It isn’t Indiana Jones unearthing the Ark, or Nicholas Cage finding a secret treasure map in the U.S. Constitution. But discovering a trove of nineteenth century mortgage documents in a musty church attic sure can make a geeky historian smile. It can also remind you how lucky you can get. We were lucky to find Marion Johnson at The Falls of Schuylkill Baptist Church. And even luckier that she was the daughter of the church’s unofficial...
The Falls of Schuylkill Baptist Church (that used to share a border with Hohenadel House) kindly slipped us one of their print-ups of this fascinating document: William Penn's 1685 Treaty with 13 Native American chiefs for the purchase of property believed to include East Falls. Does it? We're still mulling that over, as we also explore the absurdity of land ownership to Native American sensibilities. Meanwhile -- what a bizarre collection of...
Big spring rains like we had earlier this month often flood the Schuylkill River, making for great photos of submerged roads and providing hours of television chatter for teams of meteorologists. Kelly Drive flooded. May 1, 2014 Often, such floods are minor inconveniences, causing traffic snarls and driving headaches. But springtime on the Schuylkill in the 19th century could be far more hazardous because of sudden ice thaws known as freshets....
Suburban Philadelphia's quintessential building material is called "Wissahickon Schist," and designers from the 18th thru the 20th centuries relied on this durable, easily-mined, and ubiquitous "pelitic schist" to create masterpieces in all styles: Italian Villa, Gothic Revival, Georgian, Colonial Revival, Second Empire... Our rampant use of Wissahickon schist is one of the reasons why streets of wildly-varied architecture feel seamlessly tied...
Funny thing about researching historical documents -- tracking them down is just the first part of the puzzle. The easier part, at that. Sure, if you knock on enough doors, eventually you'll find a wonderland of musty old bindings with quilled lettering that makes your eyes cross, helpfully providing facts that only lead to more questions. Check it out, copied from the the Historical Commission's archives at City Hall (as suggested by the...
"Breweriana" is how collectors of beer stuff like to refer to the "collectible historical Brewery advertising" they seek, which comes in many forms: trays, coasters, taps, signs -- just about any common item you can think of, a beer company has likely thought to slap its name on it. If you scan breweriana auctions today, you'll come across lots of interesting Hohenadel collectibles from home renovations here in Philadelphia, including things...
From a grand spire to a modest stub in only a hundred years, the steeple of the Falls of Schuylkill Baptist church shrinks in photos by Kenneth Finkel in his book "Philadelphia Then and Now: 60 Sites Photographed in the Past and Present." We don’t know why the steeple is so diminished (perhaps the Gale of 1878?)--but it is curious to us that one of the first churches in East Falls has gotten smaller as the community has grown. Finkel provides...
