Phoenixville...

Like so many American towns and cities, Phoenixville owes its growth to its waterways. It is not only situated on the broad Schuylkill River, a historic thoroughfare to native Americans and early settlers alike, but it is bisected by fast-flowing French Creek, which was quickly harnessed for water power.

The Schuylkill watershed was inhabited by the Lenni-Lenape people when the European explorers arrived. They were labeled the "Delaware" by the settlers, after the European name for the river alongside which they lived. They were a part of the Algonquin language group, and were under the political influence of the Iroquois Confederation. By and large they were a peaceful people. They were typical hunters and gatherers, although they also practiced farming, raising corn, beans and squash as staples of their diet.

Many of the first settlers, here as elsewhere, were religious refugees from the old world. These determined men were truly pioneers in a wilderness. One of the first, Moses Coates, spent most of 1730 scouting the area and sleeping with a gun because he was so fearful of the Lenni-Lenape Indians along French Creek.

In 1731 Coates induced a friend, a miller named James Starr, to buy land on the south side of the creek. The entire region at the time - 1000 acres of forest along French Creek - had been patented to a Chester County political figure named David Loyd, who called it the Manavon Tract after his birthplace in Wales.

Starr cleared his land for agriculture and built the first grist mill. Farmers from neighboring Charlestown Township could now use Starr's mill instead of transporting their grain down river to Plymouth (now Plymouth Meeting).

Written records about Phoenixville's oldest houses are lacking, but it is certain that Starr built a stone dwelling near his mill and it is believed that the little white house on Main Street, just north of Bridge Street and standing by the municipal parking lot, is Starr's house, and dates back to 1732.

Late 19th Century house on Main Street

Thanks to the efforts of a Philadelphian, Samuel Nutt, who owned a forge in Coventryville, a road was laid in 1735 between Philadelphia and Coventryville which ran through Starr and Coates lands. Originally known as Nutt's Road, that portion of Route 23 that runs through the Borough still bears the name Nutt Road.

Slowly a settlement grew up around the mill area. The property changed hands many times. During the French and Indian Wars the village of Manavon still was enough of an outpost to suffer random attacks from small bands of Indians. Fifteen volunteers from the area fought under General Braddock in 1755.

By the time of the American Revolution, the population of the vicinity numbered about 450, among 66 households. Many were Mennonites and Quakers, including a few slaves.

During the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, the noise of the cannons so echoed throughout the countryside that Manavon residents could hear it. American soldiers were brought by wagon to outlying churches, meeting houses and bars. Burial grounds that contain a few Revolutionary war dead are scattered throughout the townships near Phoenixville and Charlestown; among the best preserved is one near Zion Lutheran Church in nearby East Vincent Township. During the nine days following the American defeat at Brandywine, Washington crossed to the east bank of the Schuylkill at Parker Ford and the British General Howe marched through Chester County in pursuit of him. The British arrived in Manavon Sept. 21, 1777 with 14,000 troops and camped along Nutt Road for three days between the Bull Tavern to present-day Bridge Street. They were not friendly and proceeded to vandalize every house within Manavon! One house, then the residence of William Fussel, became the Fountain Inn in 1800, and still stands as an eating place. A monument opposite to it on Nutt Road marks this farthest point West reached by the British in the Revolutionary War and reads "The farthest inland point reached in the British invasion of the Northern Colonies during the Revolutionary War".

The subsequent history of Phoenixville is largely that of the growth of its industries. The region began to develop and the land was clear-cut to satisfy the demands for lumber in the 1800's. Ice dams were common on the Schuylkill and its tributaries. Convenient transportation made the area into a major supplier of ice on the eastern seaboard.

In 1790, a new owner of the mill dammed French Creek to increase water power and erected a rolling and slitting mill for the manufacturing of iron nails. The nails were laboriously hammered out by hand until 1809, when a newly-invented machine was installed and the first machine-made nails in the country began to be produced. In 1813, "French Creek Works" introduced a new manager, an ambitious German named Lewis Wernwag. Since the iron nails were created from fiery beds of coal, the new manager changed the name to "Phoenix Nail Works".

Canal construction began to establish a waterway system for transportation. Lock 60 opened in 1825. There followed over a hundred years of growth in the manufacture of iron and steel. By 1824, the nail factory was known as the largest in the U.S., although one donkey still carried the iron rods to the nail factory up the canal.

On March 6, 1849, the Borough of Phoenixville was officially incorporated.

The iron and steel dynasty was run by 2 families, the Whitakers and the Reeves, with the Reeves ultimately remaining to influence generations to come in Phoenixville. In 1837, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad came through Phoenixville, and the Nail Works expanded rapidly to include railroad structured iron. In 1855, with David Reeves as President and the gifted inventor John Griffen, the plant made the Griffen Gun for the Union armies during the Civil War. The gun was credited with giving the North a decisive military advantage. Sixty two are still on the field of Gettysburg National Park.

In the next decades, a relatively light structure of wrought iron, known as the Phoenix Column revolutionized bridge building around the world. Still with Reeves and Griffen at the helm, the Phoenix Bridge Co. was formed and airy iron railroad bridges began to transform the face of America. By 1888, the Phoenix Bridges spanned almost every major river in the U.S. and Canada. The International Bridge across Niagara Falls, and bridges destined for Scotland, Japan, Russia, and Africa were built right here in Phoenixville.

Another Phoenixville product that became known around the world was a delicate colored majolica ware made from a local clay and now prized by collectors everywhere.

Depletion of the coal fields and the advent of cheap and more easily handled petroleum led to the coal industry's demise. The beginning of the labor movement was not peaceful. The Molly Maguires were an early secret society dedicated to improving the lot of the miners at any cost to the bosses. They operated in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal region from the mid-1860's to the late 1870's. Although they were a secret group and operated via assassination and intimidation, they foreshadowed the rise of the open, organized labor movement. The labor movement was particularly important in the coal industry, and eventually the United Mine Workers were to become one of the most powerful unions. The Molly Maguires fell apart when the colliery operators hired the Pinkerton detective agency to infiltrate the group and testify in the murder trials of several members.

Coal and steel still were partners in driving the region's economy during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. After World War II the local industry did not invest heavily in modernization and quickly fell behind foreign manufacturers in productivity. Little remains of the once dominant mills of the area. Their history is memorialized, however, by the Steel Industry Heritage Corporation, founded by an act of Congress in 1989. The Phoenixville Renaissance Mural, illustrates the importance of the iron and steel industry in this region.

Renaissance Mural at Bridge and Main Streets

Rapp's Dam Bridge in Kimberton, 19th Century

Phoenixville and surrounding areas are also known for covered bridges that date back as far as the early 1800's.

Today, Phoenixville has become the medical center of Northern Chester County and has an exceptional hospital. The Phoenixville Hospital is part of the University of Pennsylvania Healthcare System. Phoenixville's population has grown to 16,000 and residents still enjoy the countryside and suburban lifestyle, but with the amenities of a new million-dollar YMCA facility.

A visitor to Phoenixville today will note that it is primarily a 19th century town. Homes are distinctive and the commercial buildings are built with elaborate carved cornices and wrought iron railings.

Historic downtown as it still is today.

Copyright 1999, all rights reserved.