An Indian on a 100' pole at 5th & York, today being near Callowhill to Vine.

[Phillyxpat]

Good find. That is probably it. Thanks Zark.

[Colin P. Varga]

I would place the flag pole at the small park at the foot of the BF Bridge. The Bridge appears to be open as you can see (using the blow-up tool from Temple) cars coming from Camden. It must have been taken after July of 1926. It all seems to line up with the camera at 8th & Race and Wilbur at 3rd & New St.

It is supposed to be 8th and Race per post # 2842, 8-23 on A bunch of old photos thread. It looks like Wilbur. You can access the enlarging device in the Temple link next to photo to focus and expand any part of the original. I guess if it is real and in place as a large pole, the place on the map is somewhere around Third St. and New St.? If it is closer, I don't know.

[Phillyxpat]

Hope this is not another false sighting of the St. Tammany Pole, center of photo, 1924

(Clink on image within link below to enlarge photo to show the above image.)

From Above: Benjamin Franklin Bridge under construction June 13,1924

[CHIOSSO]

It looks to be about the right distance from St. Augustine's. I love this stuff.

[CHIOSSO]

I can't wait for others to join in. Phillyxpat I think it's spot on.

[CHIOSSO]

xxxx

[Phillyxpat]

I can't wait for others to join in. Phillyxpat I think it's spot on.

Well we know were it was, I would love to know where it ended up, in the basement of some museum or even it is in some private collection, it would be nice to possibly get a photo etc. Hopefully did not end up in a dumpster.

My curiosity is now sparked by what happened to the figures on top of the flagpoles at the on ramp to the BF bridge which I don't think are there anymore.

Am at a distance here and limit my research to the Internet. So much not downloaded yet. Still sitting on library shelves in terms of research.

Do not want to go off too far on a tangent, but here in New York City, the Tammany society, the last remnant of the political machine aka Tammany Hall put up a big flagpole in the middle of Union Square in 1930, once called the Charles Murphy memorial and now just called Independence flagpole. Tammany Society as far as I can tell is extinct. While I do not think there is any past connections between Tammany societies in New York and Philadelphia, I cannot find an internet connection to the possible location of a Tammany Society archive if it exists, where info or paperwork from the Tammany Pole in Philly may have ended up by chance just because of the Tammany name and history.

Mystery Sculpture 10 identified

[Colin P. Varga]

I'm a little more inclined to believe that is not a flag pole but something on the negative. It's so white, much whiter than most of the photo and the height so seems too tall compared to the other buildings.

Hope this is not another false sighting of the St. Tammany Pole, center of photo, 1924

(Clink on image within link below to enlarge photo to show the above image.)

From Above: Benjamin Franklin Bridge under construction June 13,1924

[Colin P. Varga]

The celebration of St. Tammany began about the time of the Revolution and gradually faded in the 19th century like dancing around the May Pole or the Liberty Pole.

I can recommend these articles:

Gettysburg Times - Google News Archive Search

America's Patron Saint: Tammany - Varga - 2004 - Journal of American Culture - Wiley Online Library

Well we know were it was, I would love to know where it ended up, in the basement of some museum or even it is in some private collection, it would be nice to possibly get a photo etc. Hopefully did not end up in a dumpster.

My curiosity is now sparked by what happened to the figures on top of the flagpoles at the on ramp to the BF bridge which I don't think are there anymore.

Am at a distance here and limit my research to the Internet. So much not downloaded yet. Still sitting on library shelves in terms of research.

Do not want to go off too far on a tangent, but here in New York City, the Tammany society, the last remnant of the political machine aka Tammany Hall put up a big flagpole in the middle of Union Square in 1930, once called the Charles Murphy memorial and now just called Independence flagpole. Tammany Society as far as I can tell is extinct. While I do not think there is any past connections between Tammany societies in New York and Philadelphia, I cannot find an internet connection to the possible location of a Tammany Society archive if it exists, where info or paperwork from the Tammany Pole in Philly may have ended up by chance just because of the Tammany name and history.

Mystery Sculpture 10 identified

[CHIOSSO]

It is very white but at one hundred feet tall it would be about the size of a ten story building.

[Colin P. Varga]

It is very white but at one hundred feet tall it would be about the size of a ten story building.

