Although it is now a neighborhood in the northwest part of Philadelphia, Germantown was founded by German Quaker and Mennonite families in the 17th century as an independent community.  It was the first permanent Mennonite settlement established in this part of the world. In 1708, the Mennonites built the first Mennonite Meetinghouse in America along what would become Germantown Avenue. This meetinghouse is no longer standing, but the Mennonites built a “new” meetinghouse on the same spot in 1770.

This past winter and spring HCI-PSAR facilitated an internship program that paired emerging archivists in need of hands-on experience with small repositories in need of processing assistance and large repositories willing to train and supervise the intern. We matched intern Daniel DelViscio with the Old York Road Historical Society and Drexel University College of Medicine Archives & Special Collections. Daniel reflected on Isabel Smith Stein collection on Elizabeth Cisney Smith, the Kiwanis Club of Jenkintown records, and his other experiences in the blog below.

Isaiah Williamson was born into a family of Quaker farmers in Fallsington, Pennsylvania (Bucks County) on February 4, 1803. Raised on the family farm alongside seven siblings, by 1818, Williamson had begun working as an apprentice in a store near his home. Over the course of the next seven years, he saved enough money to open and run his own dry goods store in Philadelphia.