Area History: Chapters 20 - 22: Vol II - Watson's Annals of Philadelphia And Pennsylvania, 1857 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by EVC. USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. ____________________________________________________________ ANNALS of PHILADELPHIA AND PENNSYLVANIA, VOL. II ______________________________________________ WATSON'S ANNALS of PHILADELPHIA and PENNSYLVANIA Chapter 20. STATISTIC FACTS An attention to the following facts, may serve to show the progress of society, by marking its increase in population, houses, exports, &c., at successive periods, to wit : 1683 -- William Penn's letter of that year says, "I mentioned in my last account, that from my arrival in 1682, to the date hereof, being ten months, we have got up fourscore houses at our town, and that some villages were settled about it. From that time to my coming away, which was a year within a few weeks, the town advanced to three hundred and fifty-seven houses, divers of them large, well-built, with good cellars, three stories, and some balconies". Thus settling the fact, that they built three hundred and fifty-seven houses in the first year ! 1685 -- Robert Turner, in his letter to William Penn of this year, says "The town goes on, in planting and building to admiration, both in the front and back" and there are about six hundred houses in three years' time". 1707 -- Isaac Norris in a letter to William Penn says, "The province consumes annually, of produce and merchandise of England, 14 to 15,000 pounds sterling. The direct returns were in tobacco, furs and skins; the indirect, in provisions and produce via the West Indies and southern colonies. In 1706 about eight hundred hogsheads of tobacco went from Philadelphia, and about twenty-five to thirty tons of skins and furs". 1720 -- The taxables are stated by Proud, at 1195 persons, in city and county. 1723 -- The imports from England were £15,992 sterling. 1728-9 -- There were frozen up in the docks this winter, about the city, fourteen ships, three snows, eight brigantines, nine sloops, two schooners, besides shallops &c. The whole number of churches then was but six. 1730 -- The imports from England were £48,595 sterling. 1727 to `39 -- From an account of the highest and lowest number of votes given at the elections, and known by the return of members of Assembly, we ascertain the votes for the county of Philadelphia to have been as follows, to wit : Election: 1727 Highest number 787 Lowest number 482 1728 do 971 do 487 1730 do 622 do 365 1732 do 904 do 559 1734 do 821 do 441 1735 do 1097 do 517 1736 do 719 do 439 1737 do 904 do 497 1738 do 1396 do 736 1739 do 555 do 332 1737 -- The imports from England were this year, £58,690 sterling. -- Vide Proud. 1740 -- The taxables are stated by Proud, at 4850 persons, in city and county. 1741 -- We are indebted to a friend for the subsequent statement of the number of taxable inhabitants of the city and county of Philadelphia for this year. They have been copied from the books of his venerable ancestor, who was assessor &c., for several years. Statement of the number of Taxable Inhabitants of the City and County of Philadelphia, in the year 1741 : [The city was then divided into ten wards, and the county extended to the southern limits of Berks county, and embraced the whole of the county of Montgomery.] Number of Taxables in the City in 1741 : 1. Dock Ward ------------ 183 2. Lower Delaware ------- 115 3. Walnut --------------- 98 4. South --------------- 105 5. Middle ------------- 236 6. Chestnut ------------- 143 7. Upper Delaware ------- 99 8. High Street -------- 151 9. Mulberry ------------- 309 10. North ---------------- 182 _____ City Total 1621 Number of taxable Inhabitants in the county in 1741 : [The county then contained forty-seven townships.] Amity ----------------------- 70 Abington -------------------- 92 Allamingle ------------------ 37 Byberry --------------------- 52 Bristol --------------------- 64 Blockley -------------------- 72 Creesham -------------------- 60 Cheltenham ------------------ 67 Colebrook Dale -------------- 85 Douglass -------------------- 58 Dublin, Lower --------------- 125 Dublin, Upper --------------- 77 Exeter ---------------------- 76 Franconia ------------------- 59 Frankford and N. Hanover --------------- 87 Frederick ------------------- 76 Germantown ------------------ 168 Gwynned --------------------- 93 Hanover, Upper -------------- 97 Horsham -------------------- 80 Kingsess ------------------- 59 Limerick ------------------- 59 Moreland Manor -------------- 125 Montgomery ------------------ 54 Maiden Creek ---------------- 75 Merion, Upper --------------- 82 Merion, Lower --------------- 101 Menatauny ------------------- 111 Northern Liberties ---------- 151 Norrington ------------------ 25 Oxford ---------------------- 78 Ouley ----------------------- 58 Providence ----------------- 146 Perkiomen and Skipake ----------------- 73 Passyunk and Moyamensing -------------- 78 Plymouth -------------------- 46 Roxborough ------------------ 38 Sulford --------------------- 174 Springfield ------------------ 29 Towamensin ------------------ 55 Whippan --------------------- 56 White Marsh ----------------- 89 Worcester ------------------- 70 Wayamensing ------------------ 25 ______ County total 3422 Comparative Statement City Taxables, In 1741-- 1,621. In 1826 -- 11,120. Increase -- 9,499. 1742 -- The imports from England this year were £ 75,295 sterling. 1744 -- A letter from Secretary Peters to the proprietaries, states the population of the city as estimated, at 13,000 people and 1500 houses. The same is confirmed in the same year, by the Minutes of the city Council. 1747 -- The imports from England this year were £ 82,404 sterling. 1749 -- This spring the houses in the several wards were counted by the following named gentlemen, and amounted to 2076 in number, to wit : In Mulberry Ward - - - 488 by Dr. Franklin Dock Ward - - - - - 245 Joseph Shippen Lower Delaware - - 110 William Allen Upper Delaware - - - 109 T. Hopkinson South - - - - - - - - 117 Edward Shippen High Street Ward - - 147 T. Lawrence, jun. Walnut - - - - - - - 104 James Humphries Chestnut - - - - - - 110 J. Turner North - - - - - - - - 196 William Shippen Middle - - - - - - - 238 William Coleman ____ 1864 South suburbs - - - 150 Edward Shippen North do. - - - - 62 William Shippen ____ 2076 houses At the same time (1749) the places of worship were these, to wit : 1 Episcopalian 1 Dutch Catholic 1 Baptist 2 Friends 1 Roman Catholic 1 Dutch Lutheran 1 Swedish 2 Presbyterian 1 Moravian The same year (1749) Proud states that twenty-five large ships arrived with Germans, bringing 600 persons each, making together 12,000 souls in one year, and that nearly as many came annually from Ireland, so as to people whole counties from those two nations. 1751 -- The imports from England this year were £ 190,917 sterling -- Vide Proud. 1752 -- Dr. Franklin stated before the House of Commons, that 10,000 hogsheads of flaxseed had been in that year exported from Philadelphia -- making 70,000 bushels, and that all the flax that grew with it they manufactured into coarse linen. On George Heap's map, the exports are detailed thus, viz.: 125,960 barrels of flour, 86,500 bushels of wheat, 90,740 bushels of corn, 249 tons of bread, 3431 barrels of beef, and 482 barrels of pork. 1753 -- There were ascertained by the assessor to be 2300 houses, including the city and suburbs. 1760 -- There were ascertained by the same assessor to have been in the city and suburbs 2969 houses, and 8321 taxables in the city and county. It was also officially reported that there were then 5687 taxable inhabitants in the whole county of Philadelphia, and their county tax was laid at £ 5653 19s. 6d. The city tax was laid at £ 5633 13s. on 2634 taxables. At the same time were reported, as within the county, the following mills, to wit : -- 83 gristmills, 40 sawmills, 6 papermills, 1 oilmill, 12 fullingmills, 1 horsemill, 1 windmill, and 6 forges. 1766 -- Dr. Franklin, when examined this year before a committee of the House of Commons, respecting the repeal of the Stamp act, stated the following facts, to wit : He supposed there were in Pennsylvania about 160,000 white inhabitants, of whom one-third were Quakers, and one-third were Germans. The taxes were then laid on all estates, real and personal -- a poll tax -- a tax on offices and professions, trades and businesses, according to their profit -- an excise tax on all wine, rum, and other spirits, and £ 10 duty per head on all negroes imported. The tax on all estates, real and personal, was 18d. in the pound, fully rated, and the tax on the profits of trades and professions &c., made about 2s. 6d. in the pound. The poll tax on unmarried men was 15s. per head. All the taxes in Pennsylvania then produced about £ 20,000 per annum. 