Marcus Hook Borough

MARCUS HOOK, 53.8 m. (21 alt.,4,867 pop.), is one of the most industrially active small towns in the Commonwealth. In addition to oil refineries, there are rayon and rayon-yarn manufacturers, and producers of congoleum and linoleum floor covering. Huge oil tanks and tall smokestacks break the skyline; brick and concrete factory buildings are numerous.

The site of Marcus Hook was settled by Swedes in the 1640's, but its name is a corruption of the Dutch 'Marretie's Hoeck.' Shipbuilding was an important early industry. First port of call for Philadelphia-bound ships, it became, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the haunt of Blackbeard and other notorious pirates. Discord Lane earned its name because of their riotous brawls.

The red brick ST.MARTIN's EPISCOPAL CHURCH, Church St. facing Market Lane, was erected in 1845 for a congregation organized prior to 1699 by immigrants from Scotland, England, and Ireland. A frame house, purchased in 1702, served as the first regular place of worship. The church bell, cast in 1767, rests on a wooden cradle on the entrance landing.

Federal Writers Project, Works Progress Administration, 1940