Arden Press of Philadelphia

A Short History of the City of Philadelphia, From Its Foundation to the Present Time (1880)

By Susan Coolidge

Summary
This book, originally published in 1880, provides a comprehensive history of Philadelphia from its earliest settlements in the 1600's all the way to 1880, the year of the Centennial Exhibition.

Table of Contents
Original Dedication
Chapter 1 Early Settlements
Chapter 2 The Quaker Colony
Chapter 3 The Founding of Philadelphia
Chapter 4 The Successors of Penn (1701-1766)
Chapter 5 Old Philadelphia (1701 to 1766 continued)
Chapter 6 The Gathering of the Storm (1766 to 1776)
Chapter 7 The Revolutionary War (1776 to 1783)
Chapter 8 Philadelphia as the Capital City (1783 to 1800)
Chapter 9 Growth and Development (1800 to 1876)
Chapter 10 The Centennial Exhibition
Chapter 11 Philadelphia in 1880

Publication Details

Original Dedication

This little sketch of the birth and growth of Philadelphia, the materials for which were originally collected for the use of the Tenth United States Census, is cordially dedicated to those many sons and daughters of Philadelphia who prize her welfare as their own, and whose best energies are loyally and freely exerted to hold and confirm her in her high place among the sisterhood of cities.

Chapter 1 Early Settlements

It is difficult to realize, when studying any one of our large American towns, how short a time it is since the ground on which it stands was an unbroken wilderness, upon which eye of white man had never rested. This is particularly the case with those immense capitals of the West whose birth and growth are comprised within the past half-century; but the thought is sufficiently striking with regard to what we term our "old" settlements. Two centuries and a half - a mere drop in the sum of the ancient civilizations - represents all, and more than all, of what we in America count as antiquity. Take Philadelphia, for instance - second in population and importance among the cities of the United States, and rivaling in area every capital of Europe, unless it be the city of London: its foundation goes back to the earliest days of our colonies; yet Rome was already in the decadence of age, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Athens, had numbered each over two thousand years, when, in 1609, the little yacht of Heinrich Hudson, Dutch navigator, crossed the sea in search of a short cut to China, which that worthy commander had "contracted" to discover for the use of the Dutch East India Company.

The name of the yacht was the "Crescent," familiarly known to its sailors as the "Half-Moon." Failing to find the wished-for passage, and his crew growing rebellious, Hudson abandoned his quest, and pushing southward, coasted along the New England shores. To Cape Cod, which he took to be an original of his own, he gave the name of New Holland. Still keeping a southwesterly course, he came, on the twenty-eighth day of August, to a point south of the capes of the Chesapeake, and sighted a large bay, into which a river emptied itself. This river, now known as the Potomac, he did not examine, though he explored the bay for a short distance. Retracing his course and keeping to the southeast, he discovered another bay, into which emptied another large river. This was the Delaware, and the keel of the "Half-Moon" was the first touch of civilization laid upon its waters.

Passing into the bay above Cape Henlopen, Hudson found the land "to trend away toward the northwest with a great bay and rivers." The bay being shoal, and in places dangerous with sandbanks, he again stood out to sea, and a fortnight later discovered and ascended the noble stream which still bears his name. In the autumn the "Half-Moon" returned to Holland with charts, and reports of its discoveries. In the following year Hudson again visited in the New World, to renew his search for the China passage. His crew mutinied in the icy northern seas, and putting him, his son, and seven others into a small boat, cast them adrift. Their fate was never known. "Alone among the great navigators of that day, he lies buried in America, the glorious waste of waters which bears his name being his tomb and his monument."

Eleven years later, the Dutch Government, incited by Hudson's report, incorporated a company for trading with the new country. Taking possession of the district lying between New York and a point south of the Delaware, they gave it the name of "New Netherland." The river itself they called the "Zuydt," or South, River, in opposition to the Hudson, or, North, River. In 1623 or thereabouts they built Fort Nassau, near Gloucester, on the Jersey shore, opposite and about three miles from the present city of Philadelphia.

In 1637 a colony of Swedes, sent out under the auspices of the leading citizens of Stockholm, landed on the inland curve of Cape Henlopen, at a point which, after their protracted voyage, seemed to them so charming that they gave it the name of "Paradise Point." Exactly how long they remained there is not known, but by May of the following year they had pushed up the river as far as the site of the present town of Newcastle, and four miles above it, on Manquas Creek, had built a fort, which they named "Christiana," after the young Queen of Swedes - a name retained to this day. During the next eight years, a number of other forts were erected by them on either side of the river, to which they gave the name of "New Swederlandstream," the country in general being called by them "New Sweden." Previously, in the year following the visit of Heinrich Hudson, Lord De La Warr, rediscovering the often-christened bay and river, had called both by his own name, which they bear at the present time.

It is not to be supposed that the Dutch allowed this co-occupation to pass without protest, though the Dutch Governor lacked the necessary strength to dispute it. Gustavus Adolphus was just dead, his fame survived, and Sweden still ranked among the warlike powers of Europe. So though collisions, sometimes accompanied with bloodshed, not infrequently occurred between the rival colonies, no effectual stand was made against the Swedes. In their dealings with the Indians the Swedes have the credit of inaugurating that peaceful policy which afterward bore such good fruit under William Penn. They recognized a title from the aboriginal lords of the soil as being superior to and extinguishing all other titles. An amicable settlement with the savages was consequently of the first importance with them, and they spared no pains to secure it. The Dutch, perceiving the material advantages of this astute and Christian theory, made haste to follow their example - with this result, that whereas during their sole occupation of the district, ill-treatment of the Indians had been commonly practised, and had led to more than one massacre; after the arrival of the Swedes, and during their joint sovereignty of the river, not a single drop of Indian blood was shed along the Delaware by either party.

