The Northern Liberties Neighborhood: Henry Disston's Start in America

Henry Disston arrived in Philadelphia in 1833 after a two month crossing from England with his father and sister.  As noted in the previous article, Thomas Disston died three days later, leaving the teenagers orphaned and in what would seem a difficult position.  The Disstons were not hopeless, though.  They were staying with acquaintances the Disston parents knew from England, the William Quantrells, who owned a grocery store at 124 N. 3rd Street in the Northern Liberties section of the city.  The Quantrells helped find Henry employment as a saw maker's apprentice with William and Charles Johnson, where he stayed for the next seven years.  Marianna Disston would live with the Quantrells until she was married. 

After having traveled so far, Henry Disston was to stay in a remarkably narrow sphere for the next 14 years of his life.

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A New Arrival: Henry Disston Lands in America

Henry Disston's arrival in the United States has been portrayed as if it were the starting point of a Horatio Alger story.  Therefore it seems fitting to use it as a juncture from which to begin a blog that looks into topics related to the Disston and Sons company, but are not widely known. 

By 1919, the centennial of Henry Disston's birth, only one of Disston's sons, Jacob, was alive.  He had never worked for his father, being only 15 years old and a student when Henry died in 1878.  The generation of men who worked directly under the Disston and Sons founder had long been dying off, so it became the project of one of his grandsons, a nephew, and a cousin to assemble a family history, which was published as a typed manuscript in 1920.
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