Area History: Watson's Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, 1857, Vol I: 
Chapters 50 - 71

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          WATSON'S  ANNALS  of  PHILADELPHIA  and  PENNSYLVANIA

                  Vol. I    Written 1830 - 1850


Chapter 50.               WASHINGTON  SQUARE

   This beautiful square, now so much the resort of citizens and strangers,
as a promenade was, only twenty-five years ago, a "Potter's Field"  in which
were seen numerous graves, generally the receptacles of the poor, and
formerly of the criminals from the prison.  It was long enclosed in a post
and rail fence, and always produced much grass.  It was not originally high
and level as now, but a descending ground, from the western side to a deep
gulley which traversed it in a line from Doctor Wilson's large church to the
mouth of the present tunnel on Sixth street below Walnut street.  Another
course of water came from the north-west, from beyond Arch street, falling
into the same place.  The houses on the street, along  the south side of the
square, were but a few years ago as miserable and deformed a set of negro
huts and sheds as could be well imagined.
   In the centre of the square was an enclosed ground, having a brick wall
of about forty feet square, in which had been interred members of Joshua
Carpenter's and the Story families, caused by the circumstance of a female
of the former family having been interred there for suicide -- a
circumstance which excluded her from burial in the common church grounds of
the city.  There was an apple tree in the centre, under which Mr. Carpenter
was buried.
   Those who remembered the place long before my recollections, knew it when
the whole place was surrounded by a privet-hedge, where boys used to go and
cut bow-sticks, for shooting of arrows.  Timothy Matlack remembered it as
early as the year 1745 to `50, and used then to go to a pond where is now
the site of the Presbyterian church, to shoot wild ducks.  A.J. Morris, at
the same period, remembered when a water-course, starting from Arch street
near Tenth street, traversed High street under a small bridge at Tenth
street, and thence ran south-eastward through the Washington Square, thence
by the line of the present tunnel under the prison, by Beek's Hollow, into
Dock creek, by Girard's Bank.  The late aged Hayfield Conyngham, Esq., when
he was young, caught fish of six inches in length in the above mentioned
water-course, within the present square.  Another aged person told me of his
often walking up the brook, barefooted, in the water and catching crayfish.
   There was a deep gulley from the end of the tunnel, to which a floodgate
was fixed by the commissioners, so as to retain the water in the hollow
basin then in the field at that place, and when a large quantity was
gathered after a great rain, it was all let off suddenly, so as to drive out
and cleanse the tunnel.  There used to be two or three small frame houses on
the north-east corner, near the jail, afterwards used by the commissioners
as stables for the horses of the dirt carts.  Up Walnut street, nigh the
corner of Eighth street, was a row of red painted frame houses; in 1784-5
they were the nearest houses to Schuylkill.
   It was the custom for the slave blacks, at the time of fairs and other
great holidays, to go there to the number of one thousand, of both sexes,
and hold their dances, dancing after the manner of their several nations in
Africa, and speaking and singing in their native dialects, thus cheerily
amusing themselves over the sleeping dust below !  An aged lady, Mrs. H.S.,
has told me she has often seen the Guinea negroes, in the days of her youth,
going to the graves of their friends early in the morning, and there leaving
them victuals and rum !
   In the time of the war of Independence the place was made awful by the
numerous internments of the dying soldiers destroyed by the camp fever.
Pits of twenty by thirty feet square were dug along the line of Walnut
street by Seventh street, which were closed by coffins piled one upon
another until filled up; and along the southern line long trenches, the
whole width of the square, were dug at once, and filled up as the voracious
grave required its victims.  A letter of John Adams, of the 13th April,
1777, says, "I have spent an hour this morning in the congregation of the
dead.  I took a walk into the "Potter's Field" (a burying place between the
new stone prison and the hospital) and I never in my whole life was so
affected with melancholy.  The graves of the soldiers who have been buried
in this ground from the hospital and bettering-house during the course of
last summer, fall and winter, dead of the small pox and camp diseases, are
enough to make the heart of stone to melt away !  The sexton told me that
upwards of two thousand soldiers had been buried there, and by the
appearance of the graves and trenches, it is most probable to me that he
speaks within bounds.  To what cause this plague is to be attributed, I
don't know -- disease has destroyed ten men for us where the sword of the
enemy has killed one !  We have at last determined on a plan for the sick,
and have called into the service the best abilities in physic, &c., that the
continent affords".  Its final scene, as a Golgotha and ghostly receptacle,
occurred in the fever of 1793, after which, the extension of improvements
westward induced the City Council to close it against the use of future
internments at and after the year 1795.
   Some of my cotemporaries will remember the simple-hearted innocent Leah,
a half-crazed spectre-looking elderly maiden lady, tall and thin of the
Society of Friends.  Among her oddities, she sometimes used to pass the
night, wrapped in a blanket, "between the graves at this place, for the
avowed purpose of frightening away the doctors !"
   The place was originally patented in 1704-5, under the name of "the
Potter's Field", as  "a burial ground for strangers", &c.  The minutes of
Council, in September 1705, show that the Mayor, Recorder, and persons of
various religious denominations, were appointed to wait on the commissioners
of property for a public piece of ground for "a burial place for strangers
dying in the city".  With a run of ninety years it was no wonder it looked
well filled !
   That it was deemed a good pasture field, is evidenced by the fact of its
being rented by the council for such a purpose.  A minute of council of 14th
April 1766, is to this effect : "The lease of Potter's Field to Jacob
Shoemaker having expired, it is agreed to lease it to Jasper Carpenter for
seven years, (to the year 1773) at ten pounds per annum".
   It was begun as a public walk in the year 1815, under the plan of G.
Bridport, and executed under the direction of George Vaux, Esq.  It has from
sixty to seventy varieties of trees, mostly of native growth.  In a few
years more they will have extended their shade in admirable beauty, and
those who may exercise beneath their branches will no longer remember those
"whelmed in pits and forgotten".
 {Note : whelm = engulf completely with usually disastrous effect}

Chapter 51.                 BEEK'S  HOLLOW

   This was the familiar name of ground descending into a brook or run,
which traversed Walnut street a little above Fourth street, in the line of
the present tunnel, called after a resident owner near the place of the
interesting streets.  Before the tunnel was constructed it was an open
watercourse coming from the present Washington square, crossing under Fourth
street above Walnut street by an arch, and out to Dock creek by the way of
the present Girard's Bank.
   Many men are still living who remember it as an open, deep and sluggish
stream, from Walnut street near the present Scotch Presbyterian church, in a
line towards the corner of Library street and Fourth street -- then a vacant
commons there.  In proof of the low ground once there it may be said, that
when they were digging the cellar for the house No. 73, South Fourth street,
western side, below Library street, at the depth of nine feet they came to
an old post and rail fence !
   I can myself remember, when, a little westward of the brook, on the north
side of Walnut street, there stood back from the street a very pleasant
two-story old cottage, the residence of the widow Rowen, having a grapevine
cluttering about the lattice of the piazza, and a neat garden in front.  I
believe Doctor Cox built his dwelling house on the same premises, nearly
forty years ago.  The south side of Walnut street was then generally vacant
lots; and where the present range of fine houses extends westward from the
south-west corner of Fourth and Walnut streets, was a long yard occupied
many years by a coach-maker, whose frame shop stood upon the corner.  The
rear of Doctor Rush's former residence shows a gradual descent of sloping
garden into Beek's Hollow; and an old house or two in Prune street, north
side, show themselves buried as much as three steps beneath the present
surface -- thus marking there the range of "the Hollow" once so familiar in
the mouths of all persons passing up Walnut street.

Chapter 52.            NORRIS'  HOUSE  AND  GARDEN

   Norris' house, a respectable looking family mansion, occupied till lately
the site on which is now placed the Bank of the United States.  When first
built, it was deemed out of town.  Such as it was before the war of
Independence, when adorned with a large and highly cultivated garden, has
been well told in a picturesque manner by its former inmate, Mrs. L-----.
[In a family manuscript for her son.]  Its rural beauties, so near the
city, were once very remarkable; and for that reason made it the frequent
resort of respectable strangers and genteel citizens.  In that house, when
Isaac Norris was Speaker, and was confined at home, infirm, the Assembly of
Pennsylvania, for the sake of his presence, sometimes held their
deliberations.  In the time of the war, the patriots took off its leaden
reservoir and spouts to make bullets for the army.  It was occupied by
several British officers when the British army possessed the city.  In those
gardens Admiral Howe and several British officers were daily visiters.  A
few years ago an aged female Friend from Baltimore, who lived there by
selling cakes, &c., was present at a Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia, and
then told her friends that her grandfather had once been given the ground
whereon the Bank stands, with as much as half the square, for his services
as chain-bearer in the original survey of the city.  Now, when old and
needy, she sees the Bank erected thereon, at a cost for the site of 100,000
dollars !!
   The range of large brick houses on the south side of Chestnut street,
extending from the Bank of the United States up to Fifth street, were built
there about 35 years ago, upon what had been previously Norris' garden.  The
whole front was formerly a garden fence, shaded by a long line of remarkably
big catalpa trees, and down Fifth street, by trees of the yellow willow
class, being the first ever planted in Philadelphia -- and the whole the
product of a wicker-basket found sprouting in Dock creek, taken out and
planted in Mr. Norris garden at the request of Dr. Franklin.
   On the Fifth street side of the garden, extending down to Library street,
there stood a rural-looking cottage, near the site of the present library.
It was the gardener's residence, standing back from the street amidst deep
embowering shade, every way picturesque to the eye, and having near it an
open well of water of peculiar excellence, famed far and wide as "deep and
cold" and for which families often sent at several squares' distance.  It
was impossible to see the "tout ensemble" as it then was, without
associating the poetic description of "the drawwell and mossy bucket at the
door!".  The well still remains, as a pump, on the north side of Library
street, about 60 or 70 feet eastward of Fifth street, but its former virtues
are nearly gone.
  The eastern side of the garden was separated from Fourth street by the
Cross-Keys Inn and some two or three appurtenant houses, once the estate of
Peter Campbell, in whose hands they were confiscated, and then purchased by
the late Andrew Caldwell, Esq.  By mistake of the original surveys they had
been built out four feet upon the Chestnut street pavement, so that when the
street became public, they closed the front doors and entered the house on
the western side by a gateway, and a long piazza.  The whole produced an
agreeable oddity, which always made the block of buildings remarkable.