The jarring interests of the rival emigrants were brought to an end in 1674 by a treaty between England and Holland, in which all settlements in America were transferred to the former power. The Swedish colonists pursued their peaceful course under the new government, and their descendants are still to be found in the neighborhoods of their original settlement.

Chapter 2 The Quaker Colony

For more than a quarter of a century a new and powerful influence had been working in England to build up a sect which above all others was to be instrumental in the civilization of the disturbed and thinly-peopled waste over which the Dutch and Swedish colonies were disputing. "The rise of the people called Quakers," says Bancroft, "is one of the memorable events in the history of man. It marks the moment when intellectual freedom was claimed unconditionally by the people as an inalienable birthright." Born amid the stormy throes of the Protectorate, feared and distrusted alike by the Presbyterians and by the Church, ground and tortured between the upper and the lower millstones of contending factions, fined by both, imprisoned by both, whipped and branded by both - the Quakers increased and multiplied by that strange power of growth which seems inherent in all persecuted peoples. The spirit of George Fox, their founder, imparted its principle of indomitable meekness to thousands of human souls, and among the rest to the soul of William Penn, destined to be the founder and lawgiver of the great State of Pennsylvania.

William Penn was descended from a long line of sailor ancestors. His father, an admiral in the British navy, had held various important naval commands, and in recognition of his services had been honored by knighthood. A member of Parliament, and possessed of a considerable fortune, the path of worldly advancement seemed open and easy for the feet of his son, who had received a liberal education from Oxford, continued in the schools of the Continent. Beautiful in person, engaging in manner, accomplished in manly exercises and the use of the sword, fortune and preferment seemed to wait the acceptance of William Penn. But at the very outset of his career the Divine voice fell upon his ears as upon those of St. Paul. "God in his everlasting kindness guided my feet in the flower of my youth, when about twenty-two," he says, and "not disobedient to the heavenly vision," we find him, during the autumn of that same year, in jail for the crime of following his conscience.

Many trials awaited the youthful convert. His father cast him off. He underwent a considerable imprisonment in the Tower for "urging the cause of freedom with importunity." He was fined for contempt of court. At another time, when the jury hesitated to convict, they were promptly remanded to their room by the judge, with orders to stay there till they could render a better verdict. In time these afflictions abated. The influence of his family saved him from the heavier penalties which fell upon many of his co-religionists. His father on his death-bed reinstated him as heir. "Son William," said the dying man, "if you and your friends keep to your plain way of preaching and living, you will make an end of the priests."

Some years later we find him exerting an influence at Court which almost amounted to popularity. It is evident that, with all his boldness of opinion and speech, Penn possessed a tact and address which gave him the advantage over most of his sect in dealings with worldly people. This was in great part, no doubt, the result of the wide education and varied experience which preceded his conversion. It is not given to every enthusiast to combine with the energies of an ardent faith that knowledge of affairs and of the minds and conditions of men opposed to him in belief, which shall enable him to meet them successfully on their own ground, while still maintaining the integrity of his own. Penn possessed this happy combination of qualities, and he used it for the advantage of his people and of mankind.

In 1680 his influence at Court and with moneyed men enabled him to purchase a large tract of land in east New Jersey, on which to settle a colony of Quakers, a previous colony having been sent out three years before to west New Jersey. Meanwhile a larger project filled his mind. His father had bequeathed to him a claim on the Crown for L16,000. Colonial property was then held in light esteem, and with the help of some powerful friends, Penn was enabled so to press his claim as to secure the charter for that valuable grant which afterward became the State of Pennsylvania, and which included three degrees of latitude by five of longitude, west from the Delaware.

"This day," writes Penn Jan. 5, 1681, "my country was confirmed to me by the name of Pennsylvania, a name the King [Charles II] would give it in honour of my father. I chose New Wales, being as this a pretty hilly country. I proposed (when the Secretary, a Welshman, refused to have it called New Wales,) Sylvania, and they added Penn to it, and though I much opposed it, and went to the King to have it struck out and altered, he said 't was past, and he would take it upon him . . . I feared lest it should be looked upon as a vanity in me, and not as a respect of the King, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often mentions with praise."

In return for this grant of twenty-six million acres of the best land in the universe, William Penn, it was agreed, was to deliver annually at Windsor Castle two beaver-skins, pay into the King's treasury one fifth of the gold and silver which the province might yield, and govern the providence in conformity with the laws of England and as became a liege of England's King. He was to appoint judges and magistrates, could pardon all crimes except murder and treason, and whatsoever things he could lawfully do himself, he could appoint a deputy to do, he and his heirs forever" [Parton's "Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin," vol. i, p.368].

The original grant was fantastically limited by a circle drawn twelve miles distant from Newcastle, northward and westward, to the beginning of the fortieth degree of latitude. This was done to accommodate the Duke of York, who wished to retain the three lower counties as an appanage to the State of New York. A few months later he was persuaded to renounce this claim, and the Charter of Penn was extended to include the western and southern shores of the Delaware Bay and River from the forty-third degree of latitude to the Atlantic. "It was not for the love of the land, but from the love of the water that I desired it," says the mild Penn; but it is easy to see how essential to the fortunes of the infant colony was the possession of this outlet to the sea.

