Poquessing Creek finally
gets proper signage

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

For those Far Northeast kids who spent their summer days in the woods down by the "crick," there soon will be 43 signs installed identifying their childhood playgrounds as part of Poquessing Creek Park and the Fairmount Park system.
The Poquessing Creek serves as the natural border between Philadelphia and Bensalem. Fed by tributaries — the Bloody Run, Elwoods Run, Wilsons Run, Waltons Run, Black Lake Run and Byberry Creek — it empties into the Delaware River at the Glen Foerd estate at Grant Avenue.
The woods that dot the neighborhoods of Millbrook, Parkwood, Somerton and Torresdale, among others, were actually designated as Poquessing Creek Park in 1967 but were never posted with signs.
For years, it has been a goal of Friends of Poquessing Watershed president Donna Smith-Remick to see the sections of woods identified as part of the park system.
The sign-identification program covers not only the Poquessing Creek Park but also all of the parks citywide, according to Fairmount Park Commission chief of staff Barry Bessler.
"The Northeast is the first area we’re tackling geographically — Pennypack and all the parks in the Northeast," Bessler said.
About two-thirds of the signs have been installed to date, according to Darren Fava, special assistant to the executive director.
"The purpose for the entire project is to make people aware who is accountable if they see activity good or bad; they know who to contact," he said.
Fairmount Park has already installed signs at Torrey Woods in Parkwood. The woods along Torrey Road, between Academy and Lester roads, also were a recent project site for the Friends of Poquessing.
"That’s where we did our garden," Smith-Remick said.
The woods there had been invaded by Japanese knotweed. After Fairmount Park crews removed it, the Friends of Poquessing Watershed planted a butterfly garden with native species. Two picnic tables, a bench, boulders and street trees helped to transform the overgrown lot into a pocket park across the street from the Stephen Decatur School on Academy Road.
According to Smith-Remick, the project was funded with about $17,000 in grants from various sources, including a Philadelphia Green grant from Citizens Bank, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the city’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, the Parkwood Civic Association and the Friends of Poquessing Watershed.
In April, the Fairmount Park Commission was awarded a $72,500 grant, in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Community Conservation Partnerships Program, for development of the Poquessing Creek Trail to connect the Parkwood Recreation Area to Benjamin Rush State Park.
Fred Mauer, a Friends of Poquessing Watershed member, is working on another identification project along the Poquessing.
His research of records of Hart Cemetery, on the old Red Lion Road near the city line, has been submitted to the Philadelphia Department of Public Property to prove that the city owns it as a cemetery and not just woodland available for sale or recreational use.
The cemetery had been part of early Quaker settler John Hart’s 500-acre farm. Hart’s son John gave the cemetery to Byberry Township in 1786, prior to the consolidation of townships into Philadelphia in 1854.
According to historian Bruce Conner, the cemetery, now overgrown and without headstones, was once known as God’s Little Acre and is the burial place of four generations of ancestors of Dr. Benjamin Rush.
"Doctor Rush was the great-great grandson of Captain John Rush, an officer under Lord Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War, and Captain Rush was buried here in 1710," Conner said. "Burials of the early Quaker settlers began in the 1680s, and burials of Byberry residents continued until the 1840s. Several dozen ‘residents’ of the cemetery are known by name, and further research may be able to document others."
Once the city recognizes the cemetery’s status, the Friends of Poquessing Watershed will look for volunteers to clean up the land, providing an appropriate memorial to the early settlers resting there.
While the Friends group doesn’t meet during the summer, it will continue to hold its monthly bird walks at Benjamin Rush State Park at 8:30 a.m. on the third Sunday of the month. The entrance is just north of Southampton Road, off the northbound lanes of Roosevelt Boulevard.
According to Smith-Remick, the bird count is sent to Keith Russell, an ornithologist consultant for the Pennsylvania Audubon Society who is tracking the types of birds that use the park.
"The meadow habitat at Rush is rapidly disappearing from the area, and many species require this habitat for breeding and for migration stopovers," Smith-Remick said. ••
For more information about the Poquessing Creek, visit www.friendsofpoquessing.org
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com