Buried in the 1850s, Cohocksink Creek once formed the boundary between Northern Liberties and Kensington. The stream emptied into the Delaware at Brown Street. Its name, an Indian term with various English spellings, meant “pine lands.”
Cohocksink became a line of defense for the British during the Revolutionary War. Planting artillery on the Northern Liberties side, the British dammed the stream to create a broad marshland, a barrier to attacks from the north.
Sources
Jackson, Joseph. Encyclopedia of Philadelphia, 1931.
Historian Kenneth Milano
Remer, Rich “Old Kensington.” Historical Society of Pennsylvania, http://www.hsp.org/
PlanPhilly: Planning Philadelphia's Future