1767 -- The export of Philadelphia for one year were thus officially stated, to wit : 367,500 bushels of wheat, 198,516 barrels of flour, 34,746 barrels of bread, 60,206 bushels of corn, 6645 barrels of pork, 609 barrels of beef, 882 tons of bar iron, 813 tons of pig iron, 12,094 hogsheads of flaxseed, 1288 barrels of beer. 1769 -- In December of this year the assessor gave in the following list of houses then ascertained, to wit : In Mulberry Ward - - - - - - 920 Upper Delaware - - - - - 234 North - - - - - - - - - - 417 High Street - - - - - - - 166 Middle - - - - - - - - - 358 Chestnut - - - - - - - - 112 South - - - - - - - - - - 147 Walnut - - - - - - - - - 105 Lower Delaware - - - - - 120 Dock - - - - - - - - - - 739 ____ 3318 In the Northern Liberties or northern suburbs to Second street bridge, over Stacy's run, (Cohocksinc) 553 -- and in Southwark or southern suburbs to the north side of Love lane 608 -- making together 4474 in the city and suburbs, of dwelling-houses exclusively. 1770 -- This year the number of houses was ascertained to have been --- Within the city bounds - - - - 3318 In the Northern Liberties - - - 553 In Southwark - - - - - - - - - 603 ____ estimated to contain 25 to 30,000 souls- - - - - 4474 At the same time the number of churches was ascertained to have been 16, to wit : 3 Episcopalians 1 Methodist 4 Presbyterians 2 German Lutheran 1 Baptist 1 German Calvinist 1 Moravian 1 Swedish Lutheran 2 Papists 1771 -- The taxable inhabitants are stated, by Proud, as being 10,455 in number for the city and county, of whom 3751 were of the city. The exports of Philadelphia, in the same year, were conveyed in 361 square-rigged vessels, and 391 sloops and schooners -- making in all 46,654 tons, of which there were 252,744 barrels of flour, 259,441 bushels of corn, and 110,412 bushels of flaxseed. I have before noted the amounts of several annual imports from England, under their several years. The last which I stated, in the year 1751 made the amount to be £ 190,917 sterling; but from and after the year 1761, they sank greatly. No cause is assigned by Proud, who states the following annual amounts, to wit : Imports of 1761, 38,099 £ sterling. " 1762, 88,228 do. " 1763, 36,258 do. " 1764, 25,148 do. " 1765, 26,851 do. As the war with France began in 1756 and ended in 1763, the trade may have been so embarrassed as to have diminished much both the ability and the safety of importation. After the peace, we know that the agitated question of "taxing America" made the people of set purpose use domestic fabrics in lieu of foreign supplies, so as by all means to diminish the trade of England with us. 1777 -- In October of this year, General Howe being then in possession of Philadelphia, and many of the inhabitants gone off because of the war, or the dread of the British, an accurate census was taken by order of General Cornwallis, to wit : Houses in the city - - - - - - - - - - - - 3508 " in Southwark - - - - - - - - - 781 " in the Northern Liberties - - 1170 _____ 5470 Five hundred and eighty-seven of the houses were found untenanted. There were 287 stores; there were also found to be 21,767 inhabitants, exclusive of the army and strangers. Years City contained N. Liberties Southwark Total In 1790 28,522 8,333 5,661 42,516 1800 41,223 16,097 9,621 67,811 1810 53,722 21,558 13,707 88,987 William Sansom, Esq., who has been several years a minute observer of the progress of the city in its increase of buildings, has furnished the following data, to wit : In 1802, new houses erected were 464 1803, do. 385 1804, do. 273 1805, do. 205 In the next year the total number of buildings was ascertained and found to be 20,260 -- say 8874 in the city, 2998 in the Northern Liberties, and 2301 in Southwark, and their inhabitants 88,988. If we should pursue this data, it is deemed reasonable to conclude that in the last eighteen years, from 1809 to 1827, the new buildings may have averaged 600 in each year, thus producing an increase of 10,800 to be added to the former 20,260 and thus forming an aggregate of about 31,000 buildings and a probable total of 133,000 inhabitants in 1827. I deem this estimate high enough, but the next census will check it. In the year 1823, the churches were ascertained to be eighty in number, to wit : 13 Presbyterian 5 Friends 10 Episcopalian 4 Papists 8 Baptist 26 all other denominations 14 Methodist (Vide Poulson's paper of 24th March.) Philadelphia, as a great commercial city, kept a proud pre-eminence of the cities in the Union, until about the year 1820. In the year 1796, the exports of Philadelphia were above one-fourth of the whole United States, being then 17,613,866 dollars, but as quickly as the year 1820, she became as low as the seventh state in the grade of the Union ! The exports of New York in 1792, were but 2,930,370 dollars, but in 1820, they were $13,163,244 ! Thus, as Philadelphia has been sinking, New York has been rising, and her great canal will give her still more decided advantages, until we in turn derive our increase from our proposed inland improvements. Even the exports of Baltimore in 1820, recent as has been her growth, were 865,825 dollars more than ours ! I since find the following facts concerning the number of burials occurring in the city about a century ago, to wit : In 1722, the Gazette began first to record the death and burials of the month, to wit : In February 1722, for one month, it was three of the Church of England -- Quakers four, and Presbyterians, none. In 1729 to '30, the interments in one year from December to December, were 227 in number to wit : In Church ground 81 -- in Quaker 30 -- in Presbyterian 18 -- in Baptist 18 -- and in Strangers' ground (the present Washington Square, an adorned grave ground now for them !) 41 whites and 30 blacks. In some weeks I perceived but one and two persons a week, and in one week none. It is worthy of remark, that although the influence of Friends was once so ascendant as to show a majority of their population, yet it seems from the above, that the Churchmen must have been then most numerous. In the week ending the 15th of July 1731, I noticed the burials of that week were "none"! The tabular statement of the auditor general gives the total adjusted valuation of Pennsylvania in 1841, viz.: The real estate in several counties - - - - $245,673,402 Personal property as valued - - - - - - - - 48,835,784 ____________ Making a grand total of - - - - - - $294,509,186 Resources of Pennsylvania - 1841, the population is 1,724,033 --- in 1790 it was but 431,373. We have 28,000,000 acres of land under better cultivation than any other state, and worth - - - - - - - - - - -- - - $701,000,000 300,000 houses, worth on average - - - - - - - - - - - 300,000,000 Barns, stores, furnaces, forges, factories, mills - - 200,000,000 1000 miles of canals, and 700 miles railroads - - - - 100,000,000 _____________ $1,300,000,000 The Schuylkill mines now produce 500,000 tons -- the other mining districts about the same -- say 1,000,000 tons a -year -- nearly half of this is for exportation. Three thousand vessels a -year visit Schuylkill river to carry it away, and yet all this is in its infancy. The Schuylkill is capable of producing four times its present quantity. The Swatara can produce as much as the Schuylkill -- so can those of the Lehigh, the Shamokin and the Susquehanna. We have besides our anthracite, more bituminous coal (according to our state geologist) than all Europe ! While Europe contains 2000 square miles, Pennsylvania has 10,000 square miles. The western bituminous coal-field of Pennsylvania is estimated to contain THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MILLIONS of TONS -- being ten thousand times more than ALL in Great Britain ! In one year (1838) two millions [tons] of bituminous coal was mined and used westward of the Allegheny mountains. Much more will be. The quantity of iron produced in Pennsylvania is estimated at one-third of the product of the whole union. The amount of bar and pig iron produces $14,000,000. The real estate of Pennsylvania as shown above, is one thousand three hundred millions of dollars -- if taxed but three per cent, would pay off the whole state debt of thirty-five