Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River | |
---|---|
ridge-and-valley Appalachians of the southcentral Pennsylvania Coal Region. | |
Etymology | "hidden/skulking creek" in Dutch |
Location | |
Country | United States |
State | Pennsylvania |
Counties | Philadelphia, Montgomery, Chester, Berks, Schuylkill |
Cities | Philadelphia, Norristown, Pottstown, Reading |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | East Branch Schuylkill River |
• location | Tuscarora, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States |
• coordinates | 40°46′24″N 76°01′20″W / 40.77333°N 76.02222°W |
• elevation | 1,540 ft (470 m) |
2nd source | West Branch Schuylkill River |
• location | Minersville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States |
• coordinates | 40°42′51″N 76°18′46″W / 40.71417°N 76.31278°W |
• elevation | 1,140 ft (350 m) |
Source confluence | |
• location | Schuylkill Haven, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States |
• coordinates | 40°38′01″N 76°10′49″W / 40.63361°N 76.18028°W |
• elevation | 520 ft (160 m) |
Mouth | Delaware River |
• location | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
• coordinates | 39°53′04″N 75°11′41″W / 39.88444°N 75.19472°W |
• elevation | 0 ft (0 m) |
Length | 135 mi (217 km) |
Basin size | 2,000 sq mi (5,200 km2) |
Discharge | |
• location | Philadelphia |
• average | 2,875 cu ft/s (81.4 m3/s) |
• minimum | 995 cu ft/s (28.2 m3/s) |
• maximum | 40,300 cu ft/s (1,140 m3/s) |
Discharge | |
• location | Berne |
• average | 1,120 cu ft/s (32 m3/s) |
Basin features | |
Tributaries | |
• left | French Creek |
The Schuylkill River (/ˈskuːlkɪl/ SKOOL-kil,[1] locally /ˈskuːkəl/ SKOO-kəl)[2] is a river in eastern Pennsylvania. It flows for 135 miles (217 km)[3] from Pottsville southeast to Philadelphia, where it joins the Delaware River as one of its largest tributaries.
The river's watershed of about 2,000 sq mi (5,180 km2) lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania, stretching from the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians through the Piedmont to the Atlantic Plain.
Historically the Schuylkill lay within the territory of the Susquehannock and Lenape peoples. In 1682, William Penn founded the city of Philadelphia between the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers on lands purchased from the Lenape. The Schuylkill River became key in the development of the city and the surrounding region.
While long used for transport, the river was made fully navigable via the Schuylkill Canal in 1825, followed by the construction of the Reading Railroad Main Line in 1838 and the Pennsylvania Railroad Schuylkill Branch in 1884. Through these corridors, millions of tons of anthracite coal flowed down the Schuylkill from Pennsylvania's Coal Region.[a] The canal was abandoned in 1931, while the Schuylkill Expressway was completed in 1959.
Industrial pollution and mining silt plagued the river in the 19th and 20th centuries. Early concerns over water quality led to the creation of Fairmount Park in 1812. Protections came with the 1972 passing of the Clean Water Act, and the Schuylkill was designated as the first Pennsylvania Scenic River in 1978. Water quality has largely recovered in the years since.
The Schuylkill River above
Course
The source of the Schuylkill's eastern branch is in heavily mined land, one ridgeline south of Tuscarora Lake along a drainage divide with the Little Schuylkill River, about a mile east of the village of Tuscarora and about a mile west of Tamaqua, at Tuscarora Springs in Schuylkill County. Tuscarora Lake is one source of the Little Schuylkill.
The
The Schuylkill joins the Delaware River at the site of the former
Major towns
Name
The
The first European explorers of the river were from the Netherlands, Sweden, and then England. Historical documents attest various names used by Europeans, including Manayunk, Manajungh, Manaiunk,[7] and Lenni Bikbi. The Swedish explorers called it Menejackse kill or alternately Skiar kill, or the Linde River.[8][9] The (then believed) headwaters of the river, up near Reading, was later called Tulpehocken by the English.[10]
The river was then called the Dutch name Schuylkill (pronounced [ˈsxœylkɪl]). As kil means "creek" (e.g. Dordtsche Kil) and schuylen (now spelled schuilen) means "to hide, skulk" or "to take refuge, shelter",[11] one explanation given for this name is that it translates to "hidden river", "skulking river" or "sheltered creek"[12] and refers to the river's confluence with the Delaware River at League Island, which was nearly hidden by dense vegetation. This name has traditionally been credited to Arent Corsen (or Arendt Corssen), an agent of the Dutch West India Company who purchased land "on the Schuylkill River" in 1633.[13] Another explanation is that the name properly translates to "hideout creek" in one of the Algonquian languages spoken by a Leni Lenape in their confederation.[b][citation needed]
History
Pre-settlement
The mighty
The Lenape had settlements on the river, including Nittabakonck ("place where heroes reside"), a village on the east bank just south of the confluence of Wissahickon Creek, and the Passyunk site, on the west bank where the Schuylkill meets the Delaware River.[8][15]
18th century
American patriot paper maker Frederick Bicking owned a fishery on the river prior to the American Revolution, and Thomas Paine tried in vain to interest the citizens in funding an iron bridge over this river, before abandoning "pontifical works" on account of the French Revolution.
