Horses near the Park
A horse trotting through the Baldwin Park neighborhood today would certainly elicit curiosity. In the early days of our neighborhood, the absence of horses would be the unusual event. Can we find traces of those horses still?
Bolton's Philadelphia car Works specialized in streetcars, here pulled by a spirited duo of horses. This location is now the the Dalian Apartments.
Horses were the primary means of local transportation in the 19th century, whether hauling passengers, coal, iron, ice, trash or milk. Estimates put the number of horses and mules stabled in Philadelphia in 1900 at 50,000. In our neighborhood there are a few remnants of this horse era.
A marble carriage step along the curb at 2036 Spring Garden Street.
These were used to allow a more delicate entry into one's personal carriage.
Horse-drawn city coupe in front of 1725 Spring Garden Street in 1890, the home of retailer George Allen. Allen's family had a department store in Center City since 1837.
Apparently no carriage step needed here since the carriage has a built-in step. The house has been replaced by the electrical union building.
The middle class would generally shop at the large department stores on Market Street. The wealthy would arrive by private carriage and shop at the more exclusive stores on Chestnut Street, giving rise to the term "carriage trade" for wealthy people.
Boot-scrapers on either side of the steps at 1937 and 1939 Spring Garden Street.
Another boot-scraper at 2006 Spring Garden Street.
The average horse exhausts 30 pounds of manure and 20 pounds (2.5 gallons) of urine each day, accumulating in 1890 city-wide to 750 tons of manure and 500 tons of urine each day. Guess what boot-scrapers scraped?
As noted in our article on the Dalian, the sequence of technology for local passenger commuting in Philadelphia was:
-
private carriages;
-
then horse-drawn multi-passenger omnibuses, like elongated carriages, running on surface streets;
-
then horse-drawn streetcars on rails starting in 1858, the rails smoothing the ride and lowering rolling resistance and therefore the workload on the horses;
-
steam engine-powered cars called steam dummies in 1863 that unfortunately scared the horses;
-
cable cars briefly in 1883;
-
then conversion of streetcars to electricity via an overhead electric line connected to the streetcar by a rod called a "troller," beginning in 1892.
Colored engraving of a drawing by August Kollner around 1855 showing three early forms of horse-powered transport: the mounted horseman on the left; the carriage on the right; and the omnibus in the foreground. Most omnibuses were pulled by a team of two horses, less well-dressed.
Reproduction of a wood engraving showing a freight train of the Union Line being pulled down Market Street by a team of horses. Steam locomotives were not allowed within Philadelphia City limits in the early decades of train service, due to the soot and fear of fires. Train cars would be disconnected at the city edges and be pulled by horses or oxen to the final destination.
A horse-drawn streetcar in 1894.
The use of iron wheels on iron rails smoothed the ride for the passengers and reduced friction, thus lessening the burden for the horses. Generally there were two horses, a driver, and a conductor. The Route 16 streetcar ran south on 20th Street through our neighborhood, but this photographed streetcar is the Sixth Street streetcar.
Until mass-transit powered by horses, the residents of the city had to live within walking distance of their jobs, creating a dense inner core and an overlap of industrial and residential buildings. Horse-power expanded the boundaries of the livable city. Unfortunately, these equine engines were sometimes abused by their owners. Overloaded omnibuses, poor street surfaces resulting in injuries, and suboptimal stabling contributed to the suffering of the horses. This was a major factor in the rise of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866. In addition, new respect for the horse was brought about by a nationwide epidemic of equine influenza in 1872 that infected almost all horses, killing about 2% of them nationwide. This "energy crisis" affected all businesses and residents in the city. Imagine no car or truck deliveries for three weeks today and you have some idea of the stagnation resulting from the horse epidemic. These issues, plus the cost of maintaining horses and the nuisance of animal waste removal, accelerated the move to other sources of power for the transit system.
The Route 16 Streetcar ran on these tracks south on 20th Street.
Photo from November 2020 during the placement of the new water lateral for the Tidewater Sonder at 411 North 20th Street. Construction workers had to work around the 160-year-old tracks. The rails are the standard streetcar rail width of 5 feet 2 inches. The standard gauge for railroads is 4 feet 81/2 inches.
Street car routes in 1894. Electrification of the routes to convert streetcars into trolleys first began in 1892, but was a slow process. Almost every major street had a streetcar line, all powered by horses until 1892 and most continuing with horsepower for a decade after that. There was a northbound line on both 18th and 19th Streets.
1898 photo looking north on 18th Street from just above Callowhill Street. If your display has enough resolution, you can just make out the overhead trolley wire. The paired tall dark poles on the sidewalk are the poles that support the horizontal wires. The multiple mounds of manure tell us that horses shared the road with the electric trolley.
