RittenhouseTown Historic District

Set in a steep valley of Fairmount Park along Monoshone Creek, RittenhouseTown grew up around the paper mills of William Rittenhouse, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1687 or 1688. A partnership leased a twenty-acre tract from Samuel Carpenter in 1690, and the mill that followed is regarded as the first paper mill in British North America. Rittenhouse paper bearing the WR watermark was among the city's earliest exports. The family kept a near monopoly on colonial paper making for roughly forty years and later ran grist and cotton mills along the creek. Seven stone buildings from 1690 to about 1830 survive, including 207 Lincoln Drive, built in 1707 with a cooking fireplace in its basement. The village is also the birthplace of David Rittenhouse in 1732, who became an astronomer, clockmaker and the first director of the United States Mint.