Allentown, Pennsylvania - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Allentown, Pennsylvania. Home Rule Municipality. City of Allentown. Nickname(s): . It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city and the 2.
United States. As of the 2. Pennsylvania. It constitutes a portion of the New York City Metropolitan Area and is the county seat of Lehigh County. Allentown is 5. 0 miles (8. Philadelphia, the fifth most populous. In 1. 73. 6, a large area to the north of Philadelphia, embracing the present site of Allentown and what is now Lehigh County, was deeded by 2. Indian nations to John, Thomas, and Richard Penn, sons of William Penn.
The price for this tract included shoes and buckles, hats, shirts, knives, scissors, combs, needles, looking glasses, rum, and pipes. Used primarily as a hunting and fishing lodge, here Allen entertained prominent guests including his brother- in- law, James Hamilton, and colonial governor John Penn. It is likely that a certain amount of rivalry with the Penns prompted Judge Allen to decide to start a town of his own in 1. From 1. 86. 7 to 1. Muhlenberg College.
The Hamilton District Main Street Program, in partnership with Cork & Cage, is proud to present the inaugural Allentown Beer Festival on. PARKING INFORMATION: Parking is available in and around Downtown Allentown, PA. List of Allentown neighborhoods. Although Allentown started a Main Street Program there a couple years ago. Now they want Main Street to give the merchants a voice. Allentown's Love Canal. The Hamilton District Main Street Program consists of the area from. 840 Hamilton Street Suite 205 Allentown, PA 18101 610.
Ten years before, in 1. Northampton and Berks counties had been formed, each with a county seat, Easton and Reading, respectively.
It is recorded that, in 1. Allentown, an effort was made to have the county seat moved from Easton to the new town. To this effort William Allen lent all his influence as Chief Justice and also as the son- in- law of Andrew Hamilton. The influence of the Penns, however, prevailed; and Easton was retained as the county seat of all that vast area which the notorious . The town was located between present- day Fourth and Tenth Streets, and Union and Liberty Streets. Many streets on the original plan were named for Allen's children: Margaret (present- day Fifth Street), William (now Sixth), James (now Eighth), Ann (now Ninth) and John (now Walnut).
Allen Street (now Seventh) was named for Allen himself, and was the main thoroughfare. Hamilton Street was named for James Hamilton. Gordon Street was named for Sir Patrick Gordon, Deputy Governor of Colonial Pennsylvania from 1. Chew Street was named for Benjamin Chew, and Turner Street was named for Allen's business partner, Joseph Turner. Allen gave the property to his son James in 1. Three years later, in 1.
Allentown, PA Phone: (610) 820-0166. Street Outreach Program. Valley Youth House Committee Allentown, PA Phone: (610). FestivalNet.com - Festival Industry Marketplace & Social Network: Hamilton District Main Street Program, Allentown, PA.
James built a summer residence, Trout Hall, in the new town, near the site of his father's former hunting lodge. On March 6, 1. 81. Lehigh County was formed from the western half of Northampton County, and Northampton Town was selected as the county seat. The town was officially renamed . Allentown was formally incorporated as a city on March 1.
At the time, there were 5. Northampton (Allentown), and the number of inhabitants was around 3.
With the Declaration of Independence, the Colonial British government began to break down and militias took control. Frontier justice replaced the rule of law as zealous patriots preoccupied themselves not with fighting the British but with seizing local political power and persecuting their pacifist neighbors.
Patriots pressured Tories out of Northampton County, and plans were made for the raising of a militia. The burden of supplying a military force logistically fell upon the people, and requisitions for food, grain, cattle, horses and cloth became commonplace. The Old Allentown Cemetery, just behind this monument, has the graves of many of the patriots whose names are inscribed on the memorial. After the Battle of Trenton on December 2. Hessian prisoners- of- war were kept in the vicinity of present- day Seventh and Gordon Streets.
The Hamilton District Main Street Program consists of the area from 5th Street to 12th Street. 201, Allentown, PA 18101. Lehigh County Log Cabin Trail (0 miles) 840 Hamilton St.
The Old Zion Reformed Church, and a house near James (now Eighth) and Hamilton Streets, served as hospitals for injured and sick Continental Army troops. In 1. 77. 7, a factory manufacturing paper cartridges for muskets was relocated here from nearby Bethlehem. That same year, a shop of sixteen armorers was established along the Little Lehigh Creek, and employed in the repair of weapons and the manufacture of saddles and scabbards. Haurer claimed that General George Washington, with his staff, not long after the battle of Trenton, passed through Allentown, up Water street (now Lehigh street). They stopped, at the foot of the street, at a large spring on what is now the property occupied, by the Wire Mill.
