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Bachelors Barge Club is an amateur
rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically a ...
club located at #6 Boathouse Row in the historic
Boathouse Row Boathouse Row is a historic site which is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the east bank of the Schuylkill River just north of the Fairmount Water Works and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It consists of a row of fifteen boathouses housi ...
of
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
. It is the oldest continuously operating boathouse in the United States. It went through renovations as part of the "Light Boathouse Row" initiative, in which new
LED lights An LED lamp or LED light is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps and fluorescent lamps. The most efficient commercial ...
were fitted to each of the boathouses. Bachelors Barge Club is currently home to several programs, including the
Conestoga High School Conestoga High School, located in Tredyffrin Township, Pennsylvania, is the only upper secondary school in the Tredyffrin/Easttown School District. It has a Berwyn post office address, though it is not in the Berwyn census-designated place. ...
Crew Team, and the
Drexel University Drexel University is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony Joseph Drexel, Anthony J. Drexel, a financier ...
Crew Team, among several others.


Founding

The founding fathers of Bachelors Barge Club were members of the Phoenix Engine Company, a volunteer fire-fighting organization. Initially, membership was limited to bachelors, however the Club opened its doors to married men shortly after its founding. Membership at the club has risen considerably since the early 1980s when the Club counted only 10 members. Now, the majority of Bachelors Barge Club's 150 members are women. Israel W. Morris, a prominent iron merchant and philanthropist, is credited with founding the club. He was also elected as its second president. Other prominent Old Philadelphian 19th century industrialist members include Charles F. Berwind (coal), William Weightman (chemicals), Maxwell Wyeth (pharmaceuticals), Charles E. Mather (insurance), W. Atlee Burpee (seeds and plants), Clarkson Clothier (retailing) and J. B. Lippincott (publishing). William Gilmore and other members of Bachelors Barge Club won Olympic medals for the single and the four in 1924, the single in 1928, and the double in the 1932. In 1995, Barb Spitz and Izzie (Gordon) Brown won the silver medal in the Woman's lightweight Double event at the Pan AM Games in Argentina. Also in 1995, the team, coached by Harold Finigan, won the Point Trophy at the Canadian Henley Regatta—winning every sculling event in the Intermediate and Senior Women's categories. The next year, the athletes went on to win gold at the World Championships in Strathclyde. In 1996, Ty Bennin and Andy McMarlin won US Olympic Team Trials in the Men's 2x. Coached by Harold FInigan In 1999, the club fielded a girls junior quad that qualified to row at the Junior WOrld Championships in Plovdid, Bulgaria. Cody Lowry was named to the 2009 US National Team to row in the Lightweight Men's Single Sculls.


The Boathouse

Bachelors Barge Club occupied several boathouses in succession before 1860, when it built a stone building. In 1884, architects Edward Hazelhurst and Samuel Huckel, Jr. designed the club's social up-river house in
East Falls East Falls (also The Falls, formerly the Falls of Schuylkill) is a neighborhood in Lower Northwest, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It lies on the east bank of the "Falls of the Schuylkill," cataracts submerged in 1822 by the Schu ...
, the Bachelor's Button. The two architects had teamed up in 1881, and maintained a 20-year partnership that produced residential and ecclesiastical architecture including the Union Methodist Church and the Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church. In 1893, the
Fairmount Park Fairmount Park is the largest municipal park in Philadelphia and the historic name for a group of parks located throughout the city. Fairmount Park consists of two park sections named East Park and West Park, divided by the Schuylkill River, w ...
Commission allowed the club to replace its 1860 building. In 1894, construction was finished on the Mediterranean-style boathouse at #6
Boathouse Row Boathouse Row is a historic site which is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the east bank of the Schuylkill River just north of the Fairmount Water Works and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It consists of a row of fifteen boathouses housi ...
, which was also designed by the Harlehurst and Huckel team. Huckel became a member of Bachelors after designing its boathouse. Today, the building remains relatively unchanged.


Wharton Crew

The several organizations that row out of Bachelors include the Wharton Crew Team, which is the rowing team for
Wharton Business School The Wharton School ( ) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia. Established in 1881 through a donation from Joseph Wharton, a co-founder of Bethlehem Steel, the Wharton ...
at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
. All other University of Pennsylvania crews row out of
College Boat Club The College Boat Club of the University of Pennsylvania is the rowing program for University of Pennsylvania Rowing, which is located in the Burk-Bergman Boathouse at #11 Boathouse Row on the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia, Pennsylvani ...
. Wharton Crew is one of the largest graduate and professional student athletic clubs at Penn. The program owns two
Vespoli Vespoli USA is a manufacturer of rowing shells. It was founded by former Georgetown University rower and Olympian Mike Vespoli in 1980. History The company’s origins date back to the late 1970s when Mike Vespoli was the freshman rowing co ...
eight shells –– the Wharton Journal and the Russell Palmer. In 1997, team member and co-captain, John Hall, broke the world record in the master's lightweight 2000 meter ergometer.


References


Further reading

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External links

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Bachelors Barge Club
on wikimapia.org {{coord, 39.96978, -75.18527, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-PA, display=title Buildings and structures in Philadelphia Buildings and structures completed in 1894 Mediterranean Revival architecture in Pennsylvania Boathouse Row Philadelphia Register of Historic Places Schuylkill Navy Sports clubs and teams established in 1853 1853 establishments in Pennsylvania History of Philadelphia Historic district contributing properties in Pennsylvania Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Boathouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania