Tough Traveling
Philly wasn’t easy to
get to from Europe
That’s why its story is so amazing!
Philadelphia became the largest city in this country by 1770 (if not earlier) … just 88 years after it was founded by William Penn
Why amazing? Because Philly began in 1682, 58 years after New York City and 52 years after Boston.
That means (and I love to tell audiences this) if they were people, both cities would have already qualified for AARP(the American Association of Retired Persons) … before Philadelphia was even born.
And yet, by 1770, Philadelphia was the largest, most important … and some say … most cultured city in America. This success was due to our two superstars: Penn and Ben … or William Penn and Ben Franklin.
This peaceful view of Philadelphia looks up the Delaware River from a spot north of the city’s old Washington Avenue Immigration Station. Photo by Bob Fleischer.
Even more amazing: Despite huge obstacles, Philadelphia’s port also was the largest in British North America by 1770
Frequently Frozen
Obstacle 1: Philadelphia is a fresh-water port, so it often froze over in those really cold winters.
Obstacle 2: To travel to Philadelphia, you had to take a long, torturous path around Cape May that added two weeks of travel in the days of sailing ships. So says Fredric M. Miller in “Philadelphia: Immigrant City,” from Balch Online Resources.
(FYI: I asked Promotion & Creative Services at 6ABC if I could use one of its great weather maps to show you just how huge an obstacle the peninsula of Cape May really was. I never received word back, so I can’t show it to you. (But, to see what I’m talking about, just click on 6abc.com/weather/ and scroll down to weather maps.)
40 ships were at Philly’s bustling port in 1729
When William Moraley got off his ship, the Boneta, at Philadelphia in 1729, at least 40 other ships already “were docked along the Delaware River,” says historian Billy G. Smith in Commonplace Online. The Boneta unloaded servants and coal, picked up flour, and then soon set sail for Lisbon.
“Other vessels were just clearing the port for Barbados, Madeira, Antigua, and the Isle of Man,” Smith’s article, “Walking Moraley’s Streets: Philadelphia,” said. Even early on, Philly was an international port.
Penn’s first choice for Philly: Upland
William Penn really wanted to locate his city of Philadelphia in Upland, where the city of Chester, Delaware County, is now. Why? He wanted to be as close to the sea as possible — to avoid potential problems with proprietors of other Colonies.
(Ironically, Penn’s border conflict with the Calverts of Maryland lasted over 80 years. It only ended after the Mason-Dixon Survey started here at the southernmost part of William Penn’s city of Philadelphia in 1763.)
As it is, Penn probably picked the best possible spot for his City of Brotherly Love. He had an internal river — the Schuylkill, plus the Delaware — the longest free-flowing undammed river in the Eastern U.S., running 282 miles along the borders of New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Delaware.
In addition, his city had trees for ship-building close by, clay deposits for bricks, marvelous farms for food, and plentiful game that flourished in the nearby woods. Philly had it all … including the largest twice-a-week market in the Colonies. Travelers compared Philadelphia’s market quite favorably to those in Paris and London.
All these advantages brought pirates and privateers, artisans and farmers, merchants and traders … and those searching for religious freedom … to Philadelphia’s port.
Local author Michael Schreiber says at philahistory.org, “In the late Colonial period, it was probably busier than any British port except London and Liverpool. After the Revolution, in 1793, total exports from Philadelphia equaled a quarter of the tonnage for all of the United States, exceeding all of New York and New England put together. On any given day in that era, there were generally well over a hundred ships in port.”
Yet, ice was a common winter problem on the river
In 1700, Andreas Rudman, pastor at Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) church, wrote about the Delaware River’s horrendous weather.
“Only a few parishioners from across the Delaware River could come to church in winter months,” he says in my book, “Real Philly History, Real Fast.” Those in New Jersey could “not come without being in gravest peril from floating ice,” which “sometimes breaks large boats right in two.” Rudman added, “The ice lies piled up on capes and islands in mountainous heaps. Who in Sweden would believe this!”
In the 1830s, Philadelphia bought an iceboat to combat 5-foot-thick ridges of ice that occurred on the Delaware. In those older, colder days, ice often closed the port completely. The Free Library of Philadelphia says, “In the winter, the frozen river attracted hordes of skaters and the ice was so thick that horses pulled the ferryboats across it.”
