Author: sfdshistory

Henry Amlung and the Motor Bandits: 4810 Baltimore Ave.

On February 11, 1919, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s front page headlined several important news stories. The first concerned world diplomacy relating to the end of World War I: “Drastic Terms Demanded for Armistice Renewal…” The second was about the failure of American women to get the right to vote: “Suffragists Lose Vote in Senate By One Vote,” and “Leading Suffragettes Denounce Senate Vote.” The third big story was about a new kind of technology, enabling a new kind of crime: “Motor Bandits Get Furs Worth $5000; Terrorize W. Phila.” The subhead continued: “Band in Limousine Loot Baltimore Avenue Store. Believed to Be Same Which Operated in Vicinity of Sixty-second and Race Streets.”

In a rapidly-changing world, the automobile made so many things possible: goods and services could be transported to places not reachable by train or horse carriage. People could travel to visit family and friends; they could explore new places and shop outside of the city; they could commute to jobs and to leisure activities. And, inevitably, there were those who saw other ways to exploit the new technology. The news story continued:

“Motor bandits — believed by the police to have been the same who were frustrated in an evident plot to hold up storekeepers in the vicinity of Sixty-second and Race Streets just as they were closing after midnight Sunday morning – made a $5000 haul just twenty-four hours later from the fur store of Henry T. Amlung at 4810 Baltimore avenue.
Discovery of the thieves in the very act of transferring furs from the store to a waiting automobile led to an alarm which saved the balance of the stock, valued at close to $50,000.
Fifteen minutes more of uninterrupted work, the police said, and the daring bandits would have entirely cleared out the store.
As it was, they worked with the utmost daring, apparently confident that they had little to fear from the police, who are supposed to be making such a thorough patrol of the streets both uniformed and in plain clothes.
The robbery occurred about one-thirty o’clock yesterday morning, heading a long list of others in practically all parts of the city, which Assistant Director Harry C. Davis, Superintendent of Police Robinson, and their subordinates were unable to keep quiet despite the rigid news censorship under which an effort is being made to hide the city-wide depredations.
Mrs. Letitia Hanganer, who occupies an apartment on the third floor of 4808 Baltimore Avenue, directly adjoining the Amlung establishment, first heard the robbers at work, but thought it was Amlung trying to enter his store and for a few moments returned to bed.
She had been attracted to her window by the noise of someone in the adjoining sideyard below. She thought Amlung had locked the store up leaving his key inside, and was trying to re-enter by the window.
A few minutes later she was again attracted by the same noise, this time accompanied by the subdued voices of men. She returned to the window and for a moment was struck speechless by witnessing one man tossing furs out of the window, and into the arms of an accomplice, who was putting them into a limousine automobile exactly resembling the description of that given of the car used the night before by supposed colored highwaymen, who hurried from the vicinity of Sixty-second and Race streets after an alarm had been given.
Mrs. Hanganer could not discern whether the men robbing Amlung’s place were white or colored.
However, she awakened William Brooke, who conducts a tailoring establishment on the first floor of 4808 Baltimore avenue, and he ran to a second-floor window, shouting at the thieves.
Without abandoning the bundle of furs they then had in their arms the men dashed for their car, clambered in and fled.
The police traced them no further than their route was known to a conductor and motorman, who said they saw the car drive east on Baltimore avenue as far as Forty-fifth street, at which point it might either have turned or continued on toward the central part of the city.”

The article went on to list a number of other recent crimes and thefts in the city, and suggested that the police were grossly ineffective, though, to be fair, they were on foot-patrol and the thieves had superior technology. The following day, February 12, 1919, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported another significant burglary, this time at “the tailoring establishment of Joseph Germano at 205 South Ninth street. Their loot, in bolts of cloth, amounted to a value of $1500…There were evidences, the police said, that this was but another depredation by the same gang of motor bandits which, on the preceding night, looted the fur stores of A. Amlung (sic) at 4810 Baltimore avenue.” Curiously, both victims were of German background; whether that was significant, just after the war, is unclear: Philadelphia had a lot of German immigrants.

“Motor bandit” crimes became an issue that continued to plague the city through 1920, but the term quickly lost its uniqueness and its capitalization, as it was recognized as a new class of crime, committed by ever growing numbers of criminals, large and small. The police invested in new crimefighting equipment in order to keep up. On December 23, 1920 the Inquirer reported that

“Philadelphia’s Christmas presents for motor bandits are ready. Here they are:
One hundred and fifty armed motorcycles, most of them with sidecars.
Six fast automobiles for bandit-chasing owned by the city and a fleet of privately owned automobiles at the call of the police.
A stack of short-range sawed-off shotguns, each pumping six shells of buck shot in rapid succession…”

The sawed-off shotguns were thought to be a kinder and gentler approach to crimefighting than the submachine guns proposed in New York City to deal with its similar automotive crime wave.

Apparently, the public still needed to be convinced that new police equipment was justified. In November 1923, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported: “Value of an automobile in the hands of the police in combatting raids by automobile bandits was conclusively proven last night,” when motor bandits attempted to rob the house of John Lafferty at 5026 Master Street, but police, using a car loaned by William Brennan of 4835 Lancaster Avenue, were able to give chase. The bandits had a faster, larger vehicle, and got away around 51^st and Lancaster Ave., but the effort was considered a success, as a crime was prevented. Another article on the same page reported on a conference with police and mayor: “An interesting development of the day was the loan to the police of the station at Fifty-fifth and Pine streets of two fast automobiles for the purpose of waging war upon the motor bandits who have been particularly active in the Forty-sixth ward. Owners of garages made the loan and other cars will be available if the police need them.”

