Schuylkill River

Description

Watercolor on paper drawing of "Schuylkill River", ca.1799, from the Latrobe Sketchbooks, by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. In 1798, Latrobe moved from Richmond, Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His first project was designing the Bank of Philadelphia. Following a series of Yellow Fever epidemics in Philadelphia in the late-1700s, the city sought to improve the quality of the water supply, which at the time was considered the source of the disease. In 1799, he was hired to design the Center Square Waterworks to bring in fresh water from the Schuylkill River into Philadelphia. The system suffered problems and was replaced with another by 1812. This view shows the river at right, a steep rocky cliff face at left, and some distant houses at center.