millions in one year. The annual production of the state is ascertained to be one hundred and sixty millions five hundred thousand dollars -- and if taxed but one per cent would pay the interest annually of the state debt. Who is not PROUD of such a state ! She has all the resources of a great nation within herself -- for happiness in peace, for power in war. She is capable of maintaining thirty millions of people, and feeding and clothing them herself. We produce one-sixth of all the wheat in the union. Our grain produces thirty millions of dollars a-year. Our water power is equal to the labour of four hundred millions of men ! [See North American, August 12th, 1841.] There are no people in the world who have so many advantages with so few burdens. COLONIAL STATISTICS of NEW YORK and PHILADELPHIA &c., compared --- In 1769, the imports of Pennsylvania were £400,000 sterling, and of New York was but £189,000 sterling. All the New England colonies was £561,000, and South Carolina £555,000. Virginia was the greatest of all, being then £581,000 sterling ! They kept in the same relative proportion till the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1789. In 1791, the imports change thus, viz.: New York leads off at $3,222,000. Virginia is $2,486,000, and South Carolina is $1,520,000. In 1821, the imports change thus, viz.: New York leads off at $23,000,000. Virginia is $1,000,000. South Carolina $3,000,000. In 1832, New York is $57,00,000. Virginia is $500,000. South Carolina is $1,250,000. Chapter 21. REMARKABLE INCIDENTS AND THINGS "A book wherein we read strange matters". The present chapter is intended to embrace a variety of miscellanea, of such peculiarity or variety to their occurrence as to afford some surprise, to wit : WILD PIGEONS -- The late aged Thomas Bradford, Esq., told me of hearing his ancestors say they once saw a flock fly over the city which obscured the sun for two or three hours, and were killed by hundreds, by people using sticks on the tops of houses. Mr. Bradford himself used to see them brought to the Philadelphia market by car-loads. The aged T. Matlack informed me he once saw a full wagon load knocked down. A Captain Davy, who was in Philadelphia at that time (described above) went afterwards to Ireland, and there describing what he had seen, and giving the data for their numbers by giving breadth and time of passing, &c., some of the calculators declared they could not find numerals whereby to estimate their aggregate ! They therefore declared it was a whopping lie, and ever after they gave to Captain Davy the name of Captain Pigeon. Thomas Makin's poetic description of Pennsylvania in 1729, in Latin verse, says, "Here, in the fall, large flocks of pigeons fly, So numerous, that they darken all the sky." In 1782, Hector St. John, of Carlisle, describing the country scenes he had before witnessed there, says twice a year they ensnared numerous wild pigeons. They were so numerous in their flight as to obscure the sun. He has caught fourteen dozen at a time in nets, and has seen as many sold for a penny as a man could carry home. At every farmer's house they kept a tamed wild pigeon in a cage at the door, to be ready to be used at any time to allure the wild ones when they approached. In 1793, just before the time of the yellow fever, like flocks flew daily over Philadelphia, and were shot from numerous high houses. The markets were crammed with them. They generally had nothing in their craws besides a single acorn. The superstitious soon found out they presaged some evil; and sure enough sickness and death came ! FIRE FLIES -- The first settlers and all subsequent European settlers have been much surprised with our night illuminations by our numerous phosphorescent summer flies. Makin thus spoke of them in his day -- "Here insects are which many much admire, Whose plumes in summer evenings shine like fire." BEES -- These, in the time of Kalm, who wrote of them in 1748, says they were numerous and must have been imported, because the Indians treated them as new comers, and called them, significantly, English flies. Hector St. John, at Carlisle at and before 1782, speaks of the bees being numerous in the woods in that neighbourhood, and gives some humorous stories of their manner of finding the place of the cells, and the means of procuring the honey from hollow trees. No worms were ever known among beehives before the year 1800. RARITES SENT TO PENN -- Among the presents sent to William Penn, by his request of the year 1686, were these, to wit : he saying "Pray send us some two or three smoked haunches of venison and pork. Get us also some smoked shad and beef. The old priest at Philadelphia had rare shad. Send also some peas and beans of the country. People concerned ask much to see something of the place. Send also shrubs and sassafras" &c. In another letter he asks for tame foxes and Indian ornaments. In another he calls for furs, for coverlets and petticoats, and also some cranberries. FLIES AND MARTINS -- I have often heard it remarked by aged people, that the flies in Philadelphia were much more numerous and troublesome in houses in their early days than since, especially in Market street. The difference now is imputed to the much greater cleanliness of our streets, and the speedier removal of offals &c. It is said too, that the flies and fleas were excessive in the summer in which the British occupied Philadelphia, caused then by the appendages of the army. Thomas Bradford, who had been for seventy years a curious observer of the martins, has noticed their great diminution in the city, which he imputes to the decrease of flies, their proper food. In former years they came annually in vast numbers, and so clamorously as in many cases to drive out the pigeons from their proper resorts. Now he sees boxes which are never occupied. A late author in Europe has said martins decrease there as flies and mosquitoes diminish. Hector St. John in 1782, speaks of his means of ridding his house of flies, in a manner sufficiently alarming to others. He brings a hornet's nest, filled with hornets, from the woods and suspends it in lieu of an ornamental chandelier or glass globe form the centre of his parlour ceiling ! Here being unmolested, they do no harm to any of the family, but pleased with their warm and dry abode, they catch and subsist on numerous troublesome flies. These they constantly catch on the persons, and even the faces of children ! LOCUSTS -- 1749, June 1st -- Great quantities then noticed -- again in 1766, in 1783 and in 1800 -- in this last year they appeared first on the 25th May. STURGEON was remarkably abundant in the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, and was formerly much more valued as diet among us, and especially by foreigners. The old newspapers often advertised it for sale by the city agent of one Richards, who pickled them in a rare manner at Trenton. We know from history that Sir Samuel Argal, the deputy governor of Virginia, first visited that colony in 1609, to trade and fish for sturgeon to be conveyed to Europe. Formerly there were but few families in the country but what put up one or two sturgeons every year at the shad time. In Penn's time they could be counted by dozens at a time, leaping into the air and endangering the boats ! NOXIOUS INSECTS -- Several of these have appeared among us as new comers -- such as destroyed perpetually the leaves of our fine elms once in the State-house yard, made their passage to this country about the year 1791, and began their wasteful career on like trees near the corner of Pine and Front streets. They were supposed to have gotten their passage in some foreign vessel making her discharge of cargo in that neighbourhood. They since destroyed like trees at Chew's place in Germantown. "There filthily bewray and sore disgrace The boughs on which are bred th' unseemly race." Kalm, in 1748, speaks then of the peas being so destroyed by the bug that they then abandoned the cultivation of them, although they had before had them without such molestation in great abundance. They had to send to Albany for their annual seed, who would still use them, because the insect which also overspread New York neighbourhood, had hitherto exempted those at Albany. It is curious, that while the worms to the peach trees, now so annoying and destructive to our trees, were formerly unknown here, they were in Kalm's time making general ravages on the peaches at Albany. Now Albany is again, I believe, in possession of good fruit. In the