to get drafted in the Korean War, which meant another couple of years out of the city, this time in North Carolina, where he served out the war at Camp Lejeune, never having to go to Korea.

My father never moved back to South Philly, since by the time he was ready to settle down with his family in Philadelphia, many of the family were already moving out. In short, I grew up in Kensington, with my mother's family, not my fathers, and thus a Milano family picnic that involves numerous cousins on my father's side of the family, made for an interesting outing and an opportunity to learn about my family's history.

That first picnic I went to in 1999, I did not know what to expect, and so I took my mother with me, since she remembered some of them. My mother had not seen most of these folks since my grandfather died in the early 1960's. The strangeness of it all dissolved immediately upon arrival, as everybody was very happy to meet us, particularly the older folks as they remembered my father and some of them remembered my grandfather and great grandparents. I was able to talk to some of the older folks and get all sorts of interesting stories about the family's history.

At the picnic in 1999, my grandfather's youngest brother (Giuseppe, or Joe) was there, he was in his early 90's. I talked to him back then, but not nearly enough. He was actually born in Sicily and came over as a kid, as my grandfather had done. His memory was quite sharp. In the world of genealogy, he was a bonanza of information!

At the second picnic I attend this past week, Joe Milano was not there, he died several years earlier. He was gone as was his 90 plus years of memory of the family's history. It's like having whole chapters ripped out of the book of a family's history. It reminded me that if your interested in your family's history, it's important to get to these old-timers before it's too late.

 

20 July 2006 The Rest is History

A while back Bill "Moe" Mohollen wrote to me inquiring about "Steeple Hill," which he recalled had something to do with Old Brick Church and wanted to know where it was located. I looked into it and it appeared that instead of "Steeple Hill" the place was actually called "Sheep Hill," and it was a place where the founders of Old Brick first met in the early years of the founding of their church. "Old Brick" is the nickname for the Kensington Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest church in Fishtown and Kensington.

A group of men succeeded from St. George's down at 4th & Vine and formed "The United Society of the People Called the Methodists," circa 1801. The members of this new society were organized into four classes. The members who resided in Kensington were called the "Class of Kensington" and had John Hewson as their leader. The class had actually been meeting at Kensington a few years earlier, in the 1790's.

 

Hewson was a well-respected Revolutionary War Hero and founder of a calico printing works, the first of such a high quality in America that it rivaled his European counterparts. He organized a company of men from his calico works and was made the officer. He was captured by the British, but managed to escape. He was hailed as a hero once the war was over. Fishtown's Hewson Street is named for him and his tombstone can be viewed at Palmer Cemetery, near the entrance gate on the Montgomery Street side, surrounded with a pip-like fencing.

 

Hewson's group started to meet on what was called "Sheep Hill," at the northwest corner of Richmond and Crease Street, at that time called Queen & Crown Streets. Sheep Hill extended from the corner of the residence of the then "late Clement Keen, Esq, No. 221 Richmond Street." Keen's house is long gone, due to the bulldozing of the neighborhood when they constructed the I-95 Highway back in the 1960's.

 

Sheep Hill was "occupied by a double two-story brick house, painted yellow, standing twenty feet back from the street, with a paling fence around it, and was reached by a flight of steps resting against the bank on Queen (Richmond) Street." It was in this building, on Sheep Hill, in the month of June 1801, that the first class was held in Kensington, and thus the beginnings of the first church of Kensington started.

The group continued to meet at the Sheep Hill building until 1805 when they were organized enough and had enough monies to purchase a lot at Marlborough and Queen (Richmond), where they built their church in 1805. It is said that it started to be called "Brick Church" since that was the material it was built from, but then when the church was rebuilt years later, they used the "old" bricks to help rebuild it and thus "Old Brick" came to be the name.

 

I presume the name Sheep Hill must have had something to do with sheep being raised there, or perhaps that was a good grazing area for neighborhood sheep. It would not be uncommon in those days to have a village common green to graze your sheep. There were still plenty of green spaces in 1801, plus you would have to remember that it was called Sheep Hill in 1801, and that at that time in 1801 there was a two-story building built on it, thus leaving one to believe that there were not sheep grazing there anymore, but the name outlasted the sheep.