The charter confirmed, a brief account of the country was published, and lands offered for sale on the easy terms of forty shillings a hundred acres, and one shilling's rent a year in perpetuity. Numerous adventurers, many of them men of wealth and respectability, offered. Their articles of agreement included a provision as to "just and friendly conduct toward the natives." Fair-dealing and humanity were from the beginning integral parts of Penn's system of government.

In April, 1681, he sent forward "young Mr. Markham," his relative, with a small party of colonists to take possession of the grant, and prepare for his own coming during the following year. Penn's charter covered most of the lands occupied by the Dutch and Swedish settlements, and Markham bore with him the following letter of reassurance to such colonists as were already living on the soil.

"My Friends - I wish you all happiness here and hereafter. These are to let you know that it hath pleased God in his Providence to cast you within my Lott and Care. It is a business, that though I never understood before, yet God hath given me an understanding of my duty, and an honest mind to doe it uprightly. I hope you will not be troubled at your chainge and the King's choice, for you are now fixt, at the mercy of no Governour that comes to make his fortune great. You shall be governed by laws of your own makeing, and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industreous People. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God hath furnisht me with a better resolution, and hath given me his grace to keep it. In short, whatever sober and free men can reasonably desire for the security and improvement of their own happiness, I shall heartily comply with. I beseech God to direct you in the way of righteousness, and therein prosper you and your children after you. I am your true Friend, Wm. Penn. London, 8th of the month called April, 1681."

"Such were the pledges of the Quaker sovereign on assuming his government; it is the duty of history to state that during his long reign those pledges were fulfilled. He never refused the free men of Pennsylvania a reasonable desire" [Bancroft, vol. ii, p.364].

The fitting out of the emigrant ships bore heavily on Penn's fortune and credit, and he was forced to borrow considerable sums to meet the expense. It is the more to his praise that when, the August following Markham's departure, a trading company offered six thousand pounds and an annual revenue, for the monopoly of the Indian traffic within his jurisdiction, he should have refused it. In his straitened circumstances the temptation must have been a powerful one; but the cherished principle of his sect, that of equal rights to all men, forbade monopolies. "I will not abuse the love of God," he writes, "nor act unworthy of his Providence, by defiling what came to me clean. There may be room there, though not here, for the Holy Experiment."

Another temptation must have assailed William Penn at this time and afterward - the temptation of almost absolute power. How successfully he combated it may be judged by his own noble words. "I purpose," he writes, "for the matters [or sake] of liberty I purpose that which is extraordinary - to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief; that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country. It is the great end of government to secure the people from the abuse of power; for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery." These few words contain a digest of perfect government. "A plantation reared on such a seed-plot," says Chalmers, "could not fail to grow with rapidity, to advance to maturity, to attract notice of the world."

Three ships, including that which carried Markham, sailed for Pennsylvania in 1681. In August, 1682, Penn himself embarked. His ship, the "Welcome," made what in those days was considered a swift passage - nine weeks from shore to shore; but small-pox broke out on the vessel, and thirty of the company died. On the 24th of October, 1682, Penn landed at Newcastle in Delaware. It was a happy circumstance that, out of twenty-three ships which made up the emigrant fleet, not one was lost.

News of the arrival of the "Quaker King" spread rapidly, and a large concourse of Swedes, Dutch, English, and Indians assembled to greet him. There was no disposition to resist his authority. The Swedes in particular showed the utmost alacrity in helping to unload the vessels and provide shelter for the new-comers. One of their prominent men was deputed to wait upon Penn and inform him of their readiness to "love, serve, and obey him," with the additional assurance that they counted his coming "the best day they had ever had seen."

Under these peaceful auspices William Penn took possession of his new government. The formal cession of territory was made the day following his landing by the exhibition of the royal patent and seal on his own part, and on that of the agent of the Duke of York by the solemn and symbolic delivery of portions of earth and water from the country transferred by his royal master. A few weeks later, Penn made his famous first grand treaty with the Indians. His title to the lands included in the royal grant was such as is held valid by all nations; but Penn chose to add to it the additional right of a purchase from the Indian proprietors. The council was held under a large elm-tree at Shackamaxon, on the borders of the present Philadelphia [The monument which now marks the site of this elm-tree stands in the midst of a manufacturing district in close proximity to some of the large ship-yards.].

"We meet," Penn told his savage audience, "on the broad pathway of good faith and good will. No advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love." The red men were not to be outdone in cordiality. "We will live in love with William Penn," they swore, "so long as the sun gives light." They kept their oath. The peaceful message bore peaceful fruit, and not a drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian.

Chapter 3 The Founding Of Philadelphia

Surveys for the building of a town had been set on foot before the arrival of Penn. The land now occupied by the city of Philadelphia was at that time the property of the Swedish colony, and probably for this reason the commissioners had decided upon a spot some twelve miles farther up the Delaware. The present site, however, possessed advantages which could not be overlooked by so acute an observer as Penn. The noble waterway formed by the approach of the two rivers, the heavy timbering of the land, the existence of large quarries of building stone and of a heavy stratum of brick clay - all these considerations conspired to fix his choice, and an amicable exchange of lands being effected with the Swedes, the laying out of the city began. Philadelphia, or "Brotherly Love," was the name chosen for it.

