Background
Newkirk was born May 31, 1794, the eighth of nine children, in Pittsgrove, New Jersey.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Matthew Newkirk
Edit Profilebanker director leader railroad executive
Career
He was a director of the United States Bank, but he was best known as the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B), which in 1838 opened the first direct railroad link between Philadelphia and Baltimore, Maryland. He was also for many years the president of the Pennsylvania Temperance Society. At 16, he moved to Philadelphia to live with and work for Joseph and Collin Cooper, dry goods merchants.
He volunteered for military service in the War of 1812 and left the service as a corporal.
In 1835, he bought 3,000 shares in the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad. The same year, Newkirk built a mansion at 13th and Architecture Streets in downtown Philadelphia.
Designed by Thomas Ustick Walter, it was built of marble and featured a fresco by Italian artist Nicola Monachesi. In 1876, the building was sold to the Society of the Sons of Saint George, which renamed it "Saint George"s Hall" and used it as their headquarters.
lieutenant was torn down in 1903.
The front colonnade survives at the Princeton Battlefield State Park in New Jersey. Newkirk spent much of the 1830s leading efforts to raise money for and then build a rail line from Philadelphia south to the cities of Wilmington, Delaware, and Baltimore. In 1838, the PW&B began direct rail service between the cities, broken only by a ferry across the Susquehanna River.
The right-of-way pioneered by the PW&B is still in use today by National Railroad Passenger Corporation"s Northeast Corridor.
Achievements
Membership
Member Washington Guards to protect Philadelphia from threats of English fleet, 1815-1816.
Connections
Married second, Margaret Heberton, July 1821.
