The Effects of Modernization and Industry
During the early part of the 19th century, Lemon Hill and its greenhouses which held Pratt’s gardens were the center of botanical studies in North America. However, the great aristocratic estates built along the Schuylkill during the Georgian and Federalist eras in the 18th century had all become derelict versions of their former selves by the 1830’s and 1840’s. An 1872 report on the state of the old estates describes Lemon Hill as “this once beautiful ground now lying in ruins, is in its past associations, too well known to us all to require particular description”[1]. What had happened during the middle part of the century that had caused one of the first and most pronounced cases of urban flight and decay?
While the construction of Fairmount and Flat Rock dams along the Schuylkill had pacified the river, allowing for an increase in river traffic and a larger intake of water through the municipal water works, the stagnant water which collected along the six mile stretch of tranquility became a common source of dysentery and other diseases[2]. Before then, the city had commonly experienced bouts of such diseases, and many estates now encompassing Fairmount Park (Sweetbriar, Landownes, Solitude) were constructed during the period from 1793-1800 to avoid the ongoing yellow fever epidemic[3]. The river mansions along the banks of the Schuylkill were often considered to be country estates by the city’s residents and served as the residence for aristocratic patrons during warmer months when they could tend to their horticultural gardens and avoid the higher risk of disease in the city center. Yet the creation of the dam and the stagnation of water had made all the riverside mansions steeped in a “fever and ague infested swamp”[4]. By attempting to solve a public health hazard by building the water works and dam to allow access to clean water upstream, the city’s Water Committee had in fact created another environmental cesspool by creating a large stretch of stagnant water on a section of the river being heavily industrialized and forded by canal boats. The city would not solve problems of river contamination until the creation of Fairmount Park 50 years after the construction of the dam and waterworks, but did implement some measures in 1828 to fine anyone an amount of $5-$50 for polluting and dumping waste into the section of the Schuylkill running from Flat Rock Dam in Manayunk to Fairmount Dam[5].
However, this was not enough to prevent disease and stop the exodus of aristocrats away from Fairmount and to the more remote suburbs of Chestnut Hill and the Main Line[6]. Many of the botanical gardens dotting the riverside were abandoned, although these gardens were in some cases resurrected later when they were integrated into the park system. One case was that of Lemon Hill, the estate owned by Morris and then Pratt lying furthest south right next to the dams. While Pratt had abandoned his horticultural gardens before 1830, the real estate boom under Jackson’s policy of westward expansion inflated the value of his estate during the mid 1830’s[7]. He kept the estate until an inevitable crash occurred in 1836-7, when a large number of other riverside estates changed hands[8]. Yet by 1840, many members of the city’s water council recognized the need to start acquiring more land upriver from the Fairmount Dam to protect water quality, and Lemon Hill was the first estate purchased by the city in 1844[9]. An additional pumping station and reservoir were erected near the top of the hill shortly thereafter by Graff.
While water pollution was a growing health concern for many inhabiting riverside estates, the industrialization of the Schuylkill and increase in river traffic heavily influenced the aesthetics of the regions and was the main cause for urban flight. The once idyllic riverside was now being encroached upon by the spread of industry and rise of modernity, as Joshua Francis Fisher recalled mid-century:
“The city out-skirts have encroached everywhere now. Ugly buildings rise where meadows and groves bounded the quiet river. The trees around the margin… have been cut down for wharves and a railway. The fine woods of Gray’s Gardens, the more distant plantations of the Bartrams, the picturesque projecting rocks in the foreground, over all which we used to look while we traced the meanders of the tranquil Schuylkill on its way to the Delaware, are all gone! And the primitive floating bridge has given place to the great tasteless wooden viaduct of the Baltimore Railroad, which spoils the landscape and obstructs the view.”[10]
Perhaps the single most important industrial development for the city of Philadelphia was the discovery of anthracite coal in Schuylkill County in 1790. While the industrial development of the city had been significant beforehand due to the presence of iron (during the Revolutionary War more ironworks existed in Pennsylvania than any other colony[11]) the discovery of coal in the sparked the region’s industrial development, providing power for factory complexes in Reading, Phoenixville, Conshohocken, and countless steel mills, textile mills, ship yards, and other industries in Philadelphia[12]. Before the adoption of railroads in the 1850’s, the Schuylkill Navigation company established a system of canals along the Schuylkill starting in 1815 to allow shipments of coal and manufactured goods the ability to reach Philadelphia to Reading[13]. These canals were some of the earliest of its kind (along with the Erie Canal) and merchants supporting the navigation company heavily lobbied against pollution controls and city efforts to appropriate the riverside into a park system. When the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad (P&R) was established in the mid-19th century, the canal system became obsolete. The P&R railroad would go on to function as the world’s largest enterprise in the 1870’s[14]. By diverting canal traffic to rail shipments, the growth of P&R coincided with the development of public parkways along the Schuylkill bank from 1850-1870 culminating in the establishment of the Fairmount Park Commission.