"The situation," writes Penn, "is not surpassed by one among all the many places I have seen in the world" - and he had visited most of the cities of Europe. Time has justified his encomiums. The position of the city of Philadelphia is one of almost unrivalled advantage. Built on a neck of land between two deep rivers which unite to form a third water front, and barely one hundred miles from the Atlantic, Philadelphia has all the practical advantages of a seaport, while holding in her hands the inland threads which link the commerce of the Northern and Southern States. The peninsula which she occupies, an irregular oblong in shape, has an average width of five miles, with an elevation of from two to forty feet above the sea; but the city has long since outgrown its original limits, and the new Philadelphia to the west of the Schuylkill runs over heights which rise in places to one hundred and twenty feet. Swept by freshening winds, with a climate which pleasantly compromises between Northern cold and Southern heat, and an abundant water-supply, the city from its foundation possessed the requisites of a rapid growth.

"The sky," writes one of the early colonists, "is as clear in winter as in summer, not foul and black, and the air, though cold and piercing, is so dry, that it does not require more clothing than in England." Game abounded; Indian corn grew wild; the rivers furnished a profusion of fish; A deer could be bought for two shillings; a large turkey for one; Corn was two-and-sixpence a bushel. With all these facilities, however, the privation of the colony during the first winter must have been great. In sharp contrast to the comfortable English homes just quitted, the colonists were forced to make a shift with bark-huts, or with caves which many of them dug in the high banks overlooking the Delaware. "I never heard them say," wrote one of their number, who had himself exchanged a pleasant home in England for a cave - "I never heard them say, 'I would I had not come,' which is worth observing, considering how plentifully they had lived in England." The framework of a country-house for the Governor had been sent out by the first fleet, but the dwelling was still incomplete when he arrived.

"There is curious building-stone and paving-stone," writes Gabriel Thomas, one of Penn's shipmates, "also tile-stone, with which Governour Penn covered his great and stately pile which he called Pennsbury House. There is likewise iron-stone or oar (lately found), which far exceeds that of England, being richer and less drossy. There is also very good limestone in great plenty, and cheap, of great use in buildings, and also in manureing land, if there were occassion - but nature has made that of itself sufficiently fruitful. Besides here are load-stones, ising-glass, and (that wonder of stones) the Salamander-stone, found near Brandy-wine River, having cotton in veins within it, which will not consume in the fire, though held there a long time. There are an infinite number of sea and land fowl of most sorts, and there are prodigious quantities of shell and other fish; also several sorts of wild beasts of great profit and good food. There are also several sorts of wild fruits, as excellent grapes - which upon frequent experience have produced choice wine - walnuts, chestnuts, filberts, hickory nuts, hurtleberries, mulberries, raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, plums, and many other wild fruits in great plenty, which are common and free for any to gather. Also many curious and excellent physical wild herbs, roots, and drugs of great virtue, which makes the Indians, by a right application of them, as able doctors and surgeons as any in Europe. Indeed the country, take it as a wilderness, is a most brave country" [Watson's " Annals of Philadelphia," vol i, p.69].

The city of Babylon is said to have been in Penn's mind as a model for his proposed city. Its area was liberally calculated. Penn's orders were to "Lay out a town in the proportion of two hundred acres for every ten thousand sold, of which the purchasers of five hundred acres were to have ten." The whole amount sold having been nearly four hundred thousand acres, the city as thus planned would have covered an area of eight thousand acres [Barber and Howe's "Hist. Coll.," p. 90]. The disadvantages of such a scheme in a situation where the mutual protection of close neighborhood might at any moment be of the highest necessity, soon became apparent; and in place of a town of twelve and a half square miles, one of a sixth of that size was decided upon. Later this plan was again contracted, and the boundaries of the city were declared to be Vine and Cedar Streets to the north and south, and the two rivers to the east and west.

"Be sure to settle the figure of the town so as that the streets hereafter may be uniform down to the water from the country bounds," wrote William Penn before his arrival, forecasting that decorous regularity of arrangement which has distinguished the city of his love ever since his day. "Let every house be placed, if the person pleases, in the middle of his plat, so that there may be ground on each side for garden or orchards or fields, that it may be a green country town which will never be burnt and always be wholesome." Such a "plat" was set aside by the commissioners for the Governor's own use. It was 402 feet long by 172 deep, and extended from High Street, southward on Front and Second Streets, half-way to Chestnut. The house, according to his wish, stood almost exactly in the middle of the enclosure. It was of simple construction, two stories in height, and built of brick. The cellar was dug before Penn's arrival, and the house was probably ready for occupation during the next year, 1683.

Penn's country-seat was at Pennsbury, on the Delaware, above Bristol. It was the residence that he preferred, and he came and went to and from it as the necessities of business required, using a barge or yacht, with a certain attention to state and show which befitted his position. "For although the Proprietary had adopted the simple habits and doctrines of the Society of Friends, there was within him much of the manner of his father's house. Formality and a certain degree of luxury, with attention to many worldly fashions which were to the strictest Quakers vanity of vanities, were kept up."

"The place was constructed at great expense for that time, having cost L7,000. The mansion was sixty feet in front by forty feet in depth; the garden, an ornamental and sloping one, lay along the river side in front of it. . . "

"Pray let the courtyard be levelled," he writes, "and the fields and places about the house be cleanly and orderly kept . . . I would have a kitchen, two larders, a wash-house, a room to iron in, a brewhouse, and a Milan oven for baking, and a stable for twelve horses. All my rooms I would have nine feet high. What you can, do with bricks; what you can't, do it with good timbers. . . There is gravel for walks, that is red at Philadelphia, near the Swamp. Let all be uniform, and not ascu from the house."