summer of 1750, a certain kind of worms, (so say the Gazettes) cut off almost all the leaves of the trees in Pennsylvania avoiding only the laurel bush, the leaves of which are poisonous to some animals. Mr. Kalm made frequent mention of the excessive annoyance of the wood lice every where abounding in the woods. They were constantly brushed upon the clothes, and if you set down upon a stump or fallen tree, or upon the ground, you were speedily covered by a host of them, insinuating themselves under as well as above your clothes. He speaks of locusts coming, as now, every seventeen years. Caterpillars too came occasionally in such numbers as to destroy entire forests. Some such places he saw, where trees were growing up amidst the bare stalks of the old dead ones, destroyed by the worms. NOXIOUS WEEDS -- It occurs to me to mention some facts respecting some very prevalent weeds which have been introduced among us to our prejudice, from foreign countries. The "Ranstead weed" of Anterrinum lineria, now excessively numerous in some fields around Philadelphia. It came first from Wales, being sent as a garden flower for Mr. Ranstead of Philadelphia, an upholsterer, and a Welshman. The yellow and white daisy, or Chrisanthemum lucanthemum, also the day-wakers and night-sleepers, or star-hyacinth, botanically called Ornythegelum umbellatum. These also originally came out as garden flowers, where they multiplied, and their seed afterwards getting abroad in manure, produced a general diffusion of these pernicious plants. On one occasion, they came out in some straw packing to old Mr. Wistar, and from inoculating his farm, proceeded to others. The late introduction of the Merino wool, has brought the seed of another weed, which is multiplying rapidly among us. EARTHQUAKES -- In October 1727, shocks of an earthquake were felt at night, at Philadelphia, and at New York and Boston, which set the clocks to running down, and shook off china from the shelves. The 7th December 1737, at night, a smart shock was felt at Philadelphia and at Conestogoe, New Castle, &c. When John Penn first arrived, on a Sunday, a strong earthquake was felt as he stepped ashore at High-street wharf. It raised some superstition, and it was, therefore, long remembered; and besides that, when he went home, a dreadful thunder-storm arose; and finally, when he next time returned here as proprietary, a fierce hurricane came ! -- March 22 1758, a smart shock was felt between 10 and 11 P.M. April 25 1772, a slight shock felt about 8 A.M. November 30 1783, an earthquake felt in the city; and again, on the 1st December, a strong one was felt. January 8 1817, the river was much agitated by the earthquake to the southward, tossing about the vessels, and raising the water one foot. AGED ANIMALS -- In 1823, month of June, there died on the plantation of Joseph Walmsley of Byberry, a horse which was thirty seven years of age. The table of "longevity of animals" states the life of a horse at twenty five to thirty years only. In 1824, the Pittsburg Mercury of January, declares, there is a horse then working at the brewery there, full thirty-one years of age, of full health and vigour. For the last fourteen years he has been at the brewhouse, and hauled 50,000 barrels of beer. One of thirty one years of age is now in New York city, in a cart, and can draw 3000 lbs. -- the property of John Cornish. Two geese are now alive at Greenwich village, town of Horseneck, eighty five years of age each. They were hatched on the same place, and are still laying eggs. -- J. Mead, owner. JOHN KINSEY'S STRANGE DEATH -- In the year 1748, died, at Philadelphia, John Kinsey, a young man, son of Judge Kinsey. His death was very singular. He was killed by his own gun whilst resting the butt of it on the bottom of a boat, in which he and his friends, on a shooting party, were crossing the Schuylkill at Gray's ferry, on their return home. The piece, from an unknown cause, went off and shot a load into his cheek, and thence it ascended into the brain, and he died without uttering a word. But what is peculiarly memorable is, that he had a remarkable premonition the evening before of his catastrophe; and he was then abroad, seeking to dissipate, by exercise and novelty of objects, the sad impressions which the occurrence had had upon his spirits. He dreamed his cousin Pemberton had come to him, and told him to prepare to change worlds; while he talked, he thought he heard an explosion like thunder, and a flash of fire struck his cheek, [there was no thunder at the time] and he awoke in great perturbation. The sense of the shock was deeply impressed upon his spirits. He however, composed himself again to sleep, and was again, as he thought (in dreaming) visited by many spiritual beings all of whom seemed to him to intimate his death. The influence of all these things upon his spirits was very great the next day. He communicated the facts to his family, and endeavoured to dissipate the depression of his spirits and the constant thought of the past night, by cheerfulness. His companions were sent for to aid him in this object, and it was soon proposed to take a ramble in the woods with their guns. The mother endeavoured much to dissuade him from taking his gun; but it was overruled. They crossed the middle ferry, and in pursuing game, he sometimes said, "I hope no accident will befall any of you, or me": he often complained that his spirits were sad. At length, after some miles of such exercise, and when on their return, the fatal accident, above related, terminated his life ! I have seen in the possession of Mrs. D. Logan, a letter from John Ross, Esq., of the year 1748 [John Ross afterwards lived in the house next to the Farmers and Mechanics' Bank, eastward] to his familiar friend, Dr. Cadwallader Evans, in which he details all the foregoing facts. He asserts he knows all the parties; and although greatly disinclined to superstition, he is compelled to subscribe to the truth of them, as indubitably true. VARIETIES FROM THE GAZETTES &c. -- 1726 -- On the last day of December, Theophilus Longstreet of Shrewsbury, of sixty years of age, met with seven swans flying over a meadow, and shot down six of them at the same shot -- a shot never surpassed. 1728 -- We have the following surprising, though authentic account of rum imported into Pennsylvania during the year 1728, to wit : -- 224,500 gallons. In that day no other kind of spirits was used. 1735 -- Some fishermen took a shark, seven feet long, above the city; the same year (March 4) great quantities of codfish were taken off the capes. 1753 -- In this year the citizens of Philadelphia employed Captain Swain to go to Hudson's bay, to endeavour to find a north-west passage. He repeats his voyage the next year -- both without any important result. In 1754 -- Month of June, a waterspout appeared on the Delaware, opposite to Kensington, which was carried up Cooper's creek, and supposed to break on the shore, where it is said, considerable damage was done. A school house was beat down, a roof blown off, and a new wherry was lifted up and broken to pieces by the fall : many trees were torn up by it. In 1748, Christopher Lehman records, that on the 4th of May it rained brimstone ! Soon as I saw this fact, I inferred it must have been the floss from the pines in Jersey; and now I lately saw a similar occurrence at Wilmington, North Carolina, from the same cause, and exciting much surprise there. 