Area History: Contents of Vol I, Advertisement, & General Introductory History - Watson's Annals of Philadelphia And Pennsylvania, 1857 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by EVC. USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. ____________________________________________________________ TRANSCRIBED FROM: WATSON'S ANNALS of PHILADELPHIA and PENNSYLVANIA Subtitled: A COLLECTION OF MEMOIRS, ANECDOTES, AND INCIDENTS of the CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS and of the EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS OF THE INLAND PART OF PENNSYLVANIA from THE DAYS OF THE FOUNDERS Intended to Preserve the Recollections of Olden Time, and to Exhibit Society in its Changes of Manners and Customs, and the City and Country in their Local Changes and Improvements by John F. Watson Published in 1857, Written circa 1830-1850 Contents of Vol. I [File name] 0. Contents, Advertisement and General History watson0100.txt 1. Epitome of Primitive Colonial and Philadelphia History watson0101.txt 2. The Primitive Settlement and its Incidents watson0102.txt 3. Facts and Occurrences of the Primitive settlement watson0103.txt watson0104.txt 4. Fragments of the Primitive History watson0104.txt 5. The Penn Family -- and facts concerning them watson0105.txt 6. Penn's Descendants --- notices of them watson0105.txt 7. The landing of Penn at Chester watson0105.txt 8. The landing of Penn at the Blue Anchor Inn watson0105.txt 9. The Treaty Tree and Fairman's Mansion there watson0106.txt 10. The Swedes' Church and House of Sven Sener watson0106.txt 11. Penny Pot-house and Landing watson0106.txt 12. Poole's bridge and its incidents watson0106.txt 13. Penn's Cottage in Letitia Court watson0106.txt 14. Slate-roof House --- Penn's residence watson0106.txt 15. The River-front Bank --- and how its original purpose was changed watson0107.txt 16. The Caves --- and their inhabitants watson0107.txt 17. Habits and State of Society in Colonial Times watson0107.txt 18. Apparel --- Former Dresses watson0107.txt 19. Furniture and Equipage in Olden Time watson0108.txt 20. Changes and Improvements in public and domestic comforts and conveniences watson0108.txt 21. Changes in Residences and Places of business watson0108.txt 22. Local changes in Streets and Places watson0108.txt 23. Innovations and new modes of Conducting Business watson0109.txt 24. Progress and state of Society watson0109.txt 24A. Changes in the Prices of Diet watson0109.txt 25. Superstitions and Popular Credulity watson0110.txt 26. Sports and Amusements watson0110.txt 26A. City Dancing Assembly watson0110.txt 27. Education in Early Times watson0110.txt 28. Primitive Courts and Trials watson0111.txt 29. Crimes and Punishments watson0111.txt 30. The Excellencies of Penn's Laws watson0111.txt 31. Philadelphia Bar in Colonial Times watson0111.txt 32. Militia and Colonial Defence watson0111.txt 33. Duels in Olden Time watson0111.txt 34. The Drawbridge and Dock Creek watson0112.txt 35. The Old Court House, and Friends' Meeting watson0112.txt 36. High Street Prison and Market Shambles watson0112.txt 37. The Stone Prison, S.W. corner of Third and High Street watson0112.txt 38. Market Houses in Primitive Days watson0112.txt 39. The Arch Street Bridge at Front Street watson0112.txt 40. Shippen's Great House watson0113.txt 41. Benezet's House and Chestnut street Bridge watson0113.txt 42. Clarke's Hall, &c., --- Chestnut street watson0113.txt 43. Carpenter's Mansion watson0113.txt 44. Christ Church --- it's early history watson0113.txt 45. Friends' Bank Meeting, Front Street watson0113.txt 46. Friends' Meeting at Centre Square watson0113.txt 47. The London Coffee-house watson0113.txt 48. State House and Yard -- in the beginning watson0113.txt 49. State House Inn watson0113.txt 50. Washington Square in former Days watson0114.txt 51. Beek's Hollow watson0114.txt 52. Norris' House and Garden watson0114.txt 53. Robert Morris' Mansion watson0114.txt 54. Loxley's House, and Bathsheba's Bath and Bower watson0114.txt 55. Duche's House, &c. watson0114.txt 56. Bingham's Mansion watson0114.txt 57. The British Barracks watson0114.txt 58. The Old Academy watson0114.txt 59. Carpenter's Hall and First Congress there watson0114.txt 60. Office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs watson0114.txt 61. Fort Wilson, corner of Third and Walnut Street watson0114.txt 62. Friends' Alms House watson0114.txt 63. Whitpain's Great House watson0114.txt 64. Wiggleworth's House watson0114.txt 65. The Old Ferry watson0114.txt 66. Offly's Anchor Forge watson0114.txt 67. Baptisterion --- on the Schuylkill watson0114.txt 68. Fort St. David watson0114.txt 69. Bachelor's Hall watson0114.txt 70. The Duck Pond, corner Fourth and High Street watson0114.txt 71. Pegg's Run, &c.--- Early notices and changes there watson0114.txt 72. Specimens of the best Houses watson0115.txt 73. Rare Old Houses watson0115.txt 74. Churches --- their early history watson0115.txt 75. Hospitals --- their early history watson0115.txt 76. Poor Houses --- earliest ones watson0115.txt 77. Libraries --- their early history watson0115.txt 78. Taverns in former days watson0115.txt 79. Theatres --- their origin watson0115.txt 80. Custom Houses --- earliest ones watson0115.txt 81. Banks --- in their beginning watson0115.txt 82. North End watson0116.txt 83. South End and Society Hill watson0116.txt 84. Western Commons, &c. watson0116.txt 85. Springs -- in earliest days watson0116.txt 86. Gardens --- notices of earliest ones watson0116.txt 87. Ponds and Skating Places watson0116.txt 88. Fires and Fire Engines --- early notices watson0116.txt 89. Friends --- in