These innovations brought upon him some unavoidable criticism. In "News from Pennsylvania," published in London in 1703, this description is given by an apostate Quaker of Penn's manner of living during his second visit to this country:

"Our present governor, William Penn, wants the sacred unction, tho' he seems not to want majesty, for the grandeur and magnificence of his mien is equivalent to that of the Grand Mogul, and his word in many cases as absolute and binding. The gate of his house (or palace) is always guarded with a janisary armed with a varnished club of nearly ten foot long, crowned with a large silver head embossed and chased as an hieroglyphic of its master's pride. There are certain days of the week appointed for audience, and as for the rest, you must keep your distance. His corps du guard generally consists of seven or eight of his chief magistrates, both ecclesiastical and civil, which always attend him, and sometimes there are more. When he peramulates the city, one bare-headed, with a long white mace over his shoulder, in imitation of the Lord-Marshal of England, marches grandly before him and his train, and sometimes proclamation is made to clear the way. At the Meeting House, first William leads the van, like a mighty champion of war, rattling as fast the wheels of his leathern conveniency, after him follow the mighty Dons according to their several movings, and then for the Chorus, the Feminine Prophets tune their quail-pipes for the space of three or four hours . . . "

The first house finished in Philadelphia was a small wooden one on the east side of Front Street, a little north of the place afterward called the Dock. It was for many years in use as a tavern, its sign being a blue anchor. In 1683 Philadelphia, we are told, "consisted of three or four little cottages." But word had gone out into the world of the establishment of a city of refuge for the oppressed of all nations, and from all parts of Europe and Great Britain emigrants came crowding to the land of promise. "In the short space of three years after the settlement of Penn, fifty sail of vessels arrived, filled with passengers from different countries" ["The Picture of Philadelphia," p. 31]. From Germany they came, from Sweden, from the Low Countries, Ireland, Wales, and England. The rapid increase of population almost alarmed the Government, but it worked no harm, and steadily and silently the newcomers were absorbed unto the body politic, to help on the rapid growth of the general prosperity.

In three years after its foundation Philadelphia had gained more than New York in half a century. "The town already contained six hundred houses, and the schoolmaster and printing-press had begun their work." No wonder that Penn should exultingly write to Halifax: "I must without vanity say that I have led the greatest colony into America that ever man did upon a private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are to be found among us."

Lawgivers as well as artisans are needful for the building of a state. Nine representatives were elected from each of the six counties into which Penn's dominion was divided, to frame a charter of liberties. Penn presided over the debates, but left the Assembly free to follow its own counsel. He laid before them the plan of government framed in England, but added: "You may amend, alter, or add; I am ready to settle such foundations as shall be for your happiness."

The constitution as finally decided upon created a Council and an Assembly. The former was to serve three years, the latter one. One third of the Council was to be renewed yearly. The whole assembly was subject to an annual election. Judges were nominated by the Council, and were not to be removed, except in case of ill behavior, till their term of office had expired. God was declared the only lord of the conscience. The Sabbath was set apart as a day of rest. The law of primogeniture was pronounced invalid. The word of an honest man was to be evidence unaccompanied by an oath. Thieves were to restore fourfold, after being whipped and imprisoned; if unable to do this, they were kept in servitude till the debt was discharged. No tax or custom could be levied except by law. There were neither poor-rates nor tithes. Murder was the only crime punishable by death. Every convict prison was to be a workhouse. False accusers were to pay a double penalty. The Governor had a negative voice in all acts of the Council, which was, in fact, a veto on every law. Except for this, the constitution of Pennsylvania would have been a pure democracy. In the adjoining State, Maryland, the Council was named by its Governor, Lord Baltimore. The appointment of all subordinate officers rested with him; he also had the revenue of tobacco, and the State was burdened with taxes. The same revenue was offered to Penn, and was declined. Tax-gatherers were unknown in Pennsylvania; the Council and all lesser offices were voted for by the people; and William Penn could not of his own will appoint so much as a constable to place. It is no wonder that this charter was received by the people with enthusiasm as "one of unhoped-for liberty." Penn was no less content. "I desired," he said, "to show men as free and as happy as they can be. If in the relation between us the people want of me anything that would make them happier, I should readily grant it."

"The early minutes [of the Assembly] show that the members in William Penn's time used to take their dinners with them to the House (the House being a schoolroom hired for twenty shillings the session), and adjourned sometimes for an hour to warm themselves; paid their clerk four shillings a day, and fined absentees tenpence; often sat in silence for a while, meditating, as at a Quaker meeting; and passed laws prohibiting the drinking of healths and the spreading of false news" [Parton's "Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin," vol. i., p.327].

It is interesting to note the calm good sense of the Quaker rulers when dealing with that question of witchcraft which a few years later was to upset all the best judgement of New England. In 1688 a woman was brought to trial as a witch. The jury - in which Quakers predominated - after listening to the testimony and the Governor's charge, brought in this verdict: "The prisoner is guilty of the common fame of being a witch, but not guilty as she stands indicted." It was the first and last trial for witchcraft which took place in Pennsylvania.

The government thus inaugurated, the courts of law established, a peaceful settlement with the natives secured, Penn's work was done, and he prepared for a visit to England. The executive power he left in the Council, and the seal of the State in the keeping of his friend Lloyd. He sailed in August, 1684, leaving behind him this touching farewell: "My love and my life are to you and with you, and no water can quench it or distance bring it to end. You are come to a quiet land, and liberty and authority are in your hands. I bless you in the name of the name and power of the Lord, and may God bless you in his righteousness, peace and plenty all the land over . . . And thou Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, my soul prays to God for thee, that thou mightest stand in the day of trial, and that thy children may be blessed. Dear friends, my love salutes you all."