While the construction of Fairmount and Flat Rock dams along the Schuylkill had pacified the river, allowing for an increase in river traffic and a larger intake of water through the municipal water works, the stagnant water which collected along the six mile stretch of tranquility became a common source of dysentery and other diseases[2]. Before then, the city had commonly experienced bouts of such diseases, and many estates now encompassing Fairmount Park (Sweetbriar, Landownes, Solitude) were constructed during the period from 1793-1800 to avoid the ongoing yellow fever epidemic[3]. The river mansions along the banks of the Schuylkill were often considered to be country estates by the city’s residents and served as the residence for aristocratic patrons during warmer months when they could tend to their horticultural gardens and avoid the higher risk of disease in the city center. Yet the creation of the dam and the stagnation of water had made all the riverside mansions steeped in a “fever and ague infested swamp”[4]. By attempting to solve a public health hazard by building the water works and dam to allow access to clean water upstream, the city’s Water Committee had in fact created another environmental cesspool by creating a large stretch of stagnant water on a section of the river being heavily industrialized and forded by canal boats. The city would not solve problems of river contamination until the creation of Fairmount Park 50 years after the construction of the dam and waterworks, but did implement some measures in 1828 to fine anyone an amount of $5-$50 for polluting and dumping waste into the section of the Schuylkill running from Flat Rock Dam in Manayunk to Fairmount Dam[5].
However, this was not enough to prevent disease and stop the exodus of aristocrats away from Fairmount and to the more remote suburbs of Chestnut Hill and the Main Line[6]. Many of the botanical gardens dotting the riverside were abandoned, although these gardens were in some cases resurrected later when they were integrated into the park system. One case was that of Lemon Hill, the estate owned by Morris and then Pratt lying furthest south right next to the dams. While Pratt had abandoned his horticultural gardens before 1830, the real estate boom under Jackson’s policy of westward expansion inflated the value of his estate during the mid 1830’s[7]. He kept the estate until an inevitable crash occurred in 1836-7, when a large number of other riverside estates changed hands[8]. Yet by 1840, many members of the city’s water council recognized the need to start acquiring more land upriver from the Fairmount Dam to protect water quality, and Lemon Hill was the first estate purchased by the city in 1844[9]. An additional pumping station and reservoir were erected near the top of the hill shortly thereafter by Graff.
