Franklinville, Philadelphia

Not to be confused with Francisville, Philadelphia.

Franklinville
Neighborhood of Philadelphia
Franklinville
Coordinates: 40°00′36″N75°08′06″W / 40.01°N 75.135°W / 40.01; -75.135
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Philadelphia
City	Philadelphia
Area code(s)	215, 267, and 445

Franklinville is a neighborhood of North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. According to the City Planning Commission, the boundaries of Franklinville are roughly a triangle bounded by West Sedgley Avenue, North Broad Street, and West Hunting Park Avenue. ^[1]

Franklinville is a neighborhood that appears to no longer exist in current times, as not many residents in that area use the name to describe where they live. From the description above, one would be defining a possible description of Hunting Park and perhaps its borders with Nicetown-Tioga and Fairhill (to the south of W. Sedgley). It has previously been delineated as the "vicinity of Erie Avenue to Westmoreland Street, between Broad Street and Sedgley Avenue." ^[2]

Demographics

The neighborhood was predominantly German and Irish into the mid 20th century. Today there is a large Hispanic population – most hailing from Puerto Rico – and African-American and Filipino families as well.

There is reference to a Franklinville schoolhouse in Philadelphia in 1865. ^[3]

History

Named for the Philadelphian Benjamin Franklin, the original 72-acre tract was farmland that was subdivided, beginning in 1852, into 1,000 lots for townhouses, sold with a minimum 20 foot frontage, for $500 or $600 each. The land was owned by Coleman Fisher, whose large house in the middle of Venango Street was moved in the early 20th century. ^[4] The Franklin Land Company, John Turner, president, met at Franklin Hall and was one of the first mutual land firms in the city. Turner wanted to "aid those of small means." His mansion, dating to 1750, was taken down to make room for the "industrial classes." An oil works employed many Franklinville men as did a steel nail manufacturer. ^{[5] [6]} "Franklin" appears on an 1868 map with Nicetown to the northeast, Feltonville to the north, Rising Sun to the southwest, Coopersville to the east-southeast. ^[7]

Case study

One of "those of small means," Michael Carolan (1844-1906), moved here about 1890, from nearby Rowlandville. He came with wife Annie Larner (1852-1901) and six children. They settled home and business at the triangle created by the intersections of North Fifth Street, West Butler, Nicetown Lane (extinct), and the well-traveled Rising Sun Lane (Avenue). ^[8] He was an emigrant from Drumbaragh and Balrath Demesne townlands near Kells, County Meath, Ireland (arriving aboard the Patrick Henry to New York City on July 27, 1847).

Michael became a blacksmith and horseshoer. About 1860, he may have apprenticed with a master blacksmith who lived to the immediate west of farmer George Spencer. Spencer and his wife took the Carolan family into their home to live in the 1850s, soon after their arrival to the United States from Ireland. ^[9] The Spencers were members of the Society of Friends, and owned the old homestead where the Carolans stayed. It remains about a mile northeast of Willow Grove.

By 1865, Michael, age 21, may have opened his first shop on a farm in Abington Township, Montgomery County, about a mile and a half due south of the Spencer homestead. ^[10] A decade later, he began what would become a lucrative business on the busy Limekiln Pike at Dreshertown, in the Upper Dublin Township.

Franklinville, Philadelphia-Baist Map, 1895.

^[11]

In 1882, Michael and family moved about ten miles south of where they resided in Fitzwatertown to the neighborhood that developed around the Rowland Company, near Wyoming Ave. and Tacony Creek. It was called Rowlandville, a name no longer used. The neighborhood is today encompassed by Feltonville and Juniata Park. Their daughter Martha was born here, in July 1882, and died a month later, according to her death certificate located at the Philadelphia City Archives. ^[12]

Michael established a new location for his business at Franklinville at the aforementioned triangle. By 1893, the family lives in the adjacent block, a townhouse rental at 3817 N. 5th St. ^[13]

All told, Annie gave birth to 17 children of which six survived. Michael and Annie left Immaculate Conception in Jenkintown and joined nearby St. Veronica's Catholic Church (est. 1872 by Irish people), just south of their home at 6th St. and Tioga Avenue. Annie died in 1901 at the age of 48.

They are interred, with many of their children, at the New Cathedral Cemetery (est. 1861), to the east of Franklinville in Francisville. Their surviving children bought a limestone headstone for the plot.

Upon Michael's death in 1906, his daughter Helen and a son-in-law ran his blacksmithing business under "Nellie Carolan & Geo. Roth, horseshoers." George Roth died in 1910. He had been a boarder at Michael's home and an apprentice blacksmith in 1900 before he fell in love with, and married, Michael's daughter Emma in 1901. Emma and Helen were twins. After Roth's death, Emma married another blacksmith, George Washington Merritt.

Michael and Annie's six children married and lived in the neighborhood surrounding Franklinville such as Feltonville and Olney in North Philadelphia. ^[14]

There were five daughters: Elizabeth Macdonald, Helen Ann Heidenfelder, Mary Emma Roth Merritt, Anna Mary Carolan and Caroline Veronica McGrath. One son, Matthew William Carolan (1871-1942), survived to bring the surname forward with three children: George, Walter, and Ann, followed by three more generations as of 2025.

