Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Germantown is a neighborhood in the Northwest Philadelphia section of the city of Philadelphia, about six miles northwest from the center of the city. The neighborhood is rich in historic sites and buildings, a number of which are open to the public.
Germantown stretches for about two miles along Germantown Avenue northwest from Windrim and Roberts Avenues. The boundaries of Germantown borough at the time it was absorbed into the city of Philadelphia were Wissahickon Avenue, Roberts Avenue, Wister Street, Stenton Avenue and Washington Lane. The next neighborhood to the northwest, Mount Airy, starts around Johnson Street, though there is no universally recognized exact boundary.
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[edit] History
Germantown was founded by Dutch settlers[1], augmented with a smaller number of people from present-day Germany, in 1681. At the time, the German nation did not exist and the word German referred to people of central and northern Europe[2], hence the origin of the name. Most were Quakers who came over in response to the appeal of William Penn. (Penn had carefully courted Dutch Quakers for his colony, and his mother was Dutch.[3]) Germantown (whose original name seems to have been lost) remained almost exclusively Dutch until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Only then did German immigration gain momentum, and soon dominated the area.[4]. Today the founding-day of Germantown on October 6, 1683, is remembered as German-American Day, a holiday in the United States, observed annually on October 6.
On August 12, 1689, William Penn at London signed a charter constituting some of the inhabitants a corporation by the name of "the bailiff, burgesses and commonalty of Germantown, in the county of Philadelphia, in the province of Pennsylvania." Francis Daniel Pastorius was the first bailiff. Jacob Telner, Dirck Isaacs Opdegraaf, Herman Isaacs Opdegraaf, Reynier Tyson, and Tennis Coender were burgesses, besides six committeemen. They had authority to hold "the general court of the corporation of Germantowne," to make laws for the government of the settlement, and to hold a court of record. This court went into operation in 1690, and continued its services for sixteen years. Sometimes, to distinguish Germantown from the upper portion of German township, outside the borough, the township portion was called Upper Germantown.
In 1688, Pastorius drew up the first written protest against African slavery in American history.
When Philadelphia was occupied by the British during the American Revolutionary War, several units were housed in Germantown. In the Battle of Germantown, in 1777, the Continental Army attacked this garrison. During the battle, a party of citizens fired on the British troops, as they marched up the Avenue, and mortally wounded British Brigadier General Agnew. The Americans withdrew after firing on one another in the confusion of the battle, leading to the determination that the battle resulted in a defeat of the Americans. However, the inspirational battle was considered an important victory by the feisty Americans. The American loss was 673; the British loss was 575. The battle is called a victory by the Americans because along with the Army's success under Brigadier General Horatio Gates at Saratoga on October 17 when Burgoyne surrendered, it led to the official recognition of the Americans by France, which formed an alliance with the Americans afterwards.
For a time after the war, George Washington rented the Deshler-Morris House in Germantown to escape the central city and the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. The first bank of the United States was also located here during his administration.
Louisa May Alcott, the author of the novel Little Women, was born in Germantown in 1832. Germantown proper, and the adjacent German Township, were incorporated into the City of Philadelphia in 1854 by the Act of Consolidation.
Bright April, a 1946 book written and illustrated by Marguerite de Angeli, is illustrated with scenes of Germantown of the 1940s while addressing the divisive issue of racial prejudice experienced by African Americans, a daring topic for a children's book of that time. Selected digital images of this book are available here
[edit] Education
Germantown, as with all areas of Philadelphia, is zoned to schools in the School District of Philadelphia. Germantown High School is in Germantown.
Germantown is the location of the private Germantown Friends School as well as Greene Street Friends School. (A third Quaker school, the William Penn Charter School, is in adjacent neighborhood East Falls.) The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf currently occupies the former site of Germantown Academy, which moved to Fort Washington, Pennsylvania in 1965.
