Matthew Newkirk

Matthew Newkirk (1794–1868), was a banker, railroad executive, and civic leader in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a director of the United States Bank,[1] but he was best known as the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B), which in 1838 opened the first direct railroad link between Philadelphia and Baltimore, Maryland.[2] He was also for many years the president of the Pennsylvania Temperance Society.[3]

Newkirk was born May 31, 1794, the eighth of nine children, in Pittsgrove, New Jersey. At 16, he moved to Philadelphia to live with and work for Joseph and Collin Cooper, dry goods merchants on Front Street. He volunteered for military service in the War of 1812 and left the service as a corporal.[1] He and a sister, Mary, opened a store near the Delaware River waterfront. "The business thrived, as did subsequent ones that extended his trade as far as New Orleans, and presently Newkirk had time and money to expend on other pursuits. His real estate investments spanned 11 states and a good share of Philadelphia’s rental housing stock," wrote Hidden City Philadelphia.[4]

In 1835, he bought 3,000 shares in the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad.[5]

The same year, Newkirk bought a vacant lot at 13th and Arch Streets in downtown Philadelphia and built a mansion.[6][7][8] Designed by Thomas Ustick Walter, it was built of marble and featured a fresco by Italian artist Nicola Monachesi.[9]

Newkirk spent much of the 1830s leading efforts to raise money for and then build a rail line from Philadelphia south to the cities of Wilmington, Delaware, and Baltimore. In 1838, the PW&B began direct rail service between the cities, broken only by a ferry across the Susquehanna River. Among the line's achievements was the Newkirk Viaduct, the first permanent bridge across the Schuylkill south of Market Street, commemorated by the 1838 Newkirk Viaduct Monument.[2] The right-of-way pioneered by the PW&B is still in use today by Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

In 1843, Newkirk was listed as the donor of the single largest monetary gift to the University of Delaware: $100. The university library still purchases books through the Matthew Newkirk Memorial Fund.[10]

He later became a trustee of Princeton University.[11]

Newkirk died in 1868 in his Philadelphia mansion[6] and was interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery.[12]

Eight years later, his family sold the building to the Society of the Sons of St. George, which renamed it "St. George's Hall" and used it as their headquarters. It was torn down in 1903.[13] The front colonnade survives at the Princeton Battlefield State Park in New Jersey.[14]