Misplaced Pages

#771228

26-620: Designed by Thomas Ustick Walter , a future Architect of the Capitol , the monument was erected by the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad to mark its completion of a bridge across the Schuylkill River and the first railroad line south from Philadelphia. The monument originally sat about 700 feet (210 m) from the riverbank. Between 1927 and 1930, it was moved about 600 feet (180 m) further inland, where it sat for decades by

52-747: A high bank in the angle formed by the junction of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad and the Chester Branch of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway just below the western end of the Gray's Ferry Bridge." It sat about 700 feet (210 m) from the Schuylkill River, at 39.93975 north latitude, 75.20830 west longitude. In 1872, the PW&;B built a new mainline west of the Viaduct. It leased its old line to

78-494: A local organization concerned with the built environment . The articles explored the monument's significance and suggested it be moved to a more visible site. Over the next few years, the idea was embraced and brought to fruition by a host of public and private entities, including Amtrak , Philadelphia Parks & Recreation , Schuylkill River Development Corporation, landscape architects Andropogon Associates, planners PennPraxis , conservators Materials Conservation, and movers with

104-649: Is known as the Delaware County Sunday Times . The first edition of the paper, then known as the Chester Times , was a four-page broadsheet printed on September 7, 1876, selling for one cent. Pictures began to appear in the paper by 1915. In November 1959, the Chester Times changed its name to the Delaware County Daily Times. On June 15, 1981, the paper transformed from a broadsheet to

130-454: The King's Highway , the main land route to the southern states. On August 14, 1838, the PW&B board of directors decided to name the bridge after company president Matthew Newkirk (1794–1868), a Philadelphia business and civic leader, and to commission a monument at its west end. (Earlier in the year, the company gave Newkirk a silver plate worth $ 1,000 ($ 28,613 today) to reward him for arranging

156-552: The Philadelphia and Reading Railway , which built a small railyard, surrounding the monument. After a half-century, the monument had fallen into obscurity, except perhaps to vandals. "Surrounding the structure is an iron fence to protect it from vandalism, but it has, nevertheless, been a frequent target for irresponsible hoodlums," the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in 1896. In 1900, the Philadelphia Record wrote of

182-589: The Second Empire -styled Quarters B and Quarters D at Admiral's Row in Brooklyn, New York . The most famous of Walter's constructions is the dome of the U.S. Capitol . By 1850, the rapid expansion of the United States, and thus the U.S. Congress, had caused a space shortage in the Capitol. Walter was selected to design extensions for the Capitol. His plan more than doubled the size of the existing building and added

208-692: The Union of the several charters obtained from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. Work commenced July 4, 1835. Completed December 25, 1838. Cost $ 4,000,000. Railroad Contractors: William Slater, John Ahern, Beers & Hyde, Kennedy Lonergan Superintendents: NEWKIRK VIADUCT Samuel H. Kneass , Engineer. Alexander and Charles Provost , Stone Masons. Uziel H. French, Bridge Carpenter. NEWKIRK VIADUCT Commenced July 4, 1837. Completed December 25, 1838. S.H. Kneass , Engineer. Railroad from Philadelphia to Wilmington. Wilson's transcription contains several errors; for example, it misspells

234-426: The 5-foot (1.5 m) base and other pieces weigh a rough total of 12,000 pounds (5,400 kg). The obelisk and base are inscribed with the names of 51 men, including senior officials of the four railroads and various employees who helped build the bridge and rail line. The monument was installed along the western approach to the bridge and surrounded by a low iron fence. An 1895 account describes its location as "on

