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 46th and 47th 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.
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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.
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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.”
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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!
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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 18th 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).
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.
Street of History Philadelphia 