“With private capital at that time a road was paved with planks on the banks of the Delaware River, which is now known as "Old Front Street" in Philadelphia. Led them north towards Frankford, which developed as major industrial region since the turn of the 19th century.. Only a year later (1858) opened the first horse tram with the Frankford and Southwark Passenger RR in Philadelphia. …The terrain of Harrowgate (present-day territory of Venango Street and Kensington Ave. between Kensington and Frankford), named after a sanatorium founded there in 1780. The small contact (20) and the unusually high share par value (1200 $) show that the company from the beginning wanted to have pretty solid group of shareholders.” (robot translation from German) (German Auction House - estimated value of document 800 Euros)
Some foreign and or perhaps inaccurate historic research. I find that there was a "Frankford - Kensington Plank Road" starting on Vienna above Montgomery and the Philadelphia & Trenton R.R. Depot with a turn on Vienna toward Germantown Ave. and another railway on that avenue. It parrallels the "Old Front Street" in maps as described in the above German translation. Both Frankford-Kensington plank road and Harrowgate Plank Road Company seemingly used interchagebly in some research.
I had read somewhere and now do not have the source that plank road companies many times had the same investors as in railroads. That plank roads with their paving a way though the wilderness avoided thngs like potholes and ruts with a repair team supported by tolls collected on these portable freight roads to and from points of transport. The name Frankford-Kensington might imply a start of goods in Frankford mills and delivered to rail points further down in Kensington to rail points including Harrowgate Station on the P.R.R. as well as the others mentioned. That the point of plank roads was that they increased the efficientcy and timing of product delivery without the added expense of investment in steel rails and steam locomotives. That they improved efficiency of carts, wagons, horse power and teamsters came first. A rail road to replace the plank road would come with justification of costs and likely freight profits.
Another part of the investment into plank roads would be to develop the wilderness and farmland into more production space, villages into towns etc. That the origianl charters of companies like above received rights of way and acreage from the state Senate for the purpose of development and increase of R/E tax base and trariffs as in this case targeting the name and place for development as Harrowgate after the still standing spa and hotel their when the above plank road company was formed.
That the creation of Kensington Avenue to the Town of Frankford for the purpose of freight traffic may be the reason that a town as big and important like Frankford had no rail links or depot until 1892 with the Reading line.
Barnes Map of Philadelphia 1865:
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