text: seven walking tours through historic philadelphia

"Rip Van Winkle"

Directly opposite on the southwest corner of 6th and Spruce Street is the birthplace of Joseph Jefferson (1829-1905), the American actor who made Rip Van Winkle famous. Jefferson, always loyal to the city of his birth, played a week's engagement every theatrical season either at Mrs. John Drew's Arch Street Theatre, razed in the 1930s, or at the Walnut Street Theatre, which still stands. Jefferson was the fourth member of that theatrical family to bear the name, and his daughter Margaret, friend and confidante of Asia Booth, was entrusted with the Booth family papers about Lincoln's assassination. Jefferson's granddaughter was Eleanor Farjeon, the playwright and well-known author of children's books.



Washington Square and West