Wissahickon Creek
Encyclopedia
Wissahickon Creek is a stream
in southeastern Pennsylvania
. Rising in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
, it runs about 23 miles (37 km) passing through and dividing Northwest Philadelphia
before emptying into the Schuylkill River
at Philadelphia
. Its watershed covers about 64 square miles (165.8 km²).
Much of the creek now runs through or next to parkland, with the last few miles running through a deep gorge. The beauty of this area attracted the attention of literary personages like Edgar Allan Poe
and John Greenleaf Whittier
. The gorge area is now part of the Fairmount Park
system in Philadelphia, and the Wissahickon Valley is known as one of 600 National Natural Landmark
s of the United States.
The name of the creek comes from the Lenape language
for "catfish creek" or "stream of yellowish color". On the earliest map of this region of Pennsylvania, by Thomas Holme
, the stream is called Whitpaine's creek, after one of the original settlers with William Penn
. Industry sprang up along the Wissahickon not long after European settlement, with America's first paper mill set up on one of the Wissahickon's tributaries. A few of the dams built for the mills remain visible today.
Though at first fairly tame, in its last 7 miles (11 km), the Wissahickon stream drops over 100 feet (30 m) in altitude. Its dramatic geography and dense forest attract thousands of walkers, riders, and bikers. Except for the main trail that parallels the stream, Forbidden (or Wissahickon) Drive, permits are required to bicycle or ride horseback on the trails. All users of the park are asked to stay on marked trails to protect against erosion.
Forbidden Drive, also known as Wissahickon Drive, is the gravel road which follows the Wissahickon Creek from Lincoln Drive to the County Line and is the most popular point of access to explore the stream valley. Originally known as Upper Wissahickon Drive, it received its current name in the 1920s when automobiles were first banned from the road. As stated above, Forbidden Drive is the only trail open to bicyclists and equestrians without a permit.
A paved path on the west bank connects the junction of Forbidden Drive and Lincoln Drive south to Ridge Avenue at the confluence of the Wissahickon and Schuylkill River. This path is a popular access point for cyclists coming off the River Drive bike paths to Center City Philadelphia, or for pedestrians departing the Manayunk/Norristown Line
transit route at Wissahickon Station or Bus Interchange.
Forbidden Drive is also accessible at its midpoint at the Valley Green Inn. Valley Green Road can be reached from Springfield Avenue in Chestnut Hill
, two blocks west of St. Martin's Lane and the St. Martin's R8 Station. Just above Valley Green, Wise's Mill Road meets Forbidden Drive, connecting it to Henry Avenue in Roxborough
. Wise's Mill Road may be the same as that described in Edgar Allan Poe's
1844 story "Morning on the Wissahiccon
": "I would advise the adventurer who would behold its finest points to take the Ridge Road, running westwardly from the city, and, having reached the second lane beyond the sixth mile-stone, to follow this lane to its termination. He will thus strike the Wissahiccon, at one of its best reaches […]". Forbidden Drive ends at Northwestern Avenue (which is the county line) after crossing Bell's Mill Road.
A number of trails climb out of the valley from Forbidden Drive to the "upper trails" which run along the precipitous walls of the valley. Many of these upper trails have been marked with colored blazes. The green blazed trail has been designated a multi-use trail approved for mountain bikers with permits. The blue blazed trail has been designated a hiking trail only. All trails in the Andorra Natural Area are prohibited to all bicycles.
Devil's Pool is an attraction best reached from Valley Green by crossing the stream and taking the footpath on the eastern bank, going downstream to the mouth of the Cresheim Creek
. As the ravine widens into the Cresheim, the waters gather in a basin surrounded on either side by rocky outcroppings before flowing into the Wissahickon Creek. Legend has it that the Native American Lenape
tribes used this as a spiritual area. Although it is not legal due to unsafe levels of pollutants, Devil's pool has become a popular area to swim, lounge, and drink. Unfortunately, Devil's pool often falls victim to litter and vandalism. However, recent efforts to clean the site by the Friends of the Wissahickon have been moderately successful.
One of the most romantic hikes in this park leads to a precipice overlooking the gorge. It can be found by entering the main footpath at the Ridge Avenue entrance and following the west bank to Hermit's Lane Bridge. Coming from Blue Stone Bridge, follow the path at the west end to Lover's Leap.
Another well-known outlook in the park is Mom Rinker's Rock
, on a ridge on the eastern side of the Park just north of the Walnut Lane Bridge, close by the Toleration statue. Here on a moonlit night in May 1847, George Lippard
, romancer of the Wissahickon, was married to his frail young wife according to so-called Indian rites. Years afterward in 1883, the Toleration statue was erected, a marble statue of a man in simple Quaker clothing. Atop Mom Rinker's Rock, the nine-foot-eight-inch statue has the single word “Toleration” carved into its four-foot-three-inch base. Created by late 19th century sculptor Herman Kirn, it was brought to the site by landowner John Welsh, reported to have purchased the statue at the Centennial Exposition
in Philadelphia. Welsh, a former Fairmount Park Commissioner and U.S. Ambassador to Britain, donated his land to the Park prior to his death in 1886.
Some miles away is the path leading to the Indian statue, a dramatic 15 ft (4.5 m) high white marble sculpture of a kneeling Lenape warrior which was sculpted in 1902 by John Massey Rhind. (The statue is popularly but erroneously known as "Teedyuscung," the name of an 18th-century Delaware chief.) Commissioned by Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Henry, it is a tribute to the Lenape Indians who hunted and fished in the Wissahickon prior to the arrival of colonists. The statue can also be viewed from Forbidden Drive across the creek if one stands just north of the path to the Rex Avenue Bridge.
sandstone
and shale
, the limestone
and dolomite
of the Chester Valley, and the Wissahickon Formation
where the waters of the stream flow into the Schuylkill and eventually the Delaware Rivers.
A unique and very distinctive rock of the Wissahickon Creek valley is Wissahickon schist, the predominant bedrock underlying the Philadelphia region, found over a broad swath of southeastern Pennsylvania from Trenton into Delaware and Maryland. This Precambrian
to Cambrian
stone, first studied in the Wissahickon gorge, has flecks of glittery mica
, small garnets
, and many-toned shadings of gray, brown, tan, and blue, and is attractive enough to have become a common building material in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In addition to Wissahickon schist, there are layers of quartzite
in the valley. Both schist and quartzite are metamorphic rock
s formed from sedimentary
deposits of mud and sand that one time were washed from ancient continents into a shallow sea. These sedimentary deposits were over time compressed into shale and sandstone. During long periods of mountain building, the shale and sandstone were slowly transformed into the schist and quartzite found today. In some places, the compression and heat were extreme enough to fuse the schist with emerging igneous rock
s into hard-banded gneiss
.
Other rocks in the valley are layers of igneous pegmatite
and remains of granite
pluton
s, embedded crystal
s within the schist. A few locations close to Devil’s Pool and along Bell’s Mill Road have a talc
schist which contains the mineral talc, so soft it can be scratched with a fingernail.
A virtual geologic tour of Wissahickon Creek is available at this site.
arrived in Philadelphia with a group of like-minded German Pietists
to live in the valley of the Wissahickon Creek. They formed a monastic-type of community and became known as the Hermits or Mystics of the Wissahickon. Kelpius was a musician, writer, and occult
ist. He frequently meditated (some believe in a cave—the Cave of Kelpius 40.023544°N 75.200665°W) along the banks of the Wissahickon and awaited the end of the world, which was expected in 1694. No sign or revelation accompanied that year, but the faithful continued to live in celibacy
by the stream, searching the stars and hoping for the end. Kelpius described the type of meditation he used in his Method of Prayer. (See Further Reading below on this book.) Kelpius died in 1708 and the group disbanded some time thereafter. Some members likely gave up on celibacy and married. A few joined the somewhat like-minded religious colony of Ephrata Cloister
under Conrad Beissel
in Ephrata
, Lancaster County
, even though no previous connection existed between the two communities. At least two from the original group, Johann Seelig and Konrad Matthaei, continued as hermits along the Wissahickon into the 1740s.