References

1. "Philadelphia Neighborhoods".
2. "Philadelphia Neighborhood Boundaries - Listed Alphabetically for all of Philly". www.phillyspot.com. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
3. Journal of the Common Council, of the City of Philadelphia, for ... J. Van Court, Printer. 1865.
4. Matthew George Carolan (1904-1994) recalls this event from his childhood.
5. Pennsylvania (1871). Laws of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
6. Hotchkin, Samuel Fitch (1892). The York Road, Old and New. Binder & Kelly.
7. Cheltenham – Germantown, Barnes, R. L. Barnes driving map of Philadelphia and surroundings, 1868.
8. Michael Carlin, blacksmith, Feltonville, in Gopsill's Directory of Philadelphia, 1887. Address is in Rowlandville, adjacent to Feltonville. Michael Carolan, blacksmith, corner Rising Sun & 5th, 1891. He may have been here by 1888.
9. According to the U. S. Census, 1860, Moreland Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Michael, age 15, and sister Martha, 8, are living in the home of George Spencer, 73, and his wife Mary, 60 (erroneously stated as 39) whose 100-acre farm is in the southwestern quadrant of Moreland Township. According to the U.S. Census, 1860, Horsham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, George Gerhart, 34, is a "master blacksmith" living one farm to the west of George Spencer, in Horsham Township. Gerhart has $1200 value of "real estate" and $600 in "personal estate." His blacksmith shop (and an adjacent wheelwright shop) is on the 1871 G.M. Hopkins map in the Township's southeastern quadrant. Sam Bright, 29, is a "blacksmith" living with the family. While 15-year-old Michael attended school that year (likely at Hatboro to the northeast of the Spencer Farm), he would have begun an apprenticeship in the trade within a year or two. Because of Gerhart's nearly immediate proximity, and the fact that there is no apprentice living with Gerhart, Michael may have served under him. Another candidate would be blacksmith John Spencer (1816- ), son of James Spencer Jr. (1762-1832), son of James Spencer (1734–1813), and a distant cousin of George Spencer. He lived nearby in Upper Dublin, with his son as apprentice in 1860. Master blacksmiths Harvey Leiden and Charles Michener and an Edge Tool Maker lived a few doors away. Michael may have apprenticed at a shop immediately south of the Spencer Farm, in the northwest corner of Abington Township. Chockley Jones was a 33-year-old master blacksmith that year, with two non-family members as employees: a junior blacksmith and an apprentice (1860 census: June 13). Because Chockley already had two employees, he is less likely a candidate for directing Michael's apprenticeship at this time. However, by 1870, Michael and family moved to the other side of Jones' shop, making Jones the closest blacksmith.
10. Michael is referred to as a blacksmith here in the 1870 census, which suggests he may have had his own shop. The nearest shop on which he may have worked is that of Chockley Jones at the intersection of old Welch Road and Fitzwatertown Road (1871 map), about 0.7 mile north of the Carolan home. As for the date that the family moved to Abington Township, Michael's sister was born at "Weldon" on November 25, 1865, according to her death certificate, suggesting that the family had already moved off of the Spencer farm (in Upper Moreland Township) by this time. Weldon is about a mile and a half due south of the family home on or near the farm of Garrett Hendrick, along what is today the north-side of the intersection of Woodland and Thomson Roads (see Abington map, 1877). For Weldon, see: Mary Emma Winder, Death certificate, No. 721, Record Group: Pennsylvania, U.S. Death Certificates, 1906-1970.
11. This was at the triangle created by Limekiln Pike, Peg Street and Susquehanna Avenue. John Spencer had the blacksmith shop at the northern quadrant of today's intersection of Dreshertown Road and Limekiln Pike, according to the 1883 GM Hopkins Map, North Pennsylvania Railroad: Wayne Junction to Penllyn Station, and the US census for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 1880.
12. Return of a Death Certificate, City of Philadelphia., Martha Carolan, residence: Rowlandville, August 15, 1882.
13. In 1888, he is listed in the city directory for Jenkintown in Montgomery County as a blacksmith. In 1887, he is listed in the Philadelphia directory as a blacksmith (Michael Carlin) with his home in Feltonville, considered part of Rowlandville. He is not found in the 1889 city directory. His blacksmith shop is then listed two years later at the corner of N. 5th & Rising Sun (1891). This would be at 528 or 530 Rising Sun, according to the City Archives. Maps at Philly Geohistory show a wood structure in the center of the triangle in the 1890s. In 1891, he is listed at 3807 N. 5th; in 1892, he is at 3948 N. 5th. His home is listed as 3817 N. 5th beginning in 1893, which is where he and Annie live the remaining years of their lives. He did not own his home or shop, according to property record research conducted by the archivist at the Philadelphia City Archives.
14. U.S. Census, 1900, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Records, Philadelphia Archdiocesan Center.