Roxborough Township, Pennsylvania

Roxborough Township
Former Township
Country United States
State Pennsylvania
County Philadelphia
Coordinates 40°02′49″N 75°14′28″W / 40.04694°N 75.24111°W / 40.04694; -75.24111Coordinates: 40°02′49″N 75°14′28″W / 40.04694°N 75.24111°W / 40.04694; -75.24111
Timezone EST (UTC-5)
 - summer (DST) EDT (UTC-4)
Area code 215
Map of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania highlighting Roxborough Township prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854
Location of Roxborough Township in Pennsylvania
Location of Pennsylvania in the United States

Roxborough Township is a defunct township that was located in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. The township ceased to exist and was incorporated into the City of Philadelphia following the passage of the Act of Consolidation, 1854.

The name is still applied to the modern day neighborhood of Roxborough which was once a part of Roxborough Township. The area was likely named for Roxburghshire, Scotland, the ancestral home of Andrew Robeson, one of the earliest settlers of the area.

History

The Native American trail called the Manatawny, now Ridge Avenue, was central to the well-organized development of farms and plantations within the area then known as Manatawna. The Court of Upland in England appointed local Swedish settler Peter Rambo to be the maintainer of the Manatawny road. In 1690, the road was renamed Ridge Road (it follows the crest of the ridge between the Wissahickon valley and the Schuylkill valley), and the area was renamed Roxburgh. By 1707, the name had been changed to Roxborough. Roxborough is first mentioned as a township in QS Road Docket II: 31 in 1706. In 1840, Manayunk was erected as a borough within the township, and on March 31, 1847, Manayunk was declared separate from the township.

Resources

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, April 17, 2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.