"Avondale" and "Addingham" Forgotten Villages

 A postcard from about 1910 showing Crum Creek at Avondale. The exact location is unknown probably in Nether Providence Twp. near the Thomas Leiper mansion.

Note: So many name changes and forgotten names have occurred in Delco, it is hard to keep track of them all. I still have some forgotten names of places in Delco that I have no idea where they once were. Many of the names were names of mills and they were considered small towns in their own right. Two forgotten mill names were "Avondale" and "Addingham". 

CHESTER TIMES 

August 28, 1922 

 AVONDALE & ADDINGHAM NEWS 

Sketch of the Deserted Villages in Comparison to What They Were

Addingham is not precisely like Avondale any more than one community is a facsimile to another other than in its human life.  Both are situated in Delaware County, not a far cry from each other.  Avondale, just below Swarthmore on the banks of Crum Creek, enjoys somewhat of a halo on account of its richness in Colonial history.  Addingham lacks romantic Colonial tinge, but both are “deserted villages” each having tasted industrial prosperity and, through the queer antics of their commercial destiny, flung eventually into the discard.

The early history of Avondale is so well known repetition here is needless.  Its deserted quarry and cigar factory, which buzzed with human activity during the latter part of the seventeenth century, bears no relation with the present, except in a glamor of tradition.  The upright skeletonized stone walls, scattered here and there, pointing above the rank-growth forestry, merely enlivens the curious in the stranger enroute through.  They stand as a mute monument to the thoroughness of early construction methods.

But the industrial downfall is more modern.  It traces back ten or fifteen years.  The runs of Avondale are situated upon the western watershed slope of Crum Creek.

The industrial impotency of Addingham exemplifies itself beautifully, rearing it ragged walls of brick from the western watershed along Darby Creek, in Upper Darby Township, on the Garrett Road, just above Drexel Hill.  There are three deserted mills at Addingham and thirty deserted stone houses.  The stone and mortar in these erections are defying the decaying process of the elements.  The woodwork is disappearing rapidly – rotting and crumbling.  They are all located on what is called the Hayes estate of 120 acres.

Ten years ago these three mills were beehives of industry.  One thousand workmen earned a livelihood within their walls, and the thirty stone houses were built to accommodate families of many of these workmen.

The industries were indeed diversified.  The Philadelphia Harrisons operated some sort of a sugar refinery in one of the “mills”, another turned out a commercialized patented process of paint, and the third wove wool and cotton fabrics.  In those times prosperity smiled kindly upon Addingham.  But this smile was from an industrial flapper. It proved insincere and transitory.  And when this smile began to twist the contours into that of chagrin, the industrial omnipotence of Addingham gradually began its decline. One mill after another became stilled.  The machinery was dismantled.  The workmen slowly petered away and nature began its reclaiming succession.

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