At this point, one might wonder about some of the thefts, which seemed a little bulky: furs might be disposable, but why steal bolts of cloth? In an age when people did a lot of sewing, and readymade clothing was a luxury, cloth was an important household item. The North Western Christian Advocate, Chicago, Illinois, December 31, 1919, offered some editorial insight on a similar cloth-related crime wave, in that large city:

“Chicago is passing through a ‘crime wave’ of tidal proportions. Formerly burglars confined themselves to loot that could be hastily cast into a bag and carried away on their own. But the automobile and auto truck have made it practical to steal anything up to a department store and get away with it. Consequently, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of furs, dress goods, bolts of cloth, etc., are constantly being carted off, day as well as night. These partial stocks are brought back to the market and sold with evidently no devices in operation to discover the crime. Who buys this stolen stock? Here is an evident weakness in our system of crime detection. It should be made so difficult, if not impossible, to dispose of stocks that cannot be properly accounted for that such burglaries would automatically cease. If the burglar can’t be caught, break down his ‘fence.’”

A 1920 criminal case in Chicago offers further insight. The story is lengthy and convoluted, but the gist is that bolts of a distinctive silk cloth were thought to have been stolen from a train car during a stop. Two immigrant Lithuanian train servicemen were arrested after some of the material was found in their homes. Their wives claimed to have purchased the silk, cheaply, on a street in Chicago, known for its fabric stores. The court reported that trade on that street “is mostly with foreigners. Peddlars sell cloth on the street, and the Polish people buy more than they need when it is cheap and hold it.” The accused ultimately were released after it turned out no one ever verified that the cloth was actually loaded onto the train at its point of origin! Looking down the tunnel of history, such crime stories are laden with suspicion of indiscriminately-labeled immigrants buying and selling, informally, in foreign languages, on street corners; and racism.

So, in an unsettled age, during recovery after a world war, and with different groups struggling for rights and acceptance, we have the advent of new technology – the motor car – which has many benefits, but also provides temptation for anyone with a criminal mind, driving ability, and access to a vehicle. Motor vehicle theft became a recognized issue a little later. Law enforcement was slow to appreciate the scope of the problems and slow to budget for the equipment needed to keep up with the more enterprising criminals – even before Prohibition was passed and whole new areas of illegal activity opened up!

Getting Schooled: 4224-4226 Baltimore Avenue

Not much remains to mark the site of a long experimental educational saga on the south side of Baltimore Avenue, between 42^nd and 43^rd Streets.

Part 1: The Phillips Brooks School

Part one begins with the question: What does a favorite Christmas Carol have to do with the perennial rivalry between Boston and Philadelphia?

Though peripheral to the story of 4224-4226 Baltimore Avenue, it’s still significant. Phillips Brooks was a famous Episcopalian clergyman. Born in Boston, he built the magnificent Trinity Church in Boston in the 1870s. He became a Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891, died there in 1893, and was buried “like a king” at Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery. But today he is best remembered as the author of the beloved Christmas hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which he wrote in Philadelphia in 1868, and which was put to music by the organist of The Church of the Holy Trinity at 1904 Walnut Street, where he was rector for a few years from 1862 to 1869.

All of this happened long before the Baltimore Avenue story, but it gave Philadelphia an opportunity to claim him as one of its own, so that in 1904, an Episcopalian private academy, the Phillips Brooks School opened in his memory. The school was listed as a “day school for boys on novel lines,” arranged with three sessions: “one for play, one for recitations, and one for study, all work is performed in school, thus doing away with home study.” The first principal was John S. White, who had previously founded a memorial school to the Rev. Frederic Brooks, the brother of Phillips Brooks, in Cleveland Ohio in 1874. (We don’t know what was his relationship to the Brooks brothers). The Baltimore Avenue school was noted for its musical evenings. The 1907 Commencement exercises also merited a mention in the Inquirer, as including “two graduates engaged in a debate on the subject: ‘Which country benefited more by the recent Russo-Japanese War?’ Other features of the exercises were a military drill, accompanied by a fife and drum crops (sic), and the rendition of the tent scene from Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar.’”

Despite, or perhaps because of its “novel” curriculum, the school was sold to its creditors, including parents of the boys enrolled at the school, in 1908. The property at the time included “the lot, which has a frontage of 100 feet on the south side of Baltimore avenue and a depth on the east side of Forty-third street of about 150 feet, and a three-story and mansard dwelling which has been altered for use as the main building of the school. In the rear is a large brick gymnasium, but recently finished.” (The gym was designed by architects Cope and Stewardson in 1906). A new headmaster was installed, and the school continued to operate for a few more years.

***

In 1917, the property was purchased by a Masonic group — the Eastern Travelers of West Philadelphia — and quietly slipped into the obscurity of the Secret Societies for the next three years.

***

Part 2: The Burd School for Orphan Girls

Meanwhile, across the city at 63rd and Market, another Episcopal school encountered difficulties, and needed to move to a new site. This was the Burd School for Orphan Girls (initially built as a “refuge for the daughters of dead Episcopal clergymen;” later opened to all fatherless girls) conducted by St. Stephen’s Church at 10^th and Market.

