The Port of Reading History

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"It would seem that Nature had selected this site for the town."

It was an ideal site for a new town for John and Richard Penn, proprietors and governors of the province of Pennsylvania, as it was located on a shallow ford on the Schuylkill River, fifty-two miles north of Philadelphia and fifty-two miles east of Harrisburg.  The establishment of a town would provide the proprietors with a lucrative private income from ground rent on the town lots and attract immigrants to populate Pennsylvania.  The Tulpehocken Path, well known to Indians and traders, had been laid out from Philadelphia to Reading in 1687; it crossed the Ford and continued westwards to Wolmesdorf, Harrisburg and the Susquehanna.

The Swedes had settled Morlaton, the French and Germans were in the rich Oley Valley, Lancaster and Harrisburg had been established; Berks County was made a county in 1752.  The new town of Reading would become the County seat.  The Schuylkill River was important for transportation of farm produce and lumber to Philadelphia in canoes and flat boats and for bringing back needed supplies and goods.  The abundance of shad, trout, and catfish provided a ready food supply.

An early draft of Reading in 1743 by Thomas Lawrence for John and Richard Penn depicts the “Ferryman’s House” at the foot of Penn Street.  A rope-pulled ferry carried passengers and wagons across the 600-foot wide Schuylkill until the Harrisburg Bridge, a covered wooden bridge, was built in 1816 . Reading was officially laid out for the Penn brothers in 1748.  Surveyor John Lukens’s plan shows eighteen river-lots on the eastern side and six river-lots on the western side of the Schuylkill River. The area along the river was designated an “overflow bank.”  How prophetic this was after studying the many floods which have ravaged the city of Reading.

Reading was erected as a borough by an act of the General Assembly in September 1783.  It was a small prosperous town where 90 percent of its citizens spoke German.  Hat manufacturing was its largest industry.  The governing officials in Reading were appointed by the Pennsylvanian Governor and were mainly from Philadelphia.  English was the official language.

The waterfront was busy with small warehouses to store goods until they could be shipped down to Philadelphia.  A ledger from the Garber and Strohecker warehouse in 1795 listed wheat, flour, straw linseed oil, bees wax, butter, paper, brandy and hats as merchandise to be shipped.  Farmers also transported their produce in heavy farm wagons over rough and frequently muddy roads.  Starting in 1789, a stagecoach made weekly trips to Philadelphia.

The future of Reading changed drastically when the Schuylkill Canal was opened in 1824.  The Schuylkill Canal was hand dug between 1816 and 1825 with the purpose of making the shallow 108-mile-long Schuylkill River navigable.  The Canal consisted of 63 miles of canals and 43 miles of dams and pools. Known as slack water construction, the dams raised the level of the pools to average of eight feet.  This was necessary as the Schuylkill River has one-percent elevation fall or 618 feet from Port Clinton to Philadelphia.  A total of seventy-one locks raised or lowered the barges along the course of the Canal.

(Picture of one of the many dams and locks on the Schuylkill Canal.)

A flourishing commercial area soon developed along the Canal.  The route of the first Schuylkill Canal ran through the lower section of Reading crossing Penn Street between Front and Second Street.  The original channel was 36 feet wide and 4 feet deep and could handle boats 8 feet wide and up to 75 feet in length which carried 25 to 30 tons.  William Orrick built a basin 150 by 112 feet between Front and Washington Streets.  The basin was lined with warehouses and wharves where boats were loaded and unloaded; it was called the Port of Reading.The canal entered at the Jackson Lock and exited at Leisz's Bridge. River Road in Muhlenburg Township was once the canal channel.