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Wissahickon Creek

National Natural Landmarks in PennsylvaniaRivers of Montgomery County, PennsylvaniaRivers of PennsylvaniaRivers of PhiladelphiaTributaries of the Schuylkill River
Use mdy dates from June 2022Wissahickon Valley Park
Wissahickon Creek runs under the Valley Green Bridge in Wissahickon Valley Park
Wissahickon Creek runs under the Valley Green Bridge in Wissahickon Valley Park

Wissahickon Creek is a tributary of the Schuylkill River in Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, Pennsylvania. Wissahickon Creek rises in Montgomery County, runs approximately 23 miles (37 km) passing through and dividing Northwest Philadelphia before emptying into the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia. Its watershed covers about 64 square miles (170 km2).Much of the creek now runs through or next to parkland, with the last few miles running through a deep gorge. The beauty of this area attracted the attention of literary personages like Edgar Allan Poe and John Greenleaf Whittier. The gorge area is now part of Wissahickon Valley Park in Philadelphia, and the Wissahickon Valley is known as one of 600 National Natural Landmarks of the United States. The name of the creek comes from the Lenape word wiessahitkonk, for "catfish creek" or "stream of yellowish color." On the earliest map of this region of Pennsylvania, by Thomas Holme, the stream is called Whitpaine's creek, after one of the original settlers Richard Whitpaine, who owned several large tracts on the creek. Whitpaine was an early land owner in the days of William Penn. Industry sprang up along the Wissahickon not long after European settlement, with America's first paper mill set up on one of the Wissahickon's tributaries. A few of the dams built for the mills remain visible today.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Wissahickon Creek (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Wissahickon Creek
Schuylkill River Trail, Philadelphia

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 40.013055555556 ° E -75.206944444444 °
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Schuylkill River Trail

Schuylkill River Trail
19129 Philadelphia
Pennsylvania, United States
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Wissahickon Creek runs under the Valley Green Bridge in Wissahickon Valley Park
Wissahickon Creek runs under the Valley Green Bridge in Wissahickon Valley Park
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Wynnefield Heights, Philadelphia
Wynnefield Heights, Philadelphia

Wynnefield Heights is a middle class neighborhood located in the greater West Philadelphia area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The neighborhood is bounded by City Avenue to the north, Belmont Avenue to the west, Fairmount Park to the south and east, and the Schuylkill Expressway to the east. The area is also known as Woodside Park or Balwynne Park. "Woodside Park" is the name of a former amusement park that was constructed in 1897 by the Fairmount Park Transportation Company, and that continued in operation until 1955. There are a number of apartment complexes and hotels in the neighborhood as the Schuylkill Expressway (Route 76) and Belmont Avenue provide quick access to Center City, Philadelphia and the near by suburbs located in Montgomery County, PA. Major business and government facilities in the neighborhood are ABC Channel 6's studios, Target, the Phila. Water Dept. Belmont Water Treatment Facility and Reservoir, the Pennsylvania State Police Troop K Barracks, and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine's (PCOM) main campus. Per 2010 U.S. Census data the community is racially diverse with 36.7% African-American, 48.3% Caucasian, 9.5% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 2.8% Hispanic/Latino. As of 2010 the HUD Estimated Median Family Income for the neighborhood was approximately $76,200. The neighborhood offers a variety of housing types: two-story brick town homes and row duplexes, garden apartments, and mid-rise and high-rise apartment homes. Of the 5,601 total housing units located in the area per 2010 Census data, 1,045 or 18.7% are owner-occupied units. At this time there are no public or parochial schools within the Wynnefield Heights neighborhood. The Wynnefield Heights Civic Association ("WHCA") aims to "promote civic action and interaction between the residents and businesses of Wynnefield Heights for the purposes of creating a safe, clean and responsible community." WHCA holds an annual Community Day in July at the new Woodside Park & Playground located in the neighborhood.

St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, Roxborough
St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, Roxborough

St. Timothy's Church, Roxborough is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Wissahickon Deanery of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. In 1962, St. Timothy's reported membership of 1,144 and weekly attendance of 849, while its 2021 reported attendance was 27 persons. It was founded in 1859 by lay members of St. Mark's Church, Locust Street with a Tractarian High Church ethos including free pew sittings. The first services were conducted by a priest from St. David's Episcopal Church in Manayunk. Financial difficulties required the adoption of a pew-rental system in 1863. The parish had a historically Anglo-Catholic character, adopting an early weekly celebration of the Holy Communion in 1869, with the main Sunday service becoming Holy Communion in 1909. In 1893 the Anglo-Catholic Sisterhood of the Holy Nativity, affiliated with the Cowley Fathers (Society of St. John the Evangelist) began work in the parish and at the adjacent St. Timothy's Hospital. The cornerstone for the church building was laid on July 18, 1862 by Bishop Alonzo Potter. The church was consecrated by Bishop William Bacon Stevens on February 14, 1863, as one of his early official episcopal acts. Its architect was Emlen T. Littell, who also built New York's Church of the Incarnation, Zion Episcopal Church, Palmyra, New York, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Poughkeepsie and many other buildings with a parish Gothic style. A vandal attempted to blow up the church in 1899 using its municipal gas-light supply. The studios of Victorian Anglo-Catholic stained glass artist Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907) designed the majority of the church's windows as memorials to members of the local Merrick and Cope families. The stations of the cross are the work of Thorsten Sigstedt (1884-1963), a Swedish American woodcarver with studios in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. The first burials in the adjacent cemetery, which is active in 2022, began in 1863. A two-manual organ by Frank Roosevelt (Opus 367) was installed in 1887; in 2006 a 1967 Wicks/1997 Buzard organ with three manuals, 32 stops, 36 ranks from First Baptist Church in Decatur, Illinois was installed.