Wissahickon Valley Park

This guide to Wissahickon Valley Park in Philadelphia begins at a low fieldstone building above the creek, the site of the first paper mill in the American colonies, built in 1690 by William Rittenhouse and three partners. Within a few years Rittenhouse had bought out every partner and kept the mill, and its monopoly, for his family alone, supplying paper to a printer who worked in Philadelphia and later New York. You'll hear how the Rittenhouse settlement grew into a company town of about forty buildings over roughly a hundred and sixty years, and what finally brought that run to a close. Stand at the ruins and count how many of those original buildings still stand before you.