Shaw Printing House - 2141 Adams (E Hagert) Street - Advertisement 1906

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In Defense of Fishtown - Letter to the Editor - Philadelphia Inquirer 30 Mar 1969

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Dr. Henry Fox, 1875-1951, Entomologist, Victim Religious Ignorance - Mercer University - Prelude to Scopes Trial

1925 Press Photo Dr. Henry Fox,
Former Mercer University Biologist
(Ebay)

Inquirer 11 Oct 1924

https://www.nyym.org/content/spark-september-2012

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Dr. Henry Fox, Entomologist

Patricia Kenschaft, Montclair Meeting

Henry Fox (1875-1951) was a Quaker scientist. As a child, I adored him; he was very kind. My Congregationalist parents pointed out the meeting house that he attended (Seaville Meeting, NJ), and spoke of him with the highest regard as an example of what fine people Quakers were.

He had been a research entomologist (one who studies insects), and his reverence for life extended to the insects that he studied. My one childhood internal complaint was that mosquitoes enjoyed his yard more than most, but my parents told me that was because he would never kill anything. (His grandson informs me that he did have a store of “pinned insects” in a box in his attic, and some of his specimens were placed in museums where they probably still survive.) Nevertheless, I always looked forward to our visits to his home. My childhood observations corroborated the writing about him: he had a steady, friendly, warm personality.

He grew up in Germantown in Philadelphia and received his BS, MA, and PhD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, the last in 1905. His six-page obituary by a friend of fifty years in the Entomological News says, “[he] . . . published thirty-one original contributions, one dealing with plants, three with aspects of vertebrate morphology and toxicology, the remainder on insects . . . In all aspects of his life Henry Fox was the traditional scholar, quiet, painstaking with details, careful in his analysis of the work of others, observant, tolerant, and with a deep-seated traditional American regard for freedom of thought and belief.”

His early career included an amazing number of teaching and research positions, including Woods Hole, Harvard Medical School, Cold Spring Harbor, the University of Wisconsin, and the Northeast High School of Philadelphia.

He married in 1906 and in 1907 began a steady job at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, during which time he also did research at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School on the poison gland of the gila monster.

In 1912 he began six years full-time with the Bureau of Entomology, a section of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that existed from 1894 to 1934. His work in Indiana, Virginia, and Tennessee included investigations of outbreaks of army worm, cornstalk beetle, and the mosaic disease on tobacco plants.

In 1918 he accepted a position at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, having first received assurances from the university’s president that he would have “full academic freedom.” During his summers he continued to work with the Bureau of Entomology tracing the steady spread of the Japanese beetle from its original introduction in Riverton, New Jersey.

During that time he also helped found the Georgia Academy of Sciences, of which he was secretary-treasurer, and the Georgia Society of Naturalists, of which he served as president for its first two years.

Despite the president of Mercer University’s best efforts and support by many members of the board of trustees, a committee of the board reported (quoting the aforementioned obituary) that “Dr. Fox’s expressed views (being those of any broadly trained biologist) were utterly at variance with those held by the general run of Georgia Baptists,” referring to his teaching of the theory of evolution. They threatened to close the university unless he either resigned or was dismissed. He refused and the university remained open until he accepted another job in 1925 at the Japanese Beetle Laboratory, where he was employed for a decade.

His daughter told me years later that he then became active in the movement for tenure for teachers and the strengthening of the American Association of University Professors.

In 1935 he “retired” to Ocean View, New Jersey, to the home that he and his wife had built in 1910. He had spent considerable time in his youth doing field studies there, “the biota of which had always held a particular spot in his affections.” He often was the guide on field trips in Cape May County sponsored by a variety of organizations. Throughout the region he was known as the one to consult with questions about insects, birds, local plants, and wildlife conservation, among other topics. For the first eight years of his “retirement,” he spent much of the year in New York City as an “emergency instructor of biology” at New York University.

He married Adelaide Townsend Godfrey Fox in 1906. He was very concerned about the future of life on this planet, in particular the human population explosion. He believed a human couple should have only one child. His “only” was my beloved Aunt Emily Fox Clark, born in 1908. The only child of Aunt Emily and my father’s older brother, Dr. George Clark Sr., was Dr. George Clark Jr., who has helped me very much with this article. I hereby express great appreciation to my cousin George, a nationally noted ornithologist, who in his retirement takes many groups on birding trips, for some of which he rises at 4:00 am. He credits his grandfather with having a significant impact on his choice of career. His only son spends much time exploring still-wild places and climbing mountains, carrying on the family tradition of enjoying nature and the out-of-doors.

