XXI
DELAWARE COUNTY
Formed from Chester County, September 26, 1789; named for Delaware River. Automobile Trip to Chester, return by Media and Swarthmore
From Thirty-second and Market Streets, Philadelphia, out Woodland Avenue (Darby Road), laid out in 1687, the old King’s Road, pass University of Pennsylvania buildings, to Woodlands Cemetery, between Thirty-ninth to Forty-second Streets, seventy-five acres, acquired in 1840, contains colonial homestead, residence of William Hamilton, English Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, under grant from William Penn, built, 1747-50, stone and brick; has portico, with pediment supported by six columns; considered by architects best specimen of colonial architecture in Philadelphia; many rare trees are there, sent by Mr. Hamilton in his trips abroad; to him Philadelphia owes the gingko tree of Japan and many varieties of magnolia.
Bartram’s Garden, 28 acres, open free to the public, one quarter mile south on Fifty-fourth Street, first botanical garden of international importance in United States; ground purchased by John Bartram, in 1728; from here he traveled long distances to Florida, the Adirondacks, everywhere collecting rare plants that he brought home in his saddlebags; he wrote down the results of his explorations, and sent to Europe botanical specimens of great interest, also painted sheets of illustrations, sending one set to the South Kensington Museum, London, which are still there in perfect condition; Linnæus proclaimed him the greatest natural botanist in the world, and sent him books and apparatus; his quaint old stone house is still standing, built by himself in 1731; his son, William Bartram, botanist and ornithologist, published the most complete list of American birds, previous to Alexander Wilson, whom he greatly assisted. Wilson lived at the corner of Fifty-first Street and Woodland Avenue, in a log house with an immense stone chimney. Near Bartram’s Garden, on the Schuylkill River bank, at the western end of Gray’s Ferry Bridge, is site of Gray’s Garden, pleasure resort, time of Washington, reached from Philadelphia by a floating bridge, replaced by wooden telescope drawbridge built in 1808, by the P., W. & B. R. R.; stone monument, still standing, covered with most interesting and historically valuable inscriptions, marks opening of the first railroad to the South.
Sixty-fifth Street and Woodland Avenue, St. James’ Protestant Episcopal Church, Kingsessing, built by the Swedes, 1762, building practically unchanged, has interesting burial ground. Sixty-ninth Street and Paschall Avenue is an old yellow mansion, built about 1723, home of the Paschalls, General Howe’s headquarters after the Battle of Brandywine. Seventieth Street and Woodland Avenue, quaint old building, the Bannaker School, built in 1789, said to be oldest public-school building in Philadelphia, now used in connection with the school garden. Seventy-third Street, Blue Bell Tavern, opposite, was terminus of the great trading path of the Minquas Indians leading from the Susquehanna; Island Road leads to “Cannon Ball” farmhouse, below Penrose Ferry, struck during bombardment of Fort Mifflin in 1777.
Crossing Cobb’s Creek, the southern boundary of the city, and county of Philadelphia, we enter Delaware County, the oldest settled section of Pennsylvania. Darby, an ancient town, birthplace of John Bartram, contains many old houses, and a Friends’ meeting house, dating from the eighteenth century, with picturesque burying ground, where many colonial notables lie in unmarked graves; Sharon Hill, residential suburb, Convent of Holy Child Jesus, occupies buildings erected for John Jackson’s Quaker School, famous in the middle of the last century; new decorated Gothic chapel of stone. Beyond Norwood is the old White Horse Hotel, now abandoned, built, 1720.
One and one-half miles to left, at Essington, on Tinicum Island, first permanent European settlement in Pennsylvania made by Swedes under Governor John Printz, 1643; fort built, named “New Gottenburg”; and government established. Ridley Park, residential suburb; fine view to left, of Tinicum and the Delaware River, old quarantine station known as the Lazaretto; the Corinthian and Philadelphia Yacht Clubs are on the river front. Leiperville, McIlvain house, stone, opposite Colonial Hotel; Washington spent the night here after the Battle of Brandywine, and troops were encamped on slopes to the right. Hendrixson house, very ancient, built by Swedish settlers. Pass Baldwin Locomotive Works and great munition factories into Chester, population 58,030, settled by Swedes about 1644, the oldest town in Pennsylvania, known as Upland until 1682, when Penn, landing here on October 28, named it Chester after the home of his companion, Pearson, in England. Penn convened here, in November, 1682, the first Assembly of the Province, at which was passed the “Great Law”; the Upland court was held here from 1668 to 1682; the courts of Chester County from 1682 until their removal to West Chester in 1786, and the courts of Delaware County from 1789 to 1851; Chester has grown from an ancient country town to a bustling industrial city, but many antiquities are preserved; principal among these are the old City Hall, stone, with pent roof projection and quaint clock tower, erected in 1724; the oldest public building in Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest in America; used as Chester County courthouse for sixty-two years, Delaware County courthouse for sixty-one years, and as hall of Chester borough and city since 1851; now being restored by the Pennsylvania Historical Commission and Honorable William C. Sproul, under contract that the city will maintain it for public uses forever.
Opposite on Market Street is the Washington House, erected and licensed as the “Pennsylvania Arms” in 1747, still maintained as a tavern; in this house, at midnight on September 11, 1777, Washington wrote his report to Congress of the Battle of Brandywine. Hope’s Anchor Tavern, Fourth and Market Streets, built by David Cowpland prior to 1746. Group of old houses at Second and Edgmont Streets, Logan house, 1700, where Lafayette’s wounds were dressed after the
ALFRED O. DESHING MEMORIAL ART GALLERY, CHESTER