Southwest corner from East Wingohocking Street (2007).
Tremont Mills, before 1860
1198 Adams Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19124
(northwest corner of East Wingohocking Street)
© Barbara M. Auwarter and
Joyce Halley, Workshop of the World (Oliver
Evans Press, 1990).
The 1860 Philadelphia City
Atlas showed an unnamed mill at this site.
1
By 1876, Foster
and Whitaker, two significant investors with multiple
locations, owned the mill, 2
which produced
Venetian damask and paletan carpets. The mill complex,
operated by Wm. Whitaker & Sons and now known as
Tremont Mills, 3
was completely
rebuilt in 1879 for the manufacture of ingrain carpet and
cotton ticking. There were forty Jacquard and ten hand
looms. All of the power looms and dyeing operations
were run by steam. The brick smoke stack rose "100
feet above the earth." 4
Hexamer General Survey #378 (1869),
"Tremont Mills, Israel Foster &
Co."
City Atlases 5
show that in the
decade between 1910 and 1920, ownership of the mill
passed out of the hands of the Whitaker heirs to J.
Bromley, who operated it as the American Pile Fabric
Company under the control of Tremont Realty Company. B
& B Auto Body Parts. One-third of the rustic stone
rubble building at the intersection of Adams and
Wingohocking was sliced away by the widening of
Wingohocking Street, but the rest of the complex retains
much of its nineteenth century appearance.
East facade showing
remaining two-thirds after Wingohocking Street was
widened (2007).
1 Philadelphia City
Atlas, 1860, 23rd Ward, Section 24.
2 Philadelphia City
Atlas, 1876, 23rd Ward, Plate E.
3 Hexamer General Survey #1760-1761 (1883),
"Tremont Mills, Estate of Wm. Whitaker,
Owners."
4 Hexamer General Survey #1760-1761 (1883),
"Tremont Mills, Estate of Wm. Whitaker,
Owners."
5 Philadelphia City
Atlas, 1910, 23rd Ward, Plate 10; also, Philadelphia
City Atlas, 1920, 23rd Ward, Plate 8.
Chimney in center of
complex (2007).
Update May
2007 (by
Torben Jenk):
The
first floor and surrounding grounds are occupied by
various auto repair businesses. The upper floors are
vacant. Most of the windows have been boarded and the
building is in generally poor condition. The top section
of the massive chimney, the round part above the 100-foot
tall square main chimney, was struck by lightning in 1992
and removed by a particularly able steeplejack who worked
single-handedly and completed the job for $20,000. The
Frankford Creek has flooded the site recently, cresting
the retaining wall and filling the courtyard nestled
between the buildings, and rising about six or seven feet
above the base of the chimney. There is a plan to take
twenty-five feet of ground on either side of the
Frankford Creek to create a bicycle/multi-use trail from
the Delaware River to Conshohocken. This section of
Frankford Creek, below Castor Avenue, has been
channelized in concrete.
See
also:
Hexamer General Survey #378 (1869),
"Tremont Mills, Israel Foster &
Co."
Hexamer General Survey #523 (?), "Tremont
Mills, Israel Foster & Co."