Chapter 53.               ROBERT  MORRIS'  MANSION

   This great edifice, the grandest ever attempted in Philadelphia for the
family purposes of private life, was erected at the request and for the use
of the great financier, Robert Morris, Esq.  The whole proved to be a
ruinous and abortive scheme, not so much from his want of judgment to
measure his ends by his means, as by the deceptive estimates of his
architect, Major L'Enfent, a name celebrated in our annals for the frequent
disproportion between his hopes and his accomplishments.  A gentleman was
present at R. Morris' table when L'Enfent was there, and first broached the
scheme of building him a grand house for 60,000 dollars.  Mr. Morris said he
could sell out his lots and houses on High street for 80,000 dollars, and so
the thing was begun.
   Mr. Morris purchased the whole square, extending from Chestnut to Walnut
street, and from Seventh to Eighth street, for 10,000 pounds, a great sum
for what had been till then, the capital, at which the Norris' family had
used as their pasture ground !  Its original elevation was twelve to fifteen
feet above the present level of the adjacent streets.  With such extent of
high ground in ornamental cultivation, and a palace in effect fronting upon
Chestnut street, so far as human grandeur was available, it must have had a
signal effect.
   Immense funds were expended ere it reached the surface of the ground, it
being generally two, and sometimes three stories under ground, and the
arches, vaults and labyrinths were numerous.  It was finally got up to its
intended elevation of two-stories, presenting four sides of entire marble
surface, and much of the ornaments worked in expensive relief.  Such as it
then was may be seen in an accurate delineation of it as made in 1798, and
preserved in my MS. Annals, page 243, in the City Library.  It was then
perceived too late ---
              "___________________that finished as it was,
               It still lack'd a grace, the loveliest it could show --
               A mine to satisfy the enormous cost !"

   Mr. Morris, as he became more and more sensible of his ruin in the above
building, was often seen contemplating it, and has been heard to vent
imprecations on himself and his lavish architect.  He had besides provided,
by importation and otherwise, the most costly furniture; all of which, in
time, together with the marble mansion itself, had to be abandoned to his
creditors.

              "Drained to the last poor item of his wealth,
               He sighs, departs, and leaves the accomplished plan
               Just where it meets his hopes".

   He saw it raised enough to make a picture and to preserve the ideal
presence of his scheme; but that was all -- for the magnitude of the
establishment could answer no individual wealth in this country; and the
fact was speedily realized, that what cost so much to rear could find no
purchaser at any reduced price.  The creditors were therefore compelled, by
slow and patient labour, to pull down, piece-meal, what had been so
expensively set up.  Some of the underground labyrinths were so deep and
massive as to have been left as they were, and at some future age may be
discovered to the great perplexity of the "quid nuncs". The materials thus
taken down were sold out in lots; and the square being divided into building
lots, and sold, gave occasion to employ much of the former material therein.
Mr. William Sansom soon procured the erection of his "Row" on Walnut street,
and many of the houses on "Sansom street", thereby producing a uniformity in
building ranges of similar houses, often since imitated, but never before
attempted in our city.
   It always struck me as something remarkable in the personal history of
Mr. Morris, that while he operated for the government as financier, his
wisdom and management was pre-eminent, as if "sky-guided and
heaven-directed", leading to a national end, by an overruling providence;
but, when acting for himself, as if teaching us to see that fact by
contrast, all his personal affairs went wrong and to ruin !

Chapter 54.     LOXLEY'S HOUSE,  AND  BATHSHEBA'S  BATH  AND  BOWER

   The frame house of singular construction, No. 177 south Second street, at
the junction of Little Dock and Second streets, was memorable in its early
day for affording from its gallery a preaching place for the celebrated
Whitfield -- his audience occupying the street (then out of town) and the
opposite hill, at the margin of Bathsheba's bath and bower.  All these facts
sound strange to modern ears, who so long have regarded that neighbourhood
as a well compacted city.  It may therefore serve as well to amuse the
reader, as to sustain the assertions above, to adduce some of the
authorities on which those traditions are founded.
   I had long heard traditional facts concerning the rural beauty and
charming scenes of Bathsheba's bath and bower, as told among the earliest
recollections of the aged.  They had heard their parents talk of going out
over the Second street bridge into the country about the Society hill, and
there making their tea-regale at the above-named spring.  Some had seen it,
and forgotten its location after it was changed by streets and houses; but a
few, of more tenacious memories or observing minds, had preserved the site
in the mind's eye -- among these was the late aged and respectable Samuel
Coates, Esq.  He told me that, when a lad, he had seen Whitfield preaching
from the gallery, and that his audience, like a rising amphitheatre,
surrounded the site of the bath and bower, on the western side of Second
street.  That the spring, once surrounded by shrubbery, sprang out of the
hill on the site of the lot on which Captain Cadwallader (afterwards a
General) constructed his large double house -- the same site on which the
late S. Girard, Esq., has since erected four brick houses.  Mrs. J. and Mrs.
R., daughters of Mr. Benjamin Loxley, the owner of that house, told me that
they had heard him say he had heard Whitfield preach from that balcony, and
also that there was originally a celebrated spring on the opposite side of
the street.  The springy nature of the ground was sufficiently indicated, to
the surprise of the citizens and the builders, when Mr. Girard attempted to
build the above-mentioned houses further out than Cadwallader's house; they
could find no substantial foundation, and were obliged to drive piles on
which to build.  Mrs. Logan, too, had a distinct recollection of an old lady
who used to describe to her the delightful scenery once around the spring,
and that it lay somewhere towards Society Hill.
   Mr. Alexander Fullerton, when aged 76 years, told me he was familiar
with this neighbourhood when a boy, and was certain the spring here was
called "Bathsheba's Spring and Bower".  He knew also that the pump near
there, and still at the south-east corner of Second and Spruce streets, was
long resorted to as a superior water, and was said to draw its excellence
from the same source.
   When I first published my Annals, I had to make much inquiry and search,
before I could fully determine the location of this spring.  I since find,
by the Rev. Mr. Clay's Annals of the Swedes, that the whole place was named
after and fitted up by, the aunt of his grandmother, Ann Clay.  Her name was
Bathsheba Bowers.  The MS. life of Ann Clay reads thus :  "Under Society
Hill she (Bathsheba Bowers, her maiden aunt) built a small house, close by
the best spring of water that was in our city.  The house she furnished with
books, a table and a cup, in which she, or any that visited her, drank of
the spring.  Some people gave it the name of Bathsheba's Bower, and the
spring has ever since borne the name of Bathsheba's Spring".
   The street in front of Loxley's house was originally much lower than it
now appears to the eye, being now raised by a subterrane tunnel.  It was
traversed by a low wooden bridge half the width of the street, and the other
half was left open for watering cattle.
   The yards now in the rear of Girard's houses are much above the level of
Second street, and prove the fact of a former hill there; on which Captain
Cadwallader used to exercize and drill his celebrated "silk stocking company".
   Mr. Loxley, himself, was a military chieftain of an earlier day -- made
the talk and dependence of the town in the days of the Paxtang boys.  His
intended defence of the city against those outlaws has been facetiously told
by Graydon in his Memoirs.  He had been made a lieutenant of artillery in
1756, on the occasion of Braddock's defeat.  His father, before him, owned
these premises; and the family mansion near there, now shut in and concealed
from Spruce street, was once at the base of a rural and beautiful hill,
displaying there a charming hanging garden, and the choicest fruits and
grapes.  The Loxley house is deserving of some further distinction, as the
residence, in the time of the Revolution, of Lydia Darrach, who so
generously and patriotically undertook to walk beyond the lines to give our
army timely information of the meditated attack.  Under her roof the
Adjutant General of the British army had his office; and upon a particular
occasion she there overheard the plan of attack, and started off,
beforehand, to reveal it to her countrymen.

Chapter 55.                    Duch�S  HOUSE, &c.

   This was one of the most venerable looking, antiquated houses of our
city, built in 1758, for Parson Duch� , the pastor of St. Peter's church,
as a gift from his father, and taken down a few years ago, to give room to
erect several brick houses on its site.  It was said to have been built
after the pattern of one of the wings of Lambeth Palace.  When first erected
there it was deemed quite out of town, and for some time rested in lonely
grandeur.  In after years it became the residence of Governor M'Kean, and
when we saw it as a boy, we derived from its contemplation conceptions of
the state and dignity of a governor which no subsequent structures could
generate.  It seemed the appropriate residence of some notable public man.
   Parson Duch� was as notable in his time as his mansion, and both for a
time ran their fame together.  He was withal a man of some eccentricity, and
of a very busy mind, partaking with lively feelings in all the secular
incidents of the day.  When Junius' Letters first came out, in 1771, he
used to descant upon them in the Gazettes of the time under the signature of
"Tamoc Caspina", a title formed by an acrostic on his office, &c., as "the
assistant minister of Christ church and St. Peter's in North America".  At
another time he endeavoured to influence General Washington, with whom he
was said to be popular as a preacher, to forsake the American cause; and for
this measure he was obliged to make his escape for England, where he lived
and preached some time, but finally came back to Philadelphia and died.  His
ancestor was Anthony Duch�, a respectable Protestant refugee, who came out
with William Penn.
   The church of St. Peter, to which he was attached, on the southwest
corner of Third and Pine streets, (the diagonal corner from his own house)
was founded in the year 1758, as a chapel of ease to the parent Christ
church.  It was built by contract for the sum of 3310 Pounds, and the bell
in its cupola, (the best at present in the city for its tones) was the same,
as told to me by Bishop White, which had occupied the tree-crotch at Christ
church.  The extensive ground was the gift of the proprietaries; level as
the whole area was, it was always called "the church on the hill" in
primitive days, in reference to its being in the region of "Society Hill"
and not, in familiar parlance, within the city walks.
   In September, 1761, just two years after it was begun to be built, it was
first opened for public worship.  On that occasion all the clergy met at
Christ church, and with the wardens and vestry went in procession to the
Governor's house, where, being joined by him and some of his council, they
proceeded to the new church, where they heard a sermon from Doctor Smith,
the Provost of the college, from the words "I have surely built thee a house
to dwell in" &c.  The same words were also set to music and sung by the choir.

Chapter 56.               BINGHAM'S  MANSION

   Long after the peace of 1783, all of the ground in the rear of "the
Mansion House" to Fourth street, and all south of it to Spruce street, was a
vacant grass ground enclosed by a rail fence, in which the boys resorted to
fly their kites.  The Mansion House, built and lived in by William Bingham,
Esq., about the year 1790, was the admiration of that day for its ornaments
and magnificence.  He enclosed the whole area with a painted board fence and
a close line of Lombardy poplars, the first ever seen in this city and from
which has probably since come all the numerous poplars which we every where
see.  [The Athenian poplars have only been introduced here about sixteen or
eighteen years.  William Hamilton, at the woodlands, first planted the
Lombardy poplar there in 1784, from England]  The grounds generally he had
laid out in beautiful style, and filled the whole with curious and rare
clumps and shades of trees; but in the usual selfish style of Philadelphia
improved grounds, the whole was surrounded and hid from the public gaze by a
high fence.  An occasional peep through a knot hole was all the pleasure the
public could derive from such a woodland scene.  After Mr. Bingham's death,
the whole was sold off in lots, and is since filled up with finely finished
three-story houses.  When the British were in Philadelphia they used this
ground as a parade and exercise.
   Mr. Bingham being the richest man of his time, and having made a fortune
in the West Indies as agent for American privateers, he was exposed to the
shafts of obloquy. {Note: obloquy = to speak against, i.e., abuse}.  In
giving a specimen of the pasquinades { Note: a lampoon posted in a public
place} and detractions, we must add, that we do not mean to endorse them,
but merely to show the history of the day.  Peter Markoe, in his poem called
"the Times", of 1788, was libellously severe upon the senator, saying, among
other things:

       "Rapax, the muse has slightly touched thy crimes,
        And dares to wake thee from thy golden dream,
        In peculation's various arts supreme ---
        Tho'  to thy "mansion" wits and fops repair,
        To game, to feast, to flatter, and to stare.
        But say, from what bright deeds dost thou derive
        That wealth which bids thee rival British Clive ?
        Wrung from the hardy sons of toil and war,
        By arts, which petty scoundrels would abhor."

