Today, Hockley Lane is largely a name from Reading's past, but its story reaches back to the years before the city itself was founded. What later generations knew as Hockley Lane was not simply one street. The name was applied to old roads and lanes whose routes, names and surroundings changed as Reading expanded northward and westward.

The story begins with Richard Hockley, a Philadelphia merchant closely connected with the Penn family, and with a large tract of land along the Schuylkill River. For a brief but important period in the 1740s, this land was seriously considered as the site of the future town of Reading.

Although the town was ultimately established farther south, the Hockley property remained an important part of Reading's early landscape. Its old property lines and roads survived into the growing city, eventually becoming part of neighborhoods such as Ricktown and the Sixth Ward.

Richard Hockley and the Land North of Reading

The early land records surrounding Reading show that Richard Hockley's property was one of several large tracts surveyed along and near the Schuylkill River before the town of Reading was laid out.

The historical grant reference identifies Richard Hockley's tract as 1,150 acres, surveyed February 19, 1733. It also identifies several neighboring or nearby properties that became important to the story of Reading's founding.

EARLY LAND GRANTS

The description accompanying the map gives an especially useful clue to the enormous size and location of Hockley's property. It states that the 1,150-acre tract adjoined the Schuylkill River and extended from a line later occupied by Hockley and Woodward streets to a line beyond the Charles Evans Cemetery that was known for many years as Hiester's Lane.

This places Hockley's property across a substantial portion of what would later become northern Reading. The tract was not merely a small parcel beside the future town. It was a major piece of the landscape bordering the Schuylkill and extending well beyond the limits of Reading's original street grid.

Richard Hockley was also more than an absentee landowner whose name happened to survive on a map. Historical accounts describe him as a merchant, a personal friend of the Penn family, and an associate of his brother-in-law, Lynford Lardner, in connection with Windsor Forges.

His relationship with the Penns placed him within the network of men involved in Pennsylvania's proprietary land business. Hockley worked closely with Richard Peters, another important Penn agent, and both men became involved in the negotiations that eventually determined where Reading would be established.

Reading Almost Began on Hockley's Land

Before Reading existed, the Schuylkill River crossing in this area already made the region important.

The old Tulpehocken Road approached a ford near the river, while other early roads converged nearby. Travelers, settlers, traders and surveyors were already passing through the area long before Reading's familiar street grid appeared.

This made control of the land surrounding the crossing particularly valuable.

One possible location for the proposed town involved property associated with Thomas Lawrence and the Finney family near the existing ford. Another possibility was Hockley's land farther north.

1743

The Hockley alternative became much more than a casual suggestion.

In September 1743, Francis Parvin reported that he and Samuel Lightfoot had searched for a ford into Richard Hockley's land and found one better than expected. Nicholas Scull subsequently surveyed lots on the Hockley-Asheton tract, and plans were prepared for a new crossing of the Schuylkill.

For a time, therefore, the northern property was a genuine alternative location for Reading.

The question was ultimately settled through the acquisition of the Lawrence property.

On December 6, 1745, Richard Peters and Richard Hockley reported that they had purchased what they called "the Widow Finney's Plantation" for the Proprietaries for £460. The property eventually passed to Thomas and Richard Penn, and Reading was laid out there.

Had those negotiations ended differently, the geographical center of Reading might have developed considerably farther north.

From a Proposed Town to the Hockley Out-Lots

Although Hockley's land was not chosen for the town center, it did not disappear from Reading's development.

The early land record specifically identifies a portion of Hockley's original 1,150-acre tract as the land upon which lots were later laid out and called the Hockley Out-Lots. On the historical reference this area is identified as Tract 6, while Hockley's original 1,150-acre property is Tract 1.

The Hockley Out-Lots therefore grew directly from the much larger tract Richard Hockley had surveyed in 1733.

These larger parcels provided land outside the compact town plan. In May 1750, Richard Peters reported that Hockley was offering four-acre out-lots for an annual rent of five shillings. Such parcels gave Reading residents room to keep cows and horses and provided space for activities that were difficult to accommodate within the small town lots.

Conrad Weiser was reportedly among those who acquired property there.

The arrangement illustrates how small Reading still was during its earliest years. The town consisted of a formal street grid surrounded by larger lots, farms, pastures, roads and undeveloped land.

