Mills, Homesteads, and Villages

The Wissahickon Park is now prized as a beautiful forested gorge where people can get away from the urban bustle, but at one time it was a busy rural industrial area with two dozen mills, numerous quarries, and small surrounding villages. The Wissahickon Industrial Era lasted for about 200 years from the 1680’s to 1884. It began with land grants from William Penn who believed he had bought the land from the Lenape. However, to the Lenape, land was not something that could be owned any more than one can own the air or the clouds. When they “sold” their land to William Penn, historians believe they thought they were selling rights to use the land and did not have a concept of exclusionary ownership. But Europeans had a different concept of ownership, and once Penn made individual land grants, homesteading began and the industrial era started.

The Mills of the Wissahickon were an essential part of the survival, growth, and eventual independence of the colonies. They included grist mills, saw mills, bolting mills, paper mills, flax mills, linseed oil mills, cotton mills, dye works, carpet mills, blanket mills, and mills that made uniforms for the Union Army. Following the Civil War in 1868, the Fairmount Park Commission was established to protect the city’s Schuylkill River water supply from the constant industrial pollution that flowed from the mouth of the creek. By the mid 1800’s, the mills were technologically obsolete and faced stiff competition from mills along the Schuylkill where water and Railroad transportation were available to bring in coal fuel and ship products to market. Over time, the mills along the Wissahickon gorge were purchased from their last owners and dismantled.

Prominent families lived in the Wissahickon Valley not far from their mills: Gorgas, Kitchens, Livezey, Leverington, Magargee (or Megargee), Vandarens, and Dewees. They are still remembered in many street names such as Bell’s Mill Road and Wises Mill Road. These families intermarried and became the community elite. The mill workers were often immigrants who would stay only until they had earned enough money to move west where they could acquire their own land. Small villages grew up around the major mills where workers lived. By the end of the 1700’s, the nearby area of Flourtown was the major supplier of grain to the mills.

There were about 60 mills between the Wissahickon source in Montgomeryville and its mouth, including about two dozen mills in the gorge. The Wissahickon was an ideal creek for water power with a 335-foot drop along its whole length, including a 115-foot drop just within the gorge. Many locations were suitable for dams. Mills often started as small cottage industries. Cart roads connected the dams along the creek to Ridge and Germantown Avenues, but not to each other.

This article will describe 11 locations within the Wissahickon Park where mills were once located. As this land was taken over, the mills were torn down. Now, park visitors can find mill remnants in only a few places. However, there are two locations along the Wissahickon creek, outside the park, where visitors can see demonstrations of how the Wissahickon mills once worked—the Springfield Mill at Morris Arboretum and the Evans-Mumbauer Mill in Upper Gwynedd.

The Robeson Mills, built in 1687 at the mouth of the creek, were the earliest mills in the area. The complex consisted of three mills built on a 500-acre parcel that was given by William Penn to Robert Turner and shortly thereafter sold to Robert Townsend, who built the first mill and then sold it to Andrew Robeson. The parcel was named Shoomac Park. It included grist mills that ground grain, a saw mill, a bolting mill that made nails, an owner’s mansion (Milverton), and worker homes. The mills stayed in the Robeson family for 150 years and were known as “the Wissahickon Mills.” They were very important mills, grinding 45,000-50,000 bushels of corn each year from grain that came from Virginia, New York, and upstate Pennsylvania. (Contosta & Franklin p 104)

Eventually the Robeson mills were sold to the Vandaren family. In 1869, they were purchased by the Fairmount Park Commission. For a period of time in the early 20^th century, the property served as the Old Colony Club, a men’s fishing club. The property is currently home to the Philadelphia Canoe Club.

Two views of the Mouth of the Wissahickon:

The site of the Dobson Woolen Mill is now buried under Lincoln Drive. The drawings below show the Norristown Railroad Bridge in the background. The first mill on this site was a grist mill built as part of the Robeson complex in 1686. The mills often changed function as their owners changed. By 1862, this mill was making blue cloth uniforms for the Union Army. In August of that year, it burned down along with the wooden Railroad Bridge. Union troops encamped nearby helped fight the fire. Both the mill and the Railroad Bridge were so important to the local economy that they were soon rebuilt. At one time, Justine Lake occupied this site. It was later filled and became one of the City-operated summer swimming pools. It is now the site of the Legacy Tennis Center.