Bill "Moe" Mohollen also mention that when he was a kid, he used to play at Old Brick and once found bones in the basement. They were told then that it was an Indian graveyard, but he was skeptical since most of the bones looked like babies or young kids. I had also heard that story about Old Brick being built on a sacred burial ground of the American Indian, it sounded too much like what the early Christian Churches did in the first couple of centuries of the church's history, so I looked into this story as well.

Based on the neighborhood stories and church stories that there were Indian graves in the church basement, the University of Pennsylvania conducted an archaeological dig in the basement of the church. The dig took place a number of years back and the final analysis was that the graves were from an early cemetery of the church itself. It was normal practice is olden days to bury ministers and church figures in the basement of a church, here they buried some folks, and apparently lost the records of these burials and thus the stories were started.

 

27 July 2006 The Rest is History

One of the best resources that I have found for genealogical research in Philadelphia are the Philadelphia City Directories that were published between the years 1785 to 1935. People tend to over look these sources, but they offer a great opportunity in figuring out some of your genealogical problems.

Generally, one of the first steps in researching a family's history is to try and find the family on one of the available United States Population Census schedules These censuses area available for the years 1790 thru 1930 and the idea is to find them on the 1930 Census and work your way backwards. However, sometimes it is very difficult to find a family on the census either because the enumerator horribly corrupted the surname, or the indexer did not properly index them. This is where city directories come in handy.

City directories are directories that list the head of the house, his occupation, and address. Women tended to be listed only if they were widowed, wealthy, or had their own businesses. Some directories were strictly business directories, while others were all inclusive, with businesses and individuals.

For Philadelphia, the city directory was first published in 1785. The directories were used basically the same way a telephone book might be used, to find an individual or business and their address. In fact, city directories coincided with the telephone book between the years 1878 to 1935, at which point (in Philadelphia at least) enough people had telephones and telephone books were large enough, that the city directories were discontinued.

Since the Census is taken every ten years and since a lot of folks tended to move around in the interim, the directories offer an opportunity to track your ancestor's movements between the census years. If you cannot find the ancestor on the census, you can check the city directory for the census year, and the year before and after. If you find them in the directory, then you can go to the appropriate ward and division of that census year and do what we call a "walk through" or page-by-page search, which can be helpful to find folks in the census if their surname was corrupted by the enumerator or improperly indexed by the indexer.

Another use of the city directories is to find possible death years for individuals. If you search the directories for the years when you know they were alive you can pick them up and follow them from year to year and then you might possibly see the ancestor's wife appear as a widow, thus you have pinpointed the approximate year of death for that individual.

Another great possibility that exists when using directories is that unknown ancestors might appear in the household. By checking a particular surname, you might find various individuals with that surname living at the same address and thus assume that they are related and follow up those leads.

City directories also show the various occupations of your ancestors, which are useful when you are dealing with a common surname, such as Smith. If your ancestor is known to be a carpenter, then you can check all the Smiths that had carpenter listed as their occupation and that would narrow down the field of candidates.

An ancestor might appear in a city directory owning a business and by searching under the business name, you can find who (if any) were his partners, or officers of the company, what they produced, etc., and there also might be an advertisement for the company. The directories were also a good way for local businesses to advertise, so you can often find old business advertisements for all sorts of products and services, which is great for someone who is interested in reconstructing a neighborhood's history.

Besides the above uses, the city directories really come in use when tracing a family between the years 1880 to 1900, the reason being is that the U. S. Census of 1890 is not available, almost all of it having been destroyed in a terrible fire when in 1921, the Commerce Department Building went up in flames.

Making the family connection between the 1900 census back to the 1880 census can be difficult, thus the directories really come in handy. Also, the directories allow you to see what your ancestors have been doing during the twenty-year period between 1880 and 1900, where they moved to, what they did for a living, and perhaps also they might show other relatives coming and going from the household, that never appeared on the census.

By not including thorough searches of all pertinent city directories in your family history project, you very well might be overlooking a clue in solving one of your genealogical brickwalls.