Father was greatly interested in the Centennial of 1876 held in Fairmont Park at Philadelphia. The celebration being located right at the Schuylkill River afforded him the opportunity of combining business with pleasure so he bought himself a season ticket for the railroad and commuted between his home and Schuylkill Haven and Philadelphia almost daily spending as much time as he possibly could on the Centennial grounds.
As the business increased at the dock and yard, the swampy place below was cleared of the brush and tall weeds. The marshy ground was filled up with gravel, the reptiles eliminated and the space used for storing old lumber and part of it used as a coal yard, for the accommodation of the people in the vicinity. But the gravel hole as we always did and still call it always remained an unpleasant place to go through until long after the yard went out of business. In these later years with the better construction of country roads and increased traffic, the place has been cleared of underbrush entirely and not al all unpleasant on a moonlit night even if one is alone.
As more and more boats and people found their way to the little shut-in place, it became known as the "Navy" and the dock and yard as the "Navy Dry Dock" and "Navy Yard" and the schoolhouse became known as the "Navy School".
As the working force increased a number of the men slept in a small bunkhouse my father built them on one of the cleared spots in the gravel hole, receiving their meals at several places where some of them found boarding and sleeping accommodations in the neighborhood. Most of the boarders weekended in their own homes over Sunday.
Father did considerable business for people in Philadelphia and New York City, and cities in New Jersey. Most of it was done by mail but sometimes a personal interview was imperative, and as his business kept him more closely at home as it increased many of these people came to him. Leesport being two miles away and Tuckerton a mile and a half with no conveyance available to bring his visitors from the stations, they had to walk the distance which became a dreaded ordeal to men accustomed to city streets.
So through the influence of some prominent visitor two trains were stopped by flag, one in the morning at 10:30 and one in the evening at 5:30 for the accommodation of Philadelphia and New York passengers only at the Rickenbach estate where the public road crosses the railroad just north of the big stone house and barn. The morning train brought the passengers and the evening train returned them to the cities. From the crossing it was a lovely walk of only a few minutes to the yard.
About 1885 or 86, after several petitions signed by the residents of the community were sent in by the "navy", the rail company granted us a regular station, and several trains to stop daily. They built us a small open front station house, and Rickenbach Station came on the map. The 10:30 train and 5:30 train made regular stops daily. But all other trains that stopped there had to be flagged, to accommodate passengers.
For years many people traveled back and forth from the little station and Reading, and it was a common thing to see from thirty to forty people at Rickenbach Station on a Sunday evening, waiting for the 6 o'clock train to Reading. From a third to one half of them were passengers who had spent Sunday at the country with the "folks".