Nicholas Rittenhouse—Sarah Greenwood Mill

Located just downstream from Lover’s Leap and upstream from the Henry Avenue Bridge is the site of the Greenwood Woolen Mill. It may have been built around 1746 as the Nicolas Rittenhouse Grist Mill. It occupied a nine-acre tract that included an owner’s homestead and eight rented three- or four-story tenements for the workers, whose wives also earned money by boarding lodgers. In 1864, Sarah Greenwood purchased the mill from the Rittenhouse family and set up a woolen mill. The mill burned in 1873 and the property was sold for $42,500 to the Fairmount Park Commission. The remaining structure was demolished, but fires were a continuing hazard. Some mills had blow-out walls so that if the dust exploded it would blow away the wall, thus limiting the danger of fire.

Rittenhouse Town

A visit to the small museum at Historic RittenhouseTown will help you understand the mill communities of the Wissahickon Industrial Era. It is best reached from Wissahickon Avenue by a long driveway found between Walnut Lane and Lincoln Drive.

The Rittenhouse family has been prominent among millers for two centuries. The mills at RittenhouseTown started in 1690 with William Rittenhouse, a Dutch-German papermaker who immigrated to Pennsylvania from Holland. Eventually, six mills were built on the land, though not all operated at the same time. Mills were often destroyed in flash floods, explosions, or fire, but were occasionally rebuilt in a different location. It is difficult to know exactly where they were moved to.

The course and depth of the Monoshone has changed over time. By the time of the Civil War, the mills included the Ammerdown Blanket Mill just upstream from the mouth of the Monoshone. It produced blankets for the Union Army during the Civil War. Remnants of a dam are still visible along the path that leads from Ten Box to Historic RittenhouseTown.

In the colonial era, paper was made one sheet at a time from a pounded linen slurry on screening. After the water was pressed out, the sheets were removed from their screen and hung to dry. Only a limited number of sheets could be made in a day, thus making paper an expensive commodity. Later, wood pulp replaced linen and talc rock particles were added to some slurries to make currency. In general, mills were uncomfortable, noisy places to work. The air was full of dust, and accidents were common.

A large thriving village grew up at RittenhouseTown with over forty buildings, including worker residences, at least four Rittenhouse family homes, a school, a Baptist mission, and a volunteer firehouse. The community lasted for over 100 years, now only seven buildings remain. Tours are available by David Bower upon appointment.

Across the street was a large quarry that provided much of the high-quality stone used for buildings and paving in the area. The McKinney quarry was on land leased from the Rittenhouse family. It employed seventy-five workers, covered six acres, and was seventy feet deep. It closed in 1910 and eventually was filled in to make Saylor Grove at Wissahickon Avenue and Lincoln Drive.

Mill communities were a center of patriot guerrilla and spy activity during the Revolutionary War. Their uniform was a rectangle of Rittenhouse paper worn in the cap. Mills were subject to British military activity.

There were two additional Rittenhouse Mills outside RittenhouseTown. The Nicholas Rittenhouse Mill has been described above. The second was the Henry Rittenhouse Mill, built in 1831 as a grist mill and rebuilt in 1859. In 1873, it was purchased by the Fairmount Park Commission for $46,000 and demolished 5 years later. The remaining ruins of its dam and its foundation can be found on the east side of the creek close to the Bluestone Bridge that replaced the old Red Covered Bridge in 1898.

Kitchen’s Mill, located upstream from the Henry Rittenhouse mill, was built as a grist mill on thirty-three acres by Joseph Gorgas in 1747. Gorgas died in 1766 and the mill changed hands several times. It was converted to a paper mill in 1803 and bought by William Kitchens in 1852. It was nearby a covered bridge. Due to an error in a calendar produced decades ago, the picture of this mill was mislabeled as the Livesey Mill at Glen Fern. David Contosta and Carol Franklin, authors of Metropolitan Paradise, definitively corrected this error through several pictures they found that connected the mill photograph to pictures of the covered bridge and several outlying buildings. (Contosta and Franklin Vol 1 p 125)

In the beginning of the industrial era, water power was plentiful along the creek. However, the clear-cutting of the nearby forest made water power unreliable. Without plant roots, soil cannot hold water and will release it slowly over time. The spring thaw resulted in rapid run off and flooding. In summer, the creek dried up. After the 1820’s, the owners began supplementing water power with steam power. Pictures of mills taken in the mid-19^th century show tall smoke stacks. Kitchen’s Mill ceased operations well before the Fairmount Park Commission purchased the property in 1873.

