A guide book of art, architecture, and historic interests in Pennsylvania
History
A guide book of art, architecture, and historic interests in Pennsylvania
Architecture -- Pennsylvania; Art -- Pennsylvania; Historic buildings -- Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania -- Guidebooks; Pennsylvania -- History
STRAWBERRY MANSION, near Dauphin Street entrance; residence of William
Lewis; then called Summerville, now used as a restaurant; name was given
when added to the park; fine colonial architecture; main hall shows
still how beautiful it must have been, with exquisite handwork on
cornices, wainscoting, and niches in the hall ornamented with hand
tracery.
Along the river drive we pass other country seats known as Harleigh,
Fairy Hill, and the Laurels, now South, Central, and North Laurel Hill.
Near the Falls on east side of Ridge Road, stood the home of Governor
Thomas Mifflin, the fighting Quaker; from the Falls bridge a fine view
is obtained of the Schuylkill Navy’s race course.
Farther up is the WISSAHICKON Creek, Wisamickan (Catfish Creek), or
Wisaucksickan (yellow colored stream); we enter the deep recesses of
this ravine, where the waters empty into the Schuylkill River;
tradition says that on the northwest bank stood a flour mill; in
Revolutionary times the owner ground glass or plaster, with the wheat,
for the patriot army, for this crime some of Washington’s soldiers
hanged him on a tree in front of his mill; here General Armstrong’s
corps attacked the Hessian and British soldiers, October 4, 1777, while
the Battle of Germantown was in progress: up the Wissahickon drive is
Maple Spring Hotel, decorated by grotesque figures of animals and birds,
carved out of native laurel; beyond this, across the stream, are abrupt
bluffs, from one, the most prominent, called Lover’s Leap, tradition
says, a young Indian and the girl whom he loved, being forbidden to
marry, plunged into the waters below and were drowned; a steep grade
leads to the six-mile stone; here Paper Mill Run empties into the
Wissahickon, and here Nicholas Rittenhouse had his grist mill; just
beyond, close beside an old bridge, is a quaint old house, inside is a
stone tablet marked “C. W. R. 1707,” here DAVID RITTENHOUSE, the famous
astronomer, was born; on Paper Mill Run, the first paper mill in this
country was erected, about 1690, by William Rittenhouse: a portion of
this land near Tulpehocken Street, within park limits, once belonged to
the Queen of Spain; farther is the Blue Stone Bridge, and just beyond is
Lotus Inn.
Northward, the east shore becomes more steep, to Mom Rinker’s Rock, she
is said to have been a witch; upon the height stands a statue of WILLIAM
PENN, with the single word “Toleration” cut on the pedestal; the statue
and land were given to the city, for park purposes, by Hon. John Welsh,
ex-minister to England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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