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came to America in response to advertisements for stone cutters to work on the Girard Estate.
After two years working on Girard College, he was employed by the Struthers firm which was furnishing the marble sarcophagus to be placed on George Washington's tomb at Mt. Vernon. During the transfer of the coffin to Mt. Vernon, the men noticed that the lid was ajar, and Joseph was able to cut off a lock of George Washington's hair. The lock is still in the family in a framed display case.
When the Washington tomb job was completed, Joseph Cartledge went into business for himself setting up shop at the northeast corner of 10th and Federal Streets in south Philadelphia in 1843.
Joseph's son, Steven G. Cartledge, designed a monument to Civil War soldiers in 1865, which was completed in 1869, and it is still standing today. Another of his carvings is at the 40 foot level of the Washington Monument in the Nations Capital.
In 1864 a branch yard was opened in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, opposite Arlington Cemetery, and in 1916 the entire business moved to Upper Darby. In 1967 the business expanded their manufacturing facilities and established a new manufacturing plant along with a larger retail facility at its present location on North Landsdowne Avenue in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.
In 1976 the Gregory J. Stefan family merged with the sixth generation cartledge family and introduced modern techniques in manufacturing, computerized designing and computer driven order processing, inventory control and delivery. The innovations introduced are state of the art.
Thank you for your patience in reading our family history thus far. It is a long history ... we have been in this business a long, long time.
We were manufacturing, retailing and installing memorials;
• 18 years before the Civil War
• 20 years before Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
• Before the telephone or the first light bulb
• Before the first automobile and the Wright Brothers first flight