  Some of his enemies sometimes called him the bloodhound certificate man.
Nevertheless, he had his choice of city company, and when he first opened
his house, he gave the first masquerade ball ever seen in this city.

Chapter 57.             THE  BRITISH  BARRACKS

   These were built in the Northern Liberties soon after the defeat of
Braddock's army; and arose from the necessity, as it was alleged, of making
better permanent provision for troops deemed necessary to be among us for
our future protection.  Many of the people had so petitioned the king -- not
being then so sensitive of the presence of "standing armies" as their
descendants have since become.
   The parade and "pomp of war" which their erection produced in the former
peaceful city of Penn, gave it an attraction to the town's people, and being
located far out of town, it was deemed a pleasant walk to the country and
fields, to go out and see the long ranges of houses, the long lines of
kilted and bonneted Highlanders, and to hear "the spirit stirring fife and
soul inspiring drum!"  Before that time, the fields there were a far land,
severed from all connexion with the city by the marsh meadows of Pegg.  No
Second street road before existed; and for the convenience and use of the
army a causeway was formed across those wet grounds in the line of the
present Second street, along the front of what is now called Sansom's row.
   The ground plot of the barracks extended from Second to Third street, and
from St. Tamany street to Green street, having the officers' quarters -- a
large three-story brick building, on Third street, the same now standing as
a Northern Liberty Town Hall.  The parade ground fronted upon Second street,
shut in by an ornamental palisade fence on the line of that street.  The
aged John Brown told me the whole area was a field of buckwheat, which was
cut off, and the barracks built thereon and tenanted by three thousand men,
all in the same year; the houses were all of brick, two stories high, and a
portico around the whole hollow square.  These all stood till after the war
of Independence, when they were torn down, and the lots sold for the benefit
of the public.  It was from the location of those buildings that the whole
region thereabout was familiarly called Campingtown.
   In 1758, I notice the first public mention of "the new barracks in
Campingtown";  the Gazette stating the arrival there of "Colonel
Montgomery's Highlanders", and some arrangement by the City Council to
provide them their bedding, &c.
   An earlier attempt had been made to construct barracks out Mulberry
street, on the south side, west of Tenth street -- there they proceeded so
far as to dig a long line of cellars, which having been abandoned, they lay
open for many years afterwards.
   In the year 1764, the barracks were made a scene of great interest to all
the citizens -- there the Indians, who fled from the threats of the
murderous Paxtang boys, sought their refuge under the protection of the
Highlanders; while the approach of the latter was expected, the citizens ran
there with their arms to defend them and to throw up intrenchments.  Captain
Loxley of the city artillery was in full army with his band.  In time those
Indians became afflicted with the smallpox, and turned their quarters into a
very hospital, from which they buried upwards of fifty of their companions.
   It may serve to show the former vacant state of the Northern Liberties,
to know, that on the king's birthday, as late as June 1772, "it was
celebrated at the British barracks by a discharge of twenty-one cannon".
Indeed, the artillery park, and the necessary stores erected along the line
of the present Duke street, gave to that street its well-known former name
of "Artillery lane".

Chapter 58.                 THE  OLD  ACADEMY

   This building, now in part the Methodist Union church, was originally
constructed on subscription moneys raised by the celebrated Whitfield, for
the use of itinerant preachers for ever, as well as for his peculiar
religious views and tenets, then called "New Light", and for which cause his
former friends, in the first Presbyterian church, no longer held fellowship
with his followers.
   It was begun in the year 1741, and when the walls were but about four
feet high, it was preached in by Whitfield to a great congregation.  It was
finished in 1744, faster than money had been procured to pay off its
expenses.  From this cause Dr. Franklin procured it to be purchased in 1749
for 777 Pounds, to be converted into the first Academy of Philadelphia, with
the condition of partitioning off and reserving, to the use of itinerants, a
preaching hall therein for ever.  In 1753 it was made "the College" of
Philadelphia, and in 1779, "the University".  Dr. William Smith was inducted
provost in 1754.
   This Dr. Smith was a graduate of Aberdeen, and when inducted provost was
but 27 years of age.  He held his place but a few years, when he fell into
an embarrassment which created great public sensation.  As agent for "the
Society for promoting Knowledge among the Germans", he published in his
German newspaper, in 1758, the defence of a certain Judge Moore of Chester
county, who had officially given umbrage to the Legislature.  Smith and
Moore were arraigned before the house; and Smith, in his speech, resisting
their privileges, was greatly cheered by the people in the lobby !  Smith
and Moore were imprisoned for contempt, but visited by crowds of their
friends.  As a writer and speaker he was very popular.  He delivered several
military sermons in the time of the revolution.  The one he delivered in
1775, to Cadwallader's battalion at Christ church, was much eulogized by the
whigs, went through several editions in America, and was reprinted in London
in an edition of ten thousand, by the chamberlain of London !  He died in 1803.
   It may serve to show some of the efforts by which the college was got up
and sustained, by quoting a MS. letter of Thomas Penn's, of May 1762, to
wit:  "Dr. Smith's soliciting here goes on well.  Most of the bishops have
given; and he is now applying, with their sanction, to the principal people
among the laity.  He has been at Oxford, and expects some assistance there,
and from the Archbishop of York, and many others".  In June 1764, Dr. Smith,
who had been commissioned as solicitor in 1761, returned from England,
bringing with him 13,000 Pounds, collected in conjunction with Sir James Jay
for the Philadelphia and New York colleges collectively.  Those English
gifts were certainly very munificent.
   A MS. letter of Richard Peters' of 1753, to Thomas Penn, speaks of the
Academy as then in great repute, having sixty-five boys from the
neighbouring colonies.
   A letter of Thomas Penn's of 1754, states that while we were forming the
Academy and College for Pennsylvania under Dr. Smith, then in England,
(seeking redress for his short imprisonment at Philadelphia by the Assembly,
for an alleged contempt) the people of New York persuaded Dr. Johnson to be
president for their college to be established, saying as their "argument,
they hope to draw pupils even from Philadelphia, and that they regard the
Philadelphia Academy as a school to fit boys for them".  This he treats as
their boast.
   The pomp and circumstance of the "commencement days" were then got up
with much more of public feeling and interest than have since existed.  At a
time when every man of competency in the community contributed to endow the
establishment, it left none indifferent to its prosperity or success.
   The site of the Academy is said by Thomas Bradford to be made ground,
filled in there from cutting down a part of the hill once in the Friends'
burying ground opposite, it having been four or five feet higher within
their wall than on the street.  His idea was, that the Friends' ground
originally sloped across Fourth street into the Academy ground; which seemed
to have been a bed of an ancient water-course along its western wall.
   About forty years ago, the trustees having purchased the "President's
house" in south Ninth street, for a more enlarged place, removed "the
University" there; and that great building they have again pulled down to
renew in another way.
   I might add some remembered anecdotes of teachers and pupils, but I
forbear.  Graydon's memoirs contain amusing facts of the youths there, his
companions, before the revolution : -- such as jostling off Master
Beveridge's wig, and pranks of less equivocal insubordination : -- vexing
and fretting Master Dove -- a doggereliser and satirist of severe manners --
far more of a falcon than a dove; -- making long foot-races round the
square, and priding themselves in their champion -- another swift-footed
Achilles.  These are the revived images of fathers now, who were once young !

               "The fields, the forms, the bets, the books,
                The glories and disgraces" ---
               "Now leaping over widest ditch,
                Now laughing at the tutor !"

   To such the "University boys" of the present day may go for their
apologies for breaches of discipline now -- not for willful transgressions,
but for lapses of prudence and discretion ---

             "He will not blush that has a father's heart,
              To take in childish play a playful part".

              The days are gone when I could roll
                 My hoop along the street,
              And with a laughing jest or word
                 Each idle passer greet;
              Where'er I go, I now move slow,
                 In early years I ran;
              Oh !  I was then a happy child,
                 But now I am a man.

              I used to whistle as I went,
                 Play marbles in the square,
              And fly my kite and play my top,
                 My coat and trousers tear !
              I "whistle" for my whistle now
                 "Fen" marbles is the plan:
              The only vent on which I'm bent
                  Is money --- I'm a man.