1758 -- I saw a MS. letter from Hugh Roberts to B. Franklin, then in London, which states a rare thing, saying, "Our friend, Phillip Syng, has lost his excellent son John, strangely. He had been poking a stick into a kitchen sink, and holding a lighted candle in the other hand, when a vapour therefrom took fire, and so penetrated him that he lost his senses, and died in a few days. RUINOUS SPECULATIONS -- Philadelphia, in common with her sister cities, has been occasionally the victim of speculating mania. Six memorable instances have already occurred among us since the establishment of our independence. The facts concerning them severally, though too long for the present object, have been preserved in my MS Annals in the City Library, pages 94 to 97. Suffice it here briefly to say, speculation first began soon after the peace, in soldiers' certificates -- changing hands several times in a week, and constantly gaining ! The scrip of the Bank of the United States was a memorable event. It changed hands hourly, and went up from 25 to 140 dollars, and then fell suddenly; "It went up like a rocket, and fell like its stick !" The great land speculation of Morris and Nicholson, in the interior lands of our state, was a most engrossing scheme of aggrandizement; very few gained any thing, and many fortunes were ruined. They themselves were desperately ruined, and for the great financier himself it provided a jail. The public may form some idea of the extent of Morris and Nicholson's great land speculation, in the fact that the debts unpaid by Nicholson are said to amount to twelve millions of dollars -- an immense amount certainly for an individual in those early days ! Of the extent of those landed possessions, often bought at a few cents the acre, some conception may be formed, from the fact that his brother Samuel reported to the government of Pennsylvania, in 1806, that the lands to which he had indisputable title, covered one seventh of the surface of the state ! He told of one single operation of transfer of land in Georgia, for between one and two millions of acres. Nicholson was the comptroller-general of the state of Pennsylvania, from 1782 to 1796, and in some way used the public funds to carry on his purchases. Two years after he had ceased to be comptroller, he began to show his embarrassments, and to excite a down hill preponderancy. In 1800 he died, and then the whole concern exploded. His promissory notes became virtually as nothing. Being a great debtor to the state, his lands lay under its liens. Many of these have since been relieved by compromise; but still, more than a million of acres remain encumbered thereby; and rendering, as a committee of the legislature declare, "titles doubtful and uncertain, retarding improvement, and keeping all concerned in endless suspense". To remove these embarrassments, "Nicholson's Court" has been instituted, with plenary powers to relieve liens, and to adjust conflicting claims, &c. As a part of its operations, almost all the lands in Erie county is decreed to pass under its attachments; and in Beaver county, some two or three hundred tracts, exceeding 100,000 acres of the best land, and equal to one fourth of the county, are under similar process of action. Thus, at the end of forty years, does the all-grasping cupidity of one man disturb the peace and welfare of whole communities. After the peace of 1783, deep speculation and great losses were sustained by excessive importations of British goods, beyond the means of the country to consume them, prompted by an unparalleled success in sales in a preceding year. A deep and general speculation occurred in 1813-14. It was begun among the grocers, and finally influenced most other branches of business -- ultimately recoiling, as it was all artificially excited, on all concerned. In 1825 occurred deep speculations, and ruinous losses eventually, in the purchase of cotton intended for the English market. The wounds then inflicted, will long be remembered by some. It was an excited mania of gambling in the article, not at all warranted by the real want of deficiency of the article thus speculated upon. "How oft has speculation, dreadful foe ! Swept o'er the country -- laid our cities low ! The bold projector, restless of delay, Leaves, with contempt, the old and beaten way Of patient labour -- slow and certain gain, The fruit of care, economy, and pain : But soon, reverses this conclusion bring, Credit and ruin are the selfsame thing !" AMUSING FACTS --- Some items partaking of singularity, and sometimes of amusement in the contemplation, are here set down, to wit : In 1720, Edward Horne, by advertisement, offers English saffron, "by retail, for its weight in silver !" Same year is advertised, "best Virginia tobacco, cut and sold by James Allen, goldsmith". This union of two such dissimilar pursuits of business, strikes one as so incongruous now. Tobacco pipes of "long tavern size" are advertised as sold at four shillings per gross, by Richard Warder, pipe-maker, where foul pipes are burnt for eight pence per gross ! 1722 -- I meet with a strange expression -- "For sale by inch of candle, on Monday next, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, at the Coffee house, a lot on Society hill" &c. 1723 -- Josiah Quinby, of West Chester, New York, a Friend, advertises that he has discovered perpetual motion, and to be moved by the influence of the North star, &c. !! and to be combined with the influence of a well of water, over which his machinery should work ! 1724 -- Andrew Bradford, printer, offers a reward of £15 for apprehending John Jones, a tall, slender lad, of eighteen years of age, who stole five or six sheets of the 5 shilling and 20 shilling bills, which said Bradford was printing. He escaped after capture, from the constable, by slipping out of his coat, and leaving it in the constable's hand ! He wore a light bob wig. In 1728, some wicked fellows, in a neighbouring Presbyterian church in lieu of another functionary, set up a large sturgeon in the pulpit in the hot days, and the church being shut up, it was not known until it became so putrid as to compel the congregation to leave the house and worship in a neighbouring orchard. 1729 -- The Welsh having formed themselves into a fellowship appointed Dr. Wayman to preach them a sermon in their own language, and to give them a Welsh psalm on the organ -- then a novelty. But their crowning rarity was that, after sermon on the Lord's day, they went to drinking healths and firing cannon to Davis' inn at the Queen's Head in Water street, each man wearing at church and in the procession leeks in his hat &c. -- "So did not St. Paul !" 1731 -- A certain stone-cutter was in a fair way of dying the death of a nobleman, for being found napping with his neighbour's wife; the husband took the advantage of his being asleep, to make an attempt to cut off his head. -- The wit which follows, in the reflections on the case, though showing the coarse taste of the readers then, is harmlessly left for the curious on page 118 of my MS Annals in the City Library. 1734 -- A widow of Philadelphia was married in her shift, without any other apparel upon her, from a supposition prevelant then, that such a procedure would secure her husband, in the law, from being sued for any debts of his predecessor. Kalm, in 1748, confirms this fact as a common occurrence, when her husband died in debt. She thus affects to leave all to his creditors. He tells of a woman going from her former home to the house of her intended husband in her shift only, and he meets her by the way and clothes her before witnesses, saying "he has lent them". 1737 -- A curious writer gives a long list of tavern expressions used to express drunkenness among the tipplers; some are -- "He has taken Hippocrates' elixir" -- "he's as dizzy as a goose" -- "his head is filled with bees" -- "he's afflicted" -- "he's made an Indian feast" -- "he's sore footed" -- "he clips his English" -- "he sees two moons" -- "has eat his opium" -- he walks by starlight" -- "has sold his senses" -- "has lost his rudder". 1754 -- Is advertised, as just published, "The Youth's Entertaining Amusement; or a plain Guide to Psalmody : being a choice collection of tunes, sung in the English Protestant congregation in Philadelphia, with roles for learning; by W. Dawson". I give this title as a curious inadvertency, which expresses, with much simplicity of judgement, an unwary fact -- that the youth, and too many of their abettors, too often resort to psalmody (which should be worship and adoration, if any thing) for mere entertainment and amusement. [Note : psalmody -- the act, practice, or art of singing psalms in worship / a collection of psalms.] 