It was Penn's hope in sailing, to return in the course of a few months, but this hope was frustrated. Vexations and disappointment awaited him at home. Charles II, the granter of his patent of lands, died shortly after his arrival. Charles's successor, James II, had, as Duke of York, been a warm personal friend to Penn, and continued so after his accession. We hear of Penn in favor at Court during the following years, and using this favor in behalf of the Universities and of all persecuted sects, the Roman Catholics no less than his own people.

On the downfall of James, Penn, in common with all the friends of the deposed King, found himself suspected and in disgrace. He was twice arrested on a charge of treasonable practices, and twice acquitted. His government was taken from him, and again restored. It was fifteen years before he again saw the shores of the Delaware and the city of his planting. Great changes had taken place during this interval. Where he left a plain, rudely staked out with squares and streets, a few houses finished, and a few others begun, he found shops, warehouses, shipping. The population had increased to forty-five hundred, with an accomodation of seven hundred houses. Philadelphia, from the outset, has been remarkable for the liberal provision of dwellings for her people. The value of the customs at this time, Penn calculated to be not less than L8,000.

It was during this second visit that Philadelphia was instituted a city, though it would seem in effect to have possessed the character of one before then, for as early as 1691 its official acts were signed by a mayor [Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, vol. i., p. 25]. There were several good schools of learning for youth, and - for which the early chronicler gives thanks with an equal fervor - several cook's shops, both roasting and boyling, as in the city of London, for which we owe the highest gratitude to our plentiful Provider, the great Creator of heaven and earth . . . All sorts of very good paper are made in the German-town, as also very fine German linen, such as no person of quality need be ashamed to wear; and in several places they make very good druggets, crapes, camlets, and serges, beside other woolen cloathes, the manufacture of all which daily improves . . . The Christian children born here are generally well favoured and beautiful to behold; I never knew any with the least blemish [Gabriel Thomas's Account of Philadelphia and the Province to the Year 1696"].

A curious anecdote is told of Anthony Duche, a respectable Protestant refugee from France, who was one of Penn's ship's company on this second voyage. Duche had lent Penn a small sum of money, about thirty pounds. On their landing, Penn offered him, in lieu of the debt, what he called a good bargain in land, namely, the whole square between Third and Fourth Streets, with the exception of a small piece already occupied as a Friends' burial-ground. Duche replied, You are very good, Mr. Penn, and the offer might prove advantageous; but the money would suit me better. Blockhead! cried Penn, thou shalt have thy money; but canst thou not see that this will be a very great city in a very short time? So I was paid, adds Duche, and have ever since repeated of my folly [Annals of Philadelphia, vol. i., p. 264].

This proved to be Penn's last visit to his colony. He sailed for England in 1701, urged thither by embarrassments in his affairs, and partly, it would seem, also, by the unwillingness of his wife and daughter to remain. I cannot prevail upon my wife to stay, and still less with Tishe: I know not what to do, he writes. It was his hope speedily to return to Philadelphia, and to make the colony his permanent home; but these hopes were baffled. Renewed vexations awaited him in England. At one time he was actually in the Fleet prison for nine months on account of debt. O Pennsylvania, he wrote, during this period of trouble, what has thou not cost me? Above thirty thousand pounds more than I ever got by it, two hazardous and mostly fatiguing voyages, and my son's soul almost. (This is in reference to his eldest son, who had fallen into evil ways during his residence in the colony.) I cannot but think it hard measure that, while that proved a land of freedom and flourishing to them, it should become to me, by whose means it was made a country, the cause of trouble and poverty. So great were his necessities, that he actually negotiated for the sale of his province for L12,000, reserving to himself the quit-rents and estates. His mind was failing at the time, and before the execution of the deed he had so far lost his faculties as to be incapable of making a legal conveyance. In 1712 he had a shock of paralysis, and six months later another. For six years he lingered, enfeebled by memory, but when thoughts of business were kept from him, very sweet, comfortable, and easy, and cheerfully resigned, and taking delight in his children, friends, and domestic comforts. He enjoyed much serenity and continued incomes of the love of God. He died in 1718. His work survived him, and still survives. The chief cause of Pennsylvania's rapid growth was not the pleasantness of the climate, nor the fertility of the soil, nor the convenience of the situation, though these were causes of its prosperity; Pennsylvania throve because William Penn had been just.

Meanwhile, twelve years before his death, in a small tallow-chandler's shop in Boston, a boy had been born who, next after Penn, was destined to exert a lasting influence upon the city of his planning. Philadelphia, says Parton, is Quakerism mitigated by Franklin.

Chapter 4 The Successors Of Penn (1701-1766)

"A sober and considerate perusal of all the papers which remain at this day on the subject of Penn's government could not fail to convince the reader that the structure of colonial governments in general must have been of the most perplexing and vexatious kind. They remind one of wranglesome children, perpetually plotting and counterplotting against each other - 'destroying others, by themselves destroyed' - each carrying their complaints and remonstrances back to the distant parents in England, and they, equally perverse, rescinding and counteracting the efforts of the children to become their own masters. Americans, to be duly sensible of the value of their liberation from such harassing thraldom, should go back to the perusal of those voluminous papers which contain the facts so constantly afflictive to our forefathers!" [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i, p. 81]

For some time after the death of William Penn, his widow, Hannah Penn, conducted the correspondence with the colony, and in some sort administered the government. William Penn, the oldest son of the family, made a claim on the colony as natural heir; but before any final decision had been arrived at in the matter, his unworthy life had come to a close. He died two years after his father's death, worn out by intemperence and excesses.