 Chapter 59.        CARPENTERS'  HALL  AND  CONGRESS

   This respectable looking building in Carpenters' court, originally
constructed for the meeting hall for the Society of House Carpenters of
Philadelphia, was taken and used by the first Congress, when met in
Philadelphia to deliberate on the incipient measures of the war  of the
revolution.  It was afterwards used, for several years, as the first Bank of
the United States.  Now, it has fallen into humbler purposes as an auction
house.  The citizens of Philadelphia who pass and repass it daily seem to
have forgotten its former glory, but not so an enlightened and feeling
Virginian, who, visiting it in 1829, thus describes its character and
associations, in a letter to his friend.
   "I write this (says he) from the celebrated Carpenters' Hall, a structure
that will ever by deemed sacred while rational liberty is cherished on
earth. It stands in a court at the end of an alley leading south from
Chestnut, between Third and Fourth streets.  It is of brick, three stories
high, surmounted with a low steeple, and presents externally rather a sombre
aspect.  The lower room, in which the first Congress of the United States
(perhaps I should say colonies) met, comprehends the whole area of the
building -- which however, is not very spacious. Above are the committee
rooms, now occupied by a very polite schoolmaster, who kindly gave me
permission to inspect them.  Yes !   These sublime apartments, which first
resounded with the indignant murmer of our immortal ancestors, sitting in
secret consultation upon the wrongs of their countrymen, now ring with the
din of urchins conning over their tasks; and the hallowed hall below, in
which the august assembly to which they belonged daily convened, is now
devoted to the use of an auctioneer !  Even now, while I am penning these
lines at his desk, his voice stuns my ear and distracts my brain, crying
`how much for these rush-bottom chairs?  I am offered $5 -- nobody more? --
going !  going !!   gone !!!'  In fact the hall is lumbered up with beds,
looking glasses, chairs, tables, pictures, ready made clothes, and all the
trash and trumpery which usually grace the premises of a knight of the
hammer.  I must do him the justice, however, to say, that he very readily
granted me the privilege I am now enjoying when he understood my purpose.
The building, it is gratifying to add, still belongs to the Society of
Carpenters, who will by no means part with it, or consent to any alteration."
   "It was here that the groundwork of our independence was laid -- for here
it was, on the 4th September 1774, after the attempt on the part of  `the
mother country'  to tax the colonies without their consent, and the
perpetration of numerous outrages by the regulars upon the defenceless
inhabitants, that the sages of America came together to consider of their
grievances.  Yes ! these walls have echoed the inspiring eloquence of
Patrick Henry, `the greatest orator', in the opinion of Mr. Jefferson, `that
ever lived' -- the very man who `gave the first impulse to the ball of our
revolution'."
   " In this consecrated apartment, in which I am now seated -- this
unrivalled effort of human intellect was made ! -- I mark it as an epoch in
my life.  I look upon it as a distinguished favour that I am permitted to
tread the very floor which Henry trod, and to survey the scene which, bating
the changes of time and circumstance, must have been surveyed by him.  O,
that these walls could speak ! -- that the echo which penetrates my soul as
I pronounce the name of Patrick Henry, in the corner I occupy, might again
reverberate the thunders of his eloquence !  But he has long ago been
gathered to his fathers, and this hall, with the ancient State-house of the
"Old Dominion", I fervently hope may exist for ages as the monuments of his
glory."  {Bating = with the exception of, --Excepting}
   "I cannot resist the temptation of transcribing from Mr. Wirt's book a
passage in one of Henry's speeches, which I think, for sublimity and pathos,
has never been and never will be equalled.  It was delivered before a
Convention of Delegates from the several counties and corporations of
Virginia, which assembled in the old church at Richmond, on the 20th of
March, 1775.  Mr. Henry had been declaiming, in his usual manner, against
the doctrine of those who were for trying once more the experiment of
conciliatory measures in order to obtain a redress of grievances; and he
broke forth at the close of his argument with the following splendid
peroration."
   " `It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter.  Gentlemen may cry peace,
peace -- but there is no peace.  The war is already begun.  The next gale
that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding
arms.  Our brethren are already in the field.  Why stand we here idle?  What
is it that gentlemen wish?  What would they have?  Is life so dear, or peace
so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?  Forbid it,
Almighty God !  I know not what course others may take; but as for me," he
cried, with both his arms extended aloft, his brows knit, every feature
marked with the resolute purpose of his soul, and his voice swelled to its
boldest note of exclamation -- `give me liberty; or give me death ! '  "
   " Mr. Henry rose to be governor of Virginia, and consequently was obliged
by his duties to mingle much with what was then called the aristocracy; but
as he had sprung from the yeomanry, and was in truth their own dear child
and adored champion, he never deserted them in their hour of need, or
abandoned their society.  It is said that while practising law, previous to
the revolution, he often came into court from a shooting excursion, dressed
in a coarse hunter's shirt and greasy leather breeches, and without any
preparation pleaded his cause with an ability that seldom failed of success.
He was the first that uttered the words `Declaration of Independence', and
predicted the separation of the colonies from the mother country long before
others dared think of it.  Such is the respect which the Virginians
entertain for his memory that they have named two counties after him, the
one called Patrick, and the other Henry."
   Perhaps no collection of men ever excelled this congress for talents,
firmness and judgment.  Doctor Franklin, in his letter to Charles Thomson,
of 5th February 1775, speaking of the materials of that Congress says, "the
congress is in high esteem here (in England) among the friends of liberty.
Lord Chatham said, he thought it the most honourable assembly of men that
had ever been known.  The same, in effect, was said by Lord Cobham, the Duke
of Richmond, and the Duke of Manchester".
   If the reader will cast his eye on the history of that splendid epoch,
and glance over the "res gestae" of the men who then figured in our two
first national councils, he cannot but be astonished at the number and
greatness of the minds which were engaged in that eventful crisis.  Their
eloquence in the halls of legislation -- their political contributions to
the public presses -- their skill and wisdom as commanders, and their
devotion and patriotism as men, have never been surpassed.  The cause of the
election of such suitable men was to be found in the then purity of the
elections, made such by the intensity of national devotion which pervaded
all ranks of society.  No selfish or private aims then biased "the high
emprise", but all hearts glowed with patriotism, and "dear country and home"
stimulated every breast.  It was, in a word, the spectacle of American
energy and talent, when pure and purged of faction.
   Congress afterwards, in the expressed opinion of Charles Thomson, their
secretary, depreciated much in point of talents, and weight of individual
character.  That which sat in York, Pennsylvania, in 1777-78, was but a weak
body of men in comparison with former men.
   When we contemplate the magnificence of the present stately hall of
Congress at Washington, and then carry back our recollections to the hall
with which we furnished the congress after the adoption of the Constitution,
we cannot but be struck with "the change of times and circumstances".  In
the brick building, now occupied as court rooms, at the south-east corner of
Chestnut and Sixth streets, we once accommodated the collected wisdom of the
nation -- there they once deemed themselves accommodated in ample room and
elegance.
   Doctor Thomas C. James related to me an anecdote of the first Congress,
which he received from the lips of the late venerable Bishop White, then its
chaplain, and which he said he received directly from Charles Thomson, the
secretary, to this effect.  As soon as the body had organized by choosing
Peyton Randolph president, all seemed impressed with a sense of the high
responsibility they had assumed, and a most profound silence ensued, as if
to say, "what next !"  None seemed willing to break the eventful silence,
until a grave-looking member, in a plain dark suit of "minister's gray", and
unpowdered wig, arose -- all became fixed in attention on him.

       "Conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant."

   Then, the gentleman informant said, he felt a sense of regret that the
seeming country parson should so far have mistaken his talents and the
theatre for their display !  But, as he proceeded, he evinced such unusual
force of argument, and such novel and impassioned eloquence, as soon
electrified the whole house.  Then the excited inquiry passed from man to
man, of who is it? who is it?  The answer from the few who knew him was, it
is Patrick Henry !!

   "Ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulect"

The honourable body having thus received its impulse, moved onward with
energy and concord.
   It was on this same occasion that General Washington, then a member from
Virginia, was observed to be the only member to kneel, when Bishop White
first offered his prayer to the Throne of Grace -- as if he was thus early
impressed with a sense of his and their dependence on "the God of battles".

Chapter 60.    OFFICE  OF  SECRETARY  OF  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS

               "Yet still will memory's busy eye retrace
                Each little vestige of the well-known place."

   Our city, justly fond of her pre-eminence as the home of the founders of
an important State, has also the superadded glory of possessing within her
precincts the primitive edifice in which the great national concerns of this
distinguished Republic were conceived and sustained.  The small building of
but twelve feet front, now occupied as a small shop for vending cakes and
children's trifles, was once the office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs.
>From that humble looking bureau were once fulminated those determined and
national resolves which made our foreign foes to cower, and secured out
Independence among the nations : "Tho' small our means, great were our
measures and our end !"
   From the contemplation of such a lowly structure, so seemingly
disproportionate to our present great attainments, ("a generation more
refined, improved the simple plan !") the mind recurs back instinctively to
those other primitive days, when the energies of the pilgrim founders were
in like manner restricted within the narrow bounds of "Laetitia Court", and
within the walls of "Laetitia House", on which occasion, Penn's letter of
1687, (in my possession), recommends "a change of the offices of State, from
his cottage, to quarters more commodious".
   The "Office for Secretary of Foreign Affairs", under present
consideration, is the same building now on the premises of P.S. Duponceau,
Esq., situate on the eastern side of south Sixth street, No. 13 -- a house
appropriately owned by such a possessor; for, in it, he, who came as a
volunteer to join our fortunes, and to aid our cause, as a captain under
Baron Steuben, became afterwards one of the under Secretaries to our
Minister of Foreign Relations, and in that building gave his active and
early services.  In the years 1782 and `83, under that humble roof presided,
as our then Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Robert R. Livingston.
Upstairs, in the small front room facing the street, sat that distinguished
personage, wielding by his mind and pen the destinies of our nation.  In the
adjoining back room, sat the two under Secretaries, to wit :  Louis R.
Morris, since governor of Vermont, and our present venerated citizen, Mr.
Duponceau.  There, having charge of the archives of a nation, they preserved
them all within the enclosure of a small wooden press !  The only room down
stairs, on the ground floor, was that occupied by the two clerks and the
interpreter.  One of the clerks, Mr. Henry Remson, has since become the
President of a Bank in New York, and the other, Mr. Stone, has been Governor
of Maryland.  The Translator was the Rev. Mr. Tetard, the pastor of the
French Reformed church.  Such was the material of our national infancy,
since grown to such vigorous and effective manhood !
   Mr. Duponceau, from whom I have derived much of these facts, which passed
under his immediate observation, has occasionally delighted himself and me
in describing, with good humoured emotion and picturesque delineation, the
various scenes which have there occasionally occurred, and the great
personages who have frequently clambered up the dark and narrow winding
stairs to make their respects to or their negotiations with the
representative of the nation ! -- such as the Marquis La Fayette, Count
Rochambeau, the Duke de Lauzun, Count Dillon, Prince Guemenee, &c.  Our own
great men, such as Madison, Morris, Hamilton, Mifflin, &c., were visitors of
course.  After the peace, in the same small upper chamber, were received the
homage of the British General, Allured Clark, and the famous Major Hangar,
once the favourite of the late George IV.  The Major received much attention
while in Philadelphia.
   The frail fabric, in veneration of its past services, (though a thing now
scarcely known to our citizens as a matter in "common parlance") is devoted
during the life of its present generous and feeling owner "to remain (as he
says) a proud monument of the simplicity of the founders of our Revolution".
It is, in truth, as deserving of encomium for its humble moderation, as was
the fact, renowned in history, respecting the Republic of the Netherlands in
her best days, when her Grand Pensionary, Heinsius, was deemed superlatively
ennobled, because he walked the streets of the Hague with only a single
servant, and sometimes with even none. {Note : encomium = glowing and warmly
enthusiastic praise}  Quite as worthy of memorial was the equivalent fact,
that our then venerable President of Congress, the Hon. Samuel Huntingdon,
together with Mr. Duponceau, often made their breakfast on whortleberries
and milk.  On such occasions, the President has facetiously remarked : --
"What now, Mr. Duponceau, would the princes of Europe say, could they see
the first Magistrate of this great country at his frugal repast !"
   Long may our sons remember and respect these facts of our generous and
devoted forefathers !  And long may the recollection of the memorable deeds
of this house,

          "------a great example stand, to show,
          How strangely high endeavours may be blest!"

