various addresses in Manayunk, Philadelphia PA
© Sara Jane Elk, Workshop of
the World (Oliver Evans Press, 1990).
A visitor to the developing
mill town of Manayunk in the 1820s would undoubtedly
observe masons and carpenters erecting stone mills along
the Schuylkill Navigation Company canal and constructing
frame or stone housing clustered near the mills. The
first mill owners often attached a dwelling to the mill
or built it nearby. Captain John Towers constructed his
stone dwelling adjacent to his textile mill, and
papermaker Samuel Eckstein built a two and a half story
stone house for his manager. Although several mill owners
constructed housing for their operatives, Manayunk owners
did not erect the boarding houses found in great numbers
in Lowell, or did they invest in enough tenements to
house all of their workers.
In the earliest days, mill owners were involved in the
construction of some dwellings. John Towers built six
small frame houses across the canal from his mill which
were later moved to Green Lane. 1
Jerome Keating,
of Borie, Laguerenne and Keating, managed the mills
between their construction in 1828 and his death in 1833
and was the only one of the three to live in Manayunk. He
erected his house behind the “Back Row,” one
of three rows of dwellings constructed for his workers.
Each of “Keating’s Rows” contained
"dwellings for six families each, all with yards and
gardens, extending from the east side of Robeson [Rector
Street], about half way to Penn [Pensdale] Street. The
`Front Row' faced on the north side of Main Street;
“Middle Row” on the south side of Cresson
Street, and “Back Row” on the north side of
Cresson Street." 2
Joseph Ripka also
owned tenements for some of his favored employees as
early as the 1830s. 3
The first Hexamer General Surveys of the late 1860s and
early 1870s illustrate several of the mill complexes
before vast expansion efforts took place. Dwelling houses
appear along the canal near the Blantyre Mills, the
Economy Mills, the A. Campbell Crompton Mills, and the
Flat Rock Paper Mill. 4
Many of the Manayunk mill owners also resided in the mill
village, their early mansions located on the meadowland
or above on the rise toward the ridge. Workers lived in
cheaply constructed tenements built by mill owners or
developer/ landlords, at first on the floodplain, then
later in tight rows of housing that began ascending up
the hills in the 1850s and 60s. The earliest houses,
then, stand near the canal east of Main Street along the
perpendicular streets. Most of the rows facing the
streets from Shurs Lane to Green Lane, between Main
Street and Cresson date from c. 1830-1850. Further
upstream, north of Leverington Avenue, along Canton
Street, rows of the same genre were constructed to house
workers of the Eckstein paper mill, the Moses Hey woolen
mill, the Harris Saw Mill, W. B. Buckley & Sons Flat
Rock Rolling Mill the Nixon Paper Mills, the Solms
textile mill, and the two flour mills; all first
generation mills situated along the upper portion of the
canal.
Although the early textile mill owners reinvested in
their mills rather than own large holdings of worker
tenements, the situation changed during the mid-century,
when more owners held real estate than those who did not.
With increased population and a critical shortage of
housing, mill owners may have contracted to erect the
rows of cheap houses that began to cling to the
hills. 5
With rock so
close to the surface, plumbing was usually not installed.
Outhouses were common on the landscape until scores of
years later when homeowners began to replace them with
indoor plumbing. With the majority of workers remaining
propertyless well through the mid-nineteenth century,
most Manayunk residents were forced to rent from mill
owners or other established landlords.
Owners and builders of worker housing throughout the
years of Manayunk's development remain relatively
unknown. Limited investigation into the history of worker
housing in Manayunk has revealed that Perry Levering may
contracted for building in the 1830s and that S.S. Keely,
his successor in business and also member of the Levering
clan, built scores of houses in Manayunk and Roxborough
between the 1860s and the 1890s.
The houses located at 103-105 Pensdale Street,
constructed c. 1840, were sold by Henry K.B. Ogle in 1860
to Michael Byrne. Harry S. Ogle, father of Henry K.B.
Ogle, was the great-grandson of Captain John Towers and
himself a co-owner with Jacob Heft of the Dexter Mill and
Dyeworks. The mill and dyeworks once stood on the site of
the present Robert Krook Inc. yarn mill (4120 Main
Street), between Lock Street and the David Wallace
Lincoln Mill (4074 Main Street). Although deed records do
not reveal which party constructed the houses, at Harry's
death, his son Henry K. B. Ogle was appointed
administrator of the estate which included real estate
holdings of $2,000 in excess of the Dexter Mill of
$2,200. As the Pensdale street houses stand across Main
Street, within close proximity to the mill and dyehouse,
it is probable that he leased these two dwellings to his
workers.
1 Hagner, p. 67.
2 Goshow, p. 53. None of
these structures survive. Demolition of Keating's house
and “Back Row” took place when St. John the
Baptist Roman Catholic Church built its present
structures. The “Middle Row" was destroyed when the
PG&N railroad came to Manayunk, and the “Front
Row” fell for new commercial buildings along Main
Street in the 1850s and 1860s.
3 Scranton, p. 252.
4 Hexamer General Survey,
Nos. 4, 405, 711-712, 1027, 1068-1069, 1131-1132,
1809-1810.
5 Scranton, p. 252.
Update May
2007 (by
Sara Jane Elk):
No change.