Darby Creek (Pennsylvania)

Early in the 19th century, the Leiper Canal built in 1828–29 during the middle of the American canal age ran about 3 miles (5 km) along Crum Creek in Delaware County to its mouth in eastern Pennsylvania's Delaware Valley carrying its owner‘s quarried products to docks on the Delaware River tidewater until 1852.

The Leiper Railroad was a 'family business–built' horse drawn railroad of 0.75 miles (1.21 km), constructed in 1810 after the quarry owner, Thomas Leiper, failed to obtain a charter with legal rights-of-way to instead build his desired canal along Crum Creek. The quarry man's 'make-do' railroad was the continent's first chartered railway, first operational non-temporary railway, first well-documented railroad, and first constructed railroad also meant to be permanent. The credit of constructing the first permanent tramway in America may therefore be rightly given to Thomas Leiper. He was the owner of a fine quarry not far from Philadelphia, and was much concerned to find an easy mode of carrying stone to tide-water. That a railway would accomplish this end he seem to have had no doubt. To test the matter, and at the same time afford a public exhibition of the merits of tramways, he built a temporary track in the yard of the Bull's Head Tavern in Philadelphia. The tramway was some sixty feet long, had a grade of one inch and a half to the yard, and up it, to the amazement of the spectators, one horse used to draw a four-wheeled wagon loaded with a weight of ten thousand pounds. This was the summer of 1809. Before autumn laborers were at work building a railway from the quarry to the nearest landing, a distance of three quarters of a mile. In the spring of 1810 the road began to be used and continued in using during eighteen years. by John Bach McMaster, page 494, A History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War

Crum Creek (from the Dutch, meaning "crooked creek") is a creek in Delaware County and Chester County, Pennsylvania, flowing approximately 24 miles (39 km), generally in a southward direction and draining into the Delaware River in Eddystone, Pennsylvania. It begins in a swamp (formerly a lake, dammed out) near Newtown Square, Pennsylvania along which several mills were established in the 19th century. Right afterward it crosses under Pennsylvania Route 29 and winds one and a half miles (2.4 km) downstream until it hits the hamlet of Crum Creek. It later flows into the Delaware River near Philadelphia. Two notable landmarks along the creek's course are high trestles: a trolley trestle about 30 feet (9.1 m) high runs across the creek in Smedley Park, in Nether Providence Township; this trestle carries the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority's 101 trolley line from Media, Pennsylvania across the creek. About a mile (1.6 km) south, a 1,000-foot-long (300 m), 100-foot-high (30 m) trestle carries SEPTA's Media/Wawa Line commuter railroad line across the creek, which by now runs through a deep valley. The trestle is located in the Crum Woods, 200 acres of forest surrounding the creek that constitutes part of the campus of Swarthmore College. This tract, one of the largest patches of woodland remaining in Delaware County, is managed by the college's Scott Arboretum. The trestle is half in Nether Providence Township (west of the creek) and half in Swarthmore borough (east of the creek). Baltimore Pike also crosses the Crum by Smedley Park in Nether Providence Township. A stone bridge carrying the highway was erected in 1924 with a 70-foot-tall (21 m) arch commemorating the 282 men and 2 women from Delaware County who died in World War I. This arch was demolished in 1958 when the highway was widened. The memorial tablets were moved to the nearby entrance of Smedley Park.Crum Creek was dammed in 1931 near Pennsylvania Route 252 to fill Springton Lake (also known as Geist Reservoir), an approximately 391-acre (1.58 km2) drinking water reservoir maintained by Aqua America.

The Printzhof, located in Governor Printz Park in Essington, Pennsylvania, was the home of Johan Björnsson Printz, governor of New Sweden. In 1643, Johan Printz moved his capital from Fort Christina (located in what is now Wilmington, Delaware) to Tinicum Island. At that time Fort Gothenburg was established in addition to Printz's dwelling and headquarters. Two years later a fire swept over the newly established settlement. The Printzhof was reconstructed more solidly and lavishly. The two-story log structure contained lumber sent from Sweden, glass windows and lavish draperies.Johan Björnsson Printz, his wife and younger children returned to Sweden during 1653. The Dutch West India Company subsequently captured the Swedish colony in 1655. Armegott Printz, the eldest daughter of Governor Printz, had married his successor, Lt. Johan Papegoja. She remained at The Printzhof even after the Dutch conquest. During 1662, she sold the estate for a partial down payment with the remainder due when she reached The Netherlands. When payment was refused, she returned to reclaim possession of her property. Ten years later in 1672, the Governor and Council ruled Armegott Printz should be in possession of the property. She subsequently sold the estate a second time and returned to Sweden where she died on November 25, 1695 at Läckö Castle.Today, the Printzhof's stone foundations are the only remains of the settlement. The Printzhof site is located near the intersection of Taylor Avenue and Second Street in Essington, Pennsylvania. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

The Philadelphia Lazaretto was the first quarantine hospital in the United States, built in 1799, in Tinicum Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The site was originally inhabited by the Lenni Lenape, and then the first Swedish settlers in America. Nearby Province Island was the site of the confinement of the Christian Moravian Indians who were brought there under protective custody from Lancaster, PA in 1763 when their lives were threatened by the Paxton Boys. The facility predates similar national landmarks such as Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital and Angel Island and is considered both the oldest surviving quarantine hospital and the last surviving example of its type in the United States.

Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railway locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it moved to nearby Eddystone in the early 20th century. The company was for decades the world's largest producer of steam locomotives, but struggled to compete when demand switched to diesel locomotives. Baldwin produced the last of its 70,000-plus locomotives in 1951, before merging with the Lima-Hamilton Corporation on September 11, 1951, to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation. The company has no relation to the E.M. Baldwin and Sons of New South Wales, Australia, a builder of small diesel locomotives for sugar cane railroads.

Chandler Field is a former military airfield located south of the central business district of Essington, a community in Tinicum Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is situated on the Delaware River, west of Philadelphia International Airport.

Philadelphia Seaplane Base (IATA: PSQ, FAA LID: 9N2) is a township-owned, public-use seaplane base located one nautical mile (1.85 km) south of the central business district of Essington, a community in Tinicum Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is situated on the Delaware River, west of Philadelphia International Airport. Originally, the facility operated during World War I as Chandler Field.

Leedom Estates is a small unincorporated community in Ridley Township, Pennsylvania founded in 1867. It sits alongside Interstate 95 south of Philadelphia in Delaware County.

The Morton Homestead is an historic, American homestead that is part of Morton Homestead State Park, which is located at 100 Lincoln Avenue in Prospect Park, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

Crum Lynne is an unincorporated community in Ridley Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States.

The Delaware Valley, sometimes referred to as Greater Philadelphia or the Philadelphia metropolitan area, is a metropolitan region in the Northeast on the East Coast of the United States that centers on Philadelphia and spans four U.S. states: southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware, and the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the core metropolitan statistical area of the Delaware Valley had a total population of 6.288 million residents, making it the nation's seventh-largest, the continent's eighth-largest, and the world's 35th-largest metropolitan area. The combined statistical area of the Delaware Valley is even larger with a total population of 7.366 million. The Delaware Valley's urban core is Philadelphia, the nation's 6th-most populous city. Other major urban population centers in the region include Reading, Upper Darby Township, and Chester in Pennsylvania; Atlantic City, Camden, Vineland, and Cherry Hill in New Jersey; and Wilmington and Dover in Delaware. Philadelphia metropolitan area has a gross domestic product (G.D.P.) of $431 billion, the ninth-largest among U.S. metropolitan areas. The Delaware Valley has been influential in the nation's history and economy. The area has been home to many people and sites significant to American culture, history, and politics. Philadelphia is sometimes known as "The Birthplace of America", since both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were drafted and signed in the city. The Delaware Valley was home to many other instrumental moments during the American Revolution, and Philadelphia served as the nation's first capital for most of the 18th century until construction of the nation's capital in Washington, D.C., in 1800. Both the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed and ratified in Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1776 and 1789, respectively. The Delaware Valley is one of the nation's leading regions for academia and academic research with a considerable number of globally-known and highly ranked universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Thomas Jefferson University, Rowan University, Villanova University, Saint Joseph's University, Temple University, Rutgers University–Camden, La Salle University, the University of Delaware, Stockton University, and others. Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley are a biotechnology hub. As of 2023, metropolitan Philadelphia had entered the ranks of the top five U.S. venture capital centers, facilitated by its relative proximity to the New York metropolitan area and its entrepreneurial and financial ecosystems. In addition, South Jersey and the wider Philadelphia metropolitan area have become a U.S. East Coast epicenter for logistics and warehouse construction.