Matthew Newkirk

Matthew Newkirk (1794–1868), was a banker, railroad executive, and civic leader in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a director of the United States Bank,[1] but he was best known as the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B), which in 1838 opened the first direct railroad link between Philadelphia and Baltimore, Maryland.[2] He was also for many years the president of the Pennsylvania Temperance Society.[3]

Newkirk was born May 31, 1794, the eighth of nine children, in Pittsgrove, New Jersey. At 16, he moved to Philadelphia to live with and work for Joseph and Collin Cooper, dry goods merchants. He volunteered for military service in the War of 1812 and left the service as a corporal.[1]

In 1835, he bought 3,000 shares in the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad.[4]

The same year, Newkirk built a mansion at 13th and Arch Streets in downtown Philadelphia. Designed by Thomas Ustick Walter, it was built of marble and featured a fresco by Italian artist Nicola Monachesi.[5] In 1876, the building was sold to the Society of the Sons of St. George, which renamed it "St. George's Hall" and used it as their headquarters. It was torn down in 1903.[6] The front colonnade survives at the Princeton Battlefield State Park in New Jersey.[7]

Newkirk spent much of the 1830s leading efforts to raise money for and then build a rail line from Philadelphia south to the cities of Wilmington, Delaware, and Baltimore. In 1838, the PW&B began direct rail service between the cities, broken only by a ferry across the Susquehanna River. Among the line's achievements was the Newkirk Viaduct, the first permanent bridge across the Schuylkill south of Market Street, commemorated by the 1838 Newkirk Viaduct Monument.[2] The right-of-way pioneered by the PW&B is still in use today by Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

References

  1. 1 2 Newkirk Jr., Matthew. A Memorial of Matthew Newkirk. 1869: Claxton, Remsen and Haffelfinger. p. 26.
  2. 1 2 Wilson, William Bender (1895). History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company with Plan of Organization, Portraits of Officials and Biographical Sketches 1. Philadelphia: Henry T. Coates & Company. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
  3. ↑ One hundred years of temperance: A memorial volume of the Centennial Temperance Conference held in Philadelphia, Pa., September, 1885
  4. ↑ "1835 (June 2004 Edition)" (PDF). PRR CHRONOLOGY. The Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society. June 2004. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
  5. ↑ Richard N. Juliani, Building Little Italy: Philadelphia's Italians Before Mass Migration (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1998)
  6. ↑ Photo: St. George's Hall, Thirteenth and Arch Sts., Free Library of Philadelphia
  7. ↑ THE PRINCETON BATTLEFIELD STATE PARK

External links

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