The school, named after the Burd family, was the project of Mrs. Eliza Burd, whose husband, Edward Shippen Burd was an Ambassador to France, and whose family were charter members of St. Stephens. She donated 38 acres of land and paid for the construction of the school at 63^rd and Market Street in 1861. It was an extravagant gift: “the buildings were so large that there had to be built a small railroad to carry the meals from the kitchen to the dining room.” Sadly, surrounded by luxury, in a magnificent Gothic pile, “the fund left for the work amounted to $300,00,” which was not enough of an endowment – even in those days — to maintain the massive property and the fifty pupils, so they had to leave. In July,1920, St. Stephens purchased the “Old Phillips Brooks School” on Baltimore Avenue and the Burd School for Orphan Girls prepared to move.

The former boys’ school first had to be refurbished to suit girls’ needs: the gym would be “remodeled and used for the dining room and assembly room, while the entire school will undergo renovation. A vacant lot next door has also been purchased and will be used as a playground for the pupils.”

The money for the renovations came from the sale of the antiques in the old school: “the personal effects of the Burds, gathered from all over the world,” were catalogued and sold at the American Art Galleries in New York. “The collection formerly was kept in a large room in the old school…” and included “a beautiful and valuable suite of twelve arm chairs and a sofa of the period of Louis XVI, covered with silk tapestry. Tradition among the older pupils is that at one time this suite was the property of Marie Antoinette, but the trustees have not been able to substantiate this.” The collection was expected to raise about $30,000, to be used “to furnish the new school with modern equipment.”

Life at the school (loosely termed: the pupils attended local public schools and resided at Burd) appears to have been fairly tranquil, except for one dramatic moment in 1922, when two bats “found their way into one of the dormitories in which fifty girls were sleeping. Cries of ‘murder’ attracted persons who notified the police of the Thirty-second street and Woodland avenue station,” who arrived with riot guns, but ended up spending an hour chasing bats with brooms.

In 1926, the school was called “exemplary,” in a story about orphan asylums in Philadelphia, because of patroness Eliza Burd, who established it, and the forward-thinking policies of longtime principal Margaret Tappen who set up the routine that: “the pupils here are sent to public schools, given training in the fine arts, and in the 70 years of its existence the school can point with pride at the success attained by various graduates who started life under handicaps.” Tappen, a native of Argentina, was named Principal of the Burd School in 1917, and stayed until her retirement in 1942. It was noted that “while working with the school, Miss Tappen formed and led one of the first Girl Scout troops in Philadelphia.”

In 1936, the Burd Orphan Asylum changed its name to the Burd School, and celebrated its 80^th anniversary with “exercises and tableaus in the school building.” Photographs of the event appeared in the newspaper. At that time, it was said that “since its beginning the school has cared for 414 girls, providing college education for many, and sent them out into the world equipped to earn their living. Age of the present enrollment range from 4 to 18.” Meanwhile, in 1937, the magnificent old Burd School building at 63^rd and Market was demolished: “vacant for nearly two decades, the building had been condemned earlier in the year following the collapse of a floor.”

Principal Margaret Tappen retired in 1942 and died in Massachusetts in 1980 at age 98 (another Massachusetts connection!). The Burd School considered moving to the suburbs in 1946, but the Lower Merion School District and local civic groups there opposed the zoning variance that would have been needed to purchase the Lane estate at Lancaster and Morris Roads in Ardmore. The Burd School eventually disappeared from the news, sometime after the 1950s, when it “became a project of Episcopal Community Services.”

***

Part 3: The West Philadelphia Community Free School

The Philadelphia School Board acquired the Baltimore Avenue property in 1971, and in 1972, the “West Philadelphia Community Free School at 3833 Walnut Street, 3500 Lancaster ave., and 4226 Baltimore ave. for 450 students” was reported to be “an excellent model to relieve overcrowding and provide an alternative program for academically-oriented students.” A 1973 newsbyte elaborated: the West Philadelphia Community Free School “was begun in 1970 by the Philadelphia Board of Education in cooperation with the University of Pennsylvania as a means of diversifying inner-city education by offering a wider curriculum and innovative teaching formats and to relieve the overload at West Philadelphia High School. Today approximately 485 students attend the school at three different locations…”

A report from the UPenn West Philadelphia Collaborative History Project fills in some of the details:

“For the curriculum, each house would offer a “basic program” that included developmentally appropriate intellectual activities and content in literature, social studies, math, and foreign languages. A salient component of the curriculum was the “outside courses”—student internships in businesses, institutions, and agencies around the city, with options ranging from “violin instruction to astronomy with a Penn professor, to anesthesiology taught by a staff member at Children’s Hospital, to clerical training at local banks.” The “family group” was another important feature of Eriksen’s plan. Each teacher would have responsibility for 12 to 15 students, provide a family-like home base for each student, and create “a cohesive group structure for interpersonal relations to grow.” Free time for students was another component. “

The school was a bold experiment — a precusor to the charter school movement — but unfortunately, each of the three partner groups had different and contradictory goals. The University of Pennsylvania, which supplied young, idealistic teachers through its education program, wanted to try out new educational ideas while reducing the tension between the University and the surrounding neighborhoods. The principal at West Philadelphia High School saw a way to relieve overcrowding at his building by moving troubled students into the program. Meanwhile, the Community Board “wanted a ‘new kind of school’ that would inspire young people to aspire to a college degree and give them the tools to achieve that goal.” In the end, the three different approaches proved to be incompatible.

The branch of the school at 4226 Baltimore was known as “House 3” and it was the last to close: in 1974-1975, it had ly seven teachers and 150 students. The school closed in 1977 or 1978.

***

By the 1980s, the building was known locally as a shelter for battered women, and the part of the lot nearest 43^rd street was a flourishing community garden.

The building was torn down long ago, but the property remains undeveloped. Why have there been so many issues with building on the lot? A look at an old map reveals one possible answer: Mill Creek runs under half of the property.

On July 12, 2021, westphillylocal.com reported: “Here’s a quick update on our last month’s post regarding the development of a 132-unit residential complex at 43rd and Baltimore (4224 Baltimore Ave) across from Clark Park. Developers announced in June that they were finally moving forward with the construction. The work began promptly after the announcement. Street parking around the construction area was closed and trees were removed, which made the site much more open and unrecognizable. Some excavation work has also begun. Zoning approval for the project was granted in June 2015 and building permit was issued in May 2019.”

Organ Theft at The Byrd Theatre: 4720 Baltimore Ave.

How does a large pipe organ manage to just disappear?

It wasn’t quite magic, but it was one of a a few quirky things to happen at the Byrd Theatre in its lifetime.

When the Byrd Theater opened at 4720 Baltimore Ave in 1928, with a capacity of 1,800 seats, the Glazer directory reports that it had “trouble getting product” from the beginning, and, despite an acknowledgement from Admiral Byrd, displayed in the lobby, it never was successful. Glazer attributed this to the fact that they always had a hard time getting first-run films, but perhaps there was more to it: the Byrd seemed to have more than its share of strange events.

One of the Byrd Theatre’s happier occasions occurred in 1933 when nearby St. Francis de Sales Church (47^th and Springfield) held a fundraiser there, to a standing-room-only crowd (https://sfdshistory.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/parish-night-at-the-byrd/ ) The event included an organ recital on the theatre’s Gottfriedson organ — a shining moment for the massive movie theater pipe organ, which had become obsolete with the advent of “talkies” soon after the theater opened.

Something that large can become so much a part of the furnishings that you forget its existence, but on March 15, 1941, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Oscar Forman, the theatre manager, suddenly noticed that the Byrd’s organ was gone! Bemused police detectives confirmed that it was, indeed, missing from the premises, and quickly located and arrested the thieves: the usher, Allen Goodwin, of 30^th St. near Tasker; and two seventeen-year-olds: Robert Lewis of Baltimore Ave. near 48^th St,; and Lewis Roberts, of 51^st St. near Baltimore Ave., who confessed to having secretly removed the organ, pipe by pipe, over a period of four months, The operator of a junkyard at 49^th and Paschall was also arrested after he admitted that “he paid $36.40 to Goodwin for 924 pounds of lead, zinc, and brass chimes.” The organ was not the only thing stolen: the detectives also discovered that Forman’s local manager, Harold Sands of 44^th Street near Parrish, had transported “two lamps, a rug and two rug pads – out of the theatre lobby down to Goodwin’s house, where the detectives reported finding them.” The news article, which is just a little bit snarky, ends: “Mr Forman gazed with a satisfied air at the theatre as he drove home last night. ‘Look,’ he murmured to himself, ‘the building’s still there.’” And so it was, for a few more decades.

Theatre organs were, apparently, a target. The Inquirer reported another incident in the neighbourhood on August 19 of the same year, when a group of seven boys were arrested for stealing “parts of a $6000 pipe organ piece by piece from the closed Baltimore Theatre, 5024 Baltimore Ave.” The piled-up pipes were found in one of the boys’ back yards by detective Albert Jones – the same detective who discovered the Byrd thieves – when he and his partner “went to question two youngsters who recently had been found driving automobiles around a used car lot at 45^th Street and Baltimore Ave. After being arrested, these two implicated five others” all unnamed in the newspaper, so it is unclear whether any of them had also been involved in the Byrd theft. Glaser notes that just a few years later, many theatres would voluntarily give up their outdated organs to scrap metal drives for the war effort.

Apparently, there were some rough elements in the neighbourhood in the 1940s: in January 1945, the Inquirer reported a stabbing incident at the Byrd, when two youths got into an argument, and one pulled out a “penknife” and “lunged” at the other. Paul Stokes, age 15, of 4242 Spruce Street, wound up in Philadelphia General Hospital and his friend was arrested for “aggravated assault and battery and turned over to Juvenile Court Authorities.”

Not all incidents at the Byrd were violent. In 1946, the 75-year-old ticket taker collapsed suddenly at the theatre and was rushed to Misericordia Hospital, where he died of a heart attack. His wasn’t the only sudden death: in 1948, Joseph Friell, age 36, of 4619 Chester, took his seven-year-old daughter to the 3 PM matinee as a treat, after she recovered from flu. At the end of the show, the girl could not wake her father, in the seat beside her, so she found the manager, who “went down the aisle, looked, led blonde little Patricia to an usher, and called police. Police took Patricia and her father in an emergency wagon to Misericordia Hospital,” where he was pronounced dead of a heart attack.

Business was not, perhaps, as good as it might have been at the Byrd in the 1950s, so manager Robert Hanover, tried something new: in 1953, he began to advertise “The Eyes of the World Focus on Photorama. Photorama is Movie Magic: a magnificent spectacle bringing a viewer thrills never before experienced…New dimensions in vision with multiple sound. No special glasses needed – you see it – naturally.” The “magniificent 50-foot screen” was billed as “the largest curved screen in Penna.” and was used for showing “Mutiny on the Bounty”, “Peter Pan,” and “The Quiet Man,” among other films.

