Mom Rinker's Rock

Mom Rinker's Rock is a scenic outlook in Wissahickon Valley Park along the Wissahickon Creek in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located on a ridge on the eastern side of the park just a little north of the Walnut Lane Bridge, close by the statue dedicated to Toleration.

It is named after Molly "Mom" Rinker (died in 1814 or 1815), a bartender and spy during the American Revolutionary War, known for supposedly gathering secret knowledge of plans and movements by secretly overhearing British soldiers who stopped at her bar to get drunk, talk between themselves of plans and missions which they planned to use against American troops during the war, after the British occupation of Philadelphia. Molly Rinker would then write information of the plans and missions, which she heard the British soldiers secretly talk about, on tiny slips of paper which she carefully hid in knitting yarns, and secretly warn American troops of the plans of British troops by climbing to a mountain, and dropping the yarns containing the notes off a cliff, in places where George Washington and his troops would pass by, and where the soldiers would pick up the yarns and discover the warnings written in the notes, which would serve as caution and intelligence of the secret plans of the British troops.

It has been said that Molly Rinker died in 1814 (or 1815) by accidentally falling off the same mountain cliff which she had dropped her notes 30 years earlier during the American Revolutionary War.

Here on May 15, 1847, the evening of a new moon, the American novelist, journalist, playwright, social activist, and labour organizer George Lippard was married to his frail young wife. Years afterward in 1883, a statue dedicated to Toleration was erected, a marble statue of a man in simple Quaker clothing; the nine-foot eight-inch statue has but the single word “Toleration” carved into its four-foot three-inch base. The statue was created by late 19th-century sculptor Herman Kirn, and brought to the site by landowner John Welsh, reported to have purchased the statue at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Welsh, a former Fairmount Park Commissioner and U.S. Ambassador to Britain, donated his land to the Park prior to his death in 1886.

Genealogy

Molly Rinker (died on 22 May 1814 or 1815) was said to be the daughter of a landowner named Jacob Rincker (or Rinker; died 1775) said to be a member of the known German-born Rincker family, and of the Lutheran Protestant faith, owned around 46 acres of land near Philadelphia, PA, by 1734, and died around 1775. The Rincker family immigrated in two waves to the colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, with the second wave arriving in Philadelphia in 1750, before ultimately settling in Virginia. Molly Rinker is also said to have two sisters named Susanna Rinker and Mary Rinker. Molly's sister Susanna Rinker, who died on 13 September 1807 in Philadelphia, PA, was the wife of an American Quaker of English descent named William Holgate (born 1725; died on 15 December 1815 in Philadelphia, PA) and mother of the American politician Jacob Holgate (1767–1832), who was the husband of Elizabeth Holgate (née Sheitz or Shutz, Jr.), who was the daughter of Jacob Sheitz or Shutz and his wife Elizabeth, Sr., and Molly's other sister Mary Rinker was the wife of a certain Mr. Keyser.

External links

1871 map of Fairmount and Wissahickon Park locating Mom Rickle's Rock1876 map of Fairmount and Wissahickon Park locating Mom Rinkle's Rockphotos of the statue Toleration atop Mom Rinker's Rock

References

{{coord, 40.034006, -75.199099, type:landmark, display=title

Wissahickon Valley Park
Scenic viewpoints in the United States