Don't forget the figure is suppose to be 9.5ft tall and 9ft wide roughly one story of a building and separate stories can be discerned in the photo. Of course in the photo the figure could be darker than the "flag pole".

We need another photo of the area from the same period.

[Phillyxpat]

It may very well be a defect Colin but in terms and distance and comparison to St. Augustine’s at far left, it is about the right height, depending on St. Augustine's being maybe 150' tall? (ran into an old Philly Index, can't find it now, with all the heights of buildings in Philly in the past) and in the right position. This photo was snapped in June, summertime. There is a good chance the pole has just been painted. Flagpoles that big are a high maintenance item. I used to live across from a public school in Philly with a 100 foot metal flagpole. The steeplejacks were there every summer to paint it, check out the pullies, make sure they were in working order, and replace the rope. I guess the public school system may have outsourced the money in the budget like a lot of other things and people that have gotten outsourced to China these days. No maintenance and the pole is no longer there, a steel pole at that and not wood. Good point about the size of the weathervane. Did it disappear long before the pole bit the dust as well? Perhaps another question to be pondered and researched, a lot of research not readily available at this moment.

[CHIOSSO]

I would like to hear from ZARK, harryk, nanyika, toth and Titus on this. You know who else we should ask is radical ed he takes a bunch of photos of the city.

[Titus]

I wish I could say I was convinced as I love a good mystery and especially about my beloved city but I am not convinced by this close-up photo. I hope another can be found to verify the hypothesis.

[Colin P. Varga]

Hmm, it took me a while to find St. Auggie. Well, the height does seem about right for a tall flag pole.

One other thing the "flag pole" does have going for it is that it seems to be at the same angle as the rest of the photo.

I'm going to guess one other thing about this photo and that is that the original negative was destroyed as it was probably on nitrate film. So the copy negative might have might have this permanent mark on it especially if the new negative where made from a print rather than the original negative.

It may very well be a defect Colin but in terms and distance and comparison to St. Augustine’s at far left, it is about the right height, depending on St. Augustine's being maybe 150' tall? (ran into an old Philly Index, can't find it now, with all the heights of buildings in Philly in the past) and in the right position. This photo was snapped in June, summertime. There is a good chance the pole has just been painted. Flagpoles that big are a high maintenance item. I used to live across from a public school in Philly with a 100 foot metal flagpole. The steeplejacks were there every summer to paint it, check out the pullies, make sure they were in working order, and replace the rope. I guess the public school system may have outsourced the money in the budget like a lot of other things and people that have gotten outsourced to China these days. No maintenance and the pole is no longer there, a steel pole at that and not wood. Good point about the size of the weathervane. Did it disappear long before the pole bit the dust as well? Perhaps another question to be pondered and researched, a lot of research not readily available at this moment.

[Phillyxpat]

I tend to see it too now as a possible defect. The odds and stats of a defect in the right place at right height etc. are quite high though with the present discussion. The strongest visual evidence that the pole was in place in 1930 is Zark's post #28 on this thread. Nothing I have presented can match that.

I know nothing about traditional photography. The photo below from around 1922 with a lot of shadows does not show anything where the pole should be.

More research needed on the matter.





Art, Architecture and Engineering Library, Lantern Slide Collection: Delaware River Bridge

[Colin P. Varga]

But I would say this flag pole is not nearly 100ft in comparison to the other bldgs. and St. Auggies.

... The strongest visual evidence that the pole was in place in 1930 is Zark's post #28 on this thread. ...

[LedZep2147]

I grew up at 4th and Vine, and my family dates back to the 1920's in the area. I'll have to ask my grandmother if she remembers the pole.