Thieves tried to break into two safes at the Byrd in 1955, but were frightened off by the arrival of the janitor, who noticed candy strewn on the floor in front of the vending machine. Then owner Robert Hanover (who lived at 4035 Spruce Street), told the police the two safes had been empty and none of the money was missing from the candy machine. Perhaps this was the final straw for Hanover, who bought two bakeries in South Philadelphia and became president of the South 4^th Street Business Men’s Association until he died in 1958.

In 1970, the Byrd property was sold to the Philadelphia department of Public Property, to be used as a parking lot (as it is still today); by that time, the theatre had already been closed for twelve years.

Perhaps the Byrd’s odd fortunes were related to its choice of namesake, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, whose career had its own share of “maybes” — especially around the time the theaatre opened. Wikipedia reports that Admiral Byrd is “one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the United States Navy.” However, in 1926, after Byrd had become a national hero and received the Medal of Honor for claiming to have flown over the North Pole, doubts began to surface about whether he falsified his instrument readings — the truth is still uncertain. In 1927, Byrd received backing from the American Trans-Oceanic Company — owned by Philadelphia department store magnate Rodman Wanamaker (son of John Wanamaker) — his Philadelphia connection — to attempt the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight; his start was delayed by a plane repair, and Charles Lindbergh beat him to the record by several days. Around the time the Byrd Theatre opened in 1928, Byrd was on the first of a series of expeditions to the Antarctic on his flagship, the City of New York — which had previously been named the Samson, and was infamous for possibly being the ship that failed to come to the aid of the Titanic back in 1912!

A Moving Experience: 4736-4738 Baltimore Avenue

Have you ever noticed that the two houses at 4736 and 4738 Baltimore Ave. look very similar to the houses around the corner on Forty-eighth Street?

There’s a reason for that!

In 1905, when Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church, at the corner of 48^th and Baltimore, approved the blueprints for a new church, there was just one problem: the lot was the wrong shape for the proposed structure! Rather than changing the plan, the Inquirer reported on July 21,1905, that the Building Committee decided it needed to reconfigure the lot, adding space on the Forty-eighth street side to accommodate the design.

Unfortunately for Calvary, the 800 block of Forty-Eighth Street was already filled in with houses, and numbers 811 and 813 occupied the desired space.

The Inquirer noted at the time that “as the two properties were worth $16,000 it was not thought wise to tear them down.” The owners may, also, have been reluctant to leave their homes! What to do?!

Ultimately, a “novel” solution was proposed: “After a consultation of architects, ground was bought on the Baltimore avenue side and preparations were made to move the houses. Not even a piece of furniture has been taken out of the houses and the contract calls for them to be moved without any weakening of the walls or foundations.”

A few days later, on July 26, the Inquirer reported: “Jacked up on heavy rollers and with three powerful double teams tugging at the windlasses, the two properties, 811 and 813 South Forty-eighth street, were slowly started from their foundations yesterday on a journey of nearly 200 feet.” The report continued: “The operation, which has been the cause of much interest to the residents of the neighborhood, is unique in the annals of building in West Philadelphia…The houses are three-story porch-front, built in pairs, and are being moved in order to afford more room for the building of the church. For more than a month a gang of laborers has been busy beneath the houses, slowly raising them from their foundations. Now they will be moved back 100 feet, swung around on their centre, facing Baltimore avenue, and then moved to the building line, where they will be placed on new foundations, east of where the new church will be. The contract calls for the operation being finished without injury to the walls or to the furniture, which has been left in the house.”

Building relocation, though dramatic, was, actually, fairly common in the period. A post on Ancestrylink notes that “By horse, oxen, over water, by train, even by sled dogs – houses left their original foundations and migrated to new settings quite frequently in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, as documented by photographic images.”

Other local examples: in 1901, a wooden frame building was transported across the city from St. Thomas Aquinas at Seventeenth and Morris to become a temporary chapel for Most Blessed Sacrament Parish at Fifty-Sixth and Chester; years later, in 1925, MBS dismantled the no-longer-needed building, and moved it to Good Shepherd at Sixty-Seventh and Chester! Meanwhile, In 1923, Whitby Hall, an eighteenth-century mansion located at 1601 South 58th Street, was taken apart by descendants of the original owners, moved to the suburbs, and most of it re-assembled in the Merion Golf neighborhood at Haverford, PA. (In order to pay for the move, the wing of the house containing the main parlour was sold to the Detroit Institute of Arts museum, where it was re-assembled as a permanent exhibit called “Whitby Hall”!).

Even for Calvary, the1905 house-moving caper wasn’t their first or only experience with building relocation: back in 1898, when they outgrew their first temporary wooden frame building, they shifted it a few blocks to Fiftieth and Baltimore, in neighbourly fashion, so it could be repurposed as the temporary home of St. Paul’s Presbyterian church (today Hickman Temple), while their permanent church was constructed.

Cherry Tree Inn: 4630 Baltimore Avenue

Legend said that the ancient cherry tree that gave the Cherry Tree Inn its name, was a slip of the very same mythical tree that George Washington cut down in his youth, but there is no evidence to support either tale!

The old yellow clapboard Cherry Tree Inn once stood on Baltimore Avenue, between 46^th and 47^th Streets – where the Aksum Restaurant is now. In its day, as a rest stop on the well-travelled Baltimore Pike, it witnessed a lot of history and was known, especially, as a rest stop for those returning from funerals at Fernwood and Holy Cross cemeteries.

