Category: History

Indian Queen Lane and Krail — right up the road from Hohenadel House.

You’d hardly know the difference 53 years makes. What’s up with that, East Falls?

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It wasn’t as famous as Paul Revere’s warning, but the cry “The Hessians are coming!” was, for many colonial Americans, a terrifying prospect. And in 1777, our own Indian Queen Lane in East Falls was “Ground Zero” for an entire encampment.   (more…)

There’s a little place just out of town,
Where, if you go to lunch,
They’ll make you forget your mother-in-law
With a drink called Fish-House Punch.
  —  The Cook (1885)

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Who hasn’t seen the Falls Bridge fishermen and winced at the thought of eating fish out of the Schuylkill? Are they even edible? Are they radioactive or full of PCBs or BPAs or WMDs or something…??

What’s even down there? (more…)

They sure loved their oysters at the Hohenadel Brewery on Indian Queen Lane. We found hundreds of shells at the site this morning, unearthed by a construction crew digging up the site of the old brewery for condominiums.
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“The repetition of serious or fatal accidents, by which men, women and children are crushed, decapitated, cut in two, or dismembered loses its effect by its frequency. The cases fall one by one, upon the public; we are told that, in the usual phrase – “the accident was inevitable and no blame is to be attached to the driver;” the survivors gather up the reeking remains of the victim – and the matter passes away and is forgotten.” (more…)

How much is your dog worth? Five bucks? In 1854, that was the reward offered for a “large white pointer dog” that was stolen from the Falls Hotel. That seems pretty cheap, until you consider that $5 then is worth about $140 today. (more…)

Our Höhenadel timeline jumps around quite a bit — records in the 1800’s were poorly kept, and complicated endeavors such as moving households or establishing businesses could take years (subsequently, important dates tend to overlap).

Höhenadel history in East Falls begins with a veritable boat load of bakers & brewers who came to America from the southern Rhine region of Germany in the 1850’s. (more…)

Harry Prime doesn’t let anyone piss in his pockets and he doesn’t forget a friend. Both poles of his personality were on display at his dinner show at the Epicure Cafe on Saturday May 24^th. And, oh yeah, he can still sing. (more…)