early times watson0116.txt 90. Persons and Characters - Part I watson0117.txt 90. Persons and Characters - Part II watson0118.txt 90. Persons and Characters - Part III watson0119.txt 91. Aged Persons watson0119.txt 92. Childhood and its Joys watson0119.txt [ED. NOTE: Chapter numbers added as an identification aid for these archives.] NOTE: See File watson0201.txt for contents of Vol. II ***************************************************** ADVERTISEMENT... "I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes With the memorials and things of fame That do renown this City". This work, dedicated to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania by one of its members, and specially recommended to the public by one of its official publications, is designed to revive the recollections and the peculiar traits and characteristics of the olden time; --- to give to the present race of Philadelphians and Pennsylvanians, curious and amusing facts from by-gone times, of which few or none have had any proper conception. It is an effort to rescue from the ebbing tide of oblivion, all those fugitive memorials of unpublished facts and observations, or reminiscences and traditions, which could best illustrate the domestic history of our former days. As such a work is without example for its imitation, it may be deemed "sui-generis" in its execution. It has, however, powers to please apart from its style and composition, because it is in effect --- a museum of whatever is rare, surprising, or agreeable, concerning the primitive days of our pilgrim forefathers, or of the subsequent changes by their sons, either in the alterations and improvements of given localities, or in the modes and forms of "changing men and manners". It is a picture of the doings and characteristics of a buried age. By the images which their recitals create in the imagination, the ideal presence is generated; and we talk and think with men of other times. Herein the aged may find ready assistance to travel back in memory to the scenes and gambols of their sportive innocent youth; and the youth of our country may regale their fancies with recitals as novel and marvellous to their wondering minds, as the Arabian tales --- even while they have the gratification to commingle in idea with the plays and sports of their own once youthful ancestors. The dull unheeding citizen who writes "nil admirari" on the most of things, may here see cause "to wonder that he never saw before what he shows him, and that he never yet had felt what he impresses !" To Philadelphians and Pennsylvanians, settled in distant countries, and longing for visions of country and home, herein is presented the best gift their friends at home could send them. It is presumed the day is coming, if not already arrived, when the memorabilia of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, and of their primitive inhabitants, so different from the present, will be highly appreciated by all those who can feel intellectual pleasure in travelling back the vale of years, and conferring with the "mighty dead". Such will give their thanks and their gratitude to labours humble as these --- for I have not aimed to give them that "painted form" which might allure by its ornaments of rhetoric. I have rather repressed the excursive fancy, which sometimes I could not but feel. My object has not been to say all that could have been adduced on every topic, but to gather up the segregated facts in the several cases which others had overlooked or disregarded, or to save fugitive scraps, if published, which others had neglected. In this way, I have chiefly aimed to furnish the material by which better of more ambitious writers could elaborate more formal history, and from which as a repository, our future poets, painters, and imaginative authors could deduce their themes, for their own and their country's glory. To such materials, fiction may some day lend its charms to amplify and consecrate facts; and "Tales of Ancient Philadelphia and the Country" may be touched by genius and made immortal ! Already such efforts have been made; and "Meredith, or the Meschianza", and "A Tale of Blackbeard the Pirate", go to show that this hint is not neglected. The author is fully aware that his pages must show a broken and disjointed form --- as well from their necessary divisions into numerous heads and chapters, as from the fact that the varieties written, had to be done in snatches of time, just as he could catch the thought or possess the occasion --- and never with the advantage of a second writing for its improvement. Critics may possible find occasion to condemn this, who may not in their whole lives contribute even a tythe of such labours to the public stock of olden time reminiscences. The reader will please observe, that this work having been CLOSED IN ITS MANUSCRIPT, in 1842, that therefore, all reference to any given number of years back, respecting things passed or done so many "years ago", is to be understood as counting backward from the year 1842. Philadelphia County, July, 1842. ***************************************************** GENERAL INTRODUCTORY HISTORY "My soul, revolving periods past, looks back, With recollected interest on all The former darings of our venturous race." Before proceeding to the proper object of the present work, (The Annals of Philadelphia, &c.) it may be profitable to occupy a few lines in a preliminary and brief survey of the successive efforts made by kings, discoverers, and founders, to settle colonies in our hemisphere. The earliest English claim to sovereignty in America was based upon the discoveries of John