There are several springs in the vicinity on both sides of the street, and near Wire Street. They rested and watered their horses, then went their way to their post of duty.
The government found it necessary to remove their cartridge manufacturing to a safer place; and the town of Northampton (Allentown) was selected for repairing arms and bayonets and the manufacturing of saddles. Captain Styles was in charge of the military supplies, while John Tyler and Ebenezer Cowell were armorers in the employ of the state who ran the factory. Sixteen local armorers, of whom Johannes Moll was one, were actively engaged in repair work at the factory. Wood was procured locally which provided the necessary charcoal for the forging operations, as well as replacing the battered stocks of damaged rifles. After George Washington's defeat at the Battle of Brandywine on September 1.
Philadelphia was defenseless, and that city prepared for British attack. The Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ordered that eleven bells, including the State House bell and the bells from Philadelphia's Christ Church and St. Peter's Church, be taken down and removed from the city to prevent the British, who would melt the bells down to cast into cannons, from taking possession of them. The bells were transported by John Snyder and Heinrich Bartholomew, two local residents assigned to the task by the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, north to Northampton- Towne, and hidden in the basement of the Old Zion Reformed Church, in what is now center city Allentown. Two wagon masters played an important role on this historic (Liberty Bell) trip from Philadelphia to Bethlehem. John Snyder and Henry Bartholomew were employed by the Supreme Executive Council, on this same day of the Liberty Bell's journey, to convey money and papers of value from Philadelphia to Easton for protection. It is recorded these two farmers of high esteem with horses and wagon of great value were entrusted with .
They made more than this one trip. On one journey from Pittston, New Jersey, these two men carried ammunition and books to store in safety in Easton. The only highway to this city came by way of Germantown through Bethlehem and then east to Easton. Today, a shrine and museum in the church's basement, known as the Liberty Bell Museum, mark the spot where the bell was hidden. Hoge be appointed to have money and papers belonging to the public loan office be moved to Easton in the County of Northampton, and John Snyder, Heinrich Bartholomew was employed with a wagon and convey it to said place. In 1. 78. 2 there were fifty- nine houses and over a hundred cows were stabled within the town.
The town was described by a visitor in 1. The people are mainly German who speak bad English and distressing German. Gazetteer described Allentown asa handsome and flourishing town of Northampton County, pleasantly situated on the point of land formed by the junction of the Jordan Creek and Little Lehigh. It is regularly laid out and contains about ninety dwellings, a German Lutheran and a Calvinist (Zion) Church, an Academy and three merchant mills. The bridge, erected between 1. This painting was made about 1.
Lehigh Canal. It also shows Dam Number 7 on the Lehigh River, now known as the Hamilton Street Dam (holdings of the Lehigh County Historical Society). Until 1. 80. 3, the people of Northampton Town received their mail in Bethlehem. However, at the Compass and Square Hotel at Center Square (Today's Penn National Bank building) a post office was established.
After reaching a population of over 7. United States Census, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gave Northampton Town a legal existence on 1. March 1. 81. 1 by incorporating it as the . The first business of the Borough government was to order cows to seek other pastures other than the public streets. An action which led many of its citizens to believe they were better off when it was plain Northampton Town, before it became a Borough. In 1. 81. 2, Lehigh County was formed by partitioning a section of Northampton County, and Northampton was designated as its county seat.
The name became so common that in 1. The first bank, the Northampton Bank was chartered in July 1. Center Square, where the Allentown National Bank Building stands today. It was also in this period that the first Hamilton Street Bridge was built, a 5. Lehigh River. It was composed of two suspended lanes, one for east and one for westbound traffic, and a toll house at the western end. It used water power purchased from the Lehigh Canal and Navigation Company, the owners of the canal.
The mill straddled the canal, and a covered bridge allowed the company to use both banks of the canal. Sager's Mill was destroyed by a fire in 1. In 1. 79. 2, the land to the north of the Lehigh Valley was purchased by the Lehigh Coal Mine Company. However it was difficult to transport coal over the primitive trail system that existed at the time so very little was mined. In 1. 81. 8 the Lehigh Navigation Company was formed and construction was begun on a navigable canal to transport the coal from Mach Chunk (today's Jim Thorpe) to Easton on the Delaware River. The Lehigh Canal was completed for both ascending and descending navigation in 1. Lehigh River. Its construction was the greatest single factor in making anthracite coal one of America's most important domestic and industrial fuels.
In 1. 85. 5 the first railroad was built on the west side of the Lehigh River and the competition between them resulted in the steady decline of canal traffic. A flood in 1. 84. Hamilton Street bridge and did extensive damage to the river section of the city. The Northampton Bank failed in 1. Then a large fire on June 1, 1.