By Penn's will, the Pennsylvania estate was divided between the three sons of his second marriage, John, Thomas, and Richard. John Penn, dying unwedded in 1746, left his whole estate to his brother Thomas, who thus became owner of two-thirds of the province. He seems to have been a prudent and methodical man of business. Richard, the youngest of the brothers, was a spendthrift. Both were men of inferior capacities and narrow hearts, having inherited nothing of the wide thought and wider humanity which distinguished their father, and which led him to erect barriers for the protection of generations yet unborn against even his own authority and that of his heirs.

Insignificant among the gentry of their own country, without either place or influence, the heirs of Penn had yet the power to wield an almost royal control over a territory larger in extent than in England itself. Ruling by deputy, and rarely visiting the country which they claimed as an inheritance, their sole care in the management of it seems to have been their own enrichment in wealth and importance. Representatives of a parent whose virtues they neither understood nor imitated, and who would have been the first to condemn their methods of government, they used their authority to vex, retard, and hamper a community which, regarding them in the outset with a deep and grateful affection, learned in the end to feel toward them abhorrence and distrust, as the oppressors of the very people whom their father had given his all to make free.

Twenty-five years after the death of Penn, Pennsylvania contained a population of one hundred thousand, and Philadelphia ten thousand inhabitants. His heirs valued their American estate at ten million sterling. Twenty-five shiploads of Germans alone landed during the year 1749, and this was not estimated above the average emigration of former years. In 1731 Pennsylvania traded in twenty-eight different articles of commerce with England, besides exporting in considerable quantities to Portugal, Spain, Surinam, and the Mediterranean ports, and shipping over three hundred thousand pounds of produce to the West Indes. Over two thousand tons of shipping were built for sale over and above the quantity needed for the carrying trade of the province. The heirs of Penn drew from the province an income of twenty thousand pounds. Yet they steadily claimed the right of exemption from all taxes, even those levied for the protection of the territory from which this revenue was derived.

"During the first year of the French war, from 1754 to 1758, the ravaged colony of Pennsylvania contributed to the King's service in defending its own borders and aiding other colonies to strike at the common foe, the sum of two hundred and eighteen thousand pounds sterling. Still the Proprietaries would not be taxed. The Crown lands and castles, the lodge and palaces, of the King of England contributed their proper proportion to the revenue of the kingdom. But the proprietary estate of these lordly brothers must still be exempt from taxation" [Parton's "Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin," vol. i, p. 371]. The sum in question was not large, amounting to no more than five hundred and fifty pounds a year, all of which was to be expended in the defence of what the Messieurs Penn were magniloquently accustomed to style "our province of Pennsylvania" and "our city of Philadelphia." Yet even when, after the defeat of Braddock in 1756, the savage foe ravaged the outskirts of the colony, and families were scalped within eighty miles of Philadelphia, the Proprietaries held firmly to their refusal. Instead of setting on foot instant measures for relief and reprisal, the Assembly was forced to waste valuable time in miserable squabbles with the Governor over the point, as to whether or no the nominal rulers of the province and those who derived the greatest benefit from it should or should not be forced to bear their false share of the expenses for its protection.

These deputy-governors, sent out from England with sealed instructions for the management of every possible and impossible complication which might arise in the colony, must indeed have been a thorn in the side of a quick-witted and ardent community like that of Pennsylvania. They were changed as often as the indignation of the colonists or the convenience of the Penns made it desirable, and their different careers may be summed up with tolerable uniformity. Arrival, fair promises, hopes; quarrels with the Assembly, growing uneasiness; then appeals, denunciations on both sides, a tough fight over supplies, and his Excellency This sailed for England, while his Excellency That arrived to take his place. It was all a hopeless muddle. More than once the Governor's signature to bills which had passed the House was only extorted by making the payment of his own salary contingent upon it. "It is a happy country," remarks Franklin dryly, "where justice and what was your own before, can be had for ready money. It is another addition to the value of money, and of course another spur to industry. Our present Proprietaries have never been more unreasonable hitherto than barely to insist on your fighting in defence of their property, and paying the expense yourselves."

It is no wonder that Pennsylvania turned at length against this pair of thick-headed despots, too distant and too deaf to heed remonstrance, and too dull to understand it. When she turned, it was with that violence of contempt which children feel who, after writhing under the rule of a formal old pedagogue, realize at last his ignorance and their own strength. But there is a melancholy side to such a reaction. Great men are none too common in this world: their names should be held in honor. It is grievous that the sons of a man like Penn should have been able, by their folly and selfishness, to smirch and dim his honorable repute with the state he so benefited, and bring down on themselves a satire so biting and so deserved as that embodied in Franklin's "Memorial of T. and R.P.P. of P." (Thomas and Richard Penn, Proprietaries of Pennsylvania), published in 1764. These are the concluding sentences:
"The privileges granted by their father
They,
Foolishly and cruelly
Taking advantage of public distress,
Have exorted from the posterity of those settlers,
And are daily endeavoring to reduce them
To the most abject slavery,
Though to the virtues and industry of these people
In improving their country
They owe all they possess and enjoy -
A striking instance
Of human depravity and ingratitude,
And an irrefragable proof
That wisdom and goodness
Do not descend with an inheritance,
But that ineffable meanness
May be connected with unbounded fortune."

Notwithstanding these misunderstandings with the Proprietaries, the record of Philadelphia during the seventy years following the death of her founder shows a steady growth in prosperity. In 1753 the population had increased to nearly 15,000, and the number of houses to 2,300. In 1777 the population was 23,734, and the dwellings 5,395.