   There are other facts connected with these premises which gave them
celebrity in their day, although of a nature quite dissimilar; but in
redeeming from oblivion all the facts of times by-gone, we may also hint at
this, to wit :
   In the year 1773, when the houses on this lot were erected for the
Lawrence family, and when the house now Mr. Duponceau's dwelling, on the
north-east corner of Chestnut street, was then used as the residence of the
other, it was then deemed far beyond the verge of city population.  It was,
indeed a country house, and virtually chosen as a "Buenos Ayres".  In
digging there for a well, they discovered, as they thought, an excellent
mineral water, "supposed to exceed in strength any chalybeate spring known
in the province"; great was its fame; crowds of persons came there to
partake of its efficacy.  The Gazettes of the day vaunted of it as a
valuable discovery.  It benefitted every body; and especially a reduced
French lady, to whom Ms. Lawrence gave the privilege of taking the fees for
the draughts of water she handed out to the numerous visiters.  It enjoyed
its fame, but for a short year, when, by the intrusive interference of
science, the discovery was reluctantly confessed, that it owed all its
virtues to the deposit of food materials; even from the remains of a long
covered and long forgotten pit !
   
              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 61.                FORT  WILSON

   This was the name popularly given to a large brick house formerly on the
south-west corner of Walnut street and Third street, (where Caldcleugh 25
years ago built a large store, &c.)  It was  in the year 1779, the residence
of James Wilson, Esq., an eminent attorney, who became offensive to many for
his professional services in behalf of Roberts and Carlisle -- men arraigned
and executed as tories and traitors.  He gave also umbrage from his support
of those merchants who refused to regulate their prices by the town
resolves.  A mob was formed, who gave out an intention to assault his house
and injure his person.  His friends gathered around him with arms -- soon
the conflict was joined -- many muskets were fired -- some were wounded, and
a few died.  It was a day of great excitement, and long the name and
incidents of "Fort Wilson" were discussed and remembered.
   Among those in the house were Messrs. Wilson, Morris, Burd, George and
Daniel Clymer, John T. Mifflin, Allen M'Lane, Sharp Delaney, George
Campbell, Paul Beck, Thomas Laurence, Andrew Robinson, John Potts, Samuel C.
Morris, Captain Campbell, and Generals Mifflin, Nichols and Thompson.  They
were provided with arms, but their stock of ammunition was very small.
While the mob was marching down, General Nichols and Daniel Clymer proceeded
hastily to the Arsenal at Carpenters' Hall, and filled their pockets with
cartridges : this constituted their whole supply.
   In the meantime, the mob and militia (for no regular troops took part in
the riot) assembled on the commons* while a meeting of the principal
citizens took place at the Coffee House.  [* They assembled at and began
their march from Arch above Fifth street.  General Arnold came to repress
the mob, but he was so unpopular, they stoned him.  The two men who used the
sledges and stove in the door were both killed; three also from Spring
Garden, and a great funeral was made for them by the populace.]  A
deputation was sent to endeavor to prevail on them to disperse, but without
effect.  The first troop of city cavalry assembled at their stables, a fixed
place of rendezvous, and agreed to have their horses saddled, and ready to
mount at a moment's warning.  Notice was to be given to as many members as
could be found, and a part was to be given to assemble in Dock below Second
street, and join the party at the stables.  For a time a deceitful calm
prevailed; at the dinner hour the members of the troop retired to their
homes, and the rebels seized the opportunity to march into the city.  The
armed men amounted to two hundred, headed by low characters.  They marched
down Chestnut to Second street, down Second to Walnut street, and up Walnut
street to Mr. Wilson's house, with drums beating and two pieces of cannon.
They immediately commenced firing on the house, which was warmly returned by
the garrison.  Finding they could make no impression, the mob proceeded to
force the door; at the moment it was yielding, the horse made their appearance.
   After the troop had retired at dinner time, a few of the members, hearing
that the mob were marching into town, hastened to the rendezvous : These
members were Majors Lennox and the two Nichols, Samuel Morris, Alexander
Nesbitt, Isaac Coxe and Thomas Leiper.  On their route to Wilson's they were
joined by two troopers from Bristol, and turning suddenly round the corner
of Chestnut street, they charged the mob, who, ignorant of their number, at
the cry of "the horse, the horse". dispersed in every direction, but not
before two other detachments of the first troop had reached the scene.  Many
of them were arrested, and committed to prison; and as the sword was very
freely used, a considerable number were severely wounded.  A man and a boy
were killed in the streets; in the house, Captain Campbell* was killed, and
a Mr. Mifflin and Mr. S.C. Morris wounded. [* A Colonel Campbell, who came
to the door and opened it, was seized and bayoneted with a dozen wounds, and
survived them.]  The troop patroled the streets the greater part of the
night.  The citizens turned out, and placed a guard at the powder magazine
and the arsenal.  It was some days before order was restored.  Major Lennox
was particularly marked out for destruction.  He retired to his house at
Germantown : the mob followed and surrounded it during the night, and
prepared to force an entrance.  Anxious to gain time, he pledged his honour,
that he would open the door as soon as day-light appeared.  In the meantime,
he contrived to despatch an intrepid woman, who lived in his family, to the
city for assistance; and a party of the first troop arrived in season to
protect their comrade; but he was compelled to return to town for safety.
He was, for a number of years, saluted in the market by the title of
"brother, butcher" owing in part to his having been without a coat on the
day of the riot; for having a long coat, he was obliged to cast it aside, to
prevent being dragged from his horse.
   The gentlemen who had comprised the garrison were advised to leave the
city, where their lives were endangered.  General Mifflin and about thirty
others accordingly met at Mr. Gray's house below Gray's Ferry, where it was
resolved to return to town without any appearance of intimidation.  But it
was deemed expedient that Mr. Wilson should absent himself for a time : the
others continued to walk as usual in public, and attended the funeral of the
unfortunate Captain Campbell.
   Allen M'Lane and Colonel Grayson got into the house after the fray began.
The mob called themselves Constitutionalists.  Benezet's fire in the entry
from the cellar passage was very effective.

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 62.             FRIENDS'  ALMSHOUSE

   This ancient and antiquated looking building, fronting on Walnut street,
near Third street, was founded more than a century ago, for the benevolent
purpose of providing for the maintenance of the poor of that Society.  The
ground plot, and a large one too, was given to Friends by John Martin, on
condition that they should support him for life.
   The front edifice was built in 1729; and those wings in the garden were
built about sixteen years earlier, they being then sufficient for the wants
of the Society.  The neat and comfortable manner in which the inmates have
always lived is very creditable to their benefactors.  The Friends having
employed this building exclusively for females, and it being on a lot next
to the Papal chapel, induced the Irish papists worshipping there to call it
the Quakers' Nunnery.  One of them writing to my friend, the greatest lawyer
in Philadelphia, addressed his letter "to the stout, honest lawyer in Walnut
street opposite the Quaker Nunnery".
   The present elevation of the garden, as much as ten feet above the street
in front, proves the former higher ground along Walnut street.  The aged
Mrs. Shoemaker, who died 16 years ago at the age of  95 years, told me that
she remembered when the whole neighbourhood looked to the eye like a high
hill from the line of Dock creek.  The road, for many years, in her time,
from Third street up Walnut street, and from Walnut street along Third
street going southward,  were narrow cartways ascending deep defiles, and
causing the foot passengers to walk high above them on the sides of the
shelving banks.


Chapter 63.          WHITPAIN'S  GREAT  HOUSE

   This was the name given to a stately house built on the bank side of
Front street below Walnut street, for an owner of that name in England.
Having been built of shell lime, if fell into premature decay, and "great
was the fall thereof".
   In 1687, William Penn, by his letter to T. Lloyd, R. Turner, &c., says :
"Taking into consideration the great expenses of Richard Whitpain to the
advancement of the province, and the share he taketh here (in England) on
all occasions for its honour, I can do no less than recommend to you for
public service his great house in Philadelphia, which, being too big for a
private man, would provide you a conveniency above what my cottage affords.
It were reputable to take at least a moiety of it, which might serve for all
the offices of State".
   In 1707, Samuel Preston, writing to Jonathon Dickinson, then in Jamaica,
says "his house is endangered; for, that Whitpain's great house then
decaying, threatened to fall upon and crush his house".
   In February, 1708-9, Isaac Norris, writing to Jonathon Dickinson, says:
"It is not prudent to repair thy house next to Whitpain's ugly great house;
we have applied to authority to get power to pull it down.  In the mean time
the front of that part next to thine, being all tumbled down, lies open".
   In after years a great fire occurred near there, and burnt down all the
property belonging to Dickinson, so that the place long bore the name of
"the burnt buildings".  Ross' stores now occupy, I think, the same premises.

 

Chapter 64.              WIGGLESWORTH'S  HOUSE

   This house is entitled to some notice, as well for its ancient and
peculiar location as for the rare person, "Billy Wigglesworth", who gave it
fame in more modern times.  As a house, it is peculiar for its primitive
double front, (Nos. 43 and 45, south Second street) and heavy, squat, dormer
windows, and above all, for having been built so early as that they did not
find the right line of Second street ! -- of course presenting the
earliest-built house in its vicinity; -- for it now stands north-east and
south-west !  The character of its original finish under the eaves, &c., as
any one may discern who inspects it, evinces that it was superior in its day.
I perceive it was first recorded in 1685 as the property of Philip Richards,
merchant, for whom the house was built.  Joseph Richards, the son, possessed
it by will in 1697, and sold it to John Brown in 1715.  In 1754, the present
two houses, then as one house, was occupied by William Plumstead, Esq.,
Alderman, who was buried in 1765, in a peculiar manner, having, by will, no
pall, nor mourning dresses, &c.  On the north end of the house was once
"Hall's alley".  The premises many years ago was occupied as the Prince of
Wales' Inn.  In the rear of the house was a good garden and a sun-dial
affixed to the wall of the house, and still there.
   "Billy Wigglesworth", as he was universally called, long kept a toyshop,
the wonder of all the boys in the city; and the effigies of human form which
dangled by a string from his ceiling had no rivals, but in his own gaunt and
gawky figure.  But Billy's outward man was the least of his oddities; his
distinguishing characteristic was a fondness for that mode of self-amusement
at the expense of others, called manual wit.  His exploits in that way have
been humorously told by a writer whose sketches have been preserved under
the article "Wigglesworthiana", in my MS. Annals, page 534, in the
Historical Society.

 


Chapter 65.                  THE  OLD  FERRY

   This first ferry and its neighbourhood was described to me by the late
aged John Brown, Esq., whose father before him once kept that ferry, and had
near there at the same time his ship yard.  When John Brown was a small lad,
the river then came close up to the rear of the present house in Water
street, and when they formed the present existing slip, they filled up the
area with chalk imported for ballast.  At that time the Front street bank
was vacant, and he used with others to sled down the hill from Combes'
alley, then called Garden alley, and Penny hill, quite down to the ice on
the river.  The bank of Front street was reddish clay.  The shed stables for
the old ferry were set into that bank.  His father's ship yard was opposite
to Combes' alley, and Parrock's ship yard was then at Race street.
   The fact of the then open bank of Front street is confirmed by an
advertisement of 1761; then Francis Rawle, storekeeper, and attorney for the
"Pennsylvania Land Company of Pennsylvania", advertises to sell the lots
from his house, by the ferry steps, down to Clifford's steps, in lots of 22
feet front, each then unimproved.
   It was in this same year, 1761, the Corporation permitted Samuel Austin,
the owner of the river lot on the north side of Arch street, to erect there
another ferry house, which, in relation to the other, soon took the name of
the "New Ferry".
   The original act for establishing a ferry to Daniel Cooper's land was
passed, in 1717.