[edit] Notable Historic Sites
[edit] Historic District
| Colonial Germantown Historic District | |
|---|---|
| (U.S. National Historic Landmark) | |
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| Location: | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Built/Founded: | 1683 |
| Architect: | Multiple |
| Architectural style(s): | Colonial, Georgian, Federal |
| Added to NRHP: | October 15, 1966[5] |
| NRHP Reference#: | 66000678[6] |
| Governing body: | Local |
The Colonial Germantown Historic District, which includes the 4500 to 7600 blocks of Germantown Avenue (between Windrim and Upsal Streets), has been designated a National Historic Landmark. It comprises 60 buildings, including:
- Deshler-Morris House
- Grumblethorpe, an important site during the Battle of Germantown
- John Johnson House
- Upsala
- Winston Commons
- Wyck House
[edit] Other National Historic Landmarks
- Cliveden, the estate of Benjamin Chew, an important site during the Battle of Germantown
- Germantown Cricket Club
- Rittenhousetown Historic District
- Stenton
[edit] Other historic sites
- Alden Park
- Barron House
- Concord School
- Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion and The Grange Estate
- Gilbert Stuart Studio
- Green Tree Tavern
- Lower Burial Ground(Hood Cemetery)
- Vernon Park
- Mennonite Meetinghouse
- Loudoun
- The Connie Mack House
[edit] Notable residents
- Louisa May Alcott, (1832-1888), born in Germantown, noted author of the Little Women series of books[7]
- James Barron, naval hero
- Martin Grove Brumbaugh, Governor of Pennsylvania, 1914-1919
- Charlotte Wardle Cardeza (née Drake), Titanic Passenger
- Benjamin Chew, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania
- Bill Cosby, entertainer
- Charles Darrow, inventor of Monopoly game
- Nelson Graves, Philadelphian cricketer died in Germantown in 1918
- Rufus Harley, jazz musician
- Bernard Hopkins, professional boxer
- George Lippard, 19th-century novelist, journalist, playwright, social activist, labor organizer, most widely-read author in the United States 1844-1854
- Eric Lobron, German chess champion of American descent
- James Logan, statesman
- G. Love, born Garrett Dutton III, front man of the musical band G. Love and Special Sauce
- Connie Mack, winningest manager in Major League baseball history
- Jimmy McGriff, jazz musician
- George T. Morgan, former chief engraver at the United States Mint
- Francis Daniel Pastorius, leader of Germantown settlement
- Sun Ra, surrealist and musician
- Edmund Randolph, the first United States Attorney General
- David Rittenhouse, astronomer and mathematician and first director of the United States Mint
- Francis Schaeffer, theologian, especially influential as an Apologist
- Ron Sider, founder, Evangelicals for Social Action
- Gilbert Stuart, painter
- Frederick Winslow Taylor, engineer, management theorist, and consultant
- Owen Wister, author
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Germantown is now generally thought to be of German origin (logically enough), but ...
- ^ (1971) Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press.
- ^ Penn, whose mother was Dutch, had(...).
- ^ Essay on Dutch Americans and their founding of Germantown.
- ^ Listing at the National Park Service
- ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
- ^ (1963) Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who.
[edit] External links
- Web pages Describing Historic Germantown
- Art by Joseph Ropes (1812-1885), Scene in Germantown, Pa., 1874
- Art by Anna Peale Sellers (1824-1905), Belfield Farm (near Germantown)
- Art by William Britton, Market Square, Germantown, c. 1820
- Greater Germantown Housing Development Corporation
- East Germantown Blight Certification, City Planning Commission, 2003
- Phillyhistory.org, Historic Photographs of Philadelphia, City Archives
- Germantown Historical Society
[edit] Resources
- Chronology of the Political Subdivisions of the County of Philadelphia, 1683-1854
- Information courtesy of ushistory.org
- Incorporated District, Boroughs, and Townships in the County of Philadelphia, 1854 By Rudolph J. Walther - excerpted from the book at the ushistory.org website
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