Nicholas Scull's 1748 Reading plan contained 520 town lots and 204 out-lots. Beyond the original grid, however, property lines frequently followed much older boundaries. Those older lines did not necessarily agree with Reading's neatly surveyed north-south and east-west streets.

That difference helps explain some of the unusual angled streets and property lines that later appeared as Reading expanded.

Hockley Lane was part of that older landscape.

First Hockley Lane

Historical evidence indicates that First Hockley Lane followed a route associated with today's West Elm and Woodward streets.

An 1877 Reading street directory provides an unusually detailed description. It says First Hockley Lane began at North River, just north of Jefferson Street, and ran northeastward. The road was called Woodward as it approached the railroad.

The section between North River and North Front Street was also known as Hockley Alley.

As Reading expanded, the old lane passed through an increasingly complicated network of streets. The 1877 directory associates its route with Tulpehocken, Kissinger, North Front, North Second, North Third, Buttonwood, North Fourth, Church, North Eighth, Cedar, North Ninth, Moss, North Tenth, Mulberry, North Eleventh, Centre, North Twelfth and Lombard Avenue.

Later recollections also associated the Hockley Lane name with the Eighth and Greenwich Street area.

Rather than disappearing at one moment, the old road appears to have been absorbed piece by piece into Reading's expanding street system.

Second Hockley Lane

The identity of Second Hockley Lane is more complicated.

An 1877 street directory identifies Second Hockley Lane as West Buttonwood Street, beginning at North River and running northeast as the first street north of First Hockley Lane. A later history of Reading's Sixth Ward likewise identifies Second Hockley Lane with West Buttonwood near River Road.

Other historical material, however, associates Second Hockley Lane with West Greenwich Street.

The discrepancy may result from different sections of the old road receiving different names, changes in alignment as the city developed, or later historians applying the Hockley name differently.

The surviving evidence does not fully resolve the conflict. The important point is that the name Hockley Lane survived long after Reading's original development and could refer to different portions of an older network of roads.

Explore Reading's Past

See Hockley Lane on the 1876 Map

GoReadingBerks has overlaid an 1876 map of Reading onto the modern city. Compare the nineteenth-century streets with today's Reading and trace the Hockley Lane area across the changing city landscape.

Explore the Interactive 1876 Map → Interactive historical map • GoReadingBerks.com

Ricktown Emerges

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the area around the old Hockley lanes was changing dramatically.

A working-class neighborhood known as Ricktown developed near the river.

The name is associated with Charles Rick Sr., a merchant and real-estate investor who came to Reading in 1841. In 1847, Rick laid out lots west of Schuylkill Avenue and south of Jefferson Street. He also acquired Washington Garden and subdivided additional property during the early 1850s.

The neighborhood initially developed as a relatively isolated community near the Schuylkill. Canal workers and boat builders were among its early residents. As Reading expanded, the name Ricktown came to describe a larger section of the Sixth Ward.

Canal, Railroad and Industry Transform the Area

Transportation helped turn the former out-lot country into an industrial neighborhood.

The Schuylkill Canal had been completed in 1825, providing an important transportation corridor through Reading. Railroads soon followed.

The Philadelphia & Reading Railroad reached Pottstown in 1837, Philadelphia in 1839, and provided a through connection between Pottsville and Philadelphia by 1841.

Construction of the Lebanon Valley Railroad began in 1853, with trains operating by 1858.

By the second half of the nineteenth century, railroads, factories, houses, brickyards and other industrial activity were transforming the land surrounding the old Hockley lanes.

The Brickyards of Hockley Lane

Brickmaking became particularly important.

The high ground near First Hockley Lane contained substantial clay deposits. By 1873, more than half of Reading's brick production reportedly came from an area bounded by First Hockley Lane, the Lebanon Valley Railroad, Third Street and the Schuylkill River.

Several brickmakers operated in the area. Daniel Shenfelder had kilns near McKnight and West Elm streets, and his operations eventually extended north toward West Buttonwood.

The Shenfelder family was also associated with a pottery on the east side of Schuylkill Avenue near Buttonwood Street.

A 1903 account described S. B. Shenfelder as proprietor and Daniel P. Shenfelder as manager and builder. During prosperous years, the pottery employed approximately twelve to fifteen people and produced both earthenware and stoneware.