 


Chapter 66.                OFFLY'S  ANCHOR  FORGE

   This was established about the year 1755, in a large frame building on
the Front street bank, directly opposite to Union street.  The owner and
director was Daniel Offly, a public Friend, whose voice in speaking was not
unlike the sound of his own iron falling on a brick pavement.  The
reminiscent has often looked through the Front street low windows down into
the smoking cavern, in appearance, below, fronting on Penn street, where,
through the thick sulphurous smoke, aided by the glare of forge light, might
be seen Daniel Offly directing the strokes of a dozen hammermen, striking
with sledges on a welding heat produced on an immense unfinished anchor,
swinging from the forge to the anvil by a ponderous crane, he at the same
time keeping his piercing iron voice above the din of the iron sound !

 The iron sun sees not on the earth, such fiery fearful shop --
 The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row
 Of smiths, that stand, an ardent hand, like men before the foe;
 As quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster, slow
 Sinks on the anvil, ---all about the faces fiery grow; ---
 "Hurrah" ! they shout, "leap out" --- "leap out", bang, bang, the sledges go !
 A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow".
 While Offly sternly cries -- strike strike, while yet our heats so glow.

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Chapter 67.                  BAPTISTERION

  On the bank of the Schuylkill, at the end of Spruce street, there was, in
the early times of the city, an oak grove, selected by the Baptist Society
as a Baptisterion, to lead their initiates into the river to be baptized, as
did John in Enon.
  Morgan Edwards, their pastor, who describes it as he saw it before the
year 1770, (he arrived here in 1758) says of it -- "Around said spot are
large oaks affording fine shade -- under foot is a green, variegated with
wild flowers and aromatic herbs, and a tasteful house is near for dressing
and undressing the Proseuches"  In the midst of the spot was a large stone,
upon the dry ground, and elevated above it about three feet -- made level on
the top by art, with hewn steps to ascend it.  Around this rock the
candidates knelt to pray, and upon it the preacher stood to preach to the
people.  "The place was not only convenient for the purposes used, but also
most delightful for rural scenery, inducing people to go thither in summer
as a place of recreation".  To such a place resorted Francis Hopkinson,
Esq., with his bards and literati, to sweep their lyres, or to meditate on
justice and religion.
  A part of one of the hymns sung upon their baptismal occasions reads thus,
viz.

          "Of our vows this stone's a token --
           Stone of Witness,* bear record
           'Gainst us if our vows be broken,
           Or, if we forsake the Lord."
  *Joshua 24,26

  What a shame that all these rural beauties have been long since effaced
and forgotten ! -- none of them left to remind us of those rural appendages,
woods, &c.  I have since learned that the property there belonged to Mr.
Marsh, a Baptist, and that the British army cut it down for fuel.  The whole
place is now all wharfed out for the coal trade, so that those lately
baptized near there, had to clamber over heaps of coal.  The "Stone of
Witness" is buried in the wharf -- never to be seen more !

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Chapter 68.                FORT  ST. DAVID

  A society of gentlemen of Philadelphia, many years ago, [said to be 100
years], had a house at the falls of Schuylkill, called Fort St. David, where
they used to meet at fishing seasons, by public advertisement, beginning
with the first of May, and continuing every other Friday during the season.
Much good living was enjoyed there.  The building, a kind of summer
pavilion, stood on the descent of the hill, leading to the Falls bridge, at
the position since excavated as a free stone quarry.  A sketch of it, such
as it was, is preserved in the Dickinson family, being on an elegant silver
box, presented to John Dickinson in 1768, for his celebrated "Farmer's
Letters".  In the house and along its walls were hung up a great variety of
curious Indian articles, and sometimes the president of the day was dressed
in the entire garb of an Indian chief.
  The same association still exists, but have transferred their place of
meeting to Rambo's rock below Gray's Ferry, the former attractions at the
Falls, as a celebrated fishing place, having been ruined by the river
obstructions, &c.  They now call their association the "State of
Schuylkill", &c.
  In former times it was quite different.  Old Godfrey Shrunk, when about 74
years of age, a well known fisherman near the Falls in his younger days, has
told me he could often catch with his dip-net 3000 catfish in one night !
Often he has sold them at two shillings a hundred.  The perch and rockfish
were numerous and large; often he has caught 30 to 80 lbs. of a morning with
a hook and line.  He used to catch fish for the Fishing Company of St.
David, which used to cook 40 dozen of catfish at a time.
  He described the company house as a neat and tasteful structure of wood,
70 feet long and 20 feet wide, set against the descending hill side on a
stone foundation, having 14 ascending steps in front; the sides consisting
entirely of folding or moveable doors and windows, were borne off by the
Hessians for their huts 1777-8, and so changed and injured the place, that
it was never used for its former purposes after the Revolution.

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Chapter 69.             BACHELORS'  HALL

  This was once a celebrated place of gluttony and good living, but highly
genteel and select, situated in Kensington on the main river street, a
little above the present market house.  It was a square building of
considerable beauty, with pilasters, &c., and was burnt before the
Revolution.  It was built for a few city gentlemen, and the last survivor
was to take the premises.  It fell into the hands of the Norris family; many
dancing parties were given there.  It had a fine open view to the scenery on
the Delaware, and at the time of its institution was deemed retired; tea
parties were made there frequently for the ladies of their acquaintance, and
once it was lent to the use of Murray, the Universalist preacher, keeping
then the doctrine cannon shot distance from the city.
  Among the members of the joint tenantry were Robert Charles, William
Masters, John Sober, P. Graeme, Isaac Norris; the whole space was in one
room.  The few partners that remained in 1745, induced Isaac Norris to buy
them out, and the premises afterwards vested solely in him.
  While the place was in vogue it received the flattery of the muse in the
following lines, published in the Gazette of 1730, and styled "an Invitation
to the Hall", to wit :

            "Phoebus, wit-inspiring lord,
             Attic maid for arts ador'd,
             Bacchus with full clusters come,
             Come rich from harvest home.
             Joys and smiles and loves and graces,
             Gen'rous hearts and cheerful faces,
             With ev'ry hospitable god,
             Come and bless this sweet abode !"

  The mysteries of the place, however, were all unknown to the vulgar, and
for that very reason they gave loose to many conjectures, which finally
passed for current tales, as a bachelor's place, where maidens were
inveigled and deceived.  I had myself heard stories of it when a boy, which
thrilled my soul with horror, without one word of truth for its foundation.
  It was burnt in 1776, and a smith's shop was built on its ruins.
Hopkinson's "Old Bachelor" has some verses on its burning.

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Chapter 70.                     THE  DUCK  POND

                      Corner of Fourth and High Streets.

  It will hardly be credited that there should have been once a great pond,
filled with spatterdocks, and affording a place of visitation to wild ducks,
situate along High street, westward of Fourth street, and forming the proper
head of Dock creek.  The facts which warrant this belief are to the
following effect, to wit:
   The family of Anthony Klincken settled in Germantown at its foundation,
in 1683.  Anthony, then a lad, became in time a great hunter, and lived to
the year 1759.  Before his death he told his grandson, Anthony Johnson, an
aged man who died thirteen or fourteen years ago, that he knew of no place
where he had such successful shooting of ducks and geese as at the
above-mentioned pond.  Indeed, he said, he never visited the city in the
proper season, without taking his gun along, and making his visits there.
The relaters were good people of the Society of Friends, and their testimony
is to be credited.
  The poetic description of High street, in 1729, describes it then as a
"plashy" place -- equivalent to a water lot or puddle, to wit :

         "Along their doors the clean hard paving trends
          Till at a "plashy" crossing street it ends,
          And thence a short arm's throw renewed tends;
          Beyond, -- the street is thinly wall'd, but fair,
          With gardens paled, and orchards here and there."

   As early as the year 1712, the Grand Jury present that the High street,
near the crossing of Fourth street, is very much out of repair for want of
water courses.
  When Dr. Franklin visited Philadelphia, in 1723, then a lad of 18 years of
age, he tells us he walked up High street as far as Fourth street, and
thence down that street to Chestnut street.  The reason was, I presume, that
the city walk went no further westward at that time.
  In the year 1740 the Grand Jury present the upper end of High street,
between John Kinsey's [near the corner of Fifth street] and the widow
Kenmarsh's, as almost impassable after great rains.  In the same street,
they presented the water course from the widow Harmen's to the common shore*
across High street as very much gullied and dangerous.  * This may equally
mean the shore at Water and High streets.
  In the year 1750 the Grand Jury presented the gutter of the northwest
corner of Fourth and High streets, as rendered dangerous for want of a grate
at the common sewer -- the passage being large enough for the body of a
grown person to fall in, and that Fourth street, from Market street to the
south-west corner of Friends' burying ground, wants regulating, and is now
impassable for carriages.
  The origin of the above named sewer is probably expressed in the minutes
of City Council of August, 1737.  It was then determined that Alderman
Morris and Israel Pemberton, two of the persons appointed at the last
council to get the arch made over High street at Fourth street, have
prepared now to continue the said arch along the said Fourth street, until
the water falls into the lots of Anthony Morris, and to pave the same, it
being about 200 feet, if they can have the liberty of getting voluntary
contributions and 25 Pounds paid, the most of the money which may hereafter
be raised by a tax; which proposal being considered, was agreed to by the Board.
  The late Timothy Matlack, Esq., confirmed to me what Lawrence Sickle, an
aged gentleman not long since dead, said of their neighbourhood -- to wit :
That back from the north-west corner of Fourth and High streets, there used
to be a spring in which river fish, coming up by Dock street creek in large
tides, used to be caught by boys.  This was before their time, but they had
so often heard it, that they believed it was so.
  He told me, however, that he (T.M.) saw the spring -- that it was about 70
feet north-west of the present corner house, and that one Humphreys in his
time had put a blacksmith shop over it, set on stakes.  The blacksmith shop
was confirmed to me by others.  Mr. Matlack told me that before they made
the great improved tunnel (running from this place down Fourth street to
Walnut street in 1789) there was some kind of small tunnel traversing High
street, as a bridge, and leading out to an open gully back of the Indian
Queen inn, on the east side of Fourth street.  The floods of water which
came down to this place, especially down High street and north Fourth
street, were immense; and once, when he was a young man, he had an occasion
to wade across the street at Fourth and High streets when the water was up
to his waist.  The old tunnel or brick bridge above referred to, was not
visible above ground, and he supposes he should not have known of its
existence there, but that he once saw a horse's leg sink very deeply into
the ground, and on examining for the cause found some bricks had been forced
through an arch there.  I understood Mr. Matlack to say that this arch had
then no communication by which to let off the above-mentioned floods, and it
could have only been of use when water formerly came from ground at a
distance down a creek or marsh laying up the west side of Fourth street, to
somewhere near the old Academy, and thence traversing Arch street, by the
north-east corner of the Christ church ground.  Both he and Thomas Bradford
thought they once saw the remains of such a water-course, and they
understood it had been deeper.
  When the long range of buildings which occupy the site along the west side
of Fourth street from the corner of High street, were erected about 40 years
ago for Jacob Miller, merchant, it was observed by Mr. Suter, a neighbour
there, that he saw at the bottom of the cellar several large logs traversing
it east and west, or nearly so, which in his opinion as well as others
appeared to have been very ancient, and to have been intended to serve as a
wharf, or a fence to land jutting into a water-course.  The whole earth
taken from the cellars appeared to have been made-ground, although the
cellars went many feet northward,  At a later period, in digging a
foundation for the buildings back of the Hotel on Fourth street, it proved
to be all made-ground.  This range has since been all taken down and rebuilt
by Joseph and Thomas Wood, with basement story stores to the same -- on the
1st of July 1842, a sudden and great fall of rain, overran a culvert there
and flooded all those stores !  Two women and a child therein, had nearly
drowned before they were released !
  Mr. Joseph Crukshank, when about the age of 82 years, told me that old
Hugh Roberts, about 38 years age, told him he had caught perch at about
where Stanly's pot-house stood, [say in the rear of Duval's and Twells'
lots on High street above Fourth street], and that he had seen shallops once
at the corner of Fourth and High street.  He was about 25 years older than
Crukshank.
  Mr. Grove, now alive, was present when they dug out the south east corner
of the present Christ church burial ground (on Arch and Fifth street) and he
then saw that the area was made-ground to the depth of seventeen feet,
consisting of a great deal of rubbish and broken pottery.  The whole depth
was replaced with loam earth for burial purposes.  This fact, concerning
ground actually adjoining Stanly's pottery, before alluded to, confirms as I
conceive, the former fishing pond there.
  Mr. Grove's father, born in Philadelphia, showed him a place in Arch
street, near about the north-east corner of the same burying ground wall,
next to Sansom's houses, where he said some of his ancestors used to tell
him a brook or creek once crossed Arch street; a hut, he said, stood near to
it, where dwelt a child which was borne off by a bear.  His father believed
it as a straight family tradition.  A note from Joseph Sansom says " the
appearance of the soil, in digging for his brother's cellars, indicated the
course of a rivulet from north to south, apparently one of the head branches
of Dock Creek".  The grave digger also confirms the idea of considerable
depth of made-ground at the said north-east corner.