260-2312: The George Young Company. On November 17–18, 2016, the monument was moved to a new concrete pad along the under-construction "Bartram's Mile" section of the Schuylkill River Trail . As transcribed by Wilson, the four sides of the monument and its base are inscribed as follows: President MATTHEW NEWKIRK Vice President JACOB J COHEN JR Directors Philadelphia. Matthew Newkirk , John Hemphill, John Connel, Wm. D. Lewis . Wilmington. James Canby , James Price , David C. Wilson , James A. Bayard , William Chandler . Baltimore. J.J. Cohen Jr. , Chas. F. Mayer , John McKim Jr. , James Swan, W.A. Patterson. Delaware. Thomas Smith. Chester. Solicitor, Samuel Edwards. Secretary, JAMES WILSON WALLACE, WILLIAM P. BROBSON , Ass't. BALTIMORE AND PORT DEPOSIT RAILROAD COMPANY President LEWIS BRANTZ Directors Philadelphia. Matthew Newkirk . New York. Roswell L. Colt . Maryland. Chas. F. Mayer , J.J. Cohen Jr. , John B. Howell, C.W. Karthouse , Fred'k Dawson, Henry Thomson, John C. Morton. Secretary and Treasurer, CHARLES H WINDER. Engineer, BENJAMIN H LATROBE . Assistant Engineer, DELAWARE AND MARYLAND RAILROAD COMPANY . President, MATTHEW NEWKIRK . Directors: Wilmington. James Canby , James Price , Edward Tatnell , Henry Whitely , Wm. Chandler , David Wilson , Mahlon Betts . Elkton. James Sewall , Josh. Richardson, Greenb'y Purnell , Secretary, Wm. P. Brobson . Treasurer, Allan Thomson . Engineer, WILLIAM STRICKLAND . Assistant Engineer, WILMINGTON AND SUSQUEHANNA RAILROAD COMPANY . President, JAMES CANBY . Directors Philadelphia. Matthew Newkirk , John Hemphill, Stephen Baldwin, Samuel Jaudon . Elkton. James Sewall . Baltimore. J.J. Cohen Jr. Wilmington, David C. Wilson , James Price , William Chandler , Edward Tatnell , Joseph C. Gilpin , Mahlon Betts , Henry Whitely , Jas. A. Bayard . Secretary, WILLIAM P BROBSON . Treasurer, ALLAN THOMSON . Engineer, WILLIAM STRICKLAND . Assistant Engineer, THE PHILADELPHIA WILMINGTON AND BALTIMORE RAILROAD COMPANY Formed A.D. 1838 by

286-652: The central dome that is predominantly the current appearance of the U.S. Capitol building. Walter was one of the founders and second president of the American Institute of Architects . In 1839, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society . Born in 1804 in Philadelphia , Walter was the son of mason and bricklayer Joseph S. Walter and his wife Deborah. His grandfather, Frederick Jacob Walter emigrated from Germany in 1749 and arrived as an orphan after both parents died at sea. Walter

SECTION 10

#1732855763772

312-551: The columns. This made it appear that the diameter of the base exceeded the actual diameter of the foundation, thereby enlarging the proportions of the total structure. Construction on the wings began in 1851 and proceeded rapidly; the House of Representatives met in its new quarters in December 1857 and the Senate occupied its new chamber by January 1859. Walter's fireproof cast iron dome

338-649: The design competition for Philadelphia City Hall . He continued on that vast project until his death in 1887. He was interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. For their architectural accomplishments, both Walter and Benjamin Latrobe are honored in a ceiling mosaic in the East Mosaic Corridor at the entrance to the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress . Walter's grandson, Thomas Ustick Walter III,

364-453: The familiar cast-iron dome. There were at least six draftsmen in Walter's office, headed by Walter's chief assistant, August Schoenborn , a German immigrant who had learned his profession from the ground up. It appears that he was responsible for some of the fundamental ideas in the Capitol structure. These included the curved arch ribs and an ingenious arrangement used to cantilever the base of

390-502: The interior of the west center building for the Library of Congress after the fire of 1851. Walter continued as Capitol architect until 1865, when he resigned his position over a minor contract dispute. After 14 years in Washington, he retired to his native Philadelphia. In the 1870s, financial setbacks forced Walter to come out of retirement, and he worked as second-in-command when his friend and younger colleague John McArthur Jr. , won

