Isaac Hinckley (1815-1888) was a president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad and the founder of Ridley Park, Pennsylvania.
Hinckley was born on Oct. 28, 1815, in Hingham, Massachusetts, a son of Isaac Hinckley (1793-1818), who had gone to sea at a young age and rose to command three ships: the brig Reaper (1809–10), which he sailed on a trading voyage from Boston to Aden and Calcutta; the ship Tartar (1812–13), on another voyage to Calcutta; and finally the ship Canton (1815–18) for three voyages from Boston to Guangdong, China. He died while homebound on the third of these. The shipmaster left a widow in Hingham and six children, aged 2 to 11, including three-year-old Isaac. [1]
The younger Isaac Hinckley graduated from Harvard University in 1834. He took his first railroad job in 1846, as Superintendent of Transportation for the Boston and Providence Railroad and worked there until January 1848. He then took other railroad jobs and on April 1, 1865, was appointed president of the PW&B. [2]
He was also president of the Junction Railroad, the short line built to connect the PW&B and three other railroads in West Philadelphia. [2]
In 1880 and 1881, Hinckley helped the PRR take control of the PW&B, [2] a move that ultimately forced the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to build a costly new southwest approach to Philadelphia.
On Dec. 12, 1887, Hinckley chartered Ridley Park, a borough to the southwest of Philadelphia, in an effort to create an analog to the Philadelphia Main Line string of suburbs founded and served, lucratively, by the Pennsylvania Railroad. [3]
Hinckley died in Philadelphia, still the president of the PW&B, on March 28, 1888. [2]
Ridley Park is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 7,002 at the 2010 census. Ridley Park is the home of Boeing's CH-47 Chinook helicopter division.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States. It operated as B&O from 1830 until 1987, when it was merged into the Chessie System; its lines are today controlled by CSX Transportation.
The Maryland Area Rail Commuter (MARC) is a commuter rail system in the Washington–Baltimore area. MARC is administered by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and operated under contract by Alstom and Amtrak on track owned by CSX Transportation (CSXT) and Amtrak. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 3,860,600, or about 14,000 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024, less than pre-COVID-19 pandemic weekday ridership of 40,000.
The Junction Railroad was a railroad created in 1860 to connect lines west of downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and allow north-south traffic through the metropolitan area for the first time. The railroad consisted of 3.56 miles of double track and 5.3 miles of sidings. It owned no locomotives or rolling stock. The line connected the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road line at the west end of the Columbia Bridge over the Schuylkill River, crossed the Pennsylvania Railroad line, ran parallel to Market Street, and turned south to connect with the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad at Gray's Ferry.
The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad (B&P) operated from Baltimore, Maryland, southwest to Washington, D.C., from 1872 to 1902. Owned and operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad, it was the second railroad company to connect the nation's capital to the Northeastern U.S., and competed with the older Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
The New Castle and Frenchtown Turnpike and Rail Road (NC&F) was opened in 1831, was the first railroad in Delaware and one of the first in the United States. Approximately half of the route was abandoned in 1859; the rest became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) route into the Delmarva Peninsula and is still used by Norfolk Southern Railway. The abandoned segment from Porter, Delaware, to Frenchtown, Maryland, the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad Right-of-Way, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) was an American railroad that operated independently from 1836 to 1881. Headquartered in Philadelphia, it was greatly enlarged in 1838 by the merger of four state-chartered railroads in three Mid-Atlantic states to create a single line between Philadelphia and Baltimore.
The Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad was a railroad line built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the Maryland-Delaware state line, where it connected with the B&O's Philadelphia Branch to reach Baltimore, Maryland. It was built in the 1880s after the B&O lost access to its previous route to Philadelphia, the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B). The cost of building the new route, especially the Howard Street Tunnel on the connecting Baltimore Belt Line, led to the B&O's first bankruptcy. Today, the line is used by CSX Transportation for freight trains.
Ridley Park station is a station along the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak does not stop here; only SEPTA's Wilmington/Newark Line trains serve this station. It is located at Hinckley & Morton Avenues in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, and contains a one-story station house similar to that of Media Regional Rail station built into the embankment next to a platform, as well as a passenger drop-off area at Hinckley Avenue and Lincoln Street. Another platform also exists on the opposite side of the tracks on Ridley & Morton Avenues. Access between the two platforms is available from the nearby Ward Street Bridge just west of the station.
Samuel Morse Felton Sr. was a civil engineer and railroad executive.
The President Street Station in Baltimore, Maryland, is a former train station and railroad terminal. Built in 1849 and opened in February 1850, the station saw some of the earliest bloodshed of the American Civil War (1861-1865), and was an important rail link during the conflict. It is the oldest surviving big-city railroad terminal in the United States.
USS Glaucus was a large steamship acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. The Union Navy planned to use her as a gunboat in the blockade of ports of the Confederate States of America, but, also found it useful to use her to transport the president of Colombia to Cartagena, Colombia.
George Campbell Read was a United States Navy officer. He served during the War of 1812, commanded the USS Chippewa during the Second Barbary War, commanded the East India Squadron from 1837 to 1840 including during the Second Sumatran expedition in 1838, commanded the Africa Squadron from 1846 to 1847, and the Mediterranean Squadron from 1847 to 1849. He commanded the Philadelphia Naval Asylum from 1839 to 1846, the Philadelphia Navy Yard from 1850 to 1853, and the Philadelphia Naval Asylum again during the American Civil War from 1861 to 1862. He was promoted to rear admiral in July 1862.
Gray's Ferry Bridge has been the formal or informal name of several floating bridges and four permanent ones that have carried highway and rail traffic over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. The bridge today is a four-lane divided highway bridge, built in 1976, that carries Grays Ferry Avenue from the Grays Ferry neighborhood on the east bank, over the river and the Northeast Corridor railroad tracks, to the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood of Kingsessing.
The Newkirk Viaduct Monument is a 15-foot (4.6 m) white marble obelisk in the West Philadelphia neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was installed in 1839 to mark the completion of the Newkirk Viaduct, the first permanent railroad bridge over the Schuylkill River. It is inscribed with the names of 51 railroad builders and executives, among other information.
The Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad (C&PD) was a railroad that operated in Pennsylvania and Maryland in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It operated a 34-mile long (55 km) main line between Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Port Deposit, Maryland, generally along the eastern shore of the Susquehanna River. It later acquired a branch line to Perryville, Maryland. The C&PD was subsequently purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and, since the 1999 breakup of Conrail, is owned by Norfolk Southern Railway.
Herman Joseph Lombaert (1816–1885) was an American civil engineer who helped complete the first railroad between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland, and eventually became a vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR).
Joseph Hinckley Clark was a member of the Clark banking family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; an officer in the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry who distinguished himself in combat during the American Civil War; and a director of the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad.
Sydney Howard Gay (1814–1888) was an American attorney, journalist and abolitionist who was active in New York City. Beginning in 1843, he was editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard for 14 years. His offices became a stop of the Underground Railroad, and he became very active in collaborating with others to help fugitive slaves reach freedom.
Henry R. Hazlehurst (1815-1900) was an American civil engineer. Long employed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, he also helped build the first rail link between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and points south.