Section # 5 Tookany Creek & Halloween Parade
Hello! My name is Tim, I am a sophomore biology major. To me, a place’s history is one of the most fascinating things to learn. So here’s a little history lesson.
Can you hear the water running? Do you notice the creek underneath us? It’s Tookany Creek. The whole creek is 11.1 miles long, which means if you were to walk from its source to the mouth, it would take nearly 3.5 hours to complete. That’s so much longer than our walking tour! The creek flows down from another local creek called Frankford Creek, before flowing into the Delaware River. The creek’s water flow varies. Depending on the day, the water can be calm and soft or rapid and overflowing. During the rainy season, waters can become dangerously high and turbulent, so be careful when it rains!
This creek has been flowing here for many many years, long before Glenside was born. The Lenni Lenape tribe lived in its watershed. A watershed is land that hosts a group of streams and rivers all draining into a single larger body of water. The native name of this watershed means “Eel Skin River”. In addition, it is believed that the name Tookany was another native word, sometimes spelled T-A-C-O-N-Y, derived from a Lenni Lenape word meaning "forest" or "wilderness".
This area (including eastern Pennsylvania and part of New Jersey) originally belonged to the Lenni Lenape Tribe. They were pushed out of their homeland by European colonists. As you walk around the stream and further into the walking tour, it’s important to think about what this land once was and who it belonged to. Imagine the lives of those people before it was taken away by colonizers. The Lenni Lenape tribe lived in small towns around this stream, hunted and fished within this watershed, and with the creek’s nurturing the soil, they farmed maize, beans, and squash.
Julie Sky is the 9th great granddaughter of Chief Tamanend, a famous Lenni Lenape leader who signed the Peace Treaty with Willian Penn. We had a great conversation with her over Zoom, where Julie told us about life here pre-colonization, and how Native people used the land to survive.
“One of the things that I think is really cool about the culture is when the Chiefs would make decisions they would involve all of the elders of the tribe. And those decisions were always made for what was going to be best for all of the people, and all of the land around them. So even when it came to where they're choosing the fish or hunt they did it in different sections and different areas that they could keep those populations, continuing to grow, for the animals and making sure that the nature and the world that we live in, within harmony and synchronicity. So it's all kind of moving together.…”
Julie also shared the concept of energy in Lenni Lenape culture with us.
“...when you put your hands in the water, and your have your hands going through and you see all the ripples that are going back and forth as you're going through the water and what if You could do that with the air and you could see the ripples that are going in and out with the air. And you could see how we all kind of affect each other, because if we move one way, it could affect something over here, or if we move this way expect another area, so this is how you create conflict and also how you create harmony is through the energy that you use and how you've learned from nature, and you can harmonize with it. And one of the things that I really enjoy doing, like all my lunches is i'll sit there and i'll kind of watch the birds, you know and they're out there, flying around. And something I've noticed is that when they're up there in the air and they're flying around there ebbing and flowing together and they have this synchronicity and they're going back and forth, just like the ripples in the water. And when you're looking at the birds flock. You kind of have to ask yourself some questions. You know why are they doing that and part of it is they're protecting each other than making themselves look like bigger than they really are so bigger birds don't come and take them out. And when you synchronize with nature and you watch and you observe these things that you see doesn't matter if it's birds or ripples in the water or whatever. And you ask questions, you can find ways to harmonize the nature yourself, and you can also find way to create a synchronicity within each other, and that is how the native Americans lived and what they were. You know, experiencing upon the land...”
Are you inspired by the practice that Julie just introduced? Take a moment and walk among nature. Listen to the creek’s local birds like the spotted great blue heron. If you are enjoying this experience, there are plenty of ways to get involved. You can volunteer to help out as a stream keeper, a Tacony Park keeper, a donator, or an intern at Tookany Frankford Watershed Partnership.
Sometimes people decide to celebrate together through a collective walking activity. We call that a “parade.” Did you know that along with the famous Fourth of July parades, there were also magnificent Halloween parades in Glenside? Not only did Glenside residents join, but hundreds of people from other communities would come to experience the huge evening parades. The town would be jam-packed with groups of walking people laughing in excitement and joy.
Each year, there were three to four hundred people dressed up in costumes. Mrs. Rice won Best Adult Comic Costume in 1924. She lived on Bickley Road, where we are walking right now. With her talented mind and skilled hands, she “startled the onlookers by appearing in a unique dress which made it seem she was walking on her hands with her feet waving in the air,” according to a local newsclip. Her Husband’s costume was especially original as well. “The upper part of his body was concealed by a large model of the ZR-3 airship…” It seems that creativity, plus some quirkiness, has always been in the blood of Glensiders.
