GERMANTOWN, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

'Germantown' was originally the Borough of Germantown, a town in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and is today 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 that have been preserved. Many of these 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.
In 2005, the median home sale price in the 19144 zip code, which contains most of Germantown, was $95,000, an increase of 23% over the median price in 2004. The median home sale price in the 19138 zip code, which contains part of East Germantown, was $82,050. This was an increase of 37%.

Contents

History

Education

Notable Historic Sites

Notable residents

See also

References

External links

Resources

History

The town was first settled in 1683 by about 200 immigrants from the German Rhine Valley. In 1681, William Penn published a broadside in German to recruit settlers for his new colony. The first group to respond, thirteen Mennonite and Quaker families from Krefeld, Germany, arrived in Philadelphia on the ''Concord'' on 6 October 1683. Germantown can be said to be the wellspring of the Pennsylvania German, or Pennsylvania Dutch, ethnic group in the United States.
A settlement in German Township, which was commenced by Francis Daniel Pastorius, October 21, 1685. 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 German towne, in the county of Philadelphia, in the province of Pennsylvania." Pastorius was the first bailiff. Jacob Telner, Dirck Isaacs Opdagraaf, Herman Isaacs Opedegraaf, 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

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 inhabits the land that formerly housed Germantown Academy, which moved to Fort Washington, Pennsylvania in 1965.

Notable Historic Sites

★ Barron House

★ Cliveden, the estate of Benjamin Chew, an important site during the Battle of Germantown

★ Concord School

★ Deshler-Morris House

★ Ebeneezer Maxwell House

★ Gilbert Stuart Studio

★ Germantown Cricket Club

★ Green Tree Tavern

★ Grumblethorpe

★ Johnson House

★ Vernon Park

★ Mennonite Meetinghouse

★ Loudoun

★ Rittenhouse Town

★ Stenton

★ Upsala

★ Wyck

★ The Connie Mack House

Notable residents

★ Louisa May Alcott, (1832-1888), born in Germantown, noted author of the Little Women series of books^[1]

★ Martin Grove Brumbaugh, Governor of Pennsylvania, 1914-1919

★ James Barron, naval hero

★ Chubby Checker, singer known for popularizing the dance called "The Twist" with the 1960 song of the same name

★ Benjamin Chew, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania

★ Charles Darrow, inventor of Monopoly game

★ Nelson Graves, Philadelphian cricketer died in Germantown in 1918

★ Connie Mack, winningest manager in Major League baseball history

★ Rufus Harley, jazz musician

★ Bernard Hopkins, professional boxer

★ , German chess champion of U.S. American descent

★ James Logan, statesman

★ G. Love, born Garrett Dutton III; front man of the band G. Love and Special Sauce

★ 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

★ Gilbert Stuart, painter

★ Frederick Winslow Taylor, engineer, management theorist, and consultant

★ Owen Wister, author

★ Charlotte Wardle Cardeza (née Drake), Titanic Passenger

See also

★ German American

★ German-American Day

References

★ 1. Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896, , , , Marquis Who's Who, ,

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

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