1765 -- There died this year in the Northern Liberties, at the age of sixty, Margaret Gray, remarkable for having had nine husbands ! I sometimes hear anecdotes which I choose to suppress, because of their connexion with living names. I think of one which contains much piquancy and spirit, which I shall here put down as illustrating a fact which often occurred in the sudden transitions of men's conditions in the Revolution, from obscurity to elevation and renown, where accompanied with valour and ambition. -- A celebrated Friend, a preacher, met an old acquaintance in the streets of Philadelphia, who had been of Friends' principles, with a sword girt on his side -- "Why, friend," said he, "what is this thou hast bedecked thyself with ? not a rapier !" "Yes," was the reply; "for `liberty or death' is now the watchword of every man who means to defend his property". "Why, indeed," rejoined the other, "thou art altered throughout; thy mind has become as fierce as thy sword : I had not expected such high feelings in thee. As to property, I thought thee had none; and as to thy liberty, I thought thee already enjoyed that by the kindness of thy creditors !" The patriot alluded to was conspicuous in the public measures of the war; and although he never used his sword in actual combat, he directed those who did, and from that day has been a successful candidate to public offices; and finally, has raised himself a respectable name and estate. I notice in the old MSS. that they originally called a portmanteau (as we now call it) a "portmantle" -- certainly an appropriate name, as it was originally used as an intended cover for the necessary cloak or mantle in travelling on horseback. The present work "knapsack", I also found was originally spelled "snapsack" -- an expressive name when we consider it, as it was a sack which fastened with a snap-spring or lock. As it was in itself a convenient pillow for the traveller when obliged to sleep abroad in the woods, it must have received the nickname of "nap" among the soldiers. The words portmantle and snapsack may be found used in Madame Knight's Journal of 1704. -- I think I have discovered the origin of the name of "Blue stockings" applied to literary ladies. [Lady Montague's story seems too modern to account for it, and looks like a forced explanation.] I find that, a century ago, it was a mark of lady-like distinction to wear coloured stockings, with great clocks -- blue and green colours were preferred. The ladies who then formed literary clubs, being, of course the best educated and coming from the upper class in society, were those, chiefly, who could afford the blue stockings. -- A pair of those stockings, of green silk and broad red clocks, I have lately seen in possession of Samuel Coates, Esq. They were the wedding ones of his grandmother, in Philadelphia, and are double the weight of the present silk hose. SWEATING OF GOLD COINS -- The Saturday Bulletin of the 29th of January 1831, republishes a long article from the Lancaster Gazette, called "Reminiscences of Philadelphia" : the same is managed with considerable humour, and is intended to show that the house of N. and D. and the silversmith Mr. D., were considerably engaged in money-making as a matter of commerce, by sweating gold coin, and making it lighter thereby, for the West India trade &c. This was during the time of the operation of Jay's treaty, which opened an extensive commerce with the British West India islands. It having been noticed that the half Johannes was taken there by tale, the process of "sweating" was resorted to, by which fifteen to twenty per cent of its value was retained. This answered sundry merchants for a time; but it becoming dangerous and disreputable; as it became known, another expedient was resorted to -- to make dies to construct a coin of alloyed gold. A Mr. Timothy Bingham, a die-sinker, and a Mr. Armitage, were employed in this service by sundry merchants, to whom they made their plans known. At the same time, Mr. D. the silversmith, also conceived the plan of making them for his own market, so as to make his pieces of six pennyweight, pass in the West Indies for eight dollars. He quit his employment as a silversmith, it is said, and moved into fashionable display in the hopes of his splendid fortune; but a disaster at sea sunk his gold, and buried all his golden dreams at once. -- (I knew the man, but I never heard of these circumstances.) This gold-sweating was done at New York before the Revolution, without shame or reproach, for all gold going to the West Indies. An old gentleman told me that he saw it often done there, when he was a lad seventy years ago. It sweat off like water. POTATOES --- This excellent vegetable was very slow of reception among us. It was first introduced from Ireland in 1749 by a colony of Presbyterian Irish settled at Londonderry, in New Hampshire. They were so slow in its use in New England, that as late as 1740, it was still a practice with masters to stipulate with some apprentices that they should not be obliged to use them ! The prejudice was pretty general against them, that they would shorten men's lives and make them unhealthy; and it was only when some people of the better sort chose to eat them as a palatable dish, that the mass of the people were disposed to give them countenance. At about the same time, fine salmon were so plentiful in Connecticut river, that apprentices in New England stipulated not to eat them more than twice a week ! BIG OAK TREE -- Such a tree, little noticed, is now standing on the farm of the Almshouse near Philadelphia, probably the largest in Philadelphia county. It measures fourteen feet seven inches in circumference at the base, two feet above ground; and twelve feet eight inches at six feet from the ground. Its diameter, at one foot above the ground, is five feet four inches. The height of the tree is about fifty feet, and it has four big limbs, extending thirty-four, forty, forty-three, and forty-six feet respectively. It appears to have increased by its annual rings, one eight of an inch, and thus to indicate the tree to be two hundred and forty years of age. It is now, in 1837, in a state of decay, having the trunk or body of the tree hollow; but it may last as a venerable relic of days bygone, for several years to come. PENN'S ARMS ON MILE-STONES --- There are now but few persons who are aware of these old mile-stones, made of sandstone. They stand on the Gulf road and on another parallel road, probably the Haverford, marked 12 miles from the city [12] in front, and on the back [OOO]. The three balls have always been called "the apple-dumplings". The stones on one of these roads were placed there by the Mutual Assurance Fire Company, as a price for their charter from the Penn family. It was a tradition of simple folk, that Penn was feasted with dumplings by King Tamany at the Treaty-tree, and so gave rise to the balls as Penn's arms ! ANCIENT COIN FOUND --- Ten pieces of silver coin, about two hundred years old, were recently ploughed up on B.C. Timmins' farm at Chester, Burlington county, N.J. They are about the size of a dollar. No.1, dated 1647, coined under Fred. Henry, prince of Orange : motto, "Confidens in Domino, non movetur" -- (those who trust in God, shall not be moved). No. 2, dated 1677, coined under William III, prince of Orange, with the same motto. MILCH COWS AND COWHERD --- There used to be a regular gathering of cows by a cowherd in Philadelphia, in Dock street near Second, which was continued down to the year 1795. Every morning early, he stood at that place and blew his horn. Then all the housekeepers let out the cows in the neighbourhood -- some two or three dozen, which would go directly to the point of assemblage, all standing still till the whole were gathered; then they went off with the cowherd to their field or commons for the day. In the evening he went for them and returned to the same spot; then the cowherd blew his horn to warn the housekeepers of their return, when they opened their gates. At a signal understood, he blew his last blast and they all dispersed to their several homes. I know several persons, now of about sixty years of age (in 1836) sons of men in the best circumstances of life, who used to drive their cows out of town, daily, to pasture. [I know several of our city great ones, who would not thank me for my recollection of their names and actions.] They drove cows from as far as High street by Second and Third streets, out to the neighbourhood of Bush-kill and Girard college. I lately met one of the persons in this neighbourhood, and he inquired of me if I could recollect when he had charge of three such cows daily. He is now independent, and a bank director. TAR AND FEATHERS AT PHILADELPHIA -- In October 1769, a man who had informed against some run wines {Note: run = smuggled}, from an Egg Harbour shallop, was seized by some tars, and tarred and feathered from head to foot, then paraded through the street, and before every customhouse officer's door, and at the collector's. They then set him in the pillory, and afterwards ducked him in the mud of the dock, and then let him go in peace, to sin no more. [Similar measures were performed upon informers at New York and Boston in those days] A GRAVE STONE to James Porteus, dated July 1736, now actually heads his grave in a city yard, say in Fox's lot in North Third street. A grave-stone to M. Leader, lettered 1715, aged