Chapter 71.                 PEGG'S  RUN,  &C.

  No part of Philadelphia has undergone such great and various changes as
the range of commons, water-lots, &c., ranging along the course of this run,
primarily known under the Indian name of Cohoquinoque.  A present beholder
of the streets and houses now covering those grounds, and the hidden tunnel
now concealing the former creek, along Willow street, could have no
conception of things as they were, even only forty years ago.  The
description is unavoidably complicated.
  At the north end of Philadelphia the high table land of the city
terminated in a high precipitous bluff, at about two hundred and fifty feet
north of Callowhill street.  This extended from Front street, at Poole's
bridge, up as high as Fifth and Sixth street, bounding the margin of Pegg's
run.  On the north side of this whole range of Pegg's run, which rises in
Spring Garden (where was once a spring at its source), there was an
extensive marsh into which the Delaware flowed, and into which, in cases of
freshets or floods, boats could be used for amusement.  Beyond the north
side of this marsh, in the writer's time (say till within the last forty
years), from near Front quite up to Second street, was a high open and green
grazing common;  it also had a steep but green hill descending into the
marsh, at about one hundred and fifty feet in the south rear of Noble
street. [See a picture of this place on page 280 of my MS. Annals in the
Philadelphia Library.]
  On this common there was Joseph Emlen's tanyard, with a spring on the
south rear, and on the east side of it a powder magazine, then converted
into two dwelling houses;  these were the only lots occupied.  From Second
to Third street, beyond the same north side of the marsh, was a beautiful
green enclosure, with only one large brick house, now standing on the
south-west corner of Noble and Second streets, called Emlen's haunted house,
and then occupied by the Rev. Dr. Pilmore.  Not one of the present range of
houses on either side of Second street, from Noble to the Second street
bridge, was standing there till within the last thirty years.  Before that
time, a low causeway made the street and joined the two bluffs, and was
universally called "the Hollow".  Even the Second street and Third street
stone bridges were made since the writer's time (forty years) and the Second
street one was worked at by the "wheelbarrow  men", who were chained felons
from the prisons.  The writer, when a boy, remembers two or three occasions
when the floods in the Delaware backed so much water into all this marsh
from Front to Third street,  that boats actually rowed from bank to bank,
even on the top of the causeway, several hundred feet in length.  In that
time, the descent of the Second street from Callowhill to the bridge, was
nearly as great as at Race and Front street now;  and it used to be a great
resort for boys in winter to run down their sleds on the snow;  they could
run at least one hundred and fifty feet.  In that time, the short street
(Margaretta) south of the bridge did not exist;  but the brick house which
forms the south side corner house, was the utmost verge of the ancient
bluff.  On the west side of Second street, south of the bridge, were a few
houses and a sheep-skin dresser's yard, which seemed almost covered up (full
the first story) by the subsequent elevation of the street.  In raising the
street, and to keep the ground from washing off, the sides of the road were
supported by a great number of cedar trees with all their branches on, laid
down and the earth filled in among them, and water-proof gutter ways of wood
were laid over them, to conduct the street water into the water channels of
the bridge.  The wheelbarrow - men, who worked at such public works, were
subjects of great terror, even while chained, to all the boys;  and by often
seeing them, there were few boys who had not learned and told their several
histories.  Their chief desperado, I remember, was Luke Cale.  Five of them,
whom we used thus to know, were all executed on Centre Square (the execution
ground of that day) on one gallows and at the same time, for the murder of a
man who dwelt in the then only house near that square -- (say on the south
side of High street, five or six doors east of the centre street circle, all
of which was then a waste common).  From St. John street (now, but not then,
opened) up the whole length of Callowhill street to Fourth street, beyond
which it did not then extend, there were no houses in the rear or any houses
then on the north side of Callowhill street, and of course all was waste
grass commons down to Pegg's run.  This high waste ground had some
occasional slopes, which gave occasion to hundreds of boys to "sled down
hill", as it was called, in the intervals of school.  (From Third to Sixth
street on the south side of Pegg's run, being very high, furnished all the
gravel used in the city end of the Germantown turnpike.)  As the snows
lasted long then, this was a boy-sport of the whole winter.  The marsh
ground had much of vegetable production in it, and when not flooded, had
some parts of it green with vegetation;  this, therefore, was a great resort
for snipe, kildear, and even plover, and many birds have been shot there.
Doctor Leib was a frequent visitor there for shooting purposes.  In other
places, earth had been taken to make an embankment all along the side of
Pegg's run, and this left such ponds of water as made places where catfish,
brought in by the floods, were left, and were often caught by boys.  In the
summer the water which rested in places on this marsh, gave life and song to
thousands of clamorous frogs; and in the winter the whole area was a great
ice pond, in which all the skating population of Philadelphia, even
including men, were wont to skate.
  This was more particularly the case before the ice in the Delaware closed
for the season, which was usually by New-year's day, and lasted till March.
There were two springs, and perhaps several rills near them, proceeding from
the north bank of this marsh -- one at Emlen's tanyard east of Second
street, and one west of Second street; from these springs went an embankment
on the marsh side parallel with the bank, and inclining east until one
reached Second street, and till the other reached the rear of the house (say
Rogers' glue factory) on Front street; thence they went each at right angles
south until they severally struck into Pegg's run.  In these channels the
tides of the Delaware flowed, and especially the lower one near Rogers',
over which was once a little foot bridge to pass on to the marsh in dry
seasons.  In process of time, (the time of my day), these embankments got so
wasted away, as to precisely answer the purpose of holding all the water
which high tides could deposit; and so kept it in for shallow ponds, (at the
eastern side of the marsh, chiefly), for the great amusement of the boys.
Now, while I write, all these descriptions are hid forever from our eyes;
the marsh is intersected by streets, and filled up with houses.  The filling
up was not a short work; it became long a deposit for all the loose rubbish
of the city -- first, the corporation who filled up the streets, then the
occupant or builder of each house would bring a little earth for his yard,
and support his enclosure with stakes, &c., until another would build
alongside of him; and he would frame rough steps up to his door until
successive deposits of earth, as time and means would enable, have enabled
them, at last, to bring the streets now to a general level.
  From Third street to Fourth street, on the north side of Pegg's run, the
land was nearer the level of Pegg's run, and was filled to Noble street with
many tanyards, and one very fine kitchen garden of about one acre of ground.
The tanyard which bounded on the west side of Third street, (as the
Commissioners filled up Third street) rested at least one story below the
common walk; and the house at the south-west corner of Noble street, which
went up steps to the door sill, is now levelled with the street.  New Fourth
street, across Pegg's run, was not opened at all until lately, not one of
the houses were built between it and Callowhill street.  The causeway at
Second street was something narrower than the present street; and the
footway, which was only on the west side of it, was three feet lower than
the street; (for they were for years casting refuse earth, shoemakers'
leather, and shavings, &c., into it).  At the north end, where it joined to
the present pavement way, it was separated by so deep and yawning a ravine,
caused by the rain floods rushing down it into the marsh and pond below,
that it was covered with a wooden bridge.  Such are the changes wrought in
this section of the Northern Liberties in from thirty-five to forty years !
  The name of Pegg's run was derived from Daniel Pegg, a Friend, who in
1686, acquired the three hundred and fifty acres of Jurian Hartsfelder's
patent of the year 1676.  He therefore once possessed nearly all of the
Northern Liberties south of Cohocksinc creek, in their primitive state of
woody waste.  He appears to have sold about one hundred and fifty acres of
the northern part to Coates, and to have set upon the improvement of the
rest as a farm -- to have diked in his marsh, so as to form low meadows, and
to have set up a brick-kiln.  His mansion, of large dimensions, described to
me as of two stories, with a piazza and double hipped roof, was always
called, in the language of early days, "the big brick house", at "the north
end".  It was situate upon Front street, west side, a little below Green
street.  Whatever was its appearance, we know it was such that William Penn,
in 1709, proposed to have it rented for his residence, that he might there
be in the quiet country.  Back of Pegg's house, from Front to Second street,
and from Green to Coates' street, he had nearly a square of ground enclosed
as a field, by numerous large cherry trees along the fences.  This same
space was a fine green meadow when the British possessed Philadelphia, and
they cut down the fine cherry trees for fuel.
  When we see the present compactly built state of the Northern Liberties,
so like another city set beside its parent beyond the run, it increases our
wish to learn, if we can, from what prior condition it was formed.
  To this end, the will of Daniel Pegg, formed the 9th of January 1732, a
short time before he died, will lead us into some conceptions of things as
they were, to wit :
  To his wife Sarah he gave "his northernmost messuage or tenement and the
piece of ground thereunto belonging, bounded on the north by land in the
tenure of William Coates, on the east by the great road leading to
Burlington, [i.e. Front street] southward by a lane dividing that tract from
his other land, and westward by the New York road", [i.e. old Fourth
street].  To his nephew, Daniel Pegg, (son of Nathan), he gave all his
"southernmost messuage or tenement, where he then dwelt, together with the
piece of ground bounded northward by the land aforesaid, eastward by the
Burlington road, southward by the second row of apple trees in his orchard,
carrying the same breadth westward to a fence at the west end of an
adjoining pasture, and westward by the said fence".  He further gives his
said nephew "all his ground and marsh between the front of the house and
ground, therein before given him, and the Delaware river, of the same
breadth aforesaid".  To his daughter, Sarah Pegg, he gave "the ground
bounded northward by the ground before given to his nephew, Daniel Pegg;
eastward by the Delaware river; southward by a forty foot road, beginning at
ten feet southward of the south fence of his orchard, and to extend the same
breadth westward to the westernmost fence of his pasture, (lying west of his
orchard), and westward by the same fence".  [To this daughter Sarah he also
gives "his southernmost pasture adjoining his meadow, with all his adjoining
marsh or meadow and improvements".]  To his nephew Elias Pegg, (the second
son of Nathan), he gave "the ground, of fifty feet breadth, bounded
northward by the forty feet road, eastward by Delaware river, southward by
his other ground, and westward by other ground, then or late his, at the
extent of three hundred feet from the west side of Burlington road
aforesaid".  He grants similar lots lying along the same to his nephews,
Daniel Coates, and John Coates, (sons of Thomas) "extending in length from
John Rutter's north-west corner on the New York road, to Edmond Wooley's
bars."  His small fenced pasture of two and a half acres, lying near the
brick-kilns, he orders to be sold, to pay off his debts, &c.
  This farm, at its wildest state, is marked by William Penn's letter of the
year 1700, showing there were then Indians hutted there, he saying he wishes
that "earnest inquiry may be made for the men who fired on the Indians at
Pegg's run, and frightened them", saying, "they must be appeased, or evil
will ensue.
  The value of this farm in primitive days is shown in a letter of Jonathon
Dickinson's, of December 1715, saying, "he can buy Daniel Pegg's land
fronting the Delaware, and lying in N. Liberty Corporation, at 50s. per
acre, having thereon a well built brick house, a piece of six to eight acres
of meadow," &c.
  In the year 1729 Daniel Pegg advertised his land for sale, and then he
described it thus, viz.  "To be sold or let, by Daniel Pegg, at the great
brick house at the north end of Philadelphia, thirty acres of upland, meadow
ground and marsh".  The house, about the period of the Revolution, was
called "the Dutch house", both because its form was peculiar, and especially
because it had long been noted as a place for holding Dutch dances, called
"hupsesaw" -- a whirling dance in waltz style.
  In 1724 there was erected on his former premises the first powder house
ever erected in Philadelphia; it was at the expense of William Chanceller, a
wealthy sailmaker, who placed it on the northern bank of Pegg's marsh -- say
a little south of present Noble street, and about sixty yards westward of
Front street.  It now exists as a dwelling house.  Chancellor was privileged
as exclusive keeper, for twenty-one years, at 1s. a keg per month.
  As the name of Pegg has thus connected itself with interesting
topographical facts, it may possibly afford further interest to add a few
items of a personal nature, to wit :  It appears he must have had at least
two wives before the widow Sarah, mentioned in his will; for I found his
name as married on the 28th of 2d mo., 1686, to Martha Allen, at her father
Samuel Allen's house at Neshamina, in the presence of twenty-two signing
witnesses; and again in 1691 he marries, at Friends' Meeting in
Philadelphia, Barbara Jones.  His brief history shows the vicissitudes of
human affairs :  Possessed of the fee simple of three hundred and fifty
acres of now invaluable building lots, he left no rich heirs; and the
possessor of three wives or more, he left no male issue to keep up his name,
even in our City Directory !  It appears, by the letter of Secretary Peters,
of 1749, that the heirs of D. Pegg then appeared to make a partition.  He
left an only daughter.
  Connected with Pegg's marsh meadows are some curious facts of :

