In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

The Globe Mill on the Cohocksink Creek
in Northern Liberties, which had served
variously as William Penn’s Governor’s Mill,
a production center for Sybilla Masters’
“Tuscarora Rice,” and then a chocolate and
mustard works, became one of Pennsylvania’s
largest cotton mills in the early nineteenth
century under the firm of Craige, Holmes, and
Company. In 1832 the Globe Mill employed
114 men and women and 190 children and
processed over 500,000 pounds of cotton
annually. The mill complex also included
saddlery, yarn dying, and calico printing
operations at various times. The Whitaker
textile mill, established by Henry Whitaker in
1813 along the Tacony Creek in Cedar Grove
(now the Crescentville neighborhood) above
Frankford, began as a small operation that
grew significantly over the years. By the time a
steam engine was installed in 1835 it was a
sprawling industrial complex that employed
several dozen workers. The Whitaker family
operated the mill until it closed in 1970.
WATERWAYS AND
OUTLYING AREAS
A sampling of some of the industries along
this waterway reveals the types of manufacturing
taking place in the rural parts of
Philadelphia in this period. In Frankford former
Revolutionary War sea captain Stephen
Decatur Senior operated a gun powder mill
from 1803 to 1808, while English immigrant
Samuel Martin established a mill in 1809 to
make woolen blankets, the first of some half
dozen textile mills established by immigrant
Englishmen in Frankford in the early decades
of the nineteenth century. The Borough of
Frankford also included several umbrella
frame factories and a number of traditional
craftsmen shops such as blacksmiths, tanners,
Philadelphia’s Historic Streams
@
Left: The Whitaker textile mill on Tacony
Creek at Cedar Grove, as shown in an
1894 survey drawing. The mill was run by
the Whitaker family from the time it was
established in 1813 until it ceased operation
in 1970. At the time of this drawing it
employed 150 workers.
HEXAMER GENERAL SURVEYS, MAP COLLECTION,
FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA.
Below: Philadelphia’s original creeks
and streams. These waterways were the
lifeblood of many industries through the
early nineteenth century, providing both
water power for running machinery and
transportation routes for moving materials.
Virtually all of the creeks and streams in
the central part of the city and areas
immediately adjacent have long since been
covered over and converted to sewers.
Only the outer reaches of Philadelphia
still have their original waterways.
PHILADELPHIA WATER DEPARTMENT
HISTORICAL COLLECTION/PHILLYH2O.ORG.
The Tacony Creek on which the Whitaker
mill was located flows eastward from Cedar
Grove, past Frankford (just above Frankford
its name changes from Tacony to Frankford
Creek), and then on to Bridesburg, where it
empties into the Delaware River. In the early
nineteenth century the region surrounding
the Tacony/Frankford Creek was mostly rural
and agricultural, with industrial areas clustered
along the creek in the aforementioned
communities of Cedar Grove, Frankford, and
Bridesburg. (Another community, now longgone,
on the creek between Cedar Grove and
Frankford was the village of Rowlandville,
where the Rowland family had a rolling mill.)
CHAPTER THREE
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