Around 1850, Joseph Gorgas, then mill-owner, built a three-story home called the Monastery. It replaced a one-room log cabin called The Kloster built by the German 7^th Day Baptists (The Brethren) for meetings and worship. Looking for more solitude, the sect had moved westward to the Cloisters in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. Joseph Gorgas was active in that sect and frequently housed the Brethren who traveled through the Philadelphia area. A marker along the creek side commemorates a solemn 1723 Christmas Day baptism.

The Monastery may have served as a stop on the underground Railroad. It contains a closet with a false floor and a tunnel opening onto hillside. In the 1930’s, it was part of the Golf course at Monastery Fields. In the 1940’s and 50’s, it housed the Fairmount Park mounted guard. They closed up the tunnels because wild animals would come into the house. Even in the late 1980’s, the closed tunnel entrances were visible inside the basement.

Kitchen’s Mill had several close neighbors at the Livezey, Magargee, and Gorgas mills. Close by on Oil Mill Run were two Gorgas mills—a grist mill and an oil mill known as “the haunted mill.” Both mills burned. One owner, John Wise Sr., died when his head was caught in the water wheel. There are no visible remains of these mills yet discovered.

The Livezey Homestead was likely established shortly before 1700 by Thomas Shoemaker who built a grist mill on the site. Livezey bought the property from him, enlarged the mill, and lived there with his wife and eleven children in a stone cottage that he named Glen Fern. Along with the large grist mill, Livezey owned farm land on both sides of the creek, including a vineyard. He is said to have buried bottles of wine in the creek behind the dam to keep them from raiding parties during the revolution. He also sent some of his wines to Benjamin Franklin in Paris. Livezey’s land extended to what we know today as Devil’s Pool upstream and the Valley Green Inn downstream.

Livezey was much more than a miller of the Germantown community. He helped establish the Union School, the first non-sectarian school in the nation and the precursor of Germantown Academy. He was one of the founders of Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the colonies. Livezey was an influential, highly respected Quaker and a pacifist. He was not in favor of independence from Great Britain. When he gave shelter to a fleeing soldier, he was arrested and held in a safe place until the British surrendered. But contrary to the fates of other Loyalists, he was not banished after the war.

Thomas Livezey died in 1790, but his descendants continued to operate the mill until the mid-1800’s. It burned down in 1793 but was so important to the local economy that it was immediately rebuilt. The Fairmount Park Commission bought the property in 1893 along with numerous abandoned out-buildings that remained until the early 1900’s. The out-buildings were then torn down, as was a narrow cart bridge that crossed to Roxborough and a high pipe bridge that at one time carried water from the Roxborough reservoirs to Germantown. However, the bridge foundations and the back wall of the mill are still visible.

For many years Glen Fern was occupied and maintained by the Valley Green Canoe Club.

Over time maintenance fell far behind. Fortunately, Glen Fern then got two devoted caretakers under the Fairmount Park Conservancy Caretaker program, Craig Johnson his wife Carolyn Adams. Glen Fern needed more than $150,000 for restoration. With its beautiful natural surroundings, it seemed an ideal location for Craig’s profession designing nature center exhibits. However, Craig and Carolyn faced many challenges as Fairmount Park Conservancy caretakers in upkeep and safe maintenance. The house is drafty and cold, they could not drink the water, every three weeks the septic tank required an expensive cleaning, and the electrical system needed to be redone. Interested in restoring this 250-year old home accurately, they researched and restored the original colors. Park visitors owe a debt of gratitude to all the caregivers who take on similar responsibilities for many historic buildings in the Fairmount Park system.

The Magargees, owners of two Wissahickon mills, were another prominent Philadelphia family. The site of their lower mill is located a short distance upstream from the intersection of Wises Mill Road and Forbidden Drive. It was first built in 1728 by John Gorgas and William Dewees as the third paper mill in the Wissahickon. From 1766-1844, it was used as a grist mill with three different owners—Paul, Shoemaker, and Wise, whose name remains on the road leading to this location. In 1844, it was acquired by Charles Magargee who returned it to a paper mill in 1853. Attempting to deal with the inconsistency of the water supply, Magargee built reservoirs on both sides of the creek uphill from the mill. One was along Hartwell Lane. When necessary, the pipes carried water by gravity to the mill. Both the Livezey and Kitchen’s Mill operators also used stone reservoirs. (Contosta and Franklin Vol 1 p 137)

Until pollution from the mills became a problem, the Wissahickon water was famous for its clarity and the whiteness of the paper. Magargee’s was the first mill to experiment with wood pulp in paper making and the last mill to operate along the Wissahickon creek. It was bought by the Fairmount Park Commission in 1884 and demolished. The foundation of the office and a small portion of the mill wall remain to this day.