When you are ready, we are going to check out the next spot on Royal Avenue. When you see it, turn right into it. I will leave you to Lexie, your next guide.
Can you hear the water running? Do you notice the creek underneath us? It’s Tookany Creek. The whole creek is 11.1 miles long, which means if you were to walk from its source to the mouth, it would take nearly 3.5 hours to complete. That’s so much longer than our walking tour! The creek flows down from another local creek called Frankford Creek, before flowing into the Delaware River. The creek’s water flow varies. Depending on the day, the water can be calm and soft or rapid and overflowing. During the rainy season, waters can become dangerously high and turbulent, so be careful when it rains!
This creek has been flowing here for many many years, long before Glenside was born. The Lenni Lenape tribe lived in its watershed. A watershed is land that hosts a group of streams and rivers all draining into a single larger body of water. The native name of this watershed means “Eel Skin River”. In addition, it is believed that the name Tookany was another native word, sometimes spelled T-A-C-O-N-Y, derived from a Lenni Lenape word meaning "forest" or "wilderness".
This area (including eastern Pennsylvania and part of New Jersey) originally belonged to the Lenni Lenape Tribe. They were pushed out of their homeland by European colonists. As you walk around the stream and further into the walking tour, it’s important to think about what this land once was and who it belonged to. Imagine the lives of those people before it was taken away by colonizers. The Lenni Lenape tribe lived in small towns around this stream, hunted and fished within this watershed, and with the creek’s nurturing the soil, they farmed maize, beans, and squash.
Julie Sky is the 9th great granddaughter of Chief Tamanend, a famous Lenni Lenape leader who signed the Peace Treaty with Willian Penn. We had a great conversation with her over Zoom, where Julie told us about life here pre-colonization, and how Native people used the land to survive.
“One of the things that I think is really cool about the culture is when the Chiefs would make decisions they would involve all of the elders of the tribe. And those decisions were always made for what was going to be best for all of the people, and all of the land around them. So even when it came to where they're choosing the fish or hunt they did it in different sections and different areas that they could keep those populations, continuing to grow, for the animals and making sure that the nature and the world that we live in, within harmony and synchronicity. So it's all kind of moving together.…”
Julie also shared the concept of energy in Lenni Lenape culture with us.
“...when you put your hands in the water, and your have your hands going through and you see all the ripples that are going back and forth as you're going through the water and what if You could do that with the air and you could see the ripples that are going in and out with the air. And you could see how we all kind of affect each other, because if we move one way, it could affect something over here, or if we move this way expect another area, so this is how you create conflict and also how you create harmony is through the energy that you use and how you've learned from nature, and you can harmonize with it. And one of the things that I really enjoy doing, like all my lunches is i'll sit there and i'll kind of watch the birds, you know and they're out there, flying around. And something I've noticed is that when they're up there in the air and they're flying around there ebbing and flowing together and they have this synchronicity and they're going back and forth, just like the ripples in the water. And when you're looking at the birds flock. You kind of have to ask yourself some questions. You know why are they doing that and part of it is they're protecting each other than making themselves look like bigger than they really are so bigger birds don't come and take them out. And when you synchronize with nature and you watch and you observe these things that you see doesn't matter if it's birds or ripples in the water or whatever. And you ask questions, you can find ways to harmonize the nature yourself, and you can also find way to create a synchronicity within each other, and that is how the native Americans lived and what they were. You know, experiencing upon the land...”
Are you inspired by the practice that Julie just introduced? Take a moment and walk among nature. Listen to the creek’s local birds like the spotted great blue heron. If you are enjoying this experience, there are plenty of ways to get involved. You can volunteer to help out as a stream keeper, a Tacony Park keeper, a donator, or an intern at Tookany Frankford Watershed Partnership.
Sometimes people decide to celebrate together through a collective walking activity. We call that a “parade.” Did you know that along with the famous Fourth of July parades, there were also magnificent Halloween parades in Glenside? Not only did Glenside residents join, but hundreds of people from other communities would come to experience the huge evening parades. The town would be jam-packed with groups of walking people laughing in excitement and joy.
Each year, there were three to four hundred people dressed up in costumes. Mrs. Rice won Best Adult Comic Costume in 1924. She lived on Bickley Road, where we are walking right now. With her talented mind and skilled hands, she “startled the onlookers by appearing in a unique dress which made it seem she was walking on her hands with her feet waving in the air,” according to a local newsclip. Her Husband’s costume was especially original as well. “The upper part of his body was concealed by a large model of the ZR-3 airship…” It seems that creativity, plus some quirkiness, has always been in the blood of Glensiders.
When you are ready, we are going to check out the next spot on Royal Avenue. When you see it, turn right into it. I will leave you to Lexie, your next guide.
