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Grays Ferry Bridge
Grays Ferry Bridge (previously spelled as Gray's Ferry Bridge) has been the formal or informal name of several floating bridges and four permanent ones that have carried highway and rail traffic over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. The bridge today is a four-lane divided highway bridge, built in 1976, that carries Grays Ferry Avenue from the Grays Ferry neighborhood on the east bank, over the river and the Northeast Corridor railroad tracks, to the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood of Kingsessing.
In 1902, rail traffic was shifted to the adjacent Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Bridge No. 1, which was demolished in 2018. Its pilings support an under-construction bridge for use by cyclists and pedestrians traveling the Schuylkill River Trail.
Before bridges crossed the Schuylkill, three ferries provided the main connections between Philadelphia and points west and south. Two of them crossed the river in or near the city limits:
The third, dubbed Lower Ferry, crossed south of the city proper and just south of the mouth of Mill Creek. It was likely established in 1673 or shortly thereafter by Benjamin Chambers, who was licensed to operate the ferry after Swedish settlers complained that they were blocked from passage on the Middle Ferry.
In 1696, the colonial government directed that two roads be laid out from either end of the Lower Ferry, also called Chambers' Ferry: one from the east landing north to Philadelphia, and the other westward toward Darby, Pennsylvania. The ferry thereby came to connect Philadelphia to the Darby Road (now Woodland Avenue at 47th Street), which was part of the King's Highway, the main land route to Delaware, Baltimore, and the southern colonies. It remained virtually the only conduit to the city from points south until 1781, when the construction of a federal road connected the ferry environs to Market Street in what would become West Philadelphia.
It was still marked as "Lower Ferry" on a 1753 map, but it would soon take the name of its new proprietors, the brothers Robert and George Gray. George (1725–1800) owned large tracts of land near the ferry's eastern landing (in today's Grays Ferry neighborhood of South Philadelphia) and in 1787 would become a signatory to Pennsylvania's ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
The first bridge across the Schuylkill River was a pontoon bridge built in 1777 by British troops occupying the city. Its construction was anticipated on the American side by General John Armstrong, Sr. of the Pennsylvania militia, who wrote on October 8, "I think they will also throw a bridge of some sort over Grey's Ferry, not only to maintain a communication with but secure a retreat to their shipping."
Armstrong was right. The bridge's preparation and construction were described by Captain John Montresor, the engineer on the staff of General William Howe:
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Grays Ferry Bridge
Grays Ferry Bridge (previously spelled as Gray's Ferry Bridge) has been the formal or informal name of several floating bridges and four permanent ones that have carried highway and rail traffic over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. The bridge today is a four-lane divided highway bridge, built in 1976, that carries Grays Ferry Avenue from the Grays Ferry neighborhood on the east bank, over the river and the Northeast Corridor railroad tracks, to the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood of Kingsessing.
In 1902, rail traffic was shifted to the adjacent Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Bridge No. 1, which was demolished in 2018. Its pilings support an under-construction bridge for use by cyclists and pedestrians traveling the Schuylkill River Trail.
Before bridges crossed the Schuylkill, three ferries provided the main connections between Philadelphia and points west and south. Two of them crossed the river in or near the city limits:
The third, dubbed Lower Ferry, crossed south of the city proper and just south of the mouth of Mill Creek. It was likely established in 1673 or shortly thereafter by Benjamin Chambers, who was licensed to operate the ferry after Swedish settlers complained that they were blocked from passage on the Middle Ferry.
In 1696, the colonial government directed that two roads be laid out from either end of the Lower Ferry, also called Chambers' Ferry: one from the east landing north to Philadelphia, and the other westward toward Darby, Pennsylvania. The ferry thereby came to connect Philadelphia to the Darby Road (now Woodland Avenue at 47th Street), which was part of the King's Highway, the main land route to Delaware, Baltimore, and the southern colonies. It remained virtually the only conduit to the city from points south until 1781, when the construction of a federal road connected the ferry environs to Market Street in what would become West Philadelphia.
It was still marked as "Lower Ferry" on a 1753 map, but it would soon take the name of its new proprietors, the brothers Robert and George Gray. George (1725–1800) owned large tracts of land near the ferry's eastern landing (in today's Grays Ferry neighborhood of South Philadelphia) and in 1787 would become a signatory to Pennsylvania's ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
The first bridge across the Schuylkill River was a pontoon bridge built in 1777 by British troops occupying the city. Its construction was anticipated on the American side by General John Armstrong, Sr. of the Pennsylvania militia, who wrote on October 8, "I think they will also throw a bridge of some sort over Grey's Ferry, not only to maintain a communication with but secure a retreat to their shipping."
Armstrong was right. The bridge's preparation and construction were described by Captain John Montresor, the engineer on the staff of General William Howe: