FISH HOUSE HISTORY
by Paul W. Schopp

When the first settlers sailed up the Delaware River, they found a large island situated midstream with a long sweeping cove behind it. The island was Pettys Island, located between today’s Philadelphia and Camden. The cove behind it was originally called Steele’s Bay, named for William Steele, a merchant of Cork, Ireland and a proprietor of a large tract of land fronting the Delaware at the cove. By 1800, Steele’s Bay was renamed Stone’s Cove for John Stone, owner of a farm near this body of water.

In the 1780s, Parr Willard inherited a large parcel of land along the cove. By 1792, he had sold a four-acre lot to Thomas Hood, Doctor of Divinity. Dr. Hood proceeded to erect a frame dwelling at the foot of Cove Road. Very plain in exterior adornment, the four-bay house featured a center door and two shed-roof dormers. Erected sometime between 1792 and 1795, the building was certainly standing in 1799 when Thomas Bowne, a Philadelphia ship joiner, acquired it. Bowne sold the property in 1813 to the Tammany Pea Shore Fishing Company, a social club composed of artisan-class Philadelphians, which erected their clubhouse and kitchen building on the river bank in front of the Hood House. Over time, Stone’s Cove became known as