Item Info

Item 1, entire page:  This is a page from Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, an illustrated periodical published in Boston, informing readers about the Port Richmond Coal Depot of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad.  The text is a short description of the port's activities around the time that Port Richmond was being incorporated into the City of Philadelphia (officially, in 1854).  The two images used were created in 1852, from drawings by artist Nicholas Devereux and two different engravers, William Peirce and Gulick.  The images are described separately below.  Gleason's Pictorial-Drawing Room Companion, p.41, v.4, 1853, measuring 13.5 x 34 cm. 

Image 1, top:  Image of the Port Richmond Coal Wharves from a distance, in 1852.  The foreground features various schooners and a steamship traveling on the Delaware River.  In the distance is a long array of docked ships, lined up along the wharves (about 18 in number by the year 1852).  The engine house is the rectangular white building pictured behind the steamer's smokestack.  Engraving by Devereux and Pierce for Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, 13 x 14 cm, 1852.

Image 2, bottom:  Close-up view of activities at the Port Richmond Coal Wharves, in 1852.  In the left foreground are a team of men using a two-man crosscut saw, a man holding an axe, and another holding a wood auger.  In the center appears to be a man (dock worker?) taking a meal break with his family.  On the right are men pier fishing in the Delaware River.  But the principle subject of this engraving is a wonderfully detailed depiction of a wharf's coal-loading process, and its active dock workers.  On the raised platform is a line of coal cars, with a coal chute readied for loading onto an expected schooner.  Below the platfom is a series of individual coal depots.  The presence of many sails seen above the platform suggests the existence of the adjacent wharves, of which there were 18 at the time of this engraving.  By 1876, there were 21 wharves.  Engraving by Devereux and Gulick for Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, 14 x 15.5 cm, 1852.