The old Hockley landscape had evolved from pasture and out-lots into one of Reading's working industrial districts.

The Hockley Lane Schoolhouse

One of the most tangible reminders of the old neighborhood was the Hockley Lane Schoolhouse, also remembered under several other names, including the Ricktown Building, Schuylkill Avenue and West Elm School, and the West Elm Building.

HOCKLEY LANE SCHOOL

The original school was erected in 1868 as a two-room building.

As Ricktown and the surrounding Sixth Ward grew, however, the small neighborhood school could no longer accommodate the number of children living nearby.

In May 1888, Reading School Board minutes recorded plans for a new six-room addition attached to the old schoolhouse at the east end of the lot.

The enlarged Hockley Lane School opened on November 10, 1888.

It now contained eight rooms and approximately 300 pupils, a remarkable increase from the modest two-room neighborhood school constructed just twenty years earlier.

By 1923, the School Was Showing Its Age

A 1923 survey of Reading's school buildings found the old Ricktown school badly deficient by the educational and safety standards of the period.

The survey considered the building obsolete for elementary-school classes and questioned whether its enrollment justified continuing to use it as a school.

Among the problems cited were cross-lighting and improperly situated windows, conditions that could make classroom lighting difficult for students.

The building also lacked proper cloakrooms, while posts within the classrooms created obstructions.

Its interior reflected an earlier generation of school construction. Dark wood wainscoting contributed to poorly illuminated rooms, while the building's narrow wooden hallways and stairways were considered a safety hazard.

The 1923 assessment shows just how much school design had changed since the little two-room Hockley Lane School had opened in 1868.

Despite being regarded as obsolete, the building remained in school use until approximately 1936. Afterward, it was adapted for a variety of community purposes.

During the 1950s it served for a time as a bingo hall.

In the late 1950s, the former schoolhouse became Union Baptist Church, continuing the building's long association with the surrounding community even after its days as a neighborhood school had ended.

Hockley Lane Disappears—but Its Footprint Remains

As Reading expanded during the nineteenth century, the old Hockley roads increasingly collided with the city's regular street grid.

Some portions were renamed. Others were incorporated into new streets or altered as land was subdivided.

The 1868 city plan still reflected some of the older property geometry west of what was then Kissinger Street, today's Schuylkill Avenue. Ricktown developed within this irregular landscape, bounded in part by Schuylkill Avenue, First Hockley Lane/West Elm and the canal.

What had begun as land outside Reading became part of the city.

Pastures became building lots. Old roads became city streets. The Schuylkill Canal and railroads brought industry. Brickyards consumed the area's clay. Workers' houses filled Ricktown. And a little two-room schoolhouse built in 1868 eventually held hundreds of neighborhood children.

A Road into Reading's Earliest History

Hockley Lane is easy to overlook because there is no single modern street carrying the old name from one end of Reading to the other. But that is precisely what makes its history important.

The lane belongs to a landscape that existed before Reading's modern street system.

Its story reaches back to Richard Hockley's 1,150-acre tract, surveyed in 1733, and to a time when the future location of Reading itself had not yet been settled. For a short period, Hockley's land was considered as an alternative site for the new town.

When Reading was established elsewhere, part of Hockley's original tract became the Hockley Out-Lots, while the old property boundaries and roads continued to influence the landscape surrounding the young town.

Over the next century, those same lands were transformed again.

Hockley's out-lots became roads, houses, brickyards, factories and working-class neighborhoods. Ricktown emerged beside the river. Railroads crossed the landscape. Hundreds of children attended the Hockley Lane Schoolhouse. And as Reading expanded, the old lanes were gradually absorbed into streets such as West Elm, Woodward, Buttonwood and possibly Greenwich.

The name largely disappeared from the modern map, but the landscape did not.

Even today, some of Reading's unusual street angles and property alignments preserve traces of a much older geography—a geography created before the Penns finally decided where their new town would stand.

In that sense, Hockley Lane is more than the story of a vanished road. It is the story of the Reading that almost was—and of the old landscape that remained after the city grew around it.

Then & Now

Explore Hockley Lane for Yourself

Compare Reading in 1876 with the city today. Use the GoReadingBerks interactive historical map to trace Hockley Lane, Ricktown and the changing landscape described in this article.

Open the 1876 Map Overlay → 1876 Reading map overlaid with the present-day city