A long tough ride with land on both sides
Besides being 110 miles from the ocean, travelers to Philadelphia had to go up a shallow bay, and then a long winding river on a voyage 200 miles further than New York City. This took up to two extra weeks in the age of sail. Plus, land on both sides of the river was visible most of the time. That had to be frustrating to fatigued passengers — who just wanted to get off the ship.
Philly was 100 miles closer to the West
However, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), which built the Immigration Station at Pier 53, fought off these challenges. At one point, it even began advertising Philadelphia’s Immigration Station in Eastern Europe as being 100 miles nearer to the West than New York.
The railroad also joined forces with the International Navigation Company to build four transatlantic liners at Kensington’s William Cramp and Sons Shipbuilding Company. Then it began promoting its shorter, more direct route to the U.S. — with lower fares. And the plan worked.
“Within a short few years,” said the National Archives at Philadelphia, “the railroad was able to increase its profits by 40%.
Overall, almost one million people entered the U.S. at Philadelphia’s Immigration Station between 1873 and 1915. World War I and immigration restrictions quickly changed that, and immigration here then plummeted.
While the station was demolished in 1915, immigration continued at Philadelphia until 1921. Immigrants arriving at the pier were processed on-board their ships after they docked.
PhilaPort still does a booming business
However, the Port of Philadelphia, now known as PhilaPort, continues to flourish today, providing jobs for 18,000 people and generating $25.4 billion in economic activity.
People and goods continue to flock to William Penn’s “greene Country Towne.” The 109 international flags on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway represent 108 countries with significant populations in the city … plus Puerto Rico, a territory of the U.S.
The latest port news: After parts of the Delaware River were recently deepened to 45 feet, Marco Polo, the largest ship ever to visit Philly, docked at the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in March 2024. Standing on end, it would be about as tall as the Empire State Building.
And starting in April of 2026, the Norwegian Cruise Line’s Jewel will start making the first of 24 calls to the city. That’s good news for Philadelphia.
So despite obstacles along the way, Philadelphia’s port … which also includes some smaller ones in New Jersey and Delaware, continues to thrive in 2024.
More good Philly travel news: American Airlines has also began seasonal non-stop flights to Naples, Italy, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Nice, France. That means more tourists coming to and from Philadelphia.
“Land Buoy “by sculptor Jody Pinto simulates a passenger’s view of the river as ships traveled up to the Washington Avenue Immigration Station. Photo by Jim Murphy, author of “Real Philly History, Real Fast.”
Some Sources:
https://commonplace.online/article/walking-moraleys-streets-philadelphia/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Way_to_Cape_May
https://exhibits.stanford.edu/ruderman/catalog/jj125yt6481
https://foundinphiladelphia.com/episode-no-9-a-guide-to-why-streets-matter-companion-blog/
https://globalphiladelphia.org/sites/default/files/Lesson7PhiladelphiaACityofNeighborhoods.pdf
https://hiddencityphila.org/2024/04/the-rise-fall-and-rise-of-philadelphia-brick/
https://libwww.freelibrary.org/blog/post/3667
https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/privateering/
https://philahistory.org/2019/08/29/philadelphias-rich-maritime-history/
https://www.flipsnack.com/FE855EAA9F7/philaport-brochure/full-view.html
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/october-14/
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0802/ML080220443.pdf
https://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/pa-history/1681-1776.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-violent-border-dispute-between-colonial-maryland-and-pennsylvania-eventually-required-king-step-180963333/https://www.tehistory.org/hqda/html/v19/v19n4p103.html
https://www.tehistory.org/hqda/html/v19/v19n4p103.html
https://www2.hsp.org/exhibits/Balch%20resources/phila_ellis_island.html
Bridenbaugh, Carl. “The Old and New Societies of the Delaware Valley in the Seventeenth Century.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 100, no. 2 (1976): 143–72. www.jstor.org/stable/20091051.
Lingelbach, William E. “William Penn and City Planning.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 68, no. 4 (1944): 398–418. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20087710.
Springer, Ruth L., Louise Wallman, And. Rudman, and Andreas Sandell. “Two Swedish Pastors Describe Philadelphia, 1700 and 1702.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 84, no. 2 (1960): 194–218. www.jstor.org/stable/20089287.