Other religious groups were also associated with the Wissahickon: On Christmas Day in 1723 the first congregation of the Church of the Brethren
in America - often called Dunkard Brethren
– baptized several new members in the stream. Around 1747 an individual with connections to both the Dunkards and the Ephrata Cloister built a stone house on land previously owned by Dunkards. The structure, used for church retreats, still stands today, and is known as The Monastery
, a remaining witness to the Wissahickon’s days as an isolated religious refuge.
s by 1850, though the thickly forested region about the stream still retained the character of a wilderness. Access roads were being constructed into the steep valley, but there was still no road that followed the stream itself. The nature of the rugged terrain can be comprehended in an event that had occurred during the Revolutionary War
Battle of Germantown
, which was fought not too far from the stream. The American General John Armstrong, compelled by the rough terrain to abandon a cannon in the valley, expressed his contempt for the "horrendous hills of the Wissahickon." Later legends tell of American spies taking advantage of the terrain to retrieve information from an informant named Mom Rinker, who allegedly perched atop a rock overlooking the valley to drop balls of yarn which contained messages about British troop movements during the occupation of Philadelphia. This is likely a legend, for other stories speak of a witch named Mom Rinkle who had little to do with the Revolution. There is a Mom Rinker's Rock
in the park today.
Not until 1826 were the cliffs near the creek’s mouth blasted away to provide access to the cluster of mills at Rittenhousetown, approximately 1.5 mi (2.4 km) up the creek on Paper Mill Run
(also known as Monoshone Creek), a small tributary of the Wissahickon. Here William Rittenhouse
(grandfather of the astronomer David Rittenhouse
) had in the early 18th century built the first paper mill in America. Gradually this road and other mill access roads were connected, and in 1856 a private toll road
, the Wissahickon Turnpike, linked the entire valley (1908 photo). Long gone were the religious mystics; here instead the mills of Wissahickon Creek made paper, cloth, gunpowder, sawed lumber, milled wheat and corn, and pressed oil from flax. A sizable population worked at the mills and lived in the valley in small villages like Rittenhousetown and Pumpkinville. The nation was becoming an industrial nation, and the Wissahickon was leading the way.
This would soon change. Benjamin Franklin
already had noted in his will the high elevation and quality of Wissahickon water, proposing that in some future day the stream be dammed to supply a safe and pure water source for Philadelphia’s water supply, and even allocating funds for this purpose. This did not happen, but the quest for pure water affected the Wissahickon’s subsequent history. Seeking to prevent the stream’s industrial discharges from affecting the purity of the water of the Schuylkill River, the Fairmount Park
Commission took title of much of the land along the Wissahickon in 1869-1870, and continued to expand its holdings in subsequent decades. The mills were razed; the last active mill was demolished in 1884. Several decades later the Schuylkill River itself became seriously polluted by sources in the coal fields far upstream beyond Philadelphia’s control, but the waters of the Wissahickon had been restored and the beauty of the Wissahickon Valley had been preserved. Most of America became more industrialized, but the Wissahickon valley quietly returned to its original wilderness character.
The reason the Wissahickon Valley retained its wilderness character, even after its clean waters were no longer essential to the water supply of the city of Philadelphia, was the advent of Romanticism
and the changing attitudes which this thought engendered about nature. Before the 19th century, nature had seemed a capricious and ambivalent force, at times a dream, but at times a nightmare. Nature, according to orthodox Christian thought, had fallen with man; though the Renaissance brought about both a new view of mankind and nature, this new attitude took time to grow, but it eventually resulted in a literary and artistic movement known as Romanticism. Romantics valued heroism and chivalry in people, and regarded the wild, free, and untamed nature as the “natural” model of true beauty
. Philadelphians finally came to value their Wissahickon valley for its wild character. Even when the mills were still operating, there were remote stretches of wild bluffs and overarching trees; now the old mills had become romantic and picturesque, with mossy stone walls suggesting medieval ruins. In 1924, area residents formed the non-profit group "Friends of the Wissahickon", which still works to maintain the park's unique landscape to this day. Remarks on the Wissahickon in literature by such as Fanny Kemble, Edgar Allan Poe, George Lippard, and others are noted below.
However much the stream and its valley were appreciated, it still divided parts of the city. To help overcome this, in 1906 the Walnut Lane Bridge
was built over the stream, a world-class undertaking at the time, the world's largest poured concrete structure, joining the Roxborough and Germantown neighborhoods of Philadelphia, formerly separated by the Wissahickon gorge. The bridge is but 480 feet (146 m) long, with a width of 60 feet (18 m), but its center arch spans an impressive 225 feet (69 m), the crown of the arch is 109 feet (33 m) above the water, and the sidewalks of the bridge 120 feet (37 m) above the Wissahickon.
Today the Wissahickon is a quiet stream flowing through a beautiful gorge and park. The sole surviving commercial establishment from the pre-park days is the Valley Green Inn, but that establishment is now an integral part of the park and creek valley. Most visitors to the stream today seek the Wissahickon for reasons not too different from those of Kelpius
and his followers in 1694: quiet respite from the world outside.
Once the stream enters the city of Philadelphia, the creek valley and its deeply wooded gorge form part of the Fairmount Park system in Philadelphia, a jewel of a park and of nature set in the middle of an urban landscape. The park here is a ruggedly beautiful valley for the naturalists, artists, fishermen, bicyclists, equestrians, and hikers who are drawn to the wooded, steep banks of the stream. Precipitous wooded inclines that rise more than 200 feet (61 m) above the water create a feeling of remoteness and mountain vastness. There are two main and many smaller bridle paths crossing the park's 1372 acres (5.6 km²) along the Wissahickon Creek. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=hhsheet&fileName=pa/pa1100/pa1178/sheet/browse.db&action=browse&recNum=0&title2=Covered%20Bridge,%20Thomas%20Mill%20Road%20(Spanning%20Wissahickon%20Creek),%20Philadelphia,%20Philadelphia%20County,%20PA&displayType=1&maxCols=2&itemLink=D?hh:21:./temp/~ammem_kyj1::@@@mdb=mcc,gottscho,detr,nfor,wpa,aap,cwar,bbpix,cowellbib,calbkbib,consrvbib,bdsbib,dag,fsaall,gmd,pan,vv,presp,varstg,suffrg,nawbib,horyd,wtc,toddbib,mgw,ncr,ngp,musdibib,hlaw,papr,lhbumbib,rbpebib,lbcoll,alad,hh,aaodyssey,magbell,bbcards,dcm,raelbib,runyon,dukesm,lomaxbib,mtj,gottlieb,aep,qlt,coolbib,fpnas,aasm,scsm,denn,relpet,amss,aaeo,mffbib,afc911bib,mjm,mnwp,rbcmillerbib,molden,ww2map,hawp,cwband,flwpabib,wpapos,cmns,psbib,pin,coplandbib,cola,tccc,curt,mharendt,lhbcbbib,eaa,haybib,mesnbib,fine,cwnyhs,llstbib,fawbib,berl,fmuever,cdn,upboverbib,mussm,cic,afcpearl,awh,awhbib,sgp,wright,lhbtnbib,afcesnbib,hurstonbib,mreynoldsbib,spaldingbib,sgproto,omhbib,rbaapcbib,mal,ncpsbib,ncpm,lhbprbib,ftvbib,afcreed,aipn,svybib,mmorse,afcwwgbib,mymhiwebib,uncall,mfd,afcwip,mtaft,manzThomas Mill Road] covered bridge
spans the creek in the park. The Wissahickon Valley is one of fewer than 600 National Natural Landmark
s in America. Recently, interest in reintroducing brook trout to the Wissahickon Valley portion of Fairmount park has been growing.
