Philadelphia Police Badges

The Detective Department, as a distinctive branch of the Philadelphia Police system,
was organized, October 28, 1859. SKU7797

Philadelphia Bureau of Police Sergeant Foot Patrol. SKU2502

Back of Sergeant Foot Patrol showing hallmark of
Wm. Davey & Son Phila.

14k gold presentation badge, Captain of Detectives, Bureau of Police Philadelphia. SKU5602

Back of badge showing presentation: Presented to
Captain Harry D. Heanley
By the Commanding Officers
Of the 2nd Division
June 7th, 1930.

Adams Express Co. Special Officer Philad’a badge. Made by Wm Davis & Son Philadelphia. #35 stamped on the reverse. SKU1302

Philadelphia Police Sergeant.

First District Sergeant of Police Presentation badge made of silver and presented to Sergeant Peter McKeever by his American Friends, 1st Disct. Police Department Philadelphia August 11, 1858. The badge features an American Eagle surmounted across two American Flags with stars engraved on the left and right side. The six points are hand engraved. Click for more articles and photos.

Philadelphia Police Board Member 1852 presentation badge. Sterling silver.

Kensington District, Pennsylvania - Wikipedia

Back of badge showing presentation:
Jno. P. Verree
of Kensington
Member of Bd. of Police
Nov. 12, 1852

John P. Verree
was the President of the Kensington Board of Trustees
1852-1854

Philadelphia Police Board Member 1852 presentation badge. Sterling silver.
Click for more photos and info.

Spring Garden Night Watch shield No. 11

Spring Garden, Philadelphia - Wikipedia

The neighborhood name is quite old, going back many decades before Philadelphia's Act of Consolidation, when the area was part of the Spring Garden District of Philadelphia County, not yet part of the city. Finkel^[6] gives 1808 as the year it first appears in the written sources that he and his contributors consulted. The Philadelphia Information Locator Service list^[7] (augmented from the Finkel 1995 list), while repeating Finkel's definition of the neighborhood's boundaries, gives 1813 as the earliest year of use.

The Act of Consolidation,
more formally known as the act of February 2, 1854 (P.L. 21, No. 16), is legislation of the Pennsylvania General Assembly that created the consolidated City and County of Philadelphia, expanding the city's territory to the entirety of Philadelphia County and dissolving the other municipal authorities in the county.

Districts, townships, and boroughs consolidated into Philadelphia

The following is a list of municipal authorities which were consolidated into the modern City and County of Philadelphia.^[8]

West Philadelphia Passenger Rail Way Co. operated 1857 to 1884. It was 29.5 miles long. In 1884 it became the Philadelphia Traction Co. It was a trolley line. SKU4602

Philadelphia Pre-Consolidation badges.

Southwark Emergency Police badge, circa 1850. These were issued to the Night Watch Police whose job included, fire watch, crime watch and also garden watch as most people had a garden they did not want raided in the night.

Southwark is one of the oldest English settlements in the County of Philadelphia. It is actually the oldest district founded by settlers in Philadelphia, as a result of its inclusion in the former Swedish colony of New Sweden. Southwark was originally a tract of ground on the fast land of the Neck, lying between Passyunk and Wicaco. Due to the populations of the Swedish settlements of Wicaco and Moyamensing, Southwark grew earlier than other parts of the county apart from the city of Philadelphia.^[4]

The General Assembly created the district of Southwark on May 14, 1762, to facilitate cooperation with regard to street-building. As early as 1838, the district had its own police force.^[5] Southwark was the location of the shipbuilding complex of Joshua Humphreys, the shipbuilder and naval architect who built the first six ships of the United States Navy and is known as the "Father of the U.S. Navy".^[6]

In 1854, when it was incorporated into the city of Philadelphia by the Act of Consolidation, the borough comprised the area bounded on the north by South Street, on the west by Passyunk Avenue from 5th and South to 10th and Reed; the boundary then ran along Reed Street down 7th, and along Mifflin Street to the river.^[2]

Kensington District, or The Kensington District of the Northern Liberties, was one of the twenty-nine municipalities that formed Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, United States prior to the enactment of the Act of Consolidation, 1854, when it became incorporated into the newly expanded City of Philadelphia.

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