Dock Creek was a stream draining much of what is now the eastern half of Center City, Philadelphia, United States. It was a tributary of the Delaware River. By 1820, the entire creek had been covered and converted to a sewer. The present-day Dock Street follows the lower course of the stream.
Called Cooconocon by the native Lenape people, Dock Creek was near the center of William Penn's initial settlement in Philadelphia. [1] [2] The area around the mouth of the creek was marshy, and early Philadelphians referred to it as "The Swamp". [1] The creek's source was near present-day Eleventh Street between Arch and Race. [3] It then flowed through a pond around present-day Fifth and Market streets, after which it flowed south and east. [2] At about Fourth and Chestnut, it was joined by another small stream, Munday's Run. [2] Dock Creek then ran southeast, where it was joined by the Little Dock Creek, and through the swamp to the Delaware River. [2]
Penn thought the mouth of the Dock a good site to dock ships, giving rise to the name. He declared that the area should be a harbor forever, but later inhabitants did not follow his plan. [1] By 1704, a drawbridge was constructed near the mouth of the creek, the first bridge in the colony of Pennsylvania. [1] More bridges followed: at Second Street in 1713, Third Street in 1740, and Walnut Street in 1767. [1] In 1763, the creek's use as an open sewer led residents to describe it as "a Receptacle for the Carcasses of dead Dogs, and other Carrion, and Filth of various kinds, which laying exposed to the Sun and Air putrify and become extremely offensive and injurious to the Health of the Inhabitants." [4] Increased development in the area led settlers to cover the creek above Second Street by 1769. [5] By 1784, it was covered all the way to its outlet at the Delaware. [5]
The mouth of the Dock had become known as "a foul place, especially when the tide was out." [3] The stream became completely buried and served as a sewer for the neighborhood. By the 1840s, the sewer had become inadequate and frequently overflowed into the streets above. [6] Investigators recommended that Philadelphia City Council build a culvert under the streets to carry the stream, which they did. By the 1870s, the Dock Street Market was the city's primary's wholesale produce distribution center until its closure in 1959.
During urban renewal in the 1960s, new sewer lines were constructed in the area, and archaeologists investigated the former site of the city's main waterfront. [7] An art project in 2008 through Philadelphia's FringeArts Festival investigated the former course of Dock Creek between Third and Fifth streets, in what is now Independence National Historical Park. [8]
Lenapehoking is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.
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Darby Creek is a tributary of the Delaware River in Chester, Delaware and Philadelphia counties, in the U.S. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is approximately 26 miles (42 km) long. The watershed of the creek has an area of 77.2 square miles (200 km2). It has twelve named direct tributaries, including Cobbs Creek, Little Darby Creek, Ithan Creek, and Muckinipattis Creek. The creek has a low level of water quality for most of its length. The lower Darby Creek area was deemed a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) due to contamination with dangerous chemicals from two landfills.
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Pennypack Creek is a 22.6-mile-long (36.4 km) creek in southeastern Pennsylvania in the United States. It runs southeast through lower Bucks County, eastern Montgomery County and the northeast section of Philadelphia, before emptying into the Delaware River.
Poquessing Creek is a 10.3-mile-long (16.6 km) creek, a right tributary of the Delaware River, that forms the boundary between Philadelphia and Bensalem Township, which borders it to the northeast along the Delaware. It has defined this boundary between Bucks and Philadelphia counties since 1682.
Frankford Creek is a minor tributary of the Delaware River in southeast Pennsylvania. It derived its name from today's Frankford, Philadelphia neighborhood.
Wingohocking Creek was once a major tributary of another Philadelphia, Pennsylvania stream, Frankford Creek, which flows into the Delaware River. Frankford Creek was formed by the confluence of Wingohocking Creek and Tacony Creek. Since Wingohocking Creek is now obliterated, having been piped underground in the late 19th century, it can be confusing to look at a modern map, which shows Tacony Creek suddenly changing names "in the middle of the stream," so to speak, and becoming Frankford Creek. The point at which the name changes is near the present intersection of I and Ramona Streets, where the Wingohocking once joined the Tacony to form the Frankford Creek. What was once a major stream and the site of many mills and factories has been completely wiped off the map—all but the city's sewer maps, that is. The outlet of the Wingohocking Sewer is the largest in the Philadelphia sewer system, about 24 feet (7.3 m) high. It is visible from various points in the Juniata neighborhood and the adjoining golf course.
The Cohocksink Creek was formerly a stream running between what are now the Philadelphia neighborhoods of Northern Liberties and Kensington. It was a tributary of the Delaware River. Its name, spelled various ways, is said to come from a Lenape word for "pine lands". Alternate names included Stacey's Creek. The creek arose at the confluence of two smaller streams in a pond around the present-day intersection of Sixth and Thompson streets. For centuries, Cohocksink Creek has often been confused with Cohoquinoque Creek, a culverted stream about a mile to the south.
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Penn Treaty Park is a small park on the western bank of the Delaware River, in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is located on Beach Street, near its intersection with Delaware Avenue.
Mill Creek rises in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; runs southeasterly to West Philadelphia, where it enters 19th-century sewer pipes; and debouches roughly five miles later in the Schuylkill River near The Woodlands Cemetery. It starts near Narberth, where its source is buried, then runs free for a mile or so before entering Philadelphia at the Overbrook station.
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The Dock Street Market was Philadelphia's central wholesale produce market from 1870 until its closure in 1959 and relocation to the Food Distribution Center in South Philadelphia. The Dock Street Market was located on Dock Street in Society Hill. Dock Street is three blocks long, and runs from Sansom Street to Spruce Street, and between Third and Front streets. The market was busiest between midnight and eight in the morning when produce was loaded and offloaded between delivery trucks and warehouses.
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