You can find it under the sign that says “Windsor Chair Maker’s Home.” In the 1900s, the alley found itself surrounded by factories and facing demolition. It’s nice to see a comment from long time Alley resident Rob Kettell.
We often focus on the years when Elfreth's Alley was a center of artisan production, but this week we turn to the industrial age, which did just as much to shape the street. She was an anomaly at the time and had 5 different husbands, rather than the other way around.
Each home no longer housed an artisan and his small family or a widow with two tenants. People do live here. It is the electric and gas lines that are under the Alley.Thanks for such a well written overview of the Alley’s long history, Joanne. […] Fonti: Amusingplanet Wikipedia / www.elfrethsalley.org / philadelphiaencyclopedia.org / www.ushistory.org / www.visitphilly.com […][…] Sources: Wikipedia / www.elfrethsalley.org / philadelphiaencyclopedia.org / www.ushistory.org / www.visitphilly.com […]Copyright © 2020 Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia Elfreth’s Alley exists today as a residential street, historic landmark, and interpreted site labeled the “Nation’s Oldest Residential Street.” The heroic efforts of residents and local historians from the 1930s to 1960s preserved the Alley as a typical colonial street, but it took Elfreth’s Alley, which has existed for three centuries as a residential enclave, was not included in William Penn’s original plans for Philadelphia. Colonial ambiance attracts visitors, but continuing research reveals a longer, more varied history on Elfreth's Alley.
Landowners Arthur Wells and John Gilbert combined their properties between Front and Second Streets to open Elfreth’s Alley, named after silversmith Jeremiah Elfreth, as a cart path in 1706.Taking advantage of trading on the waterfront, artisans soon created a small community of people living and working on the Alley. The Elfreth’s Alley Association, founded in 1934, managed to save the block and operates the Elfreth’s Alley Museum at 124-126 Elfreth’s Alley. As a result, the Association broadened its story to include the full range of alley occupants and the urban developments that affected their lives.
Demand for land in proximity to the Delaware River erased Penn’s dream of a bucolic country town composed of wide streets. It flows so well and is very interesting. The rise of social history and developments in the field of public history in the following decade led the Association to take steps toward transforming the colonial interpretation of the Alley. Two of the 32 homes are used today as a museum and gift shop. This summer the Elfreth’s Alley Association is lucky enough to have two interns working with us. Census records suggest that Widow Esther Meyer in #119 and Sarah Melton in #124 rented rooms to sailors, and Ann Taylor, the widow of bricklayer Enoch Taylor, ran a boarding house from half of her home in #116.The move of manufacturing from the home to the factory during the Industrial Revolution transformed the Alley and surrounding neighborhood in the mid-nineteenth century. My connection goes through Jermiah’s older half sister, Sarah Bowyer, who married Willoughby Warder.
As soon as you approach it you feel as if you've walked back in time. Huzzah!I am a direct descendant of Esther King, who had a son named Jeremiah Elfreth. Since 1702, Elfreth's Alley has been home to more than 3,000 people. Inspired by the preservation efforts of the Facing another challenge to the survival of the residences in the 1950s, the Elfreth’s Alley Association secured In the early 1960s, the Association hired an architectural historian to create a house museum on the Alley celebrating the colonial period. The city condemned #126, and Wetherill Paint Company rented the run-down #124 to tenants. Beginning in the 1990s and continuing into the present-day, relationships with local scholars, new research methods, and an emphasis on the identity of the street as continuously residential helped the Association expand the scope of the Alley’s story and define this urban space so rich with associations over several centuries.Research material on Elfreth’s Alley history, 1835-1976, created by Hannah Benner Roach, Nathan Trotter and Company Records, 1798-1955, Baker Library, School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.Elfreth’s Alley, Second to Front Streets between Arch and Race Streets, Philadelphia.Excellent article Joanne. It must have taken some time to research all the facts and put them together in such a compelling way. But, since 1966, Elfreth’s Alley has been designated a National Historic Landmark because it remains the United States “oldest residential street”.
Elfreth’s Alley Association. My info indicates that this Jeremiah was born after 1691 to Esther and Josiah Elfreth. Elfreth's Alley is a National Historic Landmark District, one of the first districts that celebrates the lives of everyday Americans. A quaint quiet street with houses dating back to the beginning of America!More than 3,000 people since 1702 have made this charming street the oldest continuously inhabited residential street in the United States. Only one small change – telephone wires connect to the back of houses.