[harryk]

There is still no resolution to the Indian Pole mystery... Other than a few grainy pictures, we have little to go on. Again, since about 1920, not a word has been mentioned or written about it. The pole seems to have outlasted the Indian figure by several years; there are some faint images of the pole, but not a single one of the figure.
Once more, I ask: Did it fall down? Was it removed because it was unsafe? If so, where are the newspaper articles describing it when it was removed? Or mentions in books? The disappearance of such a large thing--a local landmark that was around around for about 100 years--would certainly have generated some comment, despite the fact that it was removed in the roaring 20s (probably before 1926; see Early Philadelphia: Its People, Life and Progress below) and was in a then-industrial neighborhood.
Morley and other sources indicated that local businessmen returned the Indian figure to the top of a new pole after the city had removed it in 1894 and apparently placed it in a dump after the older pole had become unsafe. By the 20s, the replacement pole was probably on its way out. And there would have been no city attention given to painting or otherwise maintaining this pole, as it was privately purchased and was by then in a desolate neighborhood.
Here's a bit from The Old York Road: And Its Early Associations of History and Biography. 1670-1870 (issued in 1890):

The original Indian pole at the "junction of Fourth street and York road was struck with lightning; another was erected about 1819, which was taken down in 1835, and the present Indian pole (1854) erected at that time. It has always been known as 'King Tamane.'" James Mitchell erected ... the buildings on the point at York road and Fourth street to Callowhill, where the Indian pole was erected.

This is from TRIPS AWHEEL: Our Cycle Route No. 6 (1897-98 series), apparently a book:

If ever you walked or rode up Fourth street from Market street, and passed by St. George’s Church, with the date 1763 on its memorial tablet and crossed Vine street, you must have noticed a bifurcation at the angle of which stands a huge flagpole; at its foot, a small fountain, around which street urchins "mostly congregate," on its top the figure of an Indian used as a weather-vane. That is the spot where the Old York Road branched off from Fourth street. That bed of most unlovely cobble stones unofficially labeled "York avenue," on the left of the pole, is the modern representative of the former highway.

This is from Genealogy of the Descendants of Thomas French (1913):

Another noteworthy land mark, nearby, at the junction of York road and Fourth street, is the Indian pole, surmounted by a giant chief, which stands on the site of the last great "pow wow" of the receding sons of the forest a century and a half ago.

Then there's Christopher Morley's description of the pole in his Travels in Philadelphia (1920), which I won't place here.
This from Early Philadelphia: Its People, Life and Progress (1926):

On the Old York Road near Noble Street there was a tall flag pole with the figure of an Indian upon the top. It was the custom of the fire companies to take their engine there to test it by seeing if they could throw a stream of water to the top of the "Indian Pole," as it was called. These exhibitions attracted crowds of people and are remembered by persons now living.

See www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=20101 for a description of a similar Indian pole in New Hope, PA. It was placed at the end/start of the old York Road, while our Indian pole was placed at the start/end of the old York Road.
And here's what I wrote about the pole in my forthcoming book, Northern Liberties: The Story of a Philadelphia River Ward:

At the end (or beginning) of York Road stood the "Indian Pole." This was a high flagpole with the sizable figure of a Native American perched on top, put up around 1819 to supposedly commemorate the last Lenape council held in Philadelphia. The Indian figure (with its bow and quiver) was nine feet high from head to toe, and the copper ball on which it revolved (as a weathervane) was sixteen inches in diameter. Several tall wooden posts served as the Indian Pole until the final one was installed by local businessmen in 1894. Volunteer fire companies used it in competitions to test their engines by seeing if they could throw a stream of water to the top, eighty-five feet high.
The figure atop the Indian Pole may have been that of Chief Tamanend (circa 1628–circa 1698), the principal Leni-Lenape leader who welcomed William Penn upon his arrival to this region in 1682. Tamanend partnered with Penn to bring about the bold accord in which Quaker settlers and local Native Americans would live together in peace. The chief consequently became a folk hero identified throughout the colonies as the "patron saint of America." Beginning in Philadelphia, his memory was observed with festivals, and social groups known as the Sons of Saint Tammany sprang up during the War for Independence in opposition to the British-oriented societies of Saints George, Andrew and David. Tamanend was even nicknamed “King Tammany” as an insult to King George.

Sadly, this early Philadelphia landmark is no more, and its site is covered by the abutments of the Vine Street Expressway. What happened to the Indian figure is unknown; no image of it seems to exist.

[Titus]

Beautifully written, Harry as ever. But sad that no one seems to admit to taking it away. Today this would be a prized possession at the Atwater Kent or in the museum's American wing. Yet the story is evocative of the odd relationship between the Native peoples and this city as well as of the kind of neighborhood that once stood at the beginning of the Northern Liberties.