Notice the tracks embedded in 4 inch wide Belgian blocks (solid granite blocks). Just four years prior to this photo, this street was paved with cobblestones.
Pickering Springs on the left would become part of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, then a roller-skating rink, then an empty lot, and then the southeast quadrant of Baldwin Park.
Baldwin built many of the steam dummies used throughout the world, starting in 1875. These "inclosed (sic) noiseless locomotives," as Baldwin Locomotive Works advertised them, were commonly called "dummies" because they were really steam locomotives concealed in a box to look like a streetcar. The moving parts were concealed; anthracite coal or coke was burned to lessen the soot; the steam exhaust was condensed to prevent hissing. They still, however, scared the horses with whom they shared the streets and therefore only had a brief trial in 1877 in Philadelphia.
The model pictured here was pretty deluxe compared to the one in the 1881 catalog here.
1917 sketch of the Fairmount Market at the northwest corner of 22nd and Pennsylvania Avenue. There is an electric trolley at left, along with horse-drawn carts and automobiles.
In 1871, Philadelphia instituted a paid fire department throughout the City, replacing the neighborhood volunteer companies that had done much good but also become political instruments and party houses. One such transition occurred at 1903 Callowhill Street, when the volunteer Spring Garden Hose Company, established there in 1851, was replaced by the professional Fire Engine No. 18. This company would move across the street to a larger station at 1920 Callowhill Street around 1890. It holds the distinction of being the last engine company to get rid of its horses, when in 1924 it obtained a motorized engine.
Photo from 1894 showing the Fire Engine Company No. 18 in the second building from the right at 1903 Callowhill Street.
In 1924 even our neighborhood fire company would motorize.
Paving of Philadelphia streets began in earnest in 1761, funded by lotteries. Cobblestones and rubble were the main surface until 1848, when 12 x 12 inch blocks of granite began to be used. Within a few years it was determined that the solidity of the large granite blocks was offset by its flat slippery surface, which made the large stones unsuitable for horses. Four-inch-wide granite stones, were chosen to improve horse traction. The lengths were variable, running from 8 to 12 inches. and were 6 inches deep. The four-inch surface measure was in the same direction as the path of the horse, as seen in the photo of 18th Street above.
Examples outside our neighborhood: Cobblestones on the left; Belgian block on the right.
.jpg)
Looking east down the 1800 block of Carlton Street in 2020.
The charming 1800 block of Carlton Street seen in the photo above shows a few horse-y features. Residents on the street claim that the cast iron horse heads are 19th century hitching posts. The heads may be original, but the placement of so many posts on a residential street, and not a commercial building, seems odd. I presume they were grouped there as protective bollards.
The Belgian blocks are for traction, and the four-foot length of bluestone on the sides of the cartway allows a smooth ride for the wheels. From the center of one bluestone to the center of the other is 5 feet 2 inches, the same distance as the streetcar rails. I suspect the streetcar rail width, or gauge, was arbitrarily copied from the cartway width. For more about the status of paving in Philadelphia in 1880, see outside link here.
​
Speaking of gauge, or the distance between the rails on a railroad, there is no truth to the myth that it was set to 4 feet 81/2 inches because that is the distance between the wheels on a Roman chariot, which rutted ancient roads at that width. In the mid-19th century there were over 20 competing railroad gauges in the United States. Trains would have to be unloaded and reloaded at points where two distinct gauges met, for example in Erie, Pennsylvania. The people of Erie opposed any standardization, because a break for train transfer meant a break for food or even an overnight stay, benefiting the local economy. Eventually, as railroad lines expanded and joined up, standardization came about.
Current map showing Philadelphia historic districts and streets in black outline. The large box at top demarcates the Spring Garden Historic District.
Carlton Street between 18th and 19th Street is near bottom center. There are 484 blocks of historic paving surface in Philadelphia, of which the 1800 block of Carlton is one. This block is the only street in our neighborhood to be on the Philadelphia Historic Streets register.
.jpg)
Shamokin Street behind the Rose Tattoo, despite having a surface similar to nearby Carlton Street, did not make the Historic Streets list.
Also, not quite as charming.
There are no extant wood-block paved streets in Philadelphia. Wood block was used to avoid the noise from clip-cloppng horses on cobblestone or Belgian block. This would be done near schools and hospitals. The 1800 block of Wood Street was, up until the 1980's, paved with wood blocks from curb to curb the length of the block. Hallahan High School and Cathedral Parochial School on the north side were built in 1911 and 1914 respectively. The municipal court building on the south side was built in 1940. The business conducted in all three buildings would have benefited from a quieter street. These blocks were replaced by asphalt somewhere around the 1980's, shortly after the Cathedral Parochial School's last class graduated in 1982.