Cabot, accompanied by his son Sebastian. These, acting under the commission and for the service of Henry VII., in the year 1497, ran along the line of our coast, from the 38th to the 67th degree of north latitude; --- thus making their discoveries only five years later than those by Columbus himself in lower latitudes. But great as were such discoveries, and important as have been their consequences, since developed, they then excited no effectual spirit of adventure and colonization. It was not till upwards of a century, that any nation of Europe made any effective establishments in our country. In 1608 the French, conducted by Samuel Champlain, founded their colony in Canada; --- about the same time, the Dutch planted New York, and the British, Virginia. The few earlier attempts at colonization made by England and France, were virtually nothing, as they were abandoned almost as soon as begun. When we contemplate the present wealth and resources of our country, once open to the aggrandizement of any respectable adventurer who had energies sufficient to avail himself of its advantages, it is a matter of surprise, that a period of eighty years should have elapsed in England, before any of her subjects should have made any effort to possess themselves of the benefits of their proper discovery ! France with less pretension, did more; for Cartiers, in 1534, made some ineffectual attempts at plantation in Canada. This was under the discoveries imputed to Verranza, who, only ten years before, while sailing under a patent from Francis I., ranged the coast from North Carolina to the 50th degree of north latitude, and called the country New France. At length the attention of the English nation was called to the subject of colonization, by the genius and enterprise of Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1578, he procured a patent for settlement for the use of his half brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert. The latter, however, made no endeavour to execute it til 1583, when it soon proved abortive in his attempts to a settlement in Newfoundland. It was not, from its very nature, the land to allure and cherish strangers. Another expedition quickly succeeded, under a direct grant in 1584 to Sir Walter Raleigh himself. He committed the enterprise to Sir Richard Greenville, under two divisions of vessels, (the first, as it is said, under Captains Amidas and Barlow*) both of which made the land at Roanoke in North Carolina, in the years 1584 - 85. [*Bennet's MS. History does not regard Amidas and Barlow as a part of Greenville's expedition, as other historians do; but that they arrived in 1584, and Greenville's in 1585. He also asserts, as if relating it from that data, that the former took home two natives, name Wanchese and Mateo, and also the first specimen of tobacco.] Disaster and dissatisfaction soon broke up this colony; for losing 108 of their number, in an enterprise wherein their fate was never known, the remainder willingly availed themselves of an unexpected chance to return home with Sir Francis Drake's fleet. They were hardly gone, in 1586, before Sir Walter himself arrived to join his colonists; but finding all had gone, {the "Lost Colony of North Carolina"} he returned home immediately, much chagrined with his non-success. Still however, two other colonies succeeded under Captain White in 1587 and 1590. The first were supposed to have been destroyed; and the latter, being much distressed by a storm on the coast, resolved on a return home. Thus ended the disastrous and nugatory efforts of Sir Walter and his associates ! They were indeed enough to repress and break the spirits of any individual projector. The spirit of adventure slumbered for a season and no further attempts of Englishmen occured until 1602, when the enterprising Bartholomew Gosnold (a name since much appropriated to New England history) made his discovery of Cape Cod and the neighbouring regions, although he then proposed a voyage to the former ill-fated Roanoke. He was succeeded in the two following years by Captains M. Pring and George Weymouth. In 1607, Captains George Popham and R. Gilbert built Fort George, at the place where now stands the city of Boston. These all contented themselves with making short stays for purposes of trade and traffic. They sought not colonization, nor cared to seek after the abandoned Roanoke. Sir Walter having forfeited his patent by attainder, King James I, was pleased to grant another patent for all our territory from the 34th to the 45th degree, (that is, from North Carolina to Nova Scotia), under the general name of Virginia, --- a name previously conferred on Sir Walter's patent, as a compliment to the reign of the virgin queen, Elizabeth. The South Virginia division extended from the 34th to the 41st degree, or from Cape Hatteras to New York city, and the first colonization of any of the new patentees, destined however for Roanoke, was effected in 1607, as Jamestown, Virginia. Thus giving place to the idea, often expressed in modern times, of the "Ancient Dominion", so claimed for Virginia among her sister states, although for historical reasons can be assigned for her distinction. The North Virginia division, if we except the alleged intrusion of the Dutch on the Hudson river, or of Captain Popham's relinquished attempt to settle at Boston, was not permanently colonized until 1620, when it was made for ever memorable by the landing of the Plymouth colony of Puritans in Massasoit, or Massachusetts. In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman*, in the service of the Dutch East India Company, having fruitlessly sought