Category: history

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October Program from the Historical Society of Frabkford

The October program of the Historical Society of Frankford will be live-streamed at 7:30 on October 12, 2021.  Political Science Professor Stephen E. Medvec, Ph.D., of Holy Family University, will discuss the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

After President Jefferson purchased the French claim to a substantial portion of North America, he commissioned fellow Virginians Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to go exploring, and report back on the native tribes, wildlife, and terrain.

This turned out to be one of the great non-military adventures of American history, and also a Tale of Two Cities, because while the expedition was to set out from Charlottesville, only Philadelphia had outfitters with sufficient supplies and equipment. Furthermore, as Mr. Jefferson was President of the American Philosophical Society (APS) at the same time that he was President, the Journals of the Expedition ended up in the Special Collections Library of APS in Philadelphia, where Prof. Medvec studied them in order to produce this talk.

This program will remain available as a video on both Facebook and YouTube indefinitely.

 

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Historical Society September Program

The Historical Society of Frankford (HSoF) will present its September program, live-streamed on Facebook and YouTube, at 7:30 pm on September 14, 2021.

John Buffington will discuss some of the current activities at HSoF, and then read a paper, “The History of the Dummy Car,” by Thomas Creighton, first delivered to the Society on January 28, 1916. Dummy cars were self-propelled, powered by steam engines, and they replaced horse-drawn street cars for transportation between Frankford and Philadelphia in 1863. They served that purpose until they were replaced by electric trolleys in 1893. Thomas Creighton had first-hand recollections of the dummy cars in operation, and also collected stories from the operators.

This program will remain available as a video on both Facebook and YouTube indefinitely.

 

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Diane Sadler

Diane passed away on August 12th. She was a noted local historian and Director and Curator at the Historical Society of Frankford.

We were heartbroken to find out that our beloved Diane Sadler passed away. She was a joy to work with in our film and was a true historian. In her honor, we have put together a short In Memoriam of a clip that was never released. It shows her love for history, her humor, and what a beautiful human being she was. She will be missed by many people. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family and friends, and may she rest in peace.  Jason Sherman, filmmaker, The King’s Highway

 

Local history activist John Buffington commented, ‘No one has ever been as devoted for as long or as diligently to Frankford history as Diane Sadler. She was an inspiration to us, and we will keep at it. But Diane will be sorely missed.’

Services will be held at Emmanuel Resurrection Episcopal Church, 8201 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19136 on Tuesday, August 24th at 11:00 A.M. Church will be open for Viewing and Greetings at 10:00 A.M. No flowers please. Donations can be made in Diane’s name to The Historical Society of Frankford, P.O. Box 4888, Philadelphia, PA 19124. .

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The Historic Free Burying Ground of Frankford

Thanks to Joe Menkevich, noted Northwood Historic Researcher, Wilmot Playground (also known as The Square) has been nominated for inclusion on the Philadelphia register of Historic Places.

As you can read in the full text of the nomination (here), the Burying Ground, which dates to 1811,  lies below Wilmot Park.  It was in active use as a cemetery through the early 1900s.