sixty-four years, with an hour-glass device, was dug up in 1832 in digging for a cellar in the yard of No. 70, west side of Second street, below Chestnut street. The place was made ground, and may have been a family burial place. Two grave-stones of John and Rhoda Church were dug from a cellar in Arch street, between Seventh and Eighth streets, in 1842. It had been Dr. Church's family ground. Chapter 22. CURIOSITIES AND DISCOVERIES "I say the tale, as it was said to me." The following facts, for want of a better designation, are arranged under the present head, although their value, as discoveries or curiosities, may have but little claim to future renown, to wit : Kalm, the Swedish traveller, when here in the year 1748, speaks of numerous instances of finding fragments of trees deeply embedded in the earth at Philadelphia and elsewhere. He had himself got a piece of petrified hickory, on the north-west side of the town, in the clay pits, then filled with water from a brook, where were many muscle shells -- Mytili anatini. Boys gathered them and brought them to town for sale, where they were considered a dainty. Pieces of trees, roots, and leaves of oak, were often dug up from the well pits, dug in Philadelphia at the depth of eighteen feet. They also found in some places a slime like that which the sea throws on the shore. This slime was often full of trees, branches, reed, charcoal, &c. He relates similar facts from several of the Swedes at Swedes-boro' -- then called Rackoon, to wit : One King, a man of fifty years of age, had got a well dug on a hill near a rivulet, and at the depth of forty feet, found a quantity of shells of oysters and muscles, besides much reed and pieces of broken branches. Peter Rambo, about sixty years of age, said that in several places at Rackoon, where they had dug deep in the ground, they had found quantities of muscle shells and other marine animals. Sometimes, at twenty feet depth, they discovered logs of wood petrified, and others were charred, probably by some mineral vapour. On making a dike several years before this relation, along the creek on which the Swedish church at Rackoon stood, they found, in cutting through a bank, that it was filled with oyster shells, although it was one hundred and twenty miles from the nearest shore. Often in digging wells they found clams. Similar relations were confirmed by special declarations of Mauns Keen, Iven Lock, William Cobb, Aoke Helm, &c. They related that on one occasions they found, at a depth of twenty to thirty feet, a whole bundle of flax in good condition. It excited great surprise how it could get there. Mr. Kalm imagines it may have been the wild Virginia flax -- Linum virginianum. Or it may have been what the Swedes themselves called Indian hemp -- Apocynum cannabinum -- a plant which formerly grew plentifully in old corn ground, in woods and on hills. From this the Indians made their ropes and fishing tackle, &c. I have been thus particular in this detail, because I have myself a specimen of a "hank of hemp" as the discoverers called it, dug up from a well in the new prison, western yard, near Centre square, from the bottom of a pit or privy, at twelve feet deep. Old Mauns Keen, a respectable Swede, told Mr. Kalm, in 1748, that on their making a first settlement at Helsinburg, on the Delaware below Salem, they found in digging to the depth of twenty feet, some wells enclosed with brick walls. The wells were at that time on the land, but in such places as are sometimes under water and sometimes dry. But since that time, the ground has been so washed away (of course old Helsinburg also !) that the wells are entirely covered by the river, and the water is seldom low enough to show the wells. As the Swedes afterwards made new wells at some distance from the former, they discovered in the ground some broken earthen vessels and some entire good bricks, and they often got them out of the ground by ploughing. These facts Mr. Kalm said, he often heard repeated by the aged Swedes. Their own belief was that the land, before their settlement there, had been possessed by some other race of Europeans, even possible as the "Wineland" to which the old Norwegians went. The Indians, too, spoke of those wells as being a tradition, that they had been made by another race of people some centuries before. We shall, however, see in these pages, that the Indians themselves had some rude construction of pottery, but never like the idea of real bricks. The whole suggestion and facts are curious, and may afford some speculation. In digging a well for the house of the late David Rittenhouse, at the north-west corner of Seventh and Arch streets, they found the remains of a pine tree, at a depth of eighteen feet below ground. On the ground of Mr. Powell, within the same square, another like remains was also found; one of them was laying horizontal from the other, which seemed to be standing; they were obliged to cut off a limb to proceed with their work. In digging a well for a pump at Bingham's stable back of the Mansion house, the well-digger found, at the depth of twenty-one feet, the appearance of a former surface, and several hickory nuts thereon. In some part of Spruce street, some distance below the surface, the street commissioner, who told of it to Thomas Bradford, found there a pile of cord wood standing on its end. The trunk of a buttonwood was found near Arch and Seventh streets, at a great depth beneath its present surface. It was embedded in black mud, and had many leaves and acorns about it. Mr. John Moore, a brick-mason of the city, told me a fact which strongly illustrates the rapid rise of Philadelphia -- to wit : that although he was but sixty years of age, he had built five hundred buildings. He gave me the following facts, viz.: About forty years ago, in digging a well thirty feet at the south-west corner of Eighth and Cherry streets for P. Waglam, they came to a pine tree laying horizontal, which they cut through, of great dimensions. Mr. Moore had seven houses in Cherry street, on the south side, between Eighth and Ninth streets. In digging his front well in Cherry street, at thirty feet, they came to marsh mud, and found acorns and oak leaves in abundance, and a little below them they came to fine polished coarse gravel, from the size of peas to filberts. Afterwards he dug two wells back, one hundred and forty feet southward on said ground, and at same depth came to precisely the same discoveries of acorns, leaves, and gravel. All the earth, save the first four to four and a half feet of made ground, appeared to be the natural strata of loam and sand. When he was building Mr. Girard's stores in north Water street about thirty-five years ago, they dug out of the cellar ground, wine and beer, about one dozen bottles each, which still retained strength, supposed to have been buried there one hundred years. Mr. Graff, the city agent for the water pipes, informed me of his having found, in digging to lay them, "near the Bank of Pennsylvania" in Second street as I understood him, at twelve feet below the present surface, a regular pebble pavement. I should expect this to be the case in Walnut street, westward of Second street. The late aged Timothy Matlack, Esq., told me of his having seen spatterdocks, fresh and green, dug up at eighteen feet depth, at the place called Clarke & Moore's brewhouse, on Sixth street a little below Arch street. This occurred in the year 1760, and the specimens were used by Dr. Kinnersly, in the College before his class. At the corner of Fourth and Greenleaf alley, he saw at four feet beneath the present surface, the top of a white oak rail post, and they had to dig ten feet more for a fast foundation for a house. Colonel James Morris, when ninety years of age, told me of his seeing turf dug up at the time of sinking the foundation of Second street bridge over Dock creek. It was a congeries of black fibrous roots. Turf also was seen in digging seventeen feet for a gravel foundation to Francis West's store in Dock street. The turf was found at twelve feet depth. The late Jacob Shoemaker said he saw coal taken from a vein found in digging a well at a place in Turner's lane, about a quarter of a mile eastward of the Ridge road. It was, however, more probable it was such charred wood as is now found in the river bank at Bordertown. Kensington has its foundation on quick sand, so that none of their wells will hold any depth of water. Governor Dennie's daughter was buried in the Friend's burying ground near the corner of Third and