19th century
Over the next few decades, industrialists Josiah White and protege and partner Erskine Hazard built iron industries at the Falls of the Schuylkill during the Jefferson's administration, where White built a suspension bridge with cables made from their wire mill. During the War of 1812, the two took delivery of an ark of anthracite coal which was notoriously difficult to combust reliably and experimented with ways to use it industrially, providing the knowledge to successfully begin resolving the ongoing decades long energy crises around eastern cities.[16] The two then heavily backed the flagging effort to improve navigation on the Schuylkill, which efforts date back to legislation measures as early as 1762.
By 1816, needing energy resources and disenchanted with the lack of urgency found in other investors to accelerate the anemic and underfunded construction rate of the Schuylkill Canal, the two jumped to option the mining rights of the
The success of these projects and the rosy promise of anthracite (a new wonder fuel in the day) to alleviate energy problems spurred canal construction for the next decade in the east, and commercial opportunities funded three decades of investment from Illinois to the Atlantic Ocean, including the ambitious 1824 Main Line of Public Works bill to connect Philadelphia with the newly emerging states of the Northwest Territory via the Allegheny & Ohio valleys at Pittsburgh and to Lake Erie— leveraging the wide-ranging branches of the Susquehanna River in the state's center. In the 1830s railway technology and new railroads grew in leaps and bounds, and the Schuylkill Valley was at the heart of these developments, as well as the new Anthracite iron and mining industries. From 1820 to the 1860s Iron works, foundries, manufacturing mills, blast furnaces, rolling mills, rail yards, rail roads, warehouses and train stations sprang up throughout the valley. Tiny farm villages grew into vibrant company towns then transitioned into small cities as a major industry and supporting businesses transformed local economics and populations swelled.
Restoration of the river has been funded by money left for that purpose in Benjamin Franklin's will.[17]
The river is known to have been on fire more than once throughout history, for example in November 1892 when the surface film of oil that had leaked from nearby oil works at Point Breeze, Philadelphia, was ignited by a match tossed carelessly from a boat, with fatal results.[18]
20th century
Silt and coal dust from upstream industries, particularly coal mining and washing operations in the headwaters, led to extensive silting of the river through the early 20th century. The river was shallow and filled with extensive black silt bars. By the early 20th century, upstream coal operations contributed over 3 million tons of silt annually to the river.[19] In 1948, led by then governor James H. Duff, a massive cleanup effort began. Twenty three impounding basins were excavated along the river, to receive dredged silt. The 1945 Desilting Act helped begin this cleanup task.[20]
21st century
The quality of the river has improved much over the past decades. A fish ladder to support
Transportation
This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2013) |
The Schuylkill River valley was an important thoroughfare in the eras of canals and railroads. The river itself, the Schuylkill Canal, the Reading Railroad, and the Pennsylvania Railroad were vital shipping conduits from the second decade of the 19th century through the mid-20th century. The rise of trucking capabilities and state & county development of road and highway networks progressively took increasing amounts of business away from both competing transport industries. By the mid-1930s the canals inflexibility and a geographically limited pool of customers steadily shifting energy usage away from anthracite doomed most eastern canals, so the Lehigh, Delaware and Schuylkill Canals all ceased operations during the Great Depression years. The zooming rise of automobile ownership post-World War II, the development of suburbs, and dispersal of industrial buildings into far flung parks serviced by the government supported highways and new Interstate Highways doomed intercity rail transport; even as Interstate Commerce Committee regulations required railway operating companies to maintain passenger rail services past its economic viability—which costs further imperiled the railroad's profits leading to a widespread collapse of the industry in the 1960s and 1970s.
Rail freight still uses many of the same valley rights-of-way that the 19th-century railroads used. Passenger and commuter rail service is more limited. Today, the old rail bed
There are efforts to extend both rail and trail farther upriver than they currently reach. The Schuylkill River Trail continues upriver from Norristown to
The
Recreation
The Schuylkill River is popular with
Water skiing, swimming and other aquatic sports are also common outside of Philadelphia city limits.[21]
The
In popular culture
Literature
Jules Verne's 1904 novel Robur the Conqueror starts out in Philadelphia on the banks of the Schuylkill River. In Jerry Spinelli's 2003 young adult novel Maniac Magee, the protagonists's parents die when their commuter train plunges into the river. Much of the story takes place along the river in Two Mills, a fictionalized version of Norristown. The Schuylkill River is also the setting of the fictional estate White Acre in Elizabeth Gilbert's 2013 novel The Signature of All Things, based on The Woodlands.[23] The main protagonist in Ta-Nehisi Coates' 2019 novel The Water Dancer first arrives in the Grays Ferry section of Philadelphia, overlooking the Schuylkill River.
