Port Kennedy was an industrial village located where U.S. Route 422 (Pottstown Expressway) now crosses the

Schuylkill River The Schuylkill River ( , ) is a river in eastern Pennsylvania. It flows for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map(). accessed April 1, 2011. from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Pottsville ...

in Upper Merion Township,

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Montgomery County, colloquially referred to as Montco, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population of the county was 856,553, making it the third-most populous county in Pennsylvania after Philadel ...

, United States.

History and notable features

Built along the

Schuylkill Canal The Schuylkill Canal, or Schuylkill Navigation, was a system of interconnected canals and slack-water pools along the Schuylkill River in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, built as a commercial waterway in the early 19th-century. Chartered in 1815 ...

and, after 1838, the

Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and freight transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states from 1924 until its acquisition by Conrail in 1976. Commonly called the Reading Railr ...

, this village was a center for the lime industry during the nineteenth century. It was named for Alexander Kennedy, the owner of the quarries and kilns. Beginning in 1871, a number of important fossils were unearthed at Port Kennedy. The location of the find was forgotten until 2006, when the Port Kennedy Bone Cave was rediscovered. In 1919, the

State of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West V ...

seized the land of the village through eminent domain to expand the growing Valley Forge State Park. Planning for U.S. Route 422 between

U.S. Route 202 U.S. Route 202 (US 202) is a spur route of U.S. Route 2, US 2. It follows a northeasterly and southwesterly direction stretching from Delaware in the south to Maine in the north and traveling through the states of Pennsylvania, N ...

and Trooper Road began in 1964. Most of the village was demolished for construction of the superhighway and the Betzwood Bridge, which opened to traffic in 1967. Today, U.S. Route 422 separates the First Presbyterian Church of Port Kennedy (1845) from the Kennedy Mansion (1852). They, along with the Reading Railroad station and one house, are the only surviving buildings from the village.

References

*Edward Drinker Cope, ''The Fossil Vertebrata From The Fissure At Port Kennedy, Pennsylvania'' (1895
from Google BooksPottstown Expressway Historic Overview
{{authority control Former populated places in Pennsylvania Geography of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Upper Merion Township, Pennsylvania