Many street names in Roxborough have a religious link. Here are some of the reasons.

Early Philadelphia streets were named after trees, later branching out to include historical figures, civil rights activists and certain places. Some streets even leaned into religion.

At least that is what a Roxborough reader noticed about the streets in her neighborhood.

She asked Curious Philly, The Inquirer’s forum for questions about the city and region: Is there some history to why so many streets —such as Hermitage, Monastery, Rector, Cathedral, and Hermit— in the Roxborough area have names related to religious people or places?

Long story short, streets closer to religious places, adjacent to churches, or with prominent devout members got their names inspired by them. But the origins aren’t clear for every religious-sounding street. And there were cults along the way.

Hermit Street starts with an overseas group that became the country’s first doomsday cult.

In 1694, Johann Zimmerman was preparing to sail to the 13 colonies with his German Pietist sect, the Chapter of Perfection. It was no voyage of leisure; they were looking for a place with religious freedom where they could wait for the end of the world, according to Friends of the Wissahickon.

But, Zimmerman died, leaving a 26-year-old scholar named Johannes Kelpius in charge of about 40 monks.

They called themselves “The Society of the Women of the Wilderness,” even though they were all men, and all celibate.

The solitude of the Wissahickon Creek provided the perfect environment for the group to live in a cave, separate from the rest of the city. That earned them the names of Hermits of the Mystic Brotherhood or Hermits of the Ridge, according to Robert Alotta, author of Mermaids, Monasteries, Cherokees and Custer: The Stories Behind Philadelphia Streets.

No amount of reclusion prevented them from trying to end their celibacy. “Kelpius monks held open-air concerts to lure the “Women of the Wilderness” out of the woods and into their arms,” Alotta wrote.

After years of no concert attendance, some monks broke their celibacy with the women of Germantown, Allota worte, creating cracks in the group. That division turned permanent when Kelpius, who, according to beliefs, was supposed to physically ascend to heaven during the end of the world, died at 35.

The cult was over, but the cave is still standing, west of Hermit Terrace.

A section of a street from Ridge Avenue to the Park at Rittenhouse Street commemorated their existence with the creation of Hermit Street in 1804, Alotta wrote.

An 18th-century house in Wissahickon is behind the avenue’s name, according to Alotta’s book.

The three-story dwelling was built by Joseph Gorgas, a Seventh-Day Baptists church leader, between the late 1740s and early 1750s, depending on the source. The house was named “the Kloster,” German for monastery.

Monasteries are home to people with religious vows, particularly monks. Per the Friends of the Wissahickon website, “the house was probably not used for that purpose.” But, Alotta’s book disagrees.

“Tradition has it the house was used for seclusion and religious meditation. Gorgas’s monks, it is said, wore long white robes with cowling, much like that of the Capuchins,” Alotta wrote.

According to him, the path that led to the monastery existed before 1865, but wasn’t a public street.

In 1906, part of a nearby street called Levering was renamed Monastery Avenue.

Joseph Gorgas is how Gorgas Lane got its name as well. As for the Kloster, the construction is still standing, now as Monastery Complex, including the house and stables.

By definition, hermitage is a type of secluded retreat, like a monastery or a convent. But according to Alotta, Hermitage Street is more related to Galloway Street.

“Though records do not exist to certify the assumption, it is possible that Hermitage Street, from Green to Fairmount Avenue, viewed by the road jury and confirmed by Quarter Sessions Court in 1810, was on land once owned by Joseph Galloway,” Alotta wrote.

Galloway was a loyalist merchant who had become a military governor during the British occupation of Philadelphia. He fled to New York, taking his daughter and leaving his wife, Grace Galloway, behind — a common tactic to prevent the siege of property.

They never reunited. Grace Galloway had to be physically carried out of her house, unwilling to leave.

The first recording of a street named Galloway was in 1858, Alotta wrote. By 1895, sections of Hermitage became Galloway Street.

But not all religious-seeming streets around the city have ties to monasteries or hermits. Christian Street, for instance, was named after Sweden’s Queen Christina.

“Guess the namers didn’t think it appropriate to put her name up on a sign. Nearby Queen Street allows her some time in the spotlight,” Alotta wrote in a 2011 essay for WHYY.