The name Kingsessing, also spelled Chinsessing, comes from a Delaware word meaning "a place where there is a meadow". The historic Lenape, or Delaware as the English called them, had a village of the same name that roughly occupied the same site as where the current neighborhood was later developed. When the township was organized to encompass where the Lenape and a later Swedish village stood, it also was named as Kingsessing.
Bartram's Garden, started by colonial botanist John Bartram in 1728, is still operated in this neighborhood. It had an international reputation and is considered the first true botanical garden in the United States.[3] It has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
^"Peter Stebbins Craig, "Hans Månsson and his Steelman Family," Swedish Colonial News, Volume 1, Number 10. Fall 1994". Archived from the original on 2009-01-29. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
^"Peter Stebbins Craig, "The 1693 Census of the Swedes on the Delaware: Chapter 3: The Wicaco Congregation," Swedish American Genealogist, vol 10, no 1, March 1990; pp. 1-16".
^Bell, Whitfield J., Jr., Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 1, 1743–1768. APS: Philadelphia, 1997, pp. 3–4.
Chronology of the Political Subdivisions of the County of Philadelphia, 1683–1854 (Daly, John; Weinberg, Allen (October 1966). Genealogy of Philadelphia County Subdivisions (Second ed.). Philadelphia Dept. of Records.)
Information courtesy of ushistory.org
Incorporated District, Boroughs, and Townships in the County of Philadelphia, 1854 By Rudolph J. Walther - excerpted from the book at the ushistory.org website