in his book Rural Rides, which takes the form of a series of letters. In one dated 1821 he said,
Actress Fanny Kemble
, grandmother to novelist Owen Wister
, visited the stream in 1832; her writing awakened a more general interest in the stream and its valley. Her description of the gorge's dramatic end at the stream's confluence with the Schuylkill River and her verse To the Wissahickon both sparked a keen interest in this natural treasure often overlooked by its neighbors. She wrote:
Edgar Allan Poe
alluded to Fanny Kemble's writing in his description of a beautiful Wissahickon valley in his 1844 essay "Morning on the Wissahiccon
", in which he wrote:
The erratic and almost forgotten novelist George Lippard
frequently wrote about the Wissahickon, and was even married at sunset on or around May 14, 1847, on a rocky crag called Mom Rinker's Rock
, overlooking the stream. One of his books, The Rose of Wissahikon; or, The Fourth of July, 1776. A Romance, Embracing the Secret History of the Declaration of Independence (1847) may refer not only to the Wissahickon, but to his wife, the former Rose Newman. He wrote:
Depending on one of Lippard's mostly contrived stories, John Greenleaf Whittier
wrote about Johannes Kelpius
and his followers on the Wissahickon in his 1872 poem Pennsylvania Pilgrim:
Christopher Morley
also portrayed the valley's beauty in his writings.
The Wissahickon is mentioned very briefly in A Biography of the Poet, Sidney Lanier
by Edwin Mims.
Mark Twain
mentioned the Wissahickon during the short time he spent in Philadelphia working for The Philadelphia Inquirer
: "Unlike New York, I like this Philadelphia amazingly, and the people in it […] I saw small steamboats, with their signs up—"For Wissahickon and Manayunk 25 cents." Geo. Lippard, in his Legends of Washington and his Generals, has rendered the Wissahickon sacred in my eyes, and I shall make that trip, as well as one to Germantown, soon […]"
The angler, artist, and author Ron P. Swegman
has made Wissahickon Creek the focal point of two essay collections, Philadelphia on the Fly (Frank Amato Publications, 2005 "http://www.amazon.com/dp/1571883614") and Small Fry: The Lure of the Little (The Whitefish Press, 2009 "http://www.whitefishpress.com/bookdetail.asp?book=87"). Both books describe the Wissahickon Valley and the experience of fly fishing along Wissahickon Creek in the early twenty-first century.
Artists have portrayed the stream and its valley:
There exists a Currier & Ives Scenery Of The Wissahickon
The Swann Memorial Fountain
(1924), a fountain sculpture by Alexander Stirling Calder
that is located in the center of Logan Circle
, also known by its historic name Logan Square, in Philadelphia, contains three large Native American figures that symbolize the area’s major streams: the Delaware, the Schuylkill, and the Wissahickon. The young girl leaning on her side against an agitated, water-spouting swan represents the Wissahickon Creek.
There exists sheet music mentioning the Wissahickon:
"Wissahickon Drive" is the name of one of the tracks on the CD Here's to You by the Bog Wanderers, "a collection of original, contemporary and traditional slides, jigs, reels, waltzes and songs." Liner notes say the tune is "of the great fiddler/composer Liz Carroll."
starring Nancy Allen
and John Travolta
, the car crash that Travolta's character records is of an auto traveling northbound on Lincoln Drive and crashing headfirst into the Wissahickon Creek. The site is just south of the intersection of Lincoln Drive and Forbidden Drive. Travolta's character plays his recorded film footage repeatedly, and the creek's location is easy to determine.
Portions of the 2010 M. Night Shyamalan
film The Last Airbender
were filmed in the Wissahickon Valley Park.
, a U.S. Navy gunboat
during the Civil War
and the USRC Wissahickon
, a U.S. Revenue Cutter Service harbor tug were named after the creek.
Stream
A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...
in southeastern Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. Rising in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Montgomery County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of 2010, the population was 799,874, making it the third most populous county in Pennsylvania . The county seat is Norristown.The county was created on September 10, 1784, out of land originally part...
, it runs about 23 miles (37 km) passing through and dividing Northwest Philadelphia
Northwest Philadelphia
Northwest Philadelphia is a section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The official boundary is Stenton Avenue to the north, the Schuylkill river to the south, Spring Ln to the west, and Wister Street to the east. The area is divided by Wissahickon Creek into two subsections...
before emptying into the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
at Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. Its watershed covers about 64 square miles (165.8 km²).
Much of the creek now runs through or next to parkland, with the last few miles running through a deep gorge. The beauty of this area attracted the attention of literary personages like Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
and John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...
. The gorge area is now part of the Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park is the municipal park system of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It consists of 63 parks, with , all overseen by the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, successor to the Fairmount Park Commission in 2010.-Fairmount Park proper:...
system in Philadelphia, and the Wissahickon Valley is known as one of 600 National Natural Landmark
National Natural Landmark
The National Natural Landmark program recognizes and encourages the conservation of outstanding examples of the natural history of the United States. It is the only natural areas program of national scope that identifies and recognizes the best examples of biological and geological features in...
s of the United States.
The name of the creek comes from the Lenape language
Lenape language
The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages, are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family...
for "catfish creek" or "stream of yellowish color". On the earliest map of this region of Pennsylvania, by Thomas Holme
Thomas Holme
Thomas Holme was the first Surveyor General of Pennsylvania to actually serve, in which capacity he laid out the original plan for the city of Philadelphia.-Life:...
, the stream is called Whitpaine's creek, after one of the original settlers with William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
. Industry sprang up along the Wissahickon not long after European settlement, with America's first paper mill set up on one of the Wissahickon's tributaries. A few of the dams built for the mills remain visible today.
Geography
Forbidden Drive, also known as Wissahickon Drive, is the gravel road which follows the Wissahickon Creek from Lincoln Drive to the County Line and is the most popular point of access to explore the stream valley. Originally known as Upper Wissahickon Drive, it received its current name in the 1920s when automobiles were first banned from the road. As stated above, Forbidden Drive is the only trail open to bicyclists and equestrians without a permit.
A paved path on the west bank connects the junction of Forbidden Drive and Lincoln Drive south to Ridge Avenue at the confluence of the Wissahickon and Schuylkill River. This path is a popular access point for cyclists coming off the River Drive bike paths to Center City Philadelphia, or for pedestrians departing the Manayunk/Norristown Line
Manayunk/Norristown Line
The Manayunk/Norristown Line is a SEPTA Regional Rail line running from Center City Philadelphia to the Elm Street station in Norristown, Montgomery County.-Route:...
transit route at Wissahickon Station or Bus Interchange.
Forbidden Drive is also accessible at its midpoint at the Valley Green Inn. Valley Green Road can be reached from Springfield Avenue in Chestnut Hill
Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Chestnut Hill is a neighborhood in the Northwest Philadelphia section of the United States city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Boundaries:Chestnut Hill is bounded as follows:...
, two blocks west of St. Martin's Lane and the St. Martin's R8 Station. Just above Valley Green, Wise's Mill Road meets Forbidden Drive, connecting it to Henry Avenue in Roxborough
Roxborough, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Roxborough is a neighborhood in the Northwest Philadelphia section of the United States city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is bordered to the southwest, along the Schuylkill River, by the neighborhood of Manayunk, along the northeast by the Wissahickon Creek section of Fairmount Park, and to...