Dr. Fox received considerable national recognition in 1925 via an article about him and the events at Mercer University in Science magazine.* It included the entire public statement by the president of the University, Rufus Weaver, supporting him. ". . . You have not taught the theory of evolution as an established fact. In your class-room work you have always represented its hypothetical character. This theory is one which every student in science must know, and I am glad that in your presentation of it you have never shown a dogmatic or arrogant spirit. . . . I thank you most heartily for your faithful services as a teacher, for the splendid record your students have uniformly made in the medical schools of the nation, for your high scholarly standards, and for the irreproachable life you have lived among us.”

The article also quoted a statement by the students: “‘. . . he always advised students to maintain their religious faith and ideals, stating that there is no conflict between true science and true religion; and finally that the great development of the science department at Mercer University had come through his efforts.’" It went on to say, "Students preparing for the ministry who had taken Dr. Fox’s work were particularly strong in their commendation of him and in their condemnation of the proposed dismissal.”

The article also says, “Dr. Fox was a member of the Baptist denomination before going to Georgia and was not aware that his theological beliefs differed materially from those held by intelligent Baptists generally.” Also, “He was a good and faithful member of a Baptist church in Macon.” This came as a surprise to my cousin and me, since his growing up in Germantown and his Quaker loyalty in our youth had led us to conclude he was a lifelong Quaker. However, his house in Ocean View was right across the street from a Baptist Church founded in 1855, so he may have found that church a congenial religious community. There probably would not have been Quaker meetings where he was employed in Indiana, Virginia, and Tennessee before going to Georgia, and he surely was a broadminded person who liked community. He attended Seaville Meeting north of Cape May when my cousin and I knew him.** It seems likely that after the Georgia Baptists fired him ostensibly for his religious beliefs, he wanted to belong to a less dogmatic religion. What is certain is that in his retirement he was an admirable Quaker who personified the best in our tradition and also of science and teaching.

* Conklin, E. G. 1925. "Dismissal of Dr Henry Fox from the faculty of Mercer University." Science Vol. 61 (No. 1572):176-178.

** Editor’s note: Seaville Meeting was founded in 1693 by Friends fleeing persecution in England and New England. The Seaville Friends Meeting House is the oldest Quaker meeting house in New Jersey.

Childhood Home
5603 Germantown Ave., Phila. Pa.

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Martin Kintzbach - Doll Maker - 232 Diamond Street - McElroy's City Directory 1867

U,S,Patent

1875 Hopkins Map


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Camp Stanton - South Side of Islington Lane - Opposite Odd Fellows Cemetery - Inquirer 20 Oct 1863

Odd Fellows Cemetery Gate Houae in upper right corner.

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In Seach of Odd Fellows' Original Cemetery Gate - Approx. 23rd Street below W. Diamond

No photos have I found of the once impressive Odd Fellows' Cemetery Egyptian Rivival Gate in 1849.

An Italianette style design by Thomas Ustick Walter on the Philadelphia buildings site

https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/pj_display.cfm/107151

The one lithograph at the FLP digital collection, also attributed to T. U. Walter. (1849) - top image.

And a popular print in a Philly tourist guide from 1852 that is usually the one found in most Internet searches.

Some differences in the design of the so-called 81 foot high obelisk on top of the central chapel and office at the gate. 

Question in my mind if the whole structure is carved stone or a mix of stone and painted wood to imitate faux stone and in the case of the tower / obelisk / steeple that eventually sat on top.

Cemetery opened in 1849. Closed in 1951 to build a housing project that is now torn down as well.  Sloppy movement of bodies and coffins. Some found in tear down of the housing project. 

One time sight of hundreds of veterans of Revolutionary and Civil War era. Moved to mass graves in the burbs. Mechanics Cemetery in Chester county site.  An addition to Odd Fellows called Mount Peace half a mile away near Ridge and Lehigh btw.

The Original Cemetery

Smedey 1862 map

Close up showing original gate site.

A gate that seems to dissappear off the maps by 1895.

A series of the city buying plots and moving bodies to cut through 22nd street in the next door Mechanics Cemetery and the cutting through of 25th street and W. Diamond about 1895 sees the original gate no longer on maps. Moved, destroyed by fire, demolished? Nothing that I can find in newspapers. 

References to funerals at Odd Fellows' main cemetery in the 20th century newspapers mention a chapel at 23rd and W. Diamond.