While water pollution was a growing health concern for many inhabiting riverside estates, the industrialization of the Schuylkill and increase in river traffic heavily influenced the aesthetics of the regions and was the main cause for urban flight. The once idyllic riverside was now being encroached upon by the spread of industry and rise of modernity, as Joshua Francis Fisher recalled mid-century:
“The city out-skirts have encroached everywhere now. Ugly buildings rise where meadows and groves bounded the quiet river. The trees around the margin… have been cut down for wharves and a railway. The fine woods of Gray’s Gardens, the more distant plantations of the Bartrams, the picturesque projecting rocks in the foreground, over all which we used to look while we traced the meanders of the tranquil Schuylkill on its way to the Delaware, are all gone! And the primitive floating bridge has given place to the great tasteless wooden viaduct of the Baltimore Railroad, which spoils the landscape and obstructs the view.”[10]
Perhaps the single most important industrial development for the city of Philadelphia was the discovery of anthracite coal in Schuylkill County in 1790. While the industrial development of the city had been significant beforehand due to the presence of iron (during the Revolutionary War more ironworks existed in Pennsylvania than any other colony[11]) the discovery of coal in the sparked the region’s industrial development, providing power for factory complexes in Reading, Phoenixville, Conshohocken, and countless steel mills, textile mills, ship yards, and other industries in Philadelphia[12]. Before the adoption of railroads in the 1850’s, the Schuylkill Navigation company established a system of canals along the Schuylkill starting in 1815 to allow shipments of coal and manufactured goods the ability to reach Philadelphia to Reading[13]. These canals were some of the earliest of its kind (along with the Erie Canal) and merchants supporting the navigation company heavily lobbied against pollution controls and city efforts to appropriate the riverside into a park system. When the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad (P&R) was established in the mid-19th century, the canal system became obsolete. The P&R railroad would go on to function as the world’s largest enterprise in the 1870’s[14]. By diverting canal traffic to rail shipments, the growth of P&R coincided with the development of public parkways along the Schuylkill bank from 1850-1870 culminating in the establishment of the Fairmount Park Commission.
[1] Pg. 3 Lemon Hill and Fairmount Park
[2] Pg 53 O’Malley, Therese “Cultivated Lives, Cultivated Spaces” in Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia 1740-1840
[3] Pg 52 O’Malley, Therese “Cultivated Lives, Cultivated Spaces” in Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia 1740-1840
[4] Pg 53 O’Malley, Therese “Cultivated Lives, Cultivated Spaces” in Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia 1740-1840
[5] Schuylkill River Watershed History http://www.phillywatersheds.org/your_watershed/schuylkill/history
[6] For an in-depth historical portrayal of urban flight in Philadelphia, Baltzell’s work Philadelphia Gentlemen is a good source
[7] Pg. 3 Lemon Hill and Fairmount Park published 1872
[8] Pg. 4 Lemon Hill and Fairmount Park
[9] Pg. 4 Lemon Hill and Fairmount Park
[10] Pg 53 O’Malley, Therese “Cultivated Lives, Cultivated Spaces” in Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia 1740-1840
[11] Industrial Revolution https://www.schuylkillriver.org/Industrial_Revolution.aspx
[12] Industrial Revolution https://www.schuylkillriver.org/Industrial_Revolution.aspx
[13] Industrial Revolution https://www.schuylkillriver.org/Industrial_Revolution.aspx
[14] Industrial Revolution https://www.schuylkillriver.org/Industrial_Revolution.aspx
[2] Pg 53 O’Malley, Therese “Cultivated Lives, Cultivated Spaces” in Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia 1740-1840
[3] Pg 52 O’Malley, Therese “Cultivated Lives, Cultivated Spaces” in Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia 1740-1840
[4] Pg 53 O’Malley, Therese “Cultivated Lives, Cultivated Spaces” in Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia 1740-1840
[5] Schuylkill River Watershed History http://www.phillywatersheds.org/your_watershed/schuylkill/history
[6] For an in-depth historical portrayal of urban flight in Philadelphia, Baltzell’s work Philadelphia Gentlemen is a good source
[7] Pg. 3 Lemon Hill and Fairmount Park published 1872
[8] Pg. 4 Lemon Hill and Fairmount Park
[9] Pg. 4 Lemon Hill and Fairmount Park
[10] Pg 53 O’Malley, Therese “Cultivated Lives, Cultivated Spaces” in Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia 1740-1840
[11] Industrial Revolution https://www.schuylkillriver.org/Industrial_Revolution.aspx
[12] Industrial Revolution https://www.schuylkillriver.org/Industrial_Revolution.aspx
[13] Industrial Revolution https://www.schuylkillriver.org/Industrial_Revolution.aspx
[14] Industrial Revolution https://www.schuylkillriver.org/Industrial_Revolution.aspx