. Wise's Mill Road may be the same as that described in Edgar Allan Poe's
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
1844 story "Morning on the Wissahiccon
Morning on the Wissahiccon
"Morning on the Wissahiccon," also called "The Elk," is an 1844 work by Edgar Allan Poe describing the natural beauty of Wissahickon Creek which feeds into the Schuylkill River in eastern Pennsylvania...
": "I would advise the adventurer who would behold its finest points to take the Ridge Road, running westwardly from the city, and, having reached the second lane beyond the sixth mile-stone, to follow this lane to its termination. He will thus strike the Wissahiccon, at one of its best reaches […]". Forbidden Drive ends at Northwestern Avenue (which is the county line) after crossing Bell's Mill Road.
A number of trails climb out of the valley from Forbidden Drive to the "upper trails" which run along the precipitous walls of the valley. Many of these upper trails have been marked with colored blazes. The green blazed trail has been designated a multi-use trail approved for mountain bikers with permits. The blue blazed trail has been designated a hiking trail only. All trails in the Andorra Natural Area are prohibited to all bicycles.
Devil's Pool is an attraction best reached from Valley Green by crossing the stream and taking the footpath on the eastern bank, going downstream to the mouth of the Cresheim Creek
Cresheim Creek
Cresheim Creek is a creek in southeastern Pennsylvania. Rising at Hill Crest in Cheltenham Township , it runs about 2.7 miles southwest, passing through part of Northwest Philadelphia and dividing Mount Airy from Chestnut Hill, before emptying into the Wissahickon Creek at...
. As the ravine widens into the Cresheim, the waters gather in a basin surrounded on either side by rocky outcroppings before flowing into the Wissahickon Creek. Legend has it that the Native American Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
tribes used this as a spiritual area. Although it is not legal due to unsafe levels of pollutants, Devil's pool has become a popular area to swim, lounge, and drink. Unfortunately, Devil's pool often falls victim to litter and vandalism. However, recent efforts to clean the site by the Friends of the Wissahickon have been moderately successful.
One of the most romantic hikes in this park leads to a precipice overlooking the gorge. It can be found by entering the main footpath at the Ridge Avenue entrance and following the west bank to Hermit's Lane Bridge. Coming from Blue Stone Bridge, follow the path at the west end to Lover's Leap.
Another well-known outlook in the park is Mom Rinker's Rock
Mom Rinker's Rock
Mom Rinker's Rock is a scenic outlook in Fairmount Park along the Wissahickon Creek in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It is located on a ridge on the eastern side of the park just a little north of the Walnut Lane Bridge, close by the statue dedicated to Toleration.The name of the...
, on a ridge on the eastern side of the Park just north of the Walnut Lane Bridge, close by the Toleration statue. Here on a moonlit night in May 1847, George Lippard
George Lippard
George Lippard was a 19th-century American novelist, journalist, playwright, social activist, and labor organizer. Nearly forgotten today, he was one of the most widely-read authors in antebellum America. A friend of Edgar Allan Poe, Lippard advocated a socialist political philosophy and sought...
, romancer of the Wissahickon, was married to his frail young wife according to so-called Indian rites. Years afterward in 1883, the Toleration statue was erected, a marble statue of a man in simple Quaker clothing. Atop Mom Rinker's Rock, the nine-foot-eight-inch statue has the single word “Toleration” carved into its four-foot-three-inch base. Created by late 19th century sculptor Herman Kirn, it was brought to the site by landowner John Welsh, reported to have purchased the statue at the Centennial Exposition
Centennial Exposition
The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. It was officially...
in Philadelphia. Welsh, a former Fairmount Park Commissioner and U.S. Ambassador to Britain, donated his land to the Park prior to his death in 1886.
Some miles away is the path leading to the Indian statue, a dramatic 15 ft (4.5 m) high white marble sculpture of a kneeling Lenape warrior which was sculpted in 1902 by John Massey Rhind. (The statue is popularly but erroneously known as "Teedyuscung," the name of an 18th-century Delaware chief.) Commissioned by Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Henry, it is a tribute to the Lenape Indians who hunted and fished in the Wissahickon prior to the arrival of colonists. The statue can also be viewed from Forbidden Drive across the creek if one stands just north of the path to the Rex Avenue Bridge.
Geology
A tremendous variety of geology is evident along Wissahickon Creek. Three of the geologic regions that the stream passes through are the Newark Basin of TriassicTriassic
The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...
sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
and shale
Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
, the limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
and dolomite
Dolomite
Dolomite is a carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate CaMg2. The term is also used to describe the sedimentary carbonate rock dolostone....
of the Chester Valley, and the Wissahickon Formation
Wissahickon Formation
The Wissahickon Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. In Maryland, the term "Wissahickon" is no longer used and has since been divided into several units. It is named for the Wissahickon gorge in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.-Description:The Wissahickon is...
where the waters of the stream flow into the Schuylkill and eventually the Delaware Rivers.
A unique and very distinctive rock of the Wissahickon Creek valley is Wissahickon schist, the predominant bedrock underlying the Philadelphia region, found over a broad swath of southeastern Pennsylvania from Trenton into Delaware and Maryland. This Precambrian
Precambrian
The Precambrian is the name which describes the large span of time in Earth's history before the current Phanerozoic Eon, and is a Supereon divided into several eons of the geologic time scale...
to Cambrian
Cambrian
The Cambrian is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from Mya ; it is succeeded by the Ordovician. Its subdivisions, and indeed its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales, where Britain's...
stone, first studied in the Wissahickon gorge, has flecks of glittery mica
Mica
The mica group of sheet silicate minerals includes several closely related materials having highly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic, with a tendency towards pseudohexagonal crystals, and are similar in chemical composition...
, small garnets
Garnets
Garnets may have the following meanings:*Plural for "Garnet".*Garnets, an obsolete unit of dry volume in Imperial Russia.*Haddon Heights High School Garnets...
, and many-toned shadings of gray, brown, tan, and blue, and is attractive enough to have become a common building material in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In addition to Wissahickon schist, there are layers of quartzite
Quartzite
Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...
in the valley. Both schist and quartzite are metamorphic rock
Metamorphic rock
Metamorphic rock is the transformation of an existing rock type, the protolith, in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form". The protolith is subjected to heat and pressure causing profound physical and/or chemical change...
s formed from sedimentary
Sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rock are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution....
deposits of mud and sand that one time were washed from ancient continents into a shallow sea. These sedimentary deposits were over time compressed into shale and sandstone. During long periods of mountain building, the shale and sandstone were slowly transformed into the schist and quartzite found today. In some places, the compression and heat were extreme enough to fuse the schist with emerging igneous rock
Igneous rock
Igneous rock is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava...
s into hard-banded gneiss
Gneiss
Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...
.
Other rocks in the valley are layers of igneous pegmatite
Pegmatite
A pegmatite is a very crystalline, intrusive igneous rock composed of interlocking crystals usually larger than 2.5 cm in size; such rocks are referred to as pegmatitic....
and remains of granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
pluton
Pluton
A pluton in geology is a body of intrusive igneous rock that crystallized from magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Plutons include batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, lopoliths, and other igneous bodies...
s, embedded crystal
Crystal
A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography...
s within the schist. A few locations close to Devil’s Pool and along Bell’s Mill Road have a talc
Talc
Talc is a mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate with the chemical formula H2Mg34 or Mg3Si4O102. In loose form, it is the widely-used substance known as talcum powder. It occurs as foliated to fibrous masses, its crystals being so rare as to be almost unknown...
schist which contains the mineral talc, so soft it can be scratched with a fingernail.
A virtual geologic tour of Wissahickon Creek is available at this site.
