Paper Mill Run

Paper Mill Run, also known as Monoshone Creek, is a small tributary of Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Its watershed includes parts of the Mount Airy and Germantown neighhborhoods of Philadelphia.

For most of its length the present-day stream flows under Lincoln Drive. The stream first sees daylight near Johnson Street. During the 18th century the stream possessed a small community of thriving mills, and dams were built along the creek to power the mills. William Rittenhouse, grandfather of the astronomer David Rittenhouse, built the first paper mill in America along Paper Mill Run in the late 17th century. This location was then known as Rittenhousetown.

In recent years, the creek has suffered from high levels of pollution whose source is unclear, but which may have to do with leakage from a sewer line that is routed next to the buried stream along Lincoln Drive. A controversial wetlands restoration project in Saylor's Grove was built in 2006, in part an attempt to reduce the pollution of the stream by providing a natural buffer for some of the water flowing into it.

See also

Philadelphia portal

• List of rivers of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Watershed Alliance

Monoshone

   vs.

(Paper Mill Run)

(Paper Mill Run is the name of an annual 5k race sponsored by Historic RittenhouseTown, Inc.)

Monoshone is a word of obscure origin and unknown meaning.

In present-day usage the name Monoshone applies simultaneously to a creek, the watershed that drains into this creek, the valley that this creek has shaped, and some 100 acres of recreational parkland that surround it.

The Monoshone lies completely within the City of Philadelphia and is part of a trout-stocked fishery.

References

• Finkel, Kenneth, ed. Philadelphia Almanac and Citizen’s Manual. Philadelphia, PA: Library Company, 1995.

External links

• Creek to sewer history
• aerial photo
• Saylor's Grove site at Fairmount Waterworks
• Historic RittenhouseTown