*****

One of the Cherry Tree’s more alarming moments occurred on January 14, 1872, when a rowdy crowd began to gather at the Inn, starting around 11 PM, with intent to hold a series of illegal boxing matches in the parking lot (probably about where St. Francis de Sales School is today) the next day: two “scrubs” (easy fights) and one “according to the rules of the ring, at $50 a side.” The role of the first arrivals, was to intimidate the proprietor and other residents of the Inn, and keep them from notifying authorities of the plans. James Cocker, who ran the hotel at the time, was already having a bad day, “considering the fact that there was a small-pox corpse in the house, and another person lying at the point of death with the same disease…” Despite this, the crowd continued to gather at the Inn, through the night, until about 300 rowdy spectators were present.

Word did get out to the police, somehow, and they arrived at daybreak, in time to stop the fight, disperse the crowd, take four men into custody, and confiscate “two hundred feet of new rope, a bucket, an axe, and a bottle of whiskey, the sponge being carried off by the seconds.” The Inquirer noted: “It is supposed that the fight will be proceeded with on the New Jersey side of the river to-day.” We don’t know if there was any spread of smallpox contagion as a result of exposure at the Inn.

*****

The Inn was a polling place for voters for many years, and temporary home to the Wayland West Philadelphia Republicans, but it did attract its share of controversy as the temperance movement gained the momentum that would eventually lead to Prohibition. In 1889, a neighbor, Dr. Twaddell, was called as a witness when the inn applied for a new liquor license: “He said the saloon and the stables on the premises were a convenience to travelers,” though a year later, in 1890, “twenty-two citizens signed a protest against the granting of a retail license” to the Cherry Tree Inn because “it would be a damage to the neighborhood, leading to the waste of wages, the unhappiness of families and the demoralization of the young.”

*****

Presumably, the Inn still got its license, since, a few years later, in 1895, it played a part in a dramatic tale reported in the Inquirer of “A BLACK HORSE IN A MUD PUDDLE,” highlighting the physical perils of the developing neighborhood.

The Inquirer noted on October 13, 1895, that

“about five weeks ago, the Gas Bureau laid a 16-inch main along Baltimore Avenue, from Forty-second street west to Fifty-first. It wasn’t a neat job. The workmen dug up the brick sidewalk and the nice brick and Belgian block pavement… When the pipe was laid the earth was put back in the trench carelessly and a big hump was left two feet above the sidewalk level, which spread all over the bricks and blew six ways for Saturday…”

The dust was a nuisance until a day when heavy rains came so suddenly so that “in one hour the ditch was full of a yellow mass of water and clay of the consistency of pea soup.” Just at that point, “the handsome wagon of a Market Street grocer came up Forty-seventh street, drawn by a beautiful black horse…The intention was to turn from Forty-seventh street into Baltimore Avenue…” but in the bucketing rain, only the front end of the horse made the turn: his “hind legs went down into the pea soup until his haunches were under the mud and only his head and fore feet were above ground. It is hard to tell which was more surprised, the horse or the driver.”

The driver managed to scramble out of the wagon, but the horse was stuck. Various means were tried to pull him out of the mud: the “ice man,” with a crowd of helpers, tried using a plank of wood to pry him loose, but the plank broke. Don Walling, who was, by then, the proprietor of the Cherry Tree Inn, called for more volunteers (probably those sitting in his saloon), who attempted to pull the horse out by his tail, but that was “disastrous.” Finally, Walling and his men managed to slide the broken plank under the horse “so that the horse sat astride of it, with his legs still in the mud.” He was rolled over on one side, and a rope fastened to one leg, then he was pulled this way and that, got halfway out, fell back in again, and, finally, “a dozen men…rolled him out onto his back as if he were a hogsehad of molasses. A more disgusted horse would have been hard to find as he lay on the pavement...” He was led off to be washed down at the Cherry Tree, while the “strong men…took a drink.”

It was observed that among the spectators was “a noted woman suffrage leader from Denver, who viewed the efforts of the men with contempt and offered to rescue the animal unaided, except that it might spoil her new balloon sleeves – just from Paris.” This was probably Ellis Meredith, known as “the Susan B. Anthony of Colorado.” In addition to advocating for women’s voting rights, she strongly supported the Temperance movement against alcohol, and would likely have disapproved of any efforts by patrons of a saloon!

*****

The escapade, reported at length in the newspaper, may have come to the attention of City Hall. Or perhaps the recent installation of the electric trolley fuelled road improvement. The following year, in 1896, when the newspaper reported on changes at the Cherry Tree Hotel, it noted that the inn was known as “a consolation to the thirsty hackmen and mourners homeward bound on the perilous surface of this old (but now excellent) road to Fernwood and Holy Cross cemeteries.”

What were the changes reported at the Cherry Tree?

“Among the latest victims of the ‘improver’ is the little Cherry Tree Hotel…In keeping with the fine streets and houses all about there is to be, according to rumor, a modern ‘Cherry Tree’ and the old affair, sacred to the memory of ward primaries, elections, and old-fashioned good cheer, is going the way of all vanities.” The “ancient yellow clapboards of the ‘Cherry Tree,’” it was reported, “will be entirely demolished and a handsome new brick building, three stories, 54 x 47.6 feet, erected.”

