Swedes’ Ford

THE SCHUYLKILL

An account of the early fords and ferrying-places of the Schuylkill as an aid to traveling facilities before the construction of bridges is an interesting subject to the antiquary. During high water fording was rendered dangerous from the greater depth and velocity of the water, and with the increase of travel ferriage became more common, being made likewise less dangerous during the winter season from the masses of floating ice,or when not of sufficient thickness to permit wagons to cross upon it. Swedes’ Ford was a noted fording-place even back to 1730. A tavern was there in 1760, and on its sign was a representation of a ferry. A rope was here stretched across the river in a sloping direction, securely fastened to a tree or a post or building on either shore. To this a stout iron ring was secured, to which the boat or scow would be fastened, while it would slide along, propelled more or less by the current. These ropes, so necessary in securely transporting passengers, horses, wagons, and freight, were occasionally cut, and purloined by some evil-disposed persons. In consequence the ferrymen petitioned the Assembly for protection from these outrages on their property, when an act was passed Feb. 8, 1766, making such offenses along the Schuylkill finable in the sum of ten pounds to each.

BOROUGH OF BRIDGEPORT

Swedes’ Ford must have borne this name sometime before 1723, for in November of this year application was made to the Governor and Council to have a road laid out from Whiteland, in Chester County, to this ford, which, in the spring of the following year, was confirmed, and ordered to “be with all convenient speed opened, cleared and made good.” A portion of the old Swedes’ Ford tavern was supposed by the late Matthias Holstein to have been built before 1730. How early a public-house was kept here is not known, but certainly before 1760. It is a tradition that before the Revolution the inn had on its sign a representation of a ferry. A road was opened in 1730 from Wells’ ferry now New Hope, on the river Delaware, through the present Doylestown, to this place, and in an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette of 1780, is called “the great road to the Swedes’ Ford.” That this was an early noted and important crossing-place is also confirmed by other authorities. Lewis Evans, on his maps of 1749 and 1755 mentions it, also Nicholas and William Scull in 1759 and 1770, Thomas Pownal in 1776, and Reading Howell in 1792.

UPPER MERION TOWNSHIP

A road was laid out from Whiteland, in Chester County, in 1723, to the Swedes’ Ford, now the borough of Bridgeport, by way of the present King of Prussia, thus showing that the travel at an early period must have been considerable in this direction. The Gulf road, as it is called, leading from Valley Forge through the King of Prussia and the Gulf Mills towards the city, is denoted on Lewis Evans’ map of the Bliddle Colonies, published in 1740, thus clearly indicating that this, too, was an early highway.4


4 Buck, William J. History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. ed by Bean, Theo. W Philadelphia, Everts & Peck, 1884. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/02023211/>