Tributaries
- Trewellyn Creek
- Willow Run
- Prophecy Creek
- Sandy Run
- Arlingham Run
- Cresheim CreekCresheim CreekCresheim Creek is a creek in southeastern Pennsylvania. Rising at Hill Crest in Cheltenham Township , it runs about 2.7 miles southwest, passing through part of Northwest Philadelphia and dividing Mount Airy from Chestnut Hill, before emptying into the Wissahickon Creek at...
- Paper Mill RunPaper Mill RunPaper Mill Run, also known as Monoshone Creek, is a small tributary of Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Its watershed includes parts of the Mount Airy and Germantown neighhborhoods of Philadelphia....
History
Johannes Kelpius
In 1694, Johannes KelpiusJohannes Kelpius
Johannes Kelpius , a German Pietist, mystic, musician, and writer, interested in the occult, botany, and astronomy, came to believe with his followers in the "Society of the Woman in the Wilderness" that the end of the world would occur in 1694...
arrived in Philadelphia with a group of like-minded German Pietists
Pietism
Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...
to live in the valley of the Wissahickon Creek. They formed a monastic-type of community and became known as the Hermits or Mystics of the Wissahickon. Kelpius was a musician, writer, and occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
ist. He frequently meditated (some believe in a cave—the Cave of Kelpius 40.023544°N 75.200665°W) along the banks of the Wissahickon and awaited the end of the world, which was expected in 1694. No sign or revelation accompanied that year, but the faithful continued to live in celibacy
Celibacy
Celibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
by the stream, searching the stars and hoping for the end. Kelpius described the type of meditation he used in his Method of Prayer. (See Further Reading below on this book.) Kelpius died in 1708 and the group disbanded some time thereafter. Some members likely gave up on celibacy and married. A few joined the somewhat like-minded religious colony of Ephrata Cloister
Ephrata Cloister
The Ephrata Cloister or Ephrata Community was a religious community, established in 1732 by Johann Conrad Beissel at Ephrata, in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania...
under Conrad Beissel
Conrad Beissel
Johann Conrad Beissel was the German-born religious leader who in 1732 founded the Ephrata Community in Pennsylvania.-Background:...
in Ephrata
Ephrata, Pennsylvania
Ephrata is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, south east of Harrisburg and about west by north of Philadelphia. It is named after Ephrath, a biblical town in what is now Israel. Ephrata's sister city is Eberbach, Germany, the city where its founders originated. In its...
, Lancaster County
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Lancaster County, known as the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county located in the southeastern part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of 2010 the population was 519,445. Lancaster County forms the Lancaster Metropolitan Statistical Area, the...
, even though no previous connection existed between the two communities. At least two from the original group, Johann Seelig and Konrad Matthaei, continued as hermits along the Wissahickon into the 1740s.
Other religious groups were also associated with the Wissahickon: On Christmas Day in 1723 the first congregation of the Church of the Brethren
Church of the Brethren
The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination originating from the Schwarzenau Brethren organized in 1708 by eight persons led by Alexander Mack, in Schwarzenau, Bad Berleburg, Germany. The Brethren movement began as a melding of Radical Pietist and Anabaptist ideas during the...
in America - often called Dunkard Brethren
Dunkard Brethren
The Dunkard Brethren are a small group of conservative Schwarzenau Brethren churches that withdrew from the Church of the Brethren.The Church of the Brethren represents the largest body of churches that descended from the original pietist movement began in Germany by Alexander Mack and 7 other...
– baptized several new members in the stream. Around 1747 an individual with connections to both the Dunkards and the Ephrata Cloister built a stone house on land previously owned by Dunkards. The structure, used for church retreats, still stands today, and is known as The Monastery
The Monastery (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
The Monastery is a historic stone house in Fairmount Park, Kitchen's Lane at Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.It was built in 1747 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972...
, a remaining witness to the Wissahickon’s days as an isolated religious refuge.
Development
The same steep slopes and gorge that provided an attractive isolation to religious adherents in the 17th and early 18th centuries, provided an efficient source of energy for the development of water mills in later years. One miller had by 1690 already constructed a dam, sawmill, gristmill, and house by the narrow shelf of land at the confluence of the Wissahickon with the Schuylkill River, but the rugged terrain of the valley forestalled further development alongside the stream itself. By 1730, however, eight mills had been constructed, and by 1793, twenty-four, along with many dams. Most of America was still wilderness, but the Wissahickon Valley was a developing industrial center. There were more than fifty watermillWatermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...
s by 1850, though the thickly forested region about the stream still retained the character of a wilderness. Access roads were being constructed into the steep valley, but there was still no road that followed the stream itself. The nature of the rugged terrain can be comprehended in an event that had occurred during the Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
Battle of Germantown
Battle of Germantown
The Battle of Germantown, a battle in the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revolutionary War, was fought on October 4, 1777, at Germantown, Pennsylvania between the British army led by Sir William Howe and the American army under George Washington...
, which was fought not too far from the stream. The American General John Armstrong, compelled by the rough terrain to abandon a cannon in the valley, expressed his contempt for the "horrendous hills of the Wissahickon." Later legends tell of American spies taking advantage of the terrain to retrieve information from an informant named Mom Rinker, who allegedly perched atop a rock overlooking the valley to drop balls of yarn which contained messages about British troop movements during the occupation of Philadelphia. This is likely a legend, for other stories speak of a witch named Mom Rinkle who had little to do with the Revolution. There is a Mom Rinker's Rock
Mom Rinker's Rock
Mom Rinker's Rock is a scenic outlook in Fairmount Park along the Wissahickon Creek in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It is located on a ridge on the eastern side of the park just a little north of the Walnut Lane Bridge, close by the statue dedicated to Toleration.The name of the...
in the park today.
Not until 1826 were the cliffs near the creek’s mouth blasted away to provide access to the cluster of mills at Rittenhousetown, approximately 1.5 mi (2.4 km) up the creek on Paper Mill Run
Paper Mill Run
Paper Mill Run, also known as Monoshone Creek, is a small tributary of Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Its watershed includes parts of the Mount Airy and Germantown neighhborhoods of Philadelphia....
(also known as Monoshone Creek), a small tributary of the Wissahickon. Here William Rittenhouse
William Rittenhouse
-Life:William Rittenhouse was born in Germany with the name Wilhelm Rittenhausen. His name as "Willm Rittenhuysen" was on a petition for naturalization of residents of German Town, Pennsylvania dated 7th May 1691....
(grandfather of the astronomer David Rittenhouse
David Rittenhouse
David Rittenhouse was a renowned American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman and public official...
) had in the early 18th century built the first paper mill in America. Gradually this road and other mill access roads were connected, and in 1856 a private toll road
Toll road
A toll road is a privately or publicly built road for which a driver pays a toll for use. Structures for which tolls are charged include toll bridges and toll tunnels. Non-toll roads are financed using other sources of revenue, most typically fuel tax or general tax funds...
, the Wissahickon Turnpike, linked the entire valley (1908 photo). Long gone were the religious mystics; here instead the mills of Wissahickon Creek made paper, cloth, gunpowder, sawed lumber, milled wheat and corn, and pressed oil from flax. A sizable population worked at the mills and lived in the valley in small villages like Rittenhousetown and Pumpkinville. The nation was becoming an industrial nation, and the Wissahickon was leading the way.
This would soon change. Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
already had noted in his will the high elevation and quality of Wissahickon water, proposing that in some future day the stream be dammed to supply a safe and pure water source for Philadelphia’s water supply, and even allocating funds for this purpose. This did not happen, but the quest for pure water affected the Wissahickon’s subsequent history. Seeking to prevent the stream’s industrial discharges from affecting the purity of the water of the Schuylkill River, the Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park is the municipal park system of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It consists of 63 parks, with , all overseen by the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, successor to the Fairmount Park Commission in 2010.-Fairmount Park proper:...