The new brick construction was only the beginning. In 1898, the Inquirer reported that “Don Willing’s (sic) place…known as the Cherry Tree Hotel, was wanted by his nephew, Frank E. Byerly, and Walling wanted him to have it, so the Court permitted the transfer.” Byerly, apparently, had grand ideas: in July, 1907, the paper noted that

“C.E. Schermerhorn, architect, has prepared plans for extensive alterations and additions to the Cherry Tree…for Mr. Frank E. Byerly. The drawings provide for a large ladies’ cafe, stag room, new toilet facilities, serving rooms, bath rooms, enlarged kitchen, a laundry and store room and apartments on the third floor. The heating and lighting plants will be enlarged to meet the new requirements. The specifications call for the extensive use of tile and mosaic work, parquetry flooring, dumb waiters, cement and cut stone work, plumbing, etc.” A few weeks later, it was noted that “William K. Erb has been granted a permit for the extensive alterations to the Cherry Tree, one of the oldest hotels in West Philadelphia…The hotel…was once an old road house, but was later enlarged and altered. The present work will consist of a front addition, 24 x 6 feet, and two rear additions measuring 13 x 7.9 feet and 22 x 10 feet. The additions will all be one story high and the work will cost about $3000.”

Were the renovations too ambitious? Or did Prohibition change the landscape? The 18^th Amendment was passed on January 16, 1919 and the nation went “dry” in 1920. Two years later, in April 1922, the Cherry Tree was sold to “a client who will convert the property into stores and apartments. The site and the contemplated improvements represent an investment approximating $40,000.” A few months later, in July, the Inquirer advertised “High class mahogany bar and fixtures, plate glass mirrors. No. 400 (quality). Hotel gas range, 6 burner, broiler, toaster, large hood. 13 restaurant tables, 42 inch top, cast iron bottom; all in good condition; make offer, Cherry Tree Inn, 4624 Baltimore avenue.”

Address numbers changed several times as the neighborhood developed, but the distinctive odd-shaped land parcel remained on the map. The 1926 St. Francis de Sales Parish Monthly Bulletin features ads for twin businesses on the property: Mellon’s Pure Food Shop at 4626 Baltimore Ave (Chili’s today) and Silver’s Fruit and Produce Market next door at 4632 (Aksum).

Ads from 1926 SFDS Parish Monthly Bulletin

The original Cherry Tree Inn was long gone, when, in 1933, its name returned to Baltimore Avenue, with a liquor license awarded to an apparently new business called The Cherry Tree Inn at 4540 Baltimore Avenue. This bar, which became a neighborhood fixture for a long time, eventually inspired its own namesake: in the early 1970s, when a group of folk musicians “used to hang out at a seedy little bar called the ‘Cherry Tree Inn’ on the 4500 block of Baltimore Avenue and got drunk on 15-cent beers…Here the idea of a club formed….Eventually it would bear the local bar’s name,” though the Cherry Tree Co-Op actually met and performed at 3916 Locust Walk into the early 1980s. Eventually, the Cherry Tree Inn on Baltimore Avenue disappeared, and the Gojo Bar and Restaurant, an Ethiopian eatery, took over the spot.

Incidentally, the site of the original Cherry Tree Inn may be prone to legendary status. That first Cherry Tree Inn claimed an association with the cherry tree of George Washington – a beloved piece of American folklore. The restaurant currently on the site is named Aksum, recalling a legendary ancient kingdom in Ethiopia – an area of once fabled wealth, with claims of being home to the Ark of the Covenant of Biblical fame.

The Twaddell Estate: 4501 Baltimore Ave.

TheTwaddell Esate at 4501 Baltimore Avenue

The Twaddell farm once stretched from about 43^rd Street to 53^rd; Baltimore Avenue to Market Street; but now, the ghost of the once-proud Twaddell mansion lies somewhere on the north side of Baltimore Avenue between 45^th and 46^thstreet – perhaps where Melville Street is today – and its neighborhood story is long forgotten.

The memory disappeared disheartningly quickly. In April 1893, when the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on “How a Beautiful Suburb Has Grown Up In a Few Years” around 49^th Street in West Philadelphia, it also casually mentioned the area’s vanishing history: “Standing on an eminence some fifty feet back from Forty-sixth street and Baltimore avenue is one of the few interesting remaining landmarks of this locality. It is the picturesque and historic old house of Dr. L.H. Twaddell.” Sadly, nobody seemed anxious to save it.

The newspaper noted its historical significance several times over the next two decades as the neighborhood continued to develop around it. The core of the building — with thirty-inch thick solid masonry walls, and floors “supported by hewn beams, held together by huge wooden pegs” — was said to date back to 1644,“almost 40 years before William Penn settled on the present site of Philadelphia.” The Twaddell family claimed to have a document in which Swedish merchant, Peter Jonason, deeded that house to his son John Jonason in 1761.

In 1796, the sturdy little cottage was purchased by a wealthy Frenchman, John de la Roche, fleeing the French Revolution. He kept the original structure, but connected it to a large addition, which he designed “after a celebrated chateau in France.” The Inquirer reported that, at that time,

“… the house was surrounded by a 43-acre tract which occupied the north side of Baltimore Avenue between Forty-third and Fifty-third streets. The French refugee improved the property with a large addition to the house and for the remaining seven years of the eighteenth century it became a meeting place for political refugees from France… He called his house “La Place” and he bestowed such care upon the surrounding grounds that it soon became one of the show places of the vicinity. Rose trees imported from France were planted artistically about the house, and one bush which continues to grow near the old dwelling today is declared to be one of the original ones planted. The present owners declare that there must be thousands of rose bushes in and about Philadelphia which owe their origins to the original importation which was brought to this country by the Frenchman more than 125 years ago.