416-445: The last names of Henry Hazlehurst, Edward Tatnall, and Charles and Alexander Provest . Thomas Ustick Walter Thomas Ustick Walter (September 4, 1804 – October 30, 1887) was the dean of American architecture between the 1820 death of Benjamin Latrobe and the emergence of H. H. Richardson in the 1870s. He was the fourth Architect of the Capitol and responsible for adding the north (Senate) and south (House) wings and

442-615: The main line that became Amtrak's Northeast Corridor . In 2016, it was moved to its present location, about 100 feet (30 m) from the river's edge at the north end of the Bartram's Mile section of the Schuylkill River Trail . The monument commemorates the 1838 completion of the Newkirk Viaduct , also called the Gray's Ferry Bridge, over the Schuylkill River . The bridge completed the first direct rail line between Philadelphia and Baltimore, Maryland — tracks that closely paralleled

468-476: The matter in charge." The monument was indeed moved to the site of the now-demolished station on the north side of the 1872 mainline just northeast of the 49th Street Bridge, at 39.939492 north latitude, 75.210633 west longitude. It was moved sometime between May 1927, when an aerial photo shows it still in its original location, and September 1930, when the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a letter describing

494-505: The merger of four railroads that together built the Philadelphia-Baltimore line.) Designed by Thomas Ustick Walter , who would go on to design the dome of the U.S. Capitol , the white marble monument consists of seven pieces of carved stone held together simply by weight and friction — not reinforced, for example, with metal pins. The uppermost piece, a 7-foot (2.1 m) obelisk, weighs about 6,000 pounds (2,700 kg), while

520-535: The monument in its new site. (In 1939, a retired Pennsylvania Railroad employee—perhaps having forgotten the actual year of the move—told the Delaware County Daily Times that the monument had been moved in late 1917 to make way for the "Hog Island Railroad"—formally, the 60th Street Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad —and that three of Newkirk's daughters had been asked their permission for

546-475: The monument: "On account of its inaccessibility and the dense foliage, it is scarcely ever seen." By January 1926, the Pennsylvania Railroad was making plans to move the monument "because of the additional yard facilities which are required at that point. The understanding is that it will be placed on the present site of the Gray's Ferry Station. The engineering department of the Pennsylvania Railroad has

SECTION 20

#1732855763772

572-591: The move.) For the next eight decades, the monument sat all but abandoned, in disrepair, and nearly forgotten, though it was visible to passengers traveling Amtrak's Northeast Corridor or SEPTA Regional Rail trains on the Airport Line and the Wilmington/Newark Line . In 2013, interest in the Newkirk Monument was rekindled by a pair of articles written by Bradley Peniston for Hidden City Philadelphia,

598-625: The political spectrum to be heard. The newspaper began as the Chester Daily Times in 1876. Its current name was adopted in 1959 and its offices left the economically declining City of Chester, Pennsylvania for Primos, an unincorporated postal designation in Upper Darby Township . According to the Journal Register Company , it has the largest circulation of any suburban paper in the Philadelphia area. The Sunday edition

624-498: Was a mason's apprentice to his father. He also studied architecture and technical drawing at the Franklin Institute . Walter received early training in a variety of fields including masonry, mathematics, physical science, and the fine arts. At 15, Walter entered the office of William Strickland , studying architecture and mechanical drawing, then established his own practice in 1830. It has been suggested that Walter designed

650-456: Was also an architect; he practiced in Birmingham, Alabama , from the 1890s to the 1910s. Delaware County Daily Times The Delaware County Daily Times is a daily newspaper founded 1876. It is the only major newspaper in the state to be branded with a county name rather than a city. It is known for its colorful "Sound Off" feature and allowing voices from the community on either side of

676-556: Was authorized by Congress on March 3, 1855, and was nearly completed by December 2, 1863, when the Statue of Freedom was placed on top. The dome's cast iron frame was supplied and constructed by the iron foundry Janes, Fowler, Kirtland & Co. The thirty-six Corinthian columns designed by Walter, as well as 144 cast iron structural pillars for the dome, were supplied by the Baltimore ironworks of Poole & Hunt . Walter also reconstructed

#771228