Allentown, Pennsylvania

Allentown is a city in eastern Pennsylvania, United States. The county seat of Lehigh County, it is the third-most populous city in Pennsylvania, with a population of 125,845 as of the 2020 census. It is also the most populous city in the Lehigh Valley metropolitan area, which had a population of 861,899 and was the 68th-most populous metropolitan area in the nation as of 2020.
Founded in 1762, Allentown is located on the Lehigh River, a tributary of the Delaware River. It is the largest of three adjacent cities, including Bethlehem and Easton in Lehigh and Northampton counties, in the Lehigh Valley region. Allentown is located north of Philadelphia and west of New York City.

History

18th century

In the early 18th century, the area that is present-day Allentown was a wilderness of scrub oak, where the Lenape, an Indigenous tribe, fished for trout and hunted for deer, grouse, and other game.
On May 18, 1732, the land was deeded by Thomas Penn, one of three sons of William Penn, founder of the colonial era Province of Pennsylvania, to Joseph Turner, a Philadelphia-based iron manufacturer and politician. Two years later, on September 10, 1735, a portion of this land was purchased from Turner's business partner by William Allen, a wealthy shipping merchant who became mayor of Philadelphia the following month.
In 1737, as part of the Walking Purchase, a large area north of Philadelphia, including present-day Allentown, was deeded by 23 chiefs of the Five Civilized Tribes to three sons of William Penn, John, Thomas, and Richard, in exchange for shoes, buckles, hats, shirts, knives, scissors, combs, needles, looking glasses, rum, and pipes.
The land was surveyed in 1736 and again in 1753 as part of an effort to construct a road from Easton to the city's east to Reading to its west. The 1753 survey reported that a log house, owned by Allen and built around 1740, existed near the western banks of Jordan Creek. The house was used primarily as a hunting and fishing lodge by Allen, but he also entertained prominent guests there, including James Hamilton, his brother-in-law, and John Penn, then governor of the Province of Pennsylvania. In 1752, Northampton and Berks counties were formed; Easton was named the county seat of Northampton County, and Reading the county seat of Berks County.
In 1762, the land, including present-day Allentown, was named and laid out by Allen, and the city was founded. A rivalry between the Penns and Allen may have inspired Allen to acquire the land and found the city. The following year, in 1763, Allen and others sought to relocate the county seat from Easton to Allentown, but the Penns' influence prevailed and the county seat remained in Easton.
The city's original organization, whose archives are now housed at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, included 42 city blocks and 756 lots, most of which were in width and in depth and was initially located between present-day 4th and 10th streets and Union and Liberty streets. The city was initially named Northampton Towne.
Many streets on the original plan were named for Allen's children, including Margaret, William, James, Ann, and John. Allen Street, the city's main street, was named for Allen himself. Hamilton Street was named for James Hamilton, deputy governor of colonial era Pennsylvania from 1748 to 1754. Gordon Street was named for Patrick Gordon, an earlier deputy governor of colonial Pennsylvania. Chew Street was named for Benjamin Chew, and Turner Street was named for Allen's business partner Joseph Turner.
Allen initially hoped the city would displace Easton as the seat of Northampton County and become a major national center for commerce due to its location along the Lehigh River and its proximity to Philadelphia, which was then the largest and most influential city in British America and the second-most populous city in the entire British Empire after London. In 1767, Allen granted the land to his son James.

American Revolutionary War

Allentown played a central role in inspiring and supporting the American Revolution and Revolutionary War. Some of the first Patriot resistance to British colonialism in the Thirteen Colonies began in and around present-day Allentown. On December 21, 1774, a Committee of Observation was formed by Allentown-area patriots, who expanded their resistance to British governance, and drove Tories out of the city. The burden of supplying the local militias fell on the people, and requisitions for food, grain, cattle, horses, and cloth were common.
In June 1775, after the Revolutionary War was launched with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress incorporated Patriot militias, including those in present-day Allentown, into the Continental Army and unanimously selected George Washington as its commander. During the Revolutionary War, Hessian prisoners of war were kept in Allentown in the vicinity of present-day 7th and Gordon streets, and the city housed four hospitals for wounded Continental Army troops, including one in Zion Reformed Church and one on the grounds of the present-day Farr Building.
After crossing the Delaware and prevailing in the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, Continental Army commander George Washington and his staff traveled through Allentown, where they proceeded up Water Street, which is present-day Lehigh Street. On the grounds of present-day Wire Mill on Lehigh Street, Washington and his staff stopped at the foot of the street, where they rested and watered their horses, and then proceeded to their post of duty.
In 1777, a manufacturer of paper cartridges and muskets for the Continental Army relocated to Allentown from neighboring Bethlehem, and a shop of 16 armourers was established on Little Lehigh Creek, which was used to repair Continental Army weapons and manufacture saddles and scabbards.