Constructed before the American Revolution and improved by a refugee from the French Revolution, the house still had another role to play in history. The paper continued:

“For the past 120 years or more the house has been in the possession of the Twaddell family, which for more than a century, has been prominent in this city. During the Civil War, the building was turned over to the Satterlee Hospital for wounded soldiers by Dr. L. Henry Twaddell, the owner at the time. The ground became a resting place for convalescent soldiers…”

Almost the entire Satterlee Hospital was, in fact, on Twaddell land, and when the description was written in the 1890s, there were those in the neighborhood who could still “remember hearing the heavy army vans and supply wagons as they rolled along the hard macadamized pike during the war times” and “only recently, a party of G.A.R. veterans visited the place, who had enjoyed its hospitality during the days of the rebellion.”

What happened to the estate in the end?

Frank H. Taylor described the last days of a beautiful mansion and an idyllic country lifestyle:

“Its appearance has always seemed to me more Virginian than any other about the city, and the idea has been enforced by the frequent appearance of its owner, often with his daughter, both excellent riders, upon mettlesome horses, coming down the private lane.^. But an April 1893 article notes that “civilization has crowded so fast, that Dr. Twaddell, who has lived in quiet for a generation the life of a country gentleman, looking after his fine cattle and rare breeds of dogs, finds he must give up his property to the home seekers, who have used all the available property in the neighborhood but his. This must now go also.”

Dr. Twaddell, age 64, offered his land for development that year, and in 1894, he sold several parcels on 47^th Street.

In January 1895, the pace of change accelerated when the Electric Traction Company established a trolley car route on Baltimore Avenue. Easy quick transportation made the area attractive to commuters — and to builders. For those who already lived in the neighborhood, The Inquirer reported that “at first the horses, which have known this old street for years as an old country road, were altogether unable to understand the new power…” The trolley cars sped along at a heady speed of about thirty miles per hour, and pedestrians and animals had to get used to the new traffic: Dr. Twaddell’s twenty-four-year-old son Horace was saddened, that March, when his dachshund was killed by a trolley.

August of that year brought another change to the farm, when the Inquirer noted that Dr. Twaddell,

“is mourning the loss of two Jersey cows which died Sunday night. They were the last of the herd he established on his estate in 1856, when it was a farm…Dr. Twaddell imported Europa and Peerless in 1846 and increased the head largely in a few years by importation and breeding. Many of the finest cattle in the country come from this herd. The Twaddell “farm” is now cut up into building lots, and Dr. Twaddell will not replace the cows he has just lost and which he has kept as a matter of pride. He was once president of the Jersey Cattle Breeders’ Association of America.”

The age of farming was ending in this region. In November 1895, under the heading “Great Improvements Made in A Beautiful Part of West Philadelphia,” the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that Horace Twaddell, the Doctor’s son, with modern ideas, had started to develop a piece of the family property at 46^th and Cedar:

“Where a portion of the old Twaddell homestead lands extended, fronting on Cedar Street, which branches off just at the intersection of Forty-Sixth street and Baltimore avenue, six unique dwellings have been erected by H.G. Twaddell. Red brick and buff brick; hipped roofs and peaked roofs; pebble-dashed gables and porches are cleverly interspersed, giving a picturesque effect, which is added to by the two rows of trees which line the sidewalk and border the lawns in front…The houses contain all the latest improvements and it is evident they are thoroughly up to date when it is known that a bicycle closet is included in the reception hall…”

“Bicycle” was a “trendy buzz word” at the time: the 1880s invention of the “Safety Bicycle” with equal-sized tires, followed shortly by the introduction of rubber wheels, created a safe and fun pastime, enthusiastically embraced by multitudes. American Heritage Magazine notes that during the brief years of the “craze,” in the 1890s, “a large part of the advertising in leading magazines had to do with bicycles and accessories…. Wide-ranging repercussions included the shortening of women’s skirts, and popular support for road improvements. Horace was right in embracing its advertising potential: his first venture was a success, and in 1896, at the other end of the block, he “outlined eight fine dwellings which will shortly be started, and will be of the same high-class as those he built last year.”

When old Dr. L. Henry Twaddell died, his two unmarried daughters remained on the quickly shrinking estate. At that time, Frank H. Taylor reported that “Already a part of the farm has been covered with buildings, including the site of the studio long occupied by Harry Poore, the well-known painter of animal life, which was removed only last year. Miss Twaddell still has the studio in the field behind the house. This will doubtless soon go.”

Times continued to change, the neighborhood continued to develop, and on October 3, 1921, the Philadelphia Inquirer announced that “yesterday, the present occupants, Miss Mollie and Miss Nellie Twaddell, descendants of a family which lived in it for more than one hundred years, made preparations to leave….They will take up their residence with their brother, H.G. (Horace) Twaddell of Westtown…’ The original 1644 part of the Twaddell house “was built to withstand possible attack by hostile Indians, and it is expected to resist, with some degree of success, the attack of the workmen’s picks, when the come to level it for the ground.” The paper reported that “after the house is torn down, the eight acre plot which still surrounds it will be divided into building lots and sold.”

Today, the remains of its foundations lie buried beneath the newer houses we now treasure as historic.