History
Located immediately northeast of Center City, its borders are somewhat disputed today due to many factors, but are roughly defined by the triangle created by the Delaware River, Frankford Avenue, and York Street. Newer residents of the area consider it to go all the way up to Lehigh Avenue, while some older residents maintain the upper border to be Norris Street.
The area was originally inhabited by members of the Turtle Clan of the Lenni Lenape Indian tribe (who the Europeans named the Delaware Indian Tribe). The first European settlers were a group of 6 Swedish farming families, later replaced by British landed gentry, then British shipbuilders and German fishermen. Within a few generations there was another influx of German immigrants, then still later in the late 19th century Polish immigrants. Irish Catholics began pouring into the area to the point where the majority of the people today can trace their ancestry to Irish immigrants.
The name "Fishtown" is derived from the area's former role as the center of the shad
fishing industry on the Delaware River. The name comes from the fact that a number of
18th and early 19th century German & German-American families bought up the fishing
rights on both sides of the Delaware River from Trenton Falls down to Cape May, NJ.
The apocryphal local legend traces the name of Fishtown to Charles Dickens who purportedly
visited the neighborhood in March 1842, but records show this to be false, as it was named
Fishtown prior to his visiting. -
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