Clifton Heights Borough

LOCATED IN
Pennsylvania
Delaware County

WHAT'S HERE
Westbrook Park

Clifton Heights Borough municipal offices are located at 30 S. Springfield Road, Clifton Heights, PA 19018; phone: 610-623-1000.

"... smaller city that attracted large numbers of immigrants was Clifton Heights. There, owners of textile mills recruited hundreds of Polish peasants, often financing their passage, which the immigrants were then expected to pay back from future wages. In addition to work at the mills, Clifton Heights offered Polish language schools and churches, along with stores that sold items familiar to Polish immigrants. Children born to these immigrants, even though they became American citizens at birth, continued to identify with the old homeland. ..." [1]

Beginnings [2]

Settled in the last decade of the eighteenth century and incorporated as a borough in 1885, has several large textile mills. For the most part, solid rows of small, two-story, unpainted brick houses line its crooked streets.

Randall M. Miller and William Pencak, eds., Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth, Harrisburg PA, The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2002, p 269
Writers Project, Works Project Administration, Pennsylvania, A Guide to the Keystone State, 1940, Federal Works Agency, John M. Carmody, Administrator

Pennsylvania Guide, 1940

CLIFTON HEIGHTS, 37.9 m. (109 alt., 5,057 pop.), settled in the last decade of the eighteenth century and incorporated as a borough in 1885, has several large textile mills. For the most part, solid rows of small, two-story, unpainted brick houses line its crooked streets.

Right from Clifton Heights on Bridge St. across Lindbergh Bridge to a junction with Creek Road, 0.2 m.

Left 0.8 m. on Creek Road to the LOWER SWEDISH CABIN, one of the few remaining Swedish Colonial cabins in America, said to have been built in 1650. Constructed of logs with clapboard gable ends above the eave line, it has a massive stone chimney rising at one corner.

At 0.3 m. on Bridge St. is a junction with Dennison Ave.; R. here to 3860 Dennison Ave. At the rear of this house is the UPPER SWEDISH CABIN, assertedly erected in 1729, although some authorities date it as early as 1643-53. It is a one-and-a-half story log structure with a steep gable roof. Numerous alterations have been made in the interior, and the brick chimney and side porch have been added.

At 39.8 m. is a junction with Saxer Ave.

Right on this to the junction with Springfield Road, 1.1 in.; L. here 1.2 m. to the SPRNGFIELD MEETINGHOUSE, a gray stone structure, erected in 1851 and manifesting typical Quaker simplicity, particularly in the interior, with its bare cream-colored walls and plain benches. In 1745 the Friends of this meeting seriously debated the problem raised by young Benjamin West (see below), who wished to study art. Quakers considered art frivolous, but one speaker pleaded the youth's cause so touchingly that the meeting gave its blessing.

Federal Writers Project, Works Progress Administration, 1940