The Upper Magargee Mill and Magargee homestead is at the Thomas Mill Red Covered Bridge on the east side of the creek. It was built in the 1760’s by Joseph Paul III as a grist mill. It shipped 165,000 barrels of flour a year to Philadelphia. Magargee acquired it in the 1850’s and changed it to a paper mill. The Fairmount Park Commission purchased it in 1871-72. The mill race is still visible carrying water under the east side of the bride.

Bishoff’s Mill, located at Bells Mill Road and Forbidden Drive on the east side of the creek, began as a grist mill in 1710. As did other mills, it changed owners frequently. In 1733, it became Paul’s Mill. In 1801, Isaiah Bell became owner. A new bridge carrying traffic between Chestnut Hill and Roxborough was built in 1829, which still carries Bell’s name. In 1844, it became Thorp’s mill and was converted to a calico printing, bleaching, and dyeing mill. Workers lived in nearby homes. By 1862, its name was the Tedyuscung Wool and Cotton Factory, and it was a major source of industrial pollution. Remnants of the mill dam are visible upstream from the bridge.

Creshiem Creek Mills

There was at least a half dozen mills along the Cresheim Creek tributary of the Wissahickon with four millponds, numerous out-buildings, and workers’ homes. Their owners and functions changed from grist mills to fulling mills to textile mills as community economic needs changed. The largest and last of these mills was the Colrad-Holgate Mill, just downstream from the current McCallum Street Bridge. It operated in the mid-18^th century as a fulling mill that cleaned and otherwise prepared home-woven linens for use. Flax, a major crop grown in Germantown, was spun into yarn for making linen. With subsequent owners, the mills name and function changed to a cotton and carpet mill that operated until 1900. In 1906, it was purchased by George Woodward and torn down. Its land was donated to Fairmount Park.

To turn the lower Wissahickon Valley into a restored “wilderness” park, the mills inside Philadelphia were all torn down. Many of them were in ruins when they were demolished. The Cresheim Creek mills were the last to go in the early 1900’s. However, by the early 20^th century, a significant number of area residents became interested in preserving its history. There was a feeling of nostalgia at the loss of these once important small mill communities. Only Historic RittenhouseTown remained.

Current visitors can find little evidence of the bustling rural industrial era, but use your imagination when you next visit the park. Conjure up the sounds of water wheels, of wagons drawn by horses or mules, of drivers urging their teams up steep hillsides, of workers shouting to each other at the noisy mills, of women at work at nearby homes, and children playing near the creek. Look for remnants of dams and foundations at the Blue Stone Bridge, the Magargee Dam, and at the Thomas Mill Covered Bridge where you can also see the mill race. Just downstream from Glen Fern, look for the standing wall of the Livezey mill and the foundations of another long-gone bridge. Maybe you will find other remnants from prior centuries that have been lost to the passage of time.

by Sarah West

Sources

• McFarland and Magee, The Wissahickon Mills, a three volume set of typed manuscripts written in the 1940’s and available in the Central Brach and Chestnut Hill Branches of the Philadelphia Library.
• Francis Burke Brandt, The Wissahickon Valley
• David Contosta & Carol Franklin, Metropolitan Paradise Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley 1620-2020
• 1982. McArthur Harris, Wissahickon Anthology, Germantown Crier. Vol 33-36, 1981-1983, Germantown Crier, Volume 37 #3, Summer 1985, vol 34 #1, winter 1982.
• Helen Moak, Jefferson Moak, and Sioux Baldwin, “The Wissahickon, a place to heal both mind and body”, Chestnut Hill Local, December 13, 1990
• Amy Scott Adventures in Housing, NPR’s Marketplace. (describes Caretaking of Glen fern). https://www.marketplace.org/2020/01/06/adventures-in-housing-the-caretaker/
• Victoria Marchiony and Alison Vayne, Rediscovering The Past At Glen Fern; Chestnut Hill Local, July 2014. https://philadelphianeighborhoods.com/2014/07/14/northwest-rediscovering-the-past-at-glen-fern/

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