A Walking Tour of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania
Phoenixville has the largest registered historic district in Chester County. Many homes have been
maintained and improved and are shown here in current photos below. Many stores have retained
their Victorian facades.
One of the first Europeans to arrive in what would become Phoenixville was attorney Charles
Pickering who sailed to America with colony foudner William Penn. While Penn sought religious
freedom for his fellow Quakers, Pickering sought financial opportunity in “Penn’s Woods.” He
obtained a large tract of land aroudn the creek that now bears his name and began silver mining
operations. However his silver ore was found to be worthless by inspectors in back in England.
Pickering’s financial affairs spiraled downward and he was eventually imprisoned for counterfeiting.
A few years later, a man named Moses Coates and his friend James Starr purchased a strip of land
along the French Creek within the present boundaries of the borough. The entire 1000 acres of
forest had been deeded to a Chester County political figure named David Lloyd, who called it
the “Manavon Tract” after his birthplace in Great Britain. Starr cleared his portion of the land for
agriculture and built a grist mill around which a little village grew.
After the Revolutionary War a small mill was built to make nails. It was to be the precursor of
Phoenix Steel. The town was renamed Phoenixville, because the Foundry’s molten metal reminded
the Manager of the foundry of the fabled bird, the Phoenix, which died and rose from its ashes.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, the iron industry expanded enormously, fostering
a rapid increase in Phoenixville’s population. Despite periodic flooding, rendering the necessity
for major rebuilding, the iron industry grew from a few small rolling and slitting mills at the
end of the eighteenth century to several larger blast furnaces and finishing mills by the middle
of the nineteenth century. With the completion of the Chester County Canal in 1828 and the
Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in 1837, the iron industry gained easier access to raw materials
and more efficient transportation of finished products. This led the industry to build more blast
furnaces in Phoenixville. A cotton factory, no longer standing today, was constructed by Edward
Garrigues in 1828. This cotton mill enhanced the villagers primary industry and brought a degree
of industrial diversity to the town. After the mid-nineteenth century Phoenix Iron and Steel
became the largest iron and steel producer in Chester County, and one of the largest in southeast
Pennsylvania. By 1881 Phoenix Iron Company used 60,000 tons of ore annually in the blast
furnaces to produce 30,000 tons of pig iron, and employed 1,500 men.
Our walking tour will start in Reeves Park, a greenspace donated by David Reeves, founder and
president of the Phoenix Iron Works, the economic engine that drove Phoenixville through its
development years...
Get this tour without an e-Reader - GET THIS TOUR FROM SMASHWORDS
Own a Kindle? Get this tour for your reader for only $.99 - BUY THIS KINDLE BOOK NOW
Get this tour for your iPad - IBOOKSTORE
Want this tour in printed form? - BUY Look Up, Pennsylvania! Walking Tours of 50 Towns In The Keystone State
From time to time we get books back that have been damaged in shipping. We are offering some for sale for just $5 each - more than 70% off retail. These books are brand new; usually with a slightly dented corner - they look like a book would look after your first tour. Buy this tour USED in LOOK UP, PENNSYLVANIA!
Follow The Tour Back Home