Commission took title of much of the land along the Wissahickon in 1869-1870, and continued to expand its holdings in subsequent decades. The mills were razed; the last active mill was demolished in 1884. Several decades later the Schuylkill River itself became seriously polluted by sources in the coal fields far upstream beyond Philadelphia’s control, but the waters of the Wissahickon had been restored and the beauty of the Wissahickon Valley had been preserved. Most of America became more industrialized, but the Wissahickon valley quietly returned to its original wilderness character.
The reason the Wissahickon Valley retained its wilderness character, even after its clean waters were no longer essential to the water supply of the city of Philadelphia, was the advent of Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and the changing attitudes which this thought engendered about nature. Before the 19th century, nature had seemed a capricious and ambivalent force, at times a dream, but at times a nightmare. Nature, according to orthodox Christian thought, had fallen with man; though the Renaissance brought about both a new view of mankind and nature, this new attitude took time to grow, but it eventually resulted in a literary and artistic movement known as Romanticism. Romantics valued heroism and chivalry in people, and regarded the wild, free, and untamed nature as the “natural” model of true beauty
Beauty
Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture...
. Philadelphians finally came to value their Wissahickon valley for its wild character. Even when the mills were still operating, there were remote stretches of wild bluffs and overarching trees; now the old mills had become romantic and picturesque, with mossy stone walls suggesting medieval ruins. In 1924, area residents formed the non-profit group "Friends of the Wissahickon", which still works to maintain the park's unique landscape to this day. Remarks on the Wissahickon in literature by such as Fanny Kemble, Edgar Allan Poe, George Lippard, and others are noted below.
However much the stream and its valley were appreciated, it still divided parts of the city. To help overcome this, in 1906 the Walnut Lane Bridge
Walnut Lane Bridge
The Walnut Lane Bridge is a concrete arch bridge located in Northwest Philadelphia that connects the Germantown and Roxborough neighborhoods across the Wissahickon Creek in Fairmount Park. While drivers may cross the bridge too quickly to notice, the view from underneath the bridge has inspired...
was built over the stream, a world-class undertaking at the time, the world's largest poured concrete structure, joining the Roxborough and Germantown neighborhoods of Philadelphia, formerly separated by the Wissahickon gorge. The bridge is but 480 feet (146 m) long, with a width of 60 feet (18 m), but its center arch spans an impressive 225 feet (69 m), the crown of the arch is 109 feet (33 m) above the water, and the sidewalks of the bridge 120 feet (37 m) above the Wissahickon.
The Henry Avenue Bridge
The Henry Avenue Bridge over the Wissahickon was completed in the 1932 and is even more impressive. It is 915 feet (279 m) long, 84 feet (26 m) wide, and 185 feet (56 m) above water level of Wissahickon Creek. It was designed to carry a planned extension of a subway into Roxborough, but the subway never reached the bridge. It is one of the most beautiful bridges in the city, joining Roxborough and the East Falls-Germantown neighborhoods in Philadelphia.Today the Wissahickon is a quiet stream flowing through a beautiful gorge and park. The sole surviving commercial establishment from the pre-park days is the Valley Green Inn, but that establishment is now an integral part of the park and creek valley. Most visitors to the stream today seek the Wissahickon for reasons not too different from those of Kelpius
Johannes Kelpius
Johannes Kelpius , a German Pietist, mystic, musician, and writer, interested in the occult, botany, and astronomy, came to believe with his followers in the "Society of the Woman in the Wilderness" that the end of the world would occur in 1694...
and his followers in 1694: quiet respite from the world outside.
Fairmount Park
Covered bridge
A covered bridge is a bridge with enclosed sides and a roof, often accommodating only a single lane of traffic. Most covered bridges are wooden; some newer ones are concrete or metal with glass sides...
spans the creek in the park. The Wissahickon Valley is one of fewer than 600 National Natural Landmark
National Natural Landmark
The National Natural Landmark program recognizes and encourages the conservation of outstanding examples of the natural history of the United States. It is the only natural areas program of national scope that identifies and recognizes the best examples of biological and geological features in...
s in America. Recently, interest in reintroducing brook trout to the Wissahickon Valley portion of Fairmount park has been growing.
Literature
Among the earliest references to the valley was by William CobbettWilliam Cobbett
William Cobbett was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey. He believed that reforming Parliament and abolishing the rotten boroughs would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists and "tax-eaters" relentlessly...
in his book Rural Rides, which takes the form of a series of letters. In one dated 1821 he said,
Actress Fanny Kemble
Fanny Kemble
Frances Anne Kemble , was a famous British actress and author in the early and mid nineteenth century.-Youth and acting career:...
, grandmother to novelist Owen Wister
Owen Wister
Owen Wister was an American writer and "father" of western fiction.-Early life:Owen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, in Germantown, a well-known neighborhood in the northwestern part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Owen Jones Wister, was a wealthy physician, one of a long line of...
, visited the stream in 1832; her writing awakened a more general interest in the stream and its valley. Her description of the gorge's dramatic end at the stream's confluence with the Schuylkill River and her verse To the Wissahickon both sparked a keen interest in this natural treasure often overlooked by its neighbors. She wrote:
- The thick, bright, rich-tufted cedars, basking in the warm amber glow, the picturesque mill, the smooth open field, along whose side the river waters, after receiving this child of the mountains into their bosom, wound deep, and bright, and still, the whole radiant with the softest light I ever beheld, formed a most enchanting and serene subject of contemplation.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
alluded to Fanny Kemble's writing in his description of a beautiful Wissahickon valley in his 1844 essay "Morning on the Wissahiccon
Morning on the Wissahiccon
"Morning on the Wissahiccon," also called "The Elk," is an 1844 work by Edgar Allan Poe describing the natural beauty of Wissahickon Creek which feeds into the Schuylkill River in eastern Pennsylvania...
", in which he wrote:
- Now the Wissahiccon is of so remarkable a loveliness that, were it flowing in England, it would be the theme of every bard, and the common topic of every tongue, if, indeed, its banks were not parcelled off in lots, at an exorbitant price, as building-sites for the villas of the opulent. Yet it is only within a very few years that any one has more than heard of the Wissahiccon […] the brook is narrow. Its banks are generally, indeed almost universally, precipitous, and consist of high hills, clothed with noble shrubbery near the water, and crowned at a greater elevation, with some of the most magnificent forest trees of America, among which stands conspicuous the liriodendron tulipiferumLiriodendron tulipiferaLiriodendron tulipifera, commonly known as the tulip tree, American tulip tree, tuliptree, tulip poplar or yellow poplar, is the Western Hemisphere representative of the two-species genus Liriodendron, and the tallest eastern hardwood...
. The immediate shores, however, are of granite, sharply defined or moss-covered, against which the pellucid water lolls in its gentle flow, as the blue waves of the Mediterranean upon the steps of her palaces of marble.
The erratic and almost forgotten novelist George Lippard
George Lippard
George Lippard was a 19th-century American novelist, journalist, playwright, social activist, and labor organizer. Nearly forgotten today, he was one of the most widely-read authors in antebellum America. A friend of Edgar Allan Poe, Lippard advocated a socialist political philosophy and sought...
frequently wrote about the Wissahickon, and was even married at sunset on or around May 14, 1847, on a rocky crag called Mom Rinker's Rock
Mom Rinker's Rock
Mom Rinker's Rock is a scenic outlook in Fairmount Park along the Wissahickon Creek in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It is located on a ridge on the eastern side of the park just a little north of the Walnut Lane Bridge, close by the statue dedicated to Toleration.The name of the...
