Byberry, Philadelphia

Township of Byberry
Former Township
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Philadelphia

Coordinates

Timezone	EST (UTC-5)
- summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
Area code	215

Map of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania highlighting Byberry Township prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854
Location of Byberry in Pennsylvania
Location of Pennsylvania in the United States

Byberry is a neighborhood in the far northeast section of Philadelphia, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Originally it was incorporated as the Township of Byberry and was the northeasternmost municipality of Philadelphia County before the City and County consolidated in 1854.

Byberry had a strong abolitionist presence and may have been an original stop on the Underground Railroad. Today, the area occupied by the township is mostly synonymous with the neighborhood of Somerton, as neighborhoods Byberry and Somerton tend to overlap.

History

A township in the extreme northeastern part of the County of Philadelphia; bounded on the east and northeast by Poquessing Creek and Bucks County; on the northwest by Montgomery County; and on the west and southwest by the Township of Moreland.

Its greatest length was estimated at 5 miles (8.0 kilometres); its greatest breadth, 2 ¹⁄₂ miles (4.0 kilometres); area, 4.700 acres (0.01902 km²). It was settled by a few Swedes previous to the year 1675, and in that year by four brothers—Nathaniel, Thomas, Daniel and William Walton—who were all young and single men. They had arrived at Newcastle from England early in that year, and, having prospected the land in the neighborhood of the Delaware River, chose the country near Poquessing Creek, and settled there.

They gave it the name Byberry, in honor of their native town, near Bristol, in England.

They were joined after the arrival of the ship Welcome in 1682, by Giles and Joseph Knight, John Carver, John Hart, Richard Collett and their families, and others. Byberry was the birthplace of Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The township was established at a very early date after the coming of William Penn. It contained very few villages at the time of consolidation, and was the most rural of all the townships of Philadelphia County. Byberry Crossroads, once called Plumbsock, and Knightsville were the principal villages.

Notable people

Harriet Forten Purvis, abolitionist and suffragette
Robert Purvis, father of the Underground Railroad

References

Chronology of the Political Subdivisions of the County of Philadelphia, 1683–1854
Information courtesy of ushistory.org
Incorporated District, Boroughs, and Townships in the County of Philadelphia, 1854 By Rudolph J. Walther - excerpted from the book at the ushistory.org website

Municipalities and communities of Philadelphia in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, United States

Sections and
Neighborhoods

Center City

South

Southwest

West

North

Lower North	Badlands Belfield Brewerytown Cabot Callowhill Cecil B. Moore El Centro de Oro Fairhill Fairmount Francisville Hartranft Ivy Hill Ludlow North Central Northern Liberties Poplar Reading Viaduct Sharswood South Lehigh Spring Garden Stanton Strawberry Mansion Yorktown

Upper North	Allegheny West Badlands Franklinville Glenwood Hunting Park Nicetown-Tioga Olde Kensington Swampoodle West Kensington

Olney-Oak Lane	East Oak Lane Feltonville Fern Rock Koreatown Logan Ogontz Olney West Oak Lane

Northwest

Lower Northwest	Andorra East Falls Manayunk Roxborough Wissahickon

Upper Northwest	Beggarstown Chestnut Hill Germantown Morton Mount Airy Wister Cedarbrook

Northeast

Near Northeast	Burholme Castor Gardens Crescentville Fox Chase Frankford Holme Circle Holmesburg Juniata Lawndale Lexington Park Mayfair Oxford Circle Rhawnhurst Ryers Tacony Wissinoming

Far Northeast	Academy Gardens Ashton-Woodenbridge Bustleton Byberry Crestmont Farms Millbrook Modena Park Morrell Park Normandy Parkwood Pennypack Somerton Torresdale Upper Holmesburg Winchester Park

River Wards	Bridesburg Fishtown Harrowgate Kensington Port Richmond

Former
Municipalities

Cities	Philadelphia (Center City)

Boroughs	Aramingo Bridesburg Frankford Germantown Manayunk West Philadelphia Whitehall

Districts	Belmont Kensington Moyamensing Northern Liberties Penn Richmond Southwark Spring Garden

Townships	Blockley Bristol Byberry Delaware Germantown Kingsessing Lower Dublin Moreland Northern Liberties Oxford Passyunk Penn Roxborough

Footnotes

As a consolidated city-county Philadelphia is its own county seat.

Categories

This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.

Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.

By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.

Byberry, Philadelphia