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Newspaper clipping –Origin of the street name "Castor Avenue" in Northeast Philadelphia
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PHILADELPHIA,
Answers To Queries How did Castor av. get Its
name?(F. F.) Historic Castor av., in the Frankford-Castor sec-tion, is named for John George Castor (Or Gerster), who Was born In Basel, Switzerland, In 1710 and emigrated to Philadel-phia in 1736. He moved to Ger-' mantown in 1746 and In 1762 pur-chased 202 acres in Oxford Town-ship (35th ward), leaving eight children. Third sons of third sons dating from "the immigrant" and covering six generations are Jacob, an aide to Lafayette in the Revolution; John; Thomas, an In-ventor of the horse car; Ellwood, a carriage-maker and Horace W. Castor, architect. Horace Castor, who was horn In 1870 and design-ed many local structures, is still active and recalls tales told him as a boy In the Jolly Post Tavern of the reception to General Lafay-ette there. Other members of the family were General George Cas-tor, who p u r a h a s e d "Tacony Farm," a Colonial house still standing near Frankford Arsenal and George Albert Castor (1855-108), a Congressman from Phila-delphia. According to Omar Shall-cross, of the Frankford Historical Society, the original Castor Road was cut through the farm of John George Castor from Cheltenham av. and Oxford pike to Bell's Cor-ner and It later became Castor av.