, overlooking the stream. One of his books, The Rose of Wissahikon; or, The Fourth of July, 1776. A Romance, Embracing the Secret History of the Declaration of Independence (1847) may refer not only to the Wissahickon, but to his wife, the former Rose Newman. He wrote:
- A poem of everlasting beauty and a dream of magnificance - the world-hidden, wood embowered Wissahickon.
Depending on one of Lippard's mostly contrived stories, John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...
wrote about Johannes Kelpius
Johannes Kelpius
Johannes Kelpius , a German Pietist, mystic, musician, and writer, interested in the occult, botany, and astronomy, came to believe with his followers in the "Society of the Woman in the Wilderness" that the end of the world would occur in 1694...
and his followers on the Wissahickon in his 1872 poem Pennsylvania Pilgrim:
- Painful Kelpius from his hermit den, By Wissahickon, maddest of good men, Dreamed o'er the 'Chiliast dreams of-Petersen.'
- Deep in the woods, where the small river slid, Snake-like in shape, the Helmstadt mystic hid, Weird as a wizard over arts forbid.
Christopher Morley
Christopher Morley
Christopher Morley was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet. He also produced stage productions for a few years and gave college lectures.-Biography:Christopher Morley was born in Haverford, Pennsylvania...
also portrayed the valley's beauty in his writings.
The Wissahickon is mentioned very briefly in A Biography of the Poet, Sidney Lanier
Sidney Lanier
Sidney Lanier was an American musician and poet.-Biography:Sidney Lanier was born February 3, 1842, in Macon, Georgia, to parents Robert Sampson Lanier and Mary Jane Anderson; he was mostly of English ancestry. His distant French Huguenot ancestors immigrated to England in the 16th century...
by Edwin Mims.
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
mentioned the Wissahickon during the short time he spent in Philadelphia working for The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
: "Unlike New York, I like this Philadelphia amazingly, and the people in it […] I saw small steamboats, with their signs up—"For Wissahickon and Manayunk 25 cents." Geo. Lippard, in his Legends of Washington and his Generals, has rendered the Wissahickon sacred in my eyes, and I shall make that trip, as well as one to Germantown, soon […]"
The angler, artist, and author Ron P. Swegman
Ron P. Swegman
Ron P. Swegman is an American angler, artist, and author. His work includes the illustrated essay collections Philadelphia on the Fly: Tales of an Urban Angler and Small Fry: The Lure of the Little:...
has made Wissahickon Creek the focal point of two essay collections, Philadelphia on the Fly (Frank Amato Publications, 2005 "http://www.amazon.com/dp/1571883614") and Small Fry: The Lure of the Little (The Whitefish Press, 2009 "http://www.whitefishpress.com/bookdetail.asp?book=87"). Both books describe the Wissahickon Valley and the experience of fly fishing along Wissahickon Creek in the early twenty-first century.
Art
- J. M. Culverhouse, Skating on the Wissahickon River Near Philadelphia, 1875
- John Exillus, Conrad's Paper-mill on the Wissahickon, abt 1813 (mentioned in Thomas Morton's History of Pennsylvania Hospital)
- Daniel Charles Grose, Spring on the Whissahickon and Autumn on the Whissahickon located at the Samuel Dorksy Museum of Art, State University of New York at New PaltzState University of New York at New PaltzThe State University of New York at New Paltz, known as SUNY New Paltz for short, is a public university in New Paltz, New York. It was founded in 1828 as the School for teaching of classics. In 1885, the New Paltz Normal and Training School was established as a school to prepare teachers for the...
- J. S. Hill, Through the Winter Woods Near the Wissahickon, 1874
- Charles W. Knapp, Boating on the Wissahickon, 1870
- John Moran, Devil's Glen in the Wissahickon, 1888
- John Moran, The Falls of Wissahickon Creek at Ridge Ave., 1888
- Thomas MoranThomas MoranThomas Moran from Bolton, England was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist...
(1837–1926), Autumn on the Wissahickon - Thomas MoranThomas MoranThomas Moran from Bolton, England was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist...
(1837–1926), Cresheim Glen, Wissahickon, Autumn, 1864 - Thomas MoranThomas MoranThomas Moran from Bolton, England was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist...
(1837–1926), On the Wissahickon Near Chestnut Hill, 1870 - James PealeJames PealeJames Peale was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale....
(1749–1831), View on the Wissahickon, 1828 - James PealeJames PealeJames Peale was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale....
(1749–1831), View on the Wissahickon, 1830 (at the Philadelphia Museum of ArtPhiladelphia Museum of ArtThe Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
) - James PealeJames PealeJames Peale was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale....
(1749–1831), Wissahickon, n.d. (at Swarthmore CollegeSwarthmore CollegeSwarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
) - James PealeJames PealeJames Peale was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale....
(1749–1831), On the Wissahickon, 1830 - James PealeJames PealeJames Peale was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale....
(1749–1831), View of the Wissahickon (waterfall) - William Trost RichardsWilliam Trost RichardsWilliam Trost Richards was an American landscape artist associated with both the Hudson River School and the American Pre-Raphaelite movement.-Biography:...
(1833–1905), On the Wissahickon, 1870 - William Trost RichardsWilliam Trost RichardsWilliam Trost Richards was an American landscape artist associated with both the Hudson River School and the American Pre-Raphaelite movement.-Biography:...
(1833–1905), The Wissahickon, 1872 - William Thompson Russell Smith (1812–1896), Boating Party on the Wissahickon, 1836
- William Thompson Russell Smith (1812–1896), Rocks on the Wissahickon, 1839
- William Thompson Russell Smith (1812–1896), A Scene on the Wissahickon, 1842
- William Thompson Russell Smith (1812–1896), Wissahickon, 1857
- Thomas SullyThomas SullyThomas Sully was an American painter, mostly of portraits.-Early life:Sully was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, to the actors Matthew and Sarah Sully. In March 1792 the Sullys and their nine children immigrated to Richmond, Virginia, where Thomas’s uncle managed a theater...
(1783–1872), Wissahickon Creek, 1845 - ron P. swegman (1967- ), Philadelphia on the Fly, "http://www.amazon.com/dp/1571883614", 2005
- Rosa M. Towne (1827–1909), Sketch of Upper Wissahickon, Philadelphia, 1882
- Carl Philipp Weber, (Amer, b Germ, 1849–1921), Wissahickon Scene, n.d.
- Carl Philipp Weber, (Amer, b Germ, 1849–1921), Wissahickon Creek, 1877
- Carl Philipp Weber, (Amer, b Germ, 1849–1921), Spirit of the Wissahickon (lower bridge, Wissahickon valley)
There exists a Currier & Ives Scenery Of The Wissahickon
The Swann Memorial Fountain
Swann Memorial Fountain
The Swann Memorial Fountain is a fountain sculpture located in the center of Logan Circle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States....
(1924), a fountain sculpture by Alexander Stirling Calder
Alexander Stirling Calder
Alexander Stirling Calder was an American sculptor and teacher; son of the sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, and father of the sculptor Alexander Calder...
that is located in the center of Logan Circle
Logan Circle (Philadelphia)
Logan Circle, also known as Logan Square, is an open-space park in Center City Philadelphia's northwest quadrant and one of the five original planned squares laid out on the city grid. The circle itself exists within the original bounds of the square; the names Logan Square and Logan Circle are...
, also known by its historic name Logan Square, in Philadelphia, contains three large Native American figures that symbolize the area’s major streams: the Delaware, the Schuylkill, and the Wissahickon. The young girl leaning on her side against an agitated, water-spouting swan represents the Wissahickon Creek.
