Bachelors Barge Club is an amateur rowing

Rowing (sport)

Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

 club located at #6 Boathouse Row in the historic Boathouse Row

Boathouse Row

-Early 19th century beginnings:The history of Boathouse Row begins with the construction of the Fairmount Dam and the adjacent Water Works. The Dam was built in 1810 as part of a lock at the Falls of the Schuylkill to bring coal downriver. The Dam submerged rapids and transformed the Schuylkill...

 of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

. 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

Light-emitting diode

A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...

 were fitted to each of the boathouses. Bachelors Barge Club is currently home to several programs, including the Lower Merion High School

Lower Merion High School

Lower Merion High School, is an American public high school in Ardmore, a community on the Pennsylvania Main Line.It is the larger of the two high schools in Lower Merion School District, which serves both Lower Merion Township and the Borough of Narberth. It was ranked among the top 60 U.S. high...

 Crew Team, the Harriton High School

Harriton High School

Harriton High School is a public secondary school located in Rosemont, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania.Harriton is one of two high schools in Lower Merion School District; the other is Lower Merion High School. It used to be a comparatively small high school, containing 889...

 Crew Team, the Conestoga High School Crew Team, and the Drexel University

Drexel University

Drexel University is a private research university with the main campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a noted financier and philanthropist. Drexel offers 70 full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated degrees...

 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

Berwind Corporation

Berwind Corporation is a large privately held American corporation historically involved in the coal industry....

 (coal), William Weightman

William Weightman

William Weightman I was a chemical manufacturer and one of the largest landowners in the United States.-Biography:...

 (chemicals), Maxwell Wyeth

Wyeth

Wyeth, formerly one of the companies owned by American Home Products Corporation , was a pharmaceutical company. The company was based in Madison, New Jersey, USA...

 (pharmaceuticals), Charles E. Mather (insurance), W. Atlee Burpee

W. Atlee Burpee

Washington Atlee Burpee was the founder of the W. Atlee Burpee & Company, now more commonly known as Burpee Seeds...

 (seeds and plants), Clarkson Clothier

Robert Clarkson Clothier

Robert Clarkson Clothier was the fourteenth President of Rutgers University serving from 1932 to 1951.-Biography:...

 (retailing) and J. B. Lippincott (publishing).

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. More recently, 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 boathouse in succession before 1860, when it built a stone building.
In 1884, architects Edward Harlehurst and Samuel Huckel, Jr. designed the Club's social up-river house in East Falls, 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

Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church

The Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1794 by Richard Allen, an African-American Methodist minister. The church has been located at the corner of Sixth and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since that time, making it the oldest church property continuously...

.

In 1893, the Fairmount Park

Fairmount Park

Fairmount Park is the municipal park system of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It consists of 63 parks, with , all overseen by the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, successor to the Fairmount Park Commission in 2010.-Fairmount Park proper:...

 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

-Early 19th century beginnings:The history of Boathouse Row begins with the construction of the Fairmount Dam and the adjacent Water Works. The Dam was built in 1810 as part of a lock at the Falls of the Schuylkill to bring coal downriver. The Dam submerged rapids and transformed the Schuylkill...

, 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 at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

. All other University of Pennsylvania crews row out of College Boat Club

College Boat Club

College Boat Club of the University of Pennsylvania is the rowing program for University of Pennsylvania Rowing, located at #11 Boathouse Row in the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its membership consists entirely of past and present rowers of the University of Pennsylvania...

. Wharton Crew is one of the largest graduate and professional student athletic clubs at Penn. The program owns two Vespoli

Vespoli

Vespoli USA is a manufacturer of racing shells for rowing. It was founded by former Georgetown University rower, Olympian, and World Rowing Champion Mike Vespoli in 1980. It is located on the Quinnipiac River in New Haven, Connecticut, United States.-History:...

 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

Ergometer

Ergometer may refer to:*Exercise machine, equipped with an apparatus for measuring the work performed by exercising*Indoor rower, called an ergometer by rowers* An instrument for measuring the amount of work done by human muscles...

.

External links

• Bachelors Barge Club on wikimapia.org