​
Baldwin Park neighbor Lou Ferrero had requisitioned several of the wood blocks from Wood Street when they were being removed and disposed of. Below shows the blocks laid out as they would have been on the street, as well as Lou holding two of the blocks for scale. Lou's family lived on the 1700 block of Carlton Street until that home was taken by eminent domain for the Franklin Town project. He was a graduate of Cathedral Parochial grade school. He completes the local trifecta by being an early member of the Friends of Franklin Town Park since 2007. The name is now the Friends of Matthias Baldwin Park after the name of the park was officially changed in 2011.
The blocks Lou rescued laid out as they were on Wood Street, and Lou holding two blocks. The blocks would be laid down with the end grain showing. The block in Lou's right hand shows this grain pattern.
If you want to see the most concentrated evidence of horse life in the neighborhood, take a walk down the 1900 block of Brandywine Street. There you will find apartments and condos built in the former carriage houses and livery stables that lined the street in the 19th century. If you think parking for cars is tough, try parking a horse for the night. Only the wealthy had private stables, and Brandywine Street, and the 1900 block of Monterey Street just south of it, were filled with the stables from the wealthy industrialists on Spring Garden and Green Streets. A livery stable, like the one that was at 20th and Brandywine, would stable your horse if you did not have a private carriage house, and also would have horses and carriages for hire.
Portion of 1910 map showing pink blocks with an X through them, representing brick or stone stables. Spring Garden Street is the wide street running left to right at bottom, Green Street horizontally at top, and 19th Street bisects the image vertically. The truly wealthy lived on Spring Garden and Green Streets, with Monterey and Brandywine Streets serving as their "driveways" into their stables. Note for later the large livery stable at the southeast corner of Brandywine and 20th Streets.
The stable behind 1733 Spring Garden Street on the lower right was a carriage house, then a printing press for Pravda, and now apartments, as discussed in our article about the Hoopes Mansion here.
Magnificent stone stables, now apartments or condos, on the south side of the 1900 block of Brandywine
What appears to be an original hitching post in front of 1922 Brandywine Street.
Carriage entrance with beam for block and tackle at the front entrance of 1912 Brandywine Street.
The rear of 1912 Brandywine Street facing Monterey Street.
The block and tackle is still there to hoist bales of hay into the second story loft should the need ever arise.
Apartments in the former three-story livery stable at 1938 Brandywine Street.
Many stables transitioned into garages when cars replaced horses. This location was the site of Bond Motor Service, the only commercial establishment within many blocks of our neighborhood that made it into the 1946 Negro Motorist Green Book. It occupied the whole Brandywine Stables footprint and had curbside gasoline pumps.
A few miscellaneous connections between horses and the neighborhood, one mythological and the others mundane.
At 1815 Spring Garden Street is a relief of the god of horses, Poseidon. Poseidon was also the father of many horses (don't ask) including the winged horse Pegasus by the Gorgon Medusa. This building, the former McCallister's catering, is discussed more in our article here.
Our own granary in 1890.
Two mules (judging by the ears and hooves) await their grain load to be dispersed in the neighborhood, while the workers pose.
The first granary was wood on a brick pedestal. It burned down and was replaced in 1925 by the poured-in-place concrete granary/apartments we have now at 411 North 20th Street.
Also around 1890 is this photo of an ash wagon in front of William Bement & Sons at the northeast corner of 20th and Callowhill Streets.
Two other neighborhood businesses with horse transport around 1905.
On the left is the ambulance clip-clopping down Buttonwood Street at Garretson Hospital.
On the right is ash removal from Harrington Hoist at 1666 Callowhill Street. That hoist mechanism is still there on the north side of the Lofts at Logan View.
And one final horse connection to the Baldwin Park neighborhood, not far from the granary: the cavalry.
​
At 22 South 23rd Street in Philadelphia is a castle-like building which serves as the armory for the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry. This unit, begun in 1774, is the oldest military unit in continuous service in the United States, and while a military unit of volunteers, is now deployed with the Pennsylvania Army National Guard as the 104th Cavalry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. The troop has served in every conflict in which the United States has been involved. It is part military unit (think French Foreign Legion) and part social club (think Union League) with a fairly exclusive membership.
Among the 2500 or so members of the troop since 1774, are included Philadelphia elites, the printer of the Declaration of Independence, and an Apollo astronaut who has walked on the moon. Membership also includes a Baldwin Park neighbor, Dennis Boylan, who has served as Captain of the troop from 1983 to 1988.
One of two marble plaques in the entrance of the armory, covering the first 226 years. Dennis' name is 6th from the bottom in the right-hand column. Another plaque across the lobby picks up in 2001.