1895 Bromley Map

1918 Insurance Mao

1942 Land Use Map




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Old Nabisco Building on Roosevelt Blvd being Demolished - Nabisco Devil Food Cookies.

I just saw on a FB site that the old Nabisco factory on the Boulevard is being demolished. My grandad's last job was as a loading dock worker there in the early 1960s. When he and my grandmom would visit, they usually brought along some samples from the factory. Had to do some research to reveal the name of some resin encased soft chocolate cookies wrapped in cellophane they always showed up with for us kids. I say samples because in the old days if a box dropped or was damaged on the loading docks, it was considered waste and the loading dock workers helped themselves to the "damaged" goods. The company stopped the practice when too many boxes were ending up damaged and on the way home in the trunk of the workers. Below the commercial of a product not easily missed by management. Too many made and or not too many sold? Not a popular product? Not an outstanding product from my POV, too many free samples. LOL

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Odd Fellows Cemetery - Philadelphia As It Is In 1852

The Odd Fellows' Cemetery is situated on Islington Lane, near the Ridge Road, about two miles from the northern boundary of the city proper. It contains thirty-two acres, and is intersected by spacious avenues of from fifteen to thirty feet in width, well graded. A substantial stone wall, surmounted by a neat iron railing, has been erected along the entire front. The first interment was made on the 5th of May, 1849. The Cemetery is under the management of the Order whose name it bears.

The buildings of which the above is a correct and beautiful view, are located in the centre of the ground, fronting on the Lane. They are of brown stone, in the Egyptian style of architecture. The centre building, surmounted by a tower eighty-one feet high, is designed for a chapel, with offices and ample apartments for the residence of the superintendent; the wings are used for carriage ways and entrances for foot passengers.

These beautiful and appropriate buildings were designed and erected under the superintendence of Hoxie and Button, architects.

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Sunday Afternoon - Delaware Avenue at South Street - circa 1900 - Library of Congress

Philadelphia Delaware Ave South St circa 1900 (closeup)
Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/det.4a19457/ 


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Gray's Alley - To Gatzmer Street / Tun/Ton Alley 1875-1910

Phila.Atlas Wards 2 through 20, 29, 31 - 1875

It would appear that references to Gray's Alley also refer to a later name change to Gatzmer Street around mid 19th century. Also extension of Gatzmer Street passed Water Street to waterfront via Tun/Ton Alley. Tun Alley as in Tun Tavern, Water Street and Tun Alley, 18th century. 

circa 1800

(above: Philadelphia and Her Merchants as consituted fifty to seventry years ago by Adam Ritter. 1860)

Bromley 1895 Map

Bromley 1910 Map


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Saint Anthony Finds A Home - by Mirella Zell - The Miami Voice - 24 October 1980

Finding the "right" new home for an object that has been kept in our midst for years but can no longer remain can be a difficult job.

But the quest for a new home for a life-size statue of St. Anthony of Padua became double difficult because the artist, Amelie Zell Wright, is a fervent devotee of the saint, and the statue had always been with her at home. 

Many persons kindly offered to accept the statue as a gift and place it in a garden, in a Florida room, "anywhere" that would substitute for the room the artist now lacked. But "just anywhere" was not the answer. 

The new home and the right welcome by one and many was finally found when Msgr. David E. Bushey, Pastor of St. Brendan's, 8725 S.W. 32nd St., Miami, extended an invitation to have the statue become a permanent guest of the parish. 

The St Anthony statue now at St. Brendan's is the plaster replica of a life size bronze figure commissioned in the early 50's by Mr. and Mrs. Leonard. The Leonards were and are fervent devotees of the saint. 

When the statue was finished, the artist recalls the couple was very pleased with the way she had captured in clay, then into bronze, the reverent concept they shared about the great saint. With permission from the Leonards, Mrs. Wright reproduced the statue to keep in her own home, which she did until she moved into the small apartment complex where she now resides. ...

Mrs. Wright graduated with honors from Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro" in her native Havana, Cuba, and from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Her work, much of which consists of massive life-size sculptures, is exhibited in many private collections and museums both in Cuba and the United States. 

She now devotes her time to teaching ceramic arts and crafts to retirees and working on small figures done in her favorite medium, terracotta. ...

https://phillyandstuff.blogspot.com/2013/07/amelie-zell-felton-cuban-born.html



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W. U. Ostendorf Tile - 2417 N Broad St - House Beautiful May1905

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