            SUBTERRANE and ALLUVIAL REMAINS, to wit:
  Christian Witmeck, a digger of wells, told me, that in digging a well for
Mr. Lowber at Pegg's run, by St. John's street, at thirteen feet depth he
cut across a fallen tree; at thirty-four feet, he came to wood which appeared
to be decayed roots of trees, in pieces of six inches square;  near the
bottom, he found what looked like isinglass -- so they called it -- then
came to black sand; they dug through twenty-four feet of black mud; the
volume of water procured is large.  These facts were confirmed to me by Mr.
Lowber himself.  The same C. Witmeck, in digging a well near there for
Thomas Steel, at No. 81 St. John street, at forty feet northward from the
run, found, at the depth of twenty-one feet, real black turf filled with
numerous reddish fibres of roots -- it was ten feet in depth, and below it
the well rested, at the depth of thirty feet, upon white sand; at twenty-six
feet depth they found the crotch of a pine tree; between the well and the
creek they found a brick wall, two feet under the surface, of six feet of
depth and apparently thirty feet square.  May not this have been the ruins
of some ancient mill?
  The well of Prosper Martin, at No. 91 St. John street, at about one
hundred feet northward from Pegg's run, is a great curiosity, although it
has excited no public attention.  A single well of fifteen feet diameter at
surface, and narrower at bottom, having its surface full sixteen feet lower
in the yard than the present St. John street, (which has twenty feet depth
of made earth) being dug thirty feet, has the surprising volume of discharge
of sixty thousand gallons a day without ever running out !  It (by aid of
steam to elevate it) turns the machinery of two mahogany saws, which are
running all day, every day -- (save Sundays).  Prosper is a young man, and
deserves great credit for his perseverance in prosecuting this digging.  To
use his own words, he was determined on water power, and determined to get
below the bed of the Delaware and drain it off !  His name, and the
prosperity likely to crown his enterprise, seem likely to be identified.
The original spring which I used to see, when a boy, is about forty feet
west of it, on the west side of St. John street, at Dunn's cellar, No. 96.
  Mr. Martin tells me he first attempted a well of smaller diameter nearer
to the natural spring, but did not succeed to get through the mud deposit,
owing to the narrowness, which did not allow him to repeat enough of curbs
into it.  He therefore undertook this second one; he went through twenty
feet of black mud, and came for his foundation to coarse round pebbles, and
manifest remains of shells.  They seemed like (in part) crumbled clam
shells.  Several springs flowed in at the bottom; but in the centre there
bursted out a volume of water of full six inches diameter, which sent forth
such a volume of carbonic acid gas as to have nearly cost the life of the
last of the two men, who hurried out of the well when it flowed in.
Previously to this great discharge, there was so much of the same gas
issuing as to nearly extinguish the candle, and to have made it, for some
time previously, very deleterious to work there.  The water thus flowing has
uniformly a purgative quality on any new hands which he may employ, and who
drink it.  It deposits a concretion, a piece of which I have, which makes an
excellent hone.  This concretion enters so readily into ropes laying in it,
as to make them calculous, and when the works on one occasion lay idle for
some repairs, he found a deposit of full three bushels of salt; a large
portion of which seemed to possess the quality of Glauber's salt.  I intend
now, for the first time, to have some chemical examination of its
properties.  [ I have since done this.  Sulphuret of lime was in the spring,
and the gas must have been sulphureted hydrogen gas.  The hone was carbonate
of lime containing sulphureted hydrogen gas.]  The hone, when triturated,
gives out a nauseous smell, arising from the sulphur in it, as well as in
Glauber's salt.  The lime came from the shells, and the sulphureted gas from
the animal matter once in them.  {Note : Concretion = a mass of mineral
matter found generally in rock of a composition different from its own and
produced by deposition from aqueous solution in the rock.  Triturate =
crush; grind; to pulverize thoroughly by rubbing or grinding.  Hone =
whetstone. Glauber's salt = a colorless crystalline sulfate of sodium used
especially in dyeing, as a cathartic, and in solar energy systems -- and
sometimes used in the plural.}
  Mr. P. Martin, who is an intelligent man, and seems to have examined
things scientifically, gives it as his opinion that this low ground of
Pegg's swamp must have been once the bed of Schuylkill, traversing from near
the present Fairmount.  He says the route of the whole is still visible to
his eye.  His theory is, that at an earlier period the original outlet of
the Schuylkill was by the Cohocksinc creek, and he thinks that stream, in
two divisions, can be still traced by his eye, meandering and ascending to
the Falls of Schuylkill -- that at the Falls, which was once a higher
barrier, the river was turned shortly to the eastward; when that barrier was
partially destroyed the river flowed down its present course to the present
Fairmount works, or thereabouts, where it turned shortly to the eastward
again, in consequence of a great barrier there -- being the great Fairmount,
then extending in elevation quite across Schuylkill; he thinks the identity
of strata on both sides proves this former union.  Until it was broken away,
the Schuylkill then run out by Pegg's run.  [Hill's Map of Philadelphia
certainly shows both of the water courses as nearly united.  The mill of
Naglee, at Front street and Cophocksinc swamp, has never dug its well quite
through the mud deposit, although very deep.
  Such was the yielding character of the mud soil on the western side of
Second street, where Sansom's row is built, that to keep the houses from
falling by the sinking of their western walls, they had to rebuild several
of those walls, and to others to put back-houses as buttresses.  To keep
their cellars dry they dug wells of 28 feet depth before coming to sand.
They went through considerable depth of turf filled with fibrous plants.
Mr. Grove, the mason who saw this, told me he actually saw it dried and
burnt.  When they first came to the sand there was no water, but by piercing
it the depth of the spade, water sprouted up freely, and filled the wells
considerably.
  The same Mr. Grove also told me that in digging at the rear of Thatcher's
houses on Front below Noble street, all of which is made-ground redeemed
from the invasion of the river into Pegg's marsh, they came at 28 feet depth
to an oak log of 18 inches diameter, laying quite across the well.
  To these subterrane discoveries we might add that of a sword, dug out of
Pegg's run at the depth of 18 feet, resting on a sandy foundation.  It was
discovered on the occasion of digging the foundation for the Second street
bridge.  Daniel Williams was at that time the commissioner for the
superintendence, and was said to have given it to the City Library.  This
singular fact was told to me by Thomas Bradford and Col. A.J. Morris, and
others, who had it so direct as to rely upon it.  On inquiry made for the
cause, a blacksmith in the neighbourhood said his father had said a
Bermudian sloop had once wintered near there, although the stream since
would scarcely float a board.

          NEXT :  SPECIMENS OF THE BEST HOUSES.