a north-west passage to India in the high northern latitudes, resolved to repair the losses of his ineffective labours, by extending his voyage more southerly for the purpose of traffic. In returning thence from the bar of Virginia, he discovered our bay of Delaware, and soon after the Hudson river. From this last discovery, certain traders from Holland came out in 1614, under a patent from the States General, and made their first establishment at Fort Orange, (Aurania), near the present city of Albany. Of this fort they were dispossessed the same year by Captain Argal, acting under Governor Dale of the South Virginia province. But after his return to Virginia, the traders reassembled and formed a new establishment at the mouth of the Hudson, on the island Manhattan, the present New York, where they built a fort, which they called Nieu Amstel, or New Amsterdam. This event is said by some writers to have been in 1615; but Governor Stuyvesant's letter of 1664, of the surrender of the place to the British conquerors, speaks of it as occurring "about 41 or 42 years preceding," thus affixing it to the years 1622-3; --- the same period assigned by Professor Kalm. *Wm. Hudson, an English clergyman from Barbadoes, who was a primitive settler at Phladelphia, and has yet several descendants among us, was a near relative of Hudson, the discoverer, perhaps his nephew. He became a Friend, and was employed much in civil office. About that time, the States General appear to have enlarged their schemes of profit from the country, by an attempt at colonization; for they grant, in the year 1621, their patent "for the country of the Nieu Nederland, to the privileged West India Company". From this time the Dutch began to progress southwardly over the lands bordering on both sides of the Delaware, which they then called the Zuydt or South river, in contradistinction to their Noords or North river. To protect their settlers, they built in 1623, their first fort on the Delaware, and probably made their first village, at the place since known as Gloucester point, in New Jersey, at a little distance below the present Philadelphia. This was of course the proper "Ancient Dominion", to us ! The fortification was called "Nassau". The place was known to the Indians by the name of Arwanus [also as Tekaacho] and by the ancient Philadelphians by the less poetical name of Pine point. In 1629, the country of New Netherland became of consequence enough to deserve and receive a governor; and Wouter van Twiller, the first governor that our country, in common with New York, ever possessed, came out to Fort Amsterdam, (called New York, after 1664-5), where he ruled in the name of their "high mightinesses and the privileged West India Company". In 1631 the Swedes and Fins, allured by the publication of William Usselinx, a Dutch trader, effected a colony under the patronage of their government at Cape Henlopen*, (called afterwards Cape James, by William Penn), at a place near the present Lewistown, which they called Point Paradise. *I have assumed the time given by Campanius, both because he was among the earliest historians of our country, and also dwelling among us as a Swede. He speaks thus, "when the Swedes arrived in 1631", &c. Proud, deriving the time from Smith's Nova Caesuria, has given the year 1627 as the time; but this is a mistake easily accounted for, as being the year, as the state paper shows, in which the king and diet of Sweden gave their sanction to the colonization. There are, however, several reasons assigned for thinking that 1638 was the year of their first arrival and settlement, and the facts are well told in Moulton's History of New York; it should be consulted by the curious in this matter. James Logan's letter of 1726 to the Penn's, to be found elsewhere in these pages, says," there was also a prohibition (from the New York government) to the Swedes, between the years 1630 and '40. In 1632, Lord Baltimore obtained from Charles I, his patent for the Maryland colony, and forthwith began his colony there. In 1640, the Puritans from New Haven, under the name of English people, desirous of planting churches "after a godly sort", and "to trade and traffic with the Indians" along the Delaware bay, made a purchase of soil for £ 30 sterling, transported thither about fifty families, and erected trading houses; from all of which they were ejected in 1642, by orders from Keift, the Dutch governor. It is a matter of curiosity and wonder to us of the present day to contemplate the vagueness and contradictions with which our country was at first lavishly parcelled out and patented. First, the Spaniards would have claimed the whole under their general grant from the pope ! Then Henry VII. of England, and Francis I. of France, would each have claimed the whole of our coast: the former under the name of Virginia; the latter under the name of New France. While the English are actually settling in Virginia proper, the Dutch take possession of New York, and claim it as New Netherlands; the French at the same time, under their claim of Canada, encroach upon New York. The limits of North and South Virginia are confusedly made to include New York in both of them. The charter for Maryland is made to invade that for the New Netherlands; and the charter for Connecticut is made to encroach upon New York and Pennsylvania both, and to extend in effect to the Pacific ocean. These conflicting charters and interests go far to prove the great deficiency of geographical records and information, or the trifling estimation in which lands thus cheaply attained or held were then regarded. End of Introductory History