Many local residents may not realize that the neighborhood known as Queen Village is actually older than the City of Philadelphia. “Philadelphia’s First Neighborhood” was settled in 1654 by Swedish immigrants, predating William Penn and the founding of Pennsylvania by 28 years. (more…)
Alexander Wilson was born on July 6, 1766, in Paisley, Scotland. At the age of 13 he apprenticed in the weaving trade spending ten years as a weaver. He then began traveling about Scotland as a peddler and writing dialect poems, which he published. Discouraged by poverty and by political persecution because of some satires he wrote, he immigrated to America
in 1794.
“My memory often reverts to many statements of my dear Aunt Isabella Cruse, as to the fact of my grandfather Captain Peter Cruse, being the first conveyor of rubber in America …”
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