Levittown First...

As a boy growing up I didn’t realize how Levittown, PA took its shape in Bucks County. Growing up in Goldenridge, one of the first things I learned (besides NO playing in the streets) was my address, it was then I knew I was surrounded by a bunch of “G” lettered streets as I walked to school (which was Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary. While driving around with my parents I noticed that Emerson wasn’t the only elementary school in town, Thomas Jefferson, James Buchanan and Clara Barton (just to name a few). While these names stuck out with me since I was learning about them in my social studies class (or history) but John Fitch elementary did not sound familiar. For years I assumed he was a predominate, influential person of Levittown, little did I know he was a first for American steam ship building, as well as a first for Levittown.

     John Fitch not only was the first to build a steam power boat, but what amazes me is that he did it in Bucks County as well. With plans in hand he built a model of his boat in a lake that was located in Warminister, PA (near York and Street Roads). Being built and briefly testing his invention in Warminister before making the trip down to the Delaware River for a bigger test of his steam boat. While his test were successful, his investors were nervous about the cost of the steam engine boats and slowly they began to back out and leaving Fitch alone and drowning in debt from his historic invention.

     Fast forward 150 years or so to 1950’s when plans to build affordable housing in the Lower Bucks area of PA. After WWII the need for housing was great for returning GI, with various government programs helping making the “American Dream” easier and more possible. Once built Levittown had a numerous amount of first (house built, house sold, business…etc), and the first school being that of the John Fitch Elementary in the Greenbrook section of Levittown. I was unable to find out why this was the first, or why his name is associated with this school. Having situated the elementary schools so that no child (of elementary school age) would have to cross a “major road” (at the time) to attend school and since the Stonybrook sections was the first to be completed one can assume that this would only be the proper area to have the first school to open.

     With plans and a cornerstone laid in 1952, Fitch elementary was finished and ready to welcome its new students. For nearly 60 years this school has endured the test of time, as well as many students getting their education at this historic first. While school records are private and confidential, I was not able to find who the first child to enroll at this school was. Fitch not only led the way in the steam boat industry, this school led the way and set the example for others in Levittown. I often wonder what happen to my elementary classmates from Ralph Waldo Emerson when I was a child.

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The S.S. Alantus



     Back to my childhood days of Cape May, one of the points of interest was the concrete sinking ship the S.S Alantus.
The SS Atlantus was one of 12 cement ships built between 1918 and 1921. The most “famous” of the concrete vessels, the Liberty Ship Building Company in Brunswick, Georgia built this ship in 1918 just after World War I had ended; however it did make a few voyages across the Atlantic bring war tired doughboys home. Proving to be costly for other voyages, the fleet was decommissioned and sold off or recycled for other uses, but the Atlantus was spared.

      Colonel Jessup Rosenfeld bought one of these concrete beasts from the Navy in hopes to have a reliable ferry from Cape May, NJ to Cape Henolpen, DE. In 1926 while trying to obtain the various needs for this ferry the Alantus broke free of it’s moorings in Cape May due to a fierce storm that came up the coast. Drifting just 150 years from the dock, the Alantus ran aground and became stuck in the sand and the “Cape May Diamonds”.

      By 1935, the ship had broken; by the 1960s, the superstructure was gone, and in 1987, the two halves drifted farther away and are now resting sideways. The ship is believed to help stimulate the formation of “Cape May Diamonds” – little lumps of quartz that can be found along the pristine beaches of Cape May. Sadly the ship will probably be totally underwater by 2018, unless it is stabilized, exhumed, and replaced.
Perhaps when wars are over they could sink a derelict warship out there?

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The Mercer Mile

     One of Bucks County’s famous landmarks is that of the Font Hill, Mercer Museum and the Moravian Pottery Works…”The Mercer Mile”. With a gothic castle setting and pristine grounds, this being the home of an archaeologist,scholar, collector and tile maker and putting his mark on Bucks County and Pennsylvania history.

    
 Henry Chapman Mercer born in Doylestown on June 24, 1856, not much can be found of his early life and schooling, in 1870, he was sent to Europe for his first trip to the continent and upon his return enrolled into Harvard and received a degree in Liberal Arts in 1879. In 1880 he enrolled into University of Pennsylvania Law School and in 1881 he read law at a Philadelphia based law firm, but choose to travel to France and Germany again, even his position with the University Curator of American and Prehistoric Archeology could not keep him from traveling abroad dedicating himself to finding old American artifacts as well as learning about German pottery. After returning to Doylestown, Mercer dedicated himself to the preservation of American artifacts as well as creating the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in 1898.
     
Apprenticing himself to a German Pennsylvanian potter Mercer insisted his pottery would be made the “old fashion” way. With ancient tools and methods Mercer designed a series of four hundred mosaics that trace the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from prehistoric times. At the Pennsylvania State Capitol is the largest single collection of Mercer’s tiles. You can also find other works by Mercer at Rockefeller’s New York estate, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the casino at Monte Carlo, and the St. Louis Public Library.

      The Bucks County Historical Society now owns Fonthill and the Mercer Museum both are open to the public. The Moravian Pottery and Tile Works is owned and operated by the Bucks County Department of Parks & Recreation. These three buildings make up “the Mercer Mile”. All three buildings were designed and constructed by Henry Mercer. Construction of the Museum started in 1913 with the help of eight day laborers and “Lucy” the horse (which is honored by a lightning rod on Fonthill). Rising six stories high, the Museum is built entirely of concrete reinforced with iron rods and mesh at a cost of $38,944.99 the Museum was completed in June of 1916. Henry Ford stated that the Mercer museum was the only museum worth visiting in the United States, and was apparently Henry Ford’s inspiration for his own museum, located in Dearborn, Michigan. The Mercer Museum houses over forty thousand artifacts from early American society, among the oldest artifacts in the Museum collection are a whale oil lamp over 2,000 years old, and Native American implements dating to 6,000 – 8,000 B.C.

      Mercer died on March 2, 1930 at Fonthill, the house he designed and constructed from reinforced concrete in 1908-1912. The Mercer Museum was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985. The Museum was awarded accreditation in 1992 by the American Association of Museums, the national organization which upholds museum standards.

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