Music
There exists a song called "The Gentle Wissahickon: A Ballad" published in 1857 by Edmund L Walker, 142 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. The words are by Col. James G Wallace, the music by Herman Trevor, and it recalls a "happy childhood time", "the picnic grove", and at the end "dear Alice Ray" who became the singer's "blushing bride."There exists sheet music mentioning the Wissahickon:
- The Wissahickon Waltz by Charles Grobe, 1849 (2 pages)
- The Wissahickon Gallopade by J. B. Bishop, 1856 (4 pages)
- http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mussm&fileName=sm/sm1871/02700/02715/mussm02715.db&recNum=0&itemLink=r?ammem/mcc,gottscho,detr,nfor,wpa,aap,cwar,bbpix,cowellbib,calbkbib,consrvbib,bdsbib,dag,fsaall,gmd,pan,vv,presp,varstg,suffrg,nawbib,horyd,wtc,toddbib,mgw,ncr,ngp,musdibib,hlaw,papr,lhbumbib,rbpebib,lbcoll,alad,hh,aaodyssey,magbell,bbcards,dcm,raelbib,runyon,dukesm,lomaxbib,mtj,gottlieb,aep,qlt,coolbib,fpnas,aasm,scsm,denn,relpet,amss,aaeo,mffbib,afc911bib,mjm,mnwp,rbcmillerbib,molden,ww2map,hawp,cwband,flwpabib,wpapos,cmns,psbib,pin,coplandbib,cola,tccc,curt,mharendt,lhbcbbib,eaa,haybib,mesnbib,fine,cwnyhs,llstbib,fawbib,berl,fmuever,cdn,upboverbib,mussm,cic,afcpearl,awh,awhbib,sgp,wright,lhbtnbib,afcesnbib,hurstonbib,mreynoldsbib,spaldingbib,sgproto,omhbib,rbaapcbib,mal,ncpsbib,ncpm,lhbprbib,ftvbib,afcreed,aipn,svybib,mmorse,afcwwgbib,mymhiwebib,uncall,mfd,afcwip,mtaft,manz:@OR(@field(AUTHOR+@3(Rolin,+Harry+M+++))+@field(OTHER+@3(Rolin,+Harry+M+++)))&linkText=0Sounds from the Wissahickon waltzes] by Harry M. Rollin, 1871 (10 pages)
"Wissahickon Drive" is the name of one of the tracks on the CD Here's to You by the Bog Wanderers, "a collection of original, contemporary and traditional slides, jigs, reels, waltzes and songs." Liner notes say the tune is "of the great fiddler/composer Liz Carroll."
Motion Pictures
In the 1982 Brian DePalma–directed film Blow OutBlow Out
Blow Out is a 1981 thriller film, written and directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, serendipitously captures audio evidence of an assassination involving a...
starring Nancy Allen
Nancy Allen
Nancy Allen may refer to:* Nancy Allen * Nancy Allen -See also:* Nancy Allan , Manitoban politician...
and John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
, the car crash that Travolta's character records is of an auto traveling northbound on Lincoln Drive and crashing headfirst into the Wissahickon Creek. The site is just south of the intersection of Lincoln Drive and Forbidden Drive. Travolta's character plays his recorded film footage repeatedly, and the creek's location is easy to determine.
Portions of the 2010 M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan
Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
film The Last Airbender
The Last Airbender
The Last Airbender is a 2010 American fantasy adventure film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It is a live-action film adaptation of the first season to the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender....
were filmed in the Wissahickon Valley Park.
Military
The USS WissahickonUSS Wissahickon (1861)
USS Wissahickon was a that was built for service with the United States Navy during the American Civil War.-History:Wissahickon was built at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
, a U.S. Navy gunboat
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...
during the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
and the USRC Wissahickon
USRC Wissahickon (1904)
USRC Wissahickon was one of two Winnisimmet-class harbor tugs constructed for the Revenue Cutter Service in 1904 and stationed at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was named for Wissahickon Creek. Ellsworth P. Bertholf served as captain of her from November 1906 to September 1907 in his first tour...
, a U.S. Revenue Cutter Service harbor tug were named after the creek.
Quotations
- A poem of everlasting beauty and a dream of magnificence - the world-hidden, wood embowered Wissahickon. - George LippardGeorge LippardGeorge Lippard was a 19th-century American novelist, journalist, playwright, social activist, and labor organizer. Nearly forgotten today, he was one of the most widely-read authors in antebellum America. A friend of Edgar Allan Poe, Lippard advocated a socialist political philosophy and sought...
(1822–1854) (Quoted in Grove, Victor. Philadelphia: A Hiker's Paradise. Philadelphia, PA: Old City Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-933153-01-6) - Wissahickon creek takes its rise in Montgomery County, flows generally to the south, bearing west, and enters the Schuylkill above the Falls. --Cresheim creek, which rises in Montgomery County, enters the Wissahickon at Livezey's mill. It received its name from Cresheim in Germany, from which some of the original settlers of Germantown came. --Paper Mill run rises near Mount Airy, flows to the south-west, and empties into the Wissahickon near the intersection of Rittenhouse Lane. There was once a paper-mill there. Wissahickon is derived from Wissha mechan ("catfish"). On Holmes's map it is called Whitpaine's creek, after the name of one of the original settlers with Penn. Wissinoming creek rises near the old Wheat-Sheaf tavern, on the Bustleton and Wheat-Sheaf turnpike, and flows south by east. This stream is called Sissimocksink by Mellish, Wissinoming by Ellet, and Little Wahank on Lindsay & Blakiston's map. The name is derived from Wissachgamen ("a place where grapes are").
- ("Changes in the Names of Streams In and About Philadelphia." Public Ledger Almanac: 1879. Pages 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, & 13
Further reading
- Contosta, David and Franklin, Carol. Metropolitan Paradise: The Struggle for Nature in the City. Philadelphia's Wissahickon Valley, 1620-2020. St. Joseph's University Press, 2010. ISBN 9780916101664 Available from Friends of the Wissahickon and St. Joseph's University Press
- Brandt, Francis Burke. Wissahickon Valley within the city of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Corn Exchange National Bank, 1927. Entire book is available for download from the Penn State Digital Library at this site.
- Conwill, Joseph D. “The Wissahickon Valley: To A Wilderness Returned.“ Pennsylvania Heritage. Summer, 1986.
- Grove, Victor. Philadelphia: A Hiker's Paradise. Philadelphia, PA: Old City Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-933153-01-6 (Contains many photos of Wissahickon Creek and area)
- Herman, Andrew Mark. Along the Wissahickon Creek. Arcadia Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-7385-3521-4
- Kelpius, Johannes, and Richards, Kirby, Ph.D. A Method of Prayer. A Mystical Pamphlet from Colonial America. Philadelphia: Schuylkill Wordsmiths, 2006. (A new translation of Kelpius's pamphlet, with informative background materials and the original German. Available at Amazon.com.)
- Swegman, Ron P. Philadelphia on the Fly. Frank Amato Publications, 2005. ISBN 1-5718-8361-4
- Swegman, Ron P. Small Fry: The Lure of the Little. The Whitefish Press, 2009. ISBN 0-9842-6770-0
External links
- Friends of the Wissahickon website
- U.S. Geological Survey: PA stream gaging stations
- Historic RittenhouseTown
- WRV Wissahickon Restoration Volunteers
- Aerial photo link
- Aerial perspective photo link
- 1871 map
- 1876 map
- Bird's eye view lithograph, old photos, building plans, Edison letter, etc. (need to enter Wissahickon into search box)
- Postcard collection with several Wissahickon views
- Legend of the Wissahikon
- Edgar Allan Poe's 1844 sketch "Morning on the Wissahiccon"
