Waiting for the crisis to pass, our thoughts go out to friends and loved-ones who also shelter in place. Old friends pass away, people we loved and admired. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.
Mendenhall Ferry. Schuylkill River Sketchbook. September 1, 2018.
“Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved
And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;
Bur far, very far were the friends that he loved,
And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh”
–Thomas Moore. Lines Written on Leaving Philadelphia. 1804
Mendenhall Ferry was a simple cable-ferry connecting the left bank of the Schuylkill River to the upriver resort Mendenhall Inn, one mile below the East Falls. British topographical artist William Birch captured the scene in his Views of Philadelphia published in 1800.
Mendenhall Ferry. William Birch. 1800
Without intellectual property laws, enforcement of copyright protections would have been impossible. Although I never looked into his thoughts on the matter, Birch may have welcome his composition being appropriated by porcelain manufacturers in the production of blue-and-white transfer ware. The connection between the American art-printing industry then centered in Philadelphia and other decorative arts was featured in Anna Marley’s superb exhibition Schuylkill to the Hudson: Landscapes of the Early Republic, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2019. I highly recommend the catalogue of the exhibition.
Staffordshire blue-and-white transfer-ware. Design of Birch’s Mendenhall Ferry.
The site today is located along Kelly Drive at the foot of Hunting Park Avenue, five miles from City Hall at Center Square. Atop the eastern bluffs is Laurel Hill Cemetery, one of the first rural cemeteries established in America. To the west is the Belmont section of Fairmount Park. An historic mansion known as University Barge Club, it later was used as a hallway house for delinquent teens. Later serving as a maintenance facility for Fairmount Park, The Lilacs today is under the control of the international wilderness education organization Outward Bound. During its halcyon days, young oarsmen would row their sweethearts upriver from Boat House Row for social gatherings as houses like the Lilacs, or Undine Barge-Club’s Castle Ringstetten in East Falls.This three-quarter-mile stretch of the river lies upstream from the competitive zone south of Strawberry Mansion Bridge. Oarsmen and women use the run for training, or just getting into the zone.
Flowing past the neighborhood of Manayunk (affectionately dubbed the Polish Poconos), the Schuylkill passes under Falls Bridge, US-1 and Twin Stone, a pair of 19th-century railroad bridges that for many rowers mark the northernmost extremity of their domain. Brave sold venture further upstream, like those who put their boats into the tidewater at Forgotten Bottom, they must be mindful of submerged rocks during dry spells and treacherous currents following heavy rains. This can be challenging when rowers face in a direction opposite to where they are going. Traditional canoeists and outriggers might navigate the river beyond Miquon to Conshohocken, where a new rowing center has been established. The walkway from which this view of Mendenhall Ferry was painted begins ten miles to the south, proceeding another sixteen miles upriver to Valley Forge. Further sections of the trail have been completed. Unlike the Hudson or other major waterways flanked by rail and vehicular rights of way. The nonprofit Schuylkill River Greenways has been able to re-purpose former canal towpaths and rail-beds to establish more than sixty miles of public recreational thoroughfares. To promote environmental awareness, the Schuylkill Valley National Heritage Area established the Schuylkill River Sojourn, a seven-day 112-mile kayak journey from near the source of the river in Schuylkill Haven to Philadelphia.
Looking southwest from 40.0061 x 75.1914
Check out April 2020 Quaranteam Traveler Dispatches
(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com