Liberty Bell's hiding

Allentown holds historical significance as the location where the Liberty Bell, then known as the State House Bell, was successfully hidden from September 1777 to June 1778, during the Revolutionary War by American patriots, who sought to avoid its capture by the British Army during their nine-month occupation of Philadelphia.
After Washington and the Continental Army were defeated in the Battle of Brandywine in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania on September 11, 1777, Philadelphia was left defenseless and American patriots began preparing for what they saw as an imminent British attack on the colonial capital. Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council ordered that 11 bells, including the Liberty Bell and ten bells then housed at Christ Church and St. Peter's Church in Philadelphia, be taken down and moved out of Philadelphia to protect them from the British, fearing their being melted down and cast into munitions. Two farmers and wagon masters, John Snyder and Henry Bartholomew, then transported the Liberty Bell north to present-day Allentown, where it was hidden under floorboards in the basement of Zion Reformed Church at 622 Hamilton Street in Center City Allentown, just prior to Philadelphia's September 1777 fall to the British.

19th century

In 1803, the city, whose mail was previously received in neighboring Bethlehem, had a post office established inside Compass and Square Hotel inside the present-day Penn National Bank building at 645 Hamilton Street in Allentown. In the 1810 U.S. census, the city's population exceeded 700 residents, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania granted the city legal standing on March 18, 1811, incorporating it initially as the Borough of Northampton in what was then Northampton County. The new borough's first undertaking was ordering that cows be moved from public streets to pastures, which proved unpopular with residents. The following year, in 1812, the city became part of Lehigh County, which was partitioned from a western section of Northampton County.
Throughout the early 1800s, the city grew primarily as a court and market town. Northampton Bank, the city's first bank located at the northeast corner of Center Square, was chartered in July 1814, and the first Hamilton Street Bridge, a -long chain structure, was constructed to cross Lehigh River in the city. The bridge featured two suspended lanes, one for east and one for westbound traffic, and a toll house at the bridge's western end.
In 1829, Lehigh Canal, a -long canal on Lehigh River's east side, was completed for both ascending and descending navigation, which proved influential in expanding the transport of anthracite coal, then one of the most important domestic and industrial fuels, from Allentown to New York City, Philadelphia, and other major industrial centers. In 1855, the city's first railroad was built on the west side of the Lehigh River, and rail soon began surpassing river transport as the primary means for transporting anthracite through the city.
In 1838, the city's name was officially changed to Allentown. The city soon faced major challenges. In 1841, a flood swept away Hamilton Street Bridge, inflicting substantial damage near Lehigh River. Two years later, in 1843, excessive speculation by Northampton Bank led to the bank's failure, resulting in financial ruin for many bank customers. Five years later, on June 1, 1848, the city's central business district burned down in a large fire between 7th and 8th streets on Hamilton Street.
During the 1850s, however, the city began recovering. A new bridge was built across the Lehigh River, and brick buildings were constructed to replace wooden ones that burned down in the 1848 fire. In 1852, the first Allentown Fair, now one of the nation's longest continual annual fairs, was held.

American Civil War

On April 13, 1861, with tensions between the North and South intensifying following the South's secession, residents of Lehigh and Northampton counties called a public meeting in Easton to discuss steps that could be taken to support the federal government. In the meeting, citizens voted to establish and equip the 1st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, a new military unit, and placed Captain Samuel Yohe of Easton and Thomas W. Lynn in charge of it, awarding them the respective ranks of colonel and major. Tilghman H. Good of South Whitehall Township, previously captain of Allen Rifles, an Allentown-based militia, and commander of the 4th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, was placed in charge of the 1st Pennsylvania's Company I, which included his former Allen Rifles subordinates and members of Jordan Artillerist, another Allentown-based militia.
In April 1861, following the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter, these Allentown units were deployed in response to President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to defend the national capital of Washington, D.C. from Confederate attack. After protecting the nation's capital from April to July 1861, these volunteers were honorably discharged and returned home, though a significant number reenlisted to defend the Union as the Civil War escalated. After the Civil War's end, many of these soldiers were named Pennsylvania First Defenders in recognition of their role as one of the first five units to answer Lincoln's call for volunteers to defend the nation's capital.