New Philadelphia Town Site - Pike County, IL
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 39° 41.886 W 090° 57.682
15S E 674787 N 4396236
First town founded and legally platted by a black man, Frank McWorter.
Waymark Code: WMK5EK
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 02/16/2014
Views: 2
County of site: Pike County
Location of site: County Rd. 2, New Philadelphia, 4 miles E. of Barry
Marker erected by: The New Philadelphia Association & Department of the Interior
Text of Marker & Plaque on Site:
SITE OF NEW PHILADELPHIA
September 16, 1836 - 1885
The town consisted of 144 lots laid out by a black man FREE FRANK MCWORTER. In 1819 he bought his freedom from slavery, and eventually freedom for 16 family members for $14,000. He was the first settler (1829) in Hadley Township. Free Frank was born in 1777 in South Carolina and died September 12, 1854. He is buried in the New Philadelphia cemetery ¼ mile southeast of this sign.
The Town Site
NEW PHILADELPHIA
founded
1836
by
FREE FRANK McWORTER
is listed in the
NATIONAL REGISTER
OF HISTORIC PLACES.
Some Additional History:
"The story of Frank McWorter and New Philadelphia is one of daring and hard work, luck, and shrewd family leadership.
"Born a slave in South Carolina in 1777, Frank McWorter moved to Kentucky with his owner in 1795. He married Lucy, a slave from a nearby farm, in 1799. Later allowed to hire out his own time, McWorter engaged in a number of enterprises, notably a saltpeter works, that enabled him to buy his wife’s freedom in 1817 and his own in 1819.
"Frank and Lucy McWorter and four of their children left Kentucky for Illinois in 1830, the year the Thomas Lincoln family, with son Abraham, came to Illinois from Indiana. McWorter bought a farm in Pike County’s Hadley Township and platted the town of New Philadelphia in 1836. Excellent information on maps, surveys, and land records of New Philadelphia is available at Historical Landscapes of New Philadelphia. McWorter promoted New Philadelphia strenuously, and engaged in other enterprises, managing to buy the freedom of at least sixteen family members. The town itself became a racially integrated community long before the Civil War, the 1850 and subsequent U.S. Census data showing black and white families living there. (See New Philadelphia Census Data) Frank McWorter died at New Philadelphia in 1854. A son, Solomon, assumed family leadership. Bypassed by the railroad in 1869, the townspeople slowly dispersed from the scene from the late 1880s. Today, the town site is an open field. New Philadelphia Map with Deed Information shows the town lots and streets of Philadelphia." ~ New Philadelphia, Illinois