Arch streets. What is curious is that after she had been buried thirty years, she was dug up and found entire, but perished when exposed to the air. Her hair had grown as long as the grave-digger could extend his hands. Her broad riband was entire and was worn afterwards by the digger's daughter ! Her nails had grown too. This relation is well established, and fully agrees with some other facts of the enduring quality of silk -- for instance, on disinterring the leaden coffins of Lord and Lady Bellemont at New York in 1787, the lead was found corroded, but the silk velvet on the lid was entire. At Boston, in 1824, they disinterred a British officer; the body and clothes were perished, but the silk military sash was sound in material and colour. Thomas Dixey, a pump-maker and well-digger, a man of seventy years of age; intelligent and respectable, a chief undertaker in his way for forty years in the city, having been requested to tell me all he had ever met with as curious under ground, told me that he has often, in several places, at considerable depths, come across acorns, oyster shells, &c. He told me that in the neighbourhood of Carter's alley and Go-Forth alley he dug twenty feet, and came to oyster shells and acorns. He found a great and excellent spring at twenty-eight feet depth, at the corner of Go-Forth alley and Dock street. When the house, No. 72 South Fourth street, a little above Walnut street, west side, was built, they dug nine feet for their cellar and there came to an old post and rail fence. Mr. Dixey, in digging for a well on the north side of South street near Third street, on the premises of Mr. Reed, silk dyer, came, at the depth of twenty-five feet, across a pine limb of three inches in thickness, having its bark on it. It had petrified, and he actually ground it into a good hone, and gave it to the said Mr. Reed. At No. 13 Dock street, the house of Thomas Shields, was found, in digging his cellar, a regular fire hearth, one a half feet below the present spring-tide mark. Christian Witmeek, an old digger of wells in the Northern Liberties, mentioned some discoveries about Pegg's run. In Lowber's tanyard, at thirteen feet depth, cut across a small fallen tree -- dug thirty-eight feet; at thirty-four feet they came to wood; full as much as twenty-four feet was of black mud. In digging a well near there for Thomas Steel, No. 81 St. John street, he came, at twenty-one feet depth, to real turf of ten feet thickness; at twenty-six feet depth they came to a crotch of a pine tree. The clay in the vicinity of the new prison in Arch street by Centre square, is the deepest in the city, being twenty-eight feet deep. In digging twenty-eight feet on Singer's lot near there, Mr. Groves came to gravel, and dug up a limb of an oak tree of five inches thickness, and longer than the well across which it lay. Some oak leaves, and the impressions of several were marked on the clay. Mr. Grove found an Indian tomahawk at five feet depth in M'Crea's lot in Chestnut street, vis-a-vis Dorsey's Gothic mansion. In digging a well for Thatcher, in Front near to Noble street, they came, at the depth of twenty-eight feet, to an oak log of eighteen inches thickness, quite across the pit. The whole was alluvial deposit in that neighbourhood. Turf was dug out and burnt -- in digging for the drain wells of twenty-eight feet depth under the present Sansom's row, in Second street north of Pegg's run. In Race street, between Front and Second streets, in digging the foundation of the engine house now there, they dug up an Indian grave, and found the bones. At the corner of Eighth and Cherry streets, in digging a well, at the depth of forty feet, says Joseph Sansom, they found a fallen log. Other facts of subterrene discoveries will be found in other parts of this work, connected with certain localities spoken of severally. In 1707-8, there was much expectation, through the suggestions of Governor Evans, of a great discovery of valuable minerals in Pennsylvania. William Penn, on hearing of it, begged an explanation, and hoped it might relieve him from his embarrassments ! It proved, however, to be a deceit of one Mitchell, who had been a miner in England. He pretended he was led to the discovery by a Shawnese king. Some of the "black sand" &c., was sent to Penn to assay it. In 1722, mine land is spoken of as having been taken up for Sir William Keith, at a place beyond Susquehanna. In 1728, James Logan writes of there being then four furnaces in the colony in blast. About the year 1790, John Nancarro, a Scotchman, had a furnace under ground for converting iron into steel. It stood at the north-west corner of Ninth and Walnut streets, having a large chimney, and tapering to the top. There a curious fact occurred, which, but for this record, might puzzle the "cognoscenti" and antiquaries at some future day -- such as whether the aborigines had not understood the art of fusing iron &c. The fact was this : -- The great mass of five tons of iron bars which were in the furnace, was suddenly converted into a great rock of steel by reason of a fissure in the furnace which let in the air, and consumed the charcoal, whereby the whole ran into steel, equal to four or five tons. Some houses, of very shallow cellars, have been since erected over the place, and all are quite unconscious of the treasure which rests beneath them. It was an open lot when so used by Nancarro. There is a curious and unaccountable vault far under ground in the back premises of Messrs. John and C.J. Wistar -- say, No. 139 High street, north side, and between Third and Fourth streets. At fourteen feet depth is a regular arched work of stone, sixteen feet long, and without any visible outlet. In breaking into its top to know its contents, they found nothing therein, save a log lying along the whole length. They sealed it up again, and the privy wall now rests upon it. There is no conjecture formed concerning what it may have been constructed for, nor at what time it may have been made. Dr. Franklin once lived in the adjoining house, No. 141; (both houses belonged to Wistar) whether the vault could have had any connexion with his philosophy may be a question. In rebuilding those houses five wells were found under the foundations. In the year 1836, when digging to lay down the hydrant pipe in High street, opposite to Decatur street, they found, under ground, the floor of a store or stable, out in the middle of the street; the joists were still sound and heavy. I think it must have been the remains of the bridge which once ought to have run across the street at that place. At that run, a drunken man, who had fallen into it, was found drowned, lying on his face. In 1738, it is announced in the Gazette, that they have the pleasure to acquaint the world, that the famous Chinese plant, ginseng, is now discovered in the province near Susquehanna. It appears from the specimens sent home, that it agrees with Du Halde's account, and with Chambers' Dictionary. OUR GEMS -- We are little aware of the treasure we possess among ourselves in the way of gems. The reason that they are not sought and known is, that they cost so high to prepare them for use; so that only imported ones are now used by our jewellers. We have the chrysoprase, of a pea-green, the amethyst, the topaz, in the yellow quartz. The white or rock crystal, also the brown crystal or smoky quartz, in spendid specimens, in Lancaster county. The garnet or carbuncle, of a rich red, is found abundantly near West Chester, and some near Germantown. The calcedony, in much variety, abounds in our state and New York. Jasper is found very good at Hoboken. The beryl, splendid and perfect, is found in Chester county, exceeding eight inches in diameter. Several of the above gems are to be gathered by the handful -- picking one and two here and there at a time, on the sand beach of Cape May, by the summer bathers who may pad along the strand for that purpose; they being such as are washed up in storms from the bosom of the ocean, where they may have been cast, in the whirl of waters at the first rotary impulse of the earth, when the fiat went forth -- "Let the dry land appear". When we shall have lapidaries working as cheaply as in Europe, these stones may find demand -- and withal, lower their market price. The chalybeate spring, at Harrowgate, is first announced as a discovery by George Esterly, in July 1784. After that, it became a place of public resort, as a beautiful garden &c., and was so sustained for many years. Next : WHALES AND WHALERY.