In 2007 Beth Kephart published Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, a series of poetic ruminations about the river. Philadelphia on the Fly, published in 2005, and Small Fry: The Lure of the Little, published in 2009 contain essays by Ron P. Swegman describing the experience of fly fishing along the urban Schuylkill River in the 21st century.
Film and television
In several episodes of Cold Case, a CBS television series based on the Philadelphia Police Department that aired from 2003 to 2010, various members of the Cold Case squad mention finding "a floater in the Schuylkill". In the 2019 film The Irishman, mob hitman Frank Sheeran, played by Robert De Niro, disposes of a gun he just used in a hit by tossing it into the Schuylkill River, noting, "There's a spot in the Schuylkill River everybody uses. If they ever send divers down there, they'd be able to arm a small country."
The Schuylkill River has been a plot point in several episodes of
Music
The 2005 video for "Doesn't Remind Me" by hard rock band Audioslave is filmed by the Schuylkill River and the adjacent neighborhood of Manayunk. The Schuylkill is shown in the beginning of the 2015 video for "Looking Out for You" by Philadelphia indie rock band Joy Again. The 2017 video for "Pain", from A Deeper Understanding by Philadelphia rock band The War on Drugs, features the band floating down the river while performing on a barge.
See also
- Geography of Pennsylvania
- List of cities and towns along the Schuylkill River
- List of crossings of the Schuylkill River
- List of Pennsylvania rivers
Notes
- ^ The Panther Creek Valley and other tributaries of the Little Schuylkill River thread through the most heavily endowed coal valleys in the southern coal region.
- Port Jervis to western Long Island and a bit of the lower Hudson Valley, and south and west through all of New Jersey, but not into the state of Delaware — which was occupied by the Nanticoke peopleinto the 1700s.
References
- ^ Oxford Dictionary: definition of Schuylkill River (American English)
- ^ "Definition of SCHUYLKILL". www.merriam-webster.com.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map Archived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine, accessed April 1, 2011
- ^ "History of Schuylkill River Greenways NHA". schuylkillriver.org. Schuylkill River Greenway Association. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
- ^ Donnalley, Thomas K., Hand book of tribal names of Pennsylvania, together with signification of Indian words, Philadelphia:Donnalley, (1908), p. 37
- ^ See The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education
- ^ See for example, Pennypacker, Samuel Whitaker, Annals of Phoenixville and Its Vicinity: From the Settlement to the Year 1871, Giving the Origin etc., Philadelphia:Bavis &Pennypacker, 1872, p.1
- ^ ISBN 978-5-88351-710-4.
- ISBN 978-0-7385-0511-4.
- ^ Pennypacker, Samuel Whitaker (1872). Annals of Phoenixville and Its Vicinity: From the Settlement to the Year 1871. Phoenixville, PA: Bavis & Pennypacker, printers. pp. 5.
- ^ Hexham, Henry; Manly, Daniel (1675). A copious English and Netherdutch Dictionary. Leers. p. 965.
- ^ Oldschool, Oliver (1809). The Portfolio. p. 520.
- ^ Hanna, C.A., The Wilderness Trail, Volume 1, New York:Putnam's Sons (1911), p. 108
- ^ a b
Alvin M. Josephy Jr., ed. (1961). The American Heritage Book of Indians. American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc. pp. 180–211, 188–189. LCCN 61-14871.
- ^ Isaac C. Sutton (ed.). "Notes of Family History: The Anderson, Schofield, Pennypacker, Yocum, Crawford, Sutton, Lane, Richardson, Bevan, Aubrey, Bartholomew, DeHaven, Jermain and Walker Families".
- LCCN 89-25150.
- ^ "The Last Will and Testament of Benjamin Franklin". Retrieved 2008-05-31.
- ^ "The River Set On Fire – One Life Lost, Two Men Badly Burned, & One Vessel Damaged" (PDF). The New York Times. 1892-11-02. Retrieved 2008-05-31.
- ^ Carl Kelemen (17 Feb 2006). "Feature – Desilting Basin Finds New Life as Wildlife Habitat, Educational Sanctuary". paenvironmentdigest.com. Retrieved 8 Feb 2015.
- ^ Bill Wolf (9 Jul 1949). "They're Cleaning up Pennsylvania's Foulest River" (PDF). The Saturday Evening Post. Retrieved 8 Feb 2015.
- ^ "Water skiing on the Schuylkill for good cause". 6abc Philadelphia. January 2, 2017. Retrieved October 15, 2017.
- ^ "The Schuylkill River Trail". Schuylkill River Trail Association. 2009. Retrieved 1 October 2012.
- ^ Crimmins, Peter (October 8, 2013). "Historic Philadelphia mansion leaves imprint on Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Signature of All Things'". NewsWorks. Archived from the original on June 5, 2014. Retrieved October 15, 2017.