Tacony, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Tacony
Neighborhood of Philadelphia
Tacony–Palmyra Bridge as seen from the New Jersey shoreline looking at Tacony
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Philadelphia County
City	Philadelphia
Area code(s)	Area code 215

Tacony is a historic neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia, about 8 miles (13 km) from downtown ("Center City") Philadelphia. It is bounded by Frankford Avenue on the northwest, Cottman Avenue on the northeast, Robbins Street on the southwest, and the Delaware River and Interstate 95 on the southeast.

Tacony's ZIP code, along with Wissinoming, is 19135. The neighborhood has a large Irish American and Italian American population. A substantial influx of German and German-American inhabitants helped to swell the population after 1855. About 18,000 people now live in Tacony.

The name "Tacony" is derived from a Lenape word for "wilderness", it may possibly originate from the Lenape word tèkëne meaning forest or woods. The deed for the land purchase of Hans Kyn (later "Keene" and "Keen"), a Swede, south of modern Cottman Avenue on the river, dated April 26, 1679, entered on the back of a grant from Governor Andros, March 25, 1676, is still in possession of the family.

John Keen, great-great grandson of Hans, born at Tacony in 1747, served with General Cadwalader in the Revolutionary War and was wounded at the battle of Princeton. Tacony resident John Lardner crossed the Delaware with General Washington and fought at Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, and Germantown. Farmer John Knowles fought in the war and was a prisoner of the British in 1778.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, wealthy and influential families established country seats along the river in Tacony. The British Army raided farms there for horses during its Revolutionary War occupation of Philadelphia in 1778. Not yet a part of the City of Philadelphia, Tacony was then a village in Oxford Township, Philadelphia County.

By at least 1836, the Buttermilk Tavern, a vacation hotel, offering fresh catch for dinner, was operating along the river south of what became Longshore Street.

The most significant event in the development of Tacony was the acquisition of land there in 1846 for a ferry-wharf by the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad, which had first laid tracks through the town in 1834, along the route from its depot at modern Frankford Avenue and Montgomery Avenue, Kensington, to Trenton, New Jersey. Banned from traversing the District of Kensington southbound to connect with other rail lines, the Philadelphia and Trenton built Tacony Depot, an important early transportation hub. The depot and the community which grew around it was, for a short time, called Buena Vista, named for the recent Mexican War victory. A waterfront mansion on the property was converted to the Washington House Hotel at the foot of what would become Disston Street. Through passengers traveling from New York de-trained at Tacony and took a steamboat to Walnut Street, where they could connect with stagecoaches and other rail lines. North-bound passengers did the reverse. Steamboats and steam ferries stopped at Tacony several times a day for over eight decades. The railroad's Kensington Depot continued to be used for freight and some passenger traffic, but the steamboat transfer continued until 1867, when the Connecting Railway opened from Frankford Junction to Mantua, near the Philadelphia Zoo, enabling a connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad.