Dyottville Glass Works unearthed in PennDOT dig

As PlanPhilly’s Kellie Patrick Gates reports, archeologists working with PennDOT have discovered ovens and foundations from the Dyottville Glass Works, an important early industrial settlement and manufacturing hub along the Delaware riverfront in Fishtown.

Dyottville was an early company town founded on utopian ideals by Thomas Dyott, a self-proclaimed doctor and entrepreneur. Along with his glass works, Dyott built worker housing and facilities to support the settlement, including a school, chapel, hospital, shops, and a farm. Dyott’s utopian experiment was confined to the 1830s, but it remains a historically significant chapter in Philadelphia’s waterfront history.

URS Archeologist Doug Mooney explains the site’s industrial history in the video above, from John Hewson’s calico factory, through Dyottville, and subsequent glass works that remained on site until the 1890s. Glass production began in this area of Fishtown in the 1770s and continued until the 1890s. Archeologists have found remains from every era of the site’s industrial history.

“The site is extraordinarily well preserved,” Mooney told PlanPhilly, but not for long. Crews are continuing to dig, document, and catalogue the site’s contents for PennDOT as part of I-95’s reconstruction in this area.