Penn's original plan for the laying out of the streets was adhered to by his successors. Streets fifty feet in width run from north to south and from east to west, crossing each other at regular angles. The streets which lead from river to river are named, in most part, after the fruit and forest trees which were found growing on the spot when the settlers arrived. The streets from north to south are numbered in regular order from No. 1, or Front Street, upward. Each block is calculated to contain one hundred houses, and is numbered accordingly. All dwellings above Market Street are marked north, and all below it, south. By this arrangement the number of any house defines its exact topographical situation. There are in Philadelphia none of those meanderings and divergences, attributable, as it would seem, to the vagrant propensities of the Puritan cow, which make a walk in Boston so puzzling and so interesting. All is duly rectangular and understood. One knows beforehand exactly what to expect at every turn and corner. But what such an arrangement lacks in interest is atoned for by the ease and simplicity which make it impossible for a stranger to go astray or to experience the least difficulty in following a given direction.

In 1752 Philadelphia was still what its founder desired that it should be, a "green country place," extending a mile along the Delaware, and about half a mile back from its shores. The houses, built principally of brick and stone, as to-day, stood each surrounded by its garden. Almost every family kept its cow, which was pastured in the outskirts of the city. The peach-orchards bore so abundantly, that pigs were fattened on the fruit. There were still persons who remembered when the site of the city was a forest: indeed the first child born in the colony was yet living, a man of sixty-two. Game was plentiful in the near neighborhood; and down to the middle of the century, wolves and bears were occasionally shot within eight miles of the State House.

An aged lady, still alive in 1740, could recollect the time when she and other girls went out to gather wild strawberries in what is now Spruce Street, between Seventh and Eighth. The woods there were "lofty and thrifty," and extended all the way across to the Schuylkill. An aged gentleman of the same date "well remembered a fine field of corn in growth on the north-west corner of South and Front Streets" [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol i, p.234].

The health of the city was not uninterrupted during the first half of the century. With the increase of population came an increase of disease, chiefly of the zymotic type. In great part these disorders seem to have had for cause a small swamp or creek running north-westerly from the Delaware across Second and Walnut Streets to Third, with an arm extending as far as Spruce. This creek was given to the city by Penn, to be kept in perpetuity as a convenient water-way for boats of light draught, to carry supplies from the river to the heart of town. The sluggish current of the creek caused its bed gradually to fill with mud, which in time became the receptacle of a mass of sewer-contamination and garbage, and made a centre of poisonous exhalations for that part of the city. In 1784 Dr. Benjamin Rush pointed out this dangerous nuisance, and his influence was sufficient to carry (against strong opposition!) a law providing for the cleansing and arching over of the creek, and the laying out of a street above it; which measure was followed by an immediate improvement in public health.

It was Penn's intention to preserve the frontage of the Delaware as an open esplanade, to be planted with trees, and form an airy and agreeable walk for the citizens. His straits for money at a later day unfortunately led him to relax from this intention and to sell these lots for bank vaults and stores. It was a sore mortification to him, on his second visit, to see the "growing deformity" of this part of the city. "My necessity, not my will, hath done this," he remarked. The abandonment of his plan was a great and lasting loss to Philadelphia, only partially remedied by the bequest of Stephen Girard at a later day for the improvement of the river front.

In 1702 the breaking out of the war between England, France, and Spain menaced the settlements on the Delaware with attack, and the inconvenience of the Quaker doctrine of non-resistance became apparent. For although the original charter of Penn included a provision that he and his heirs should "muster and train, make war and vanquish or put to death all enemies by sea and land," and during the early years of the colony something like a militia organization existed, there can be no doubt that the Quakers were at heart strongly opposed to anything which bore the semblance of warlike preparations. Lieutenant-Governor Evans, then in command, attempted to raise a regiment for defence, which attempt was firmly resisted by the Assembly. Four years later he employed a foolish trick, with the hope of exciting a public panic and forcing the Quakers to abandon their policy of non-resistance. A forged letter was prepared and sent into town on a market-day, when the city was full of people, reporting that armed ships had entered the Delaware, and were coming up to plunder the city. The Governor made his appearance on horseback with a drawn sword, and called upon the people to rise in defence of their homes. Great alarm was excited, and the people began to remove their families and property; but the Quakers stood firm, and when, soon afterward, the fraud was discovered, the storm of indignation that it excited was so great, that the Penns were forced to remove Evans and replace him with another deputy.

In 1709 French privateers actually plundered the town of Lewes, in one of the lower Delaware counties. From 1740 to the close of 1748 France and Spain were at war against England, Holland, and Hungary. The American settlements were of course an inviting object of attack to all the enemies of England. All the southern colonies put themselves into a state of warlike preparation. "Pennsylvania alone was utterly defenceless. The banks of the Delaware had not a fort, not a battery, not a gun; and Philadelphia lay, a tempting prize, that even a well-armed privateer could seize and sack. There was not so much as a volunteer company, if there were muskets enough to arm one. John Penn and Thomas Penn were not Quakers, as their father had been; yet in the legislative Assembly the Quaker influence so greatly preponderated, that nothing could induce that body to vote money for the purchase of means of defence. Not the actual presence of a privateer in the river could move them: with such tenacity do we cling to eccentric beliefs!" [Parton's "Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin," vol. i, p. 264].

This obstinate inactivity was at last brought to an end by the influence of Benjamin Franklin. We have already spoken of this distinguished man as being, next to Penn himself, the most potent factor in the moulding of the Pennsylvania community.

The story of his life is, or should be, familiar to all who read these pages. There is, however, a surprising and growing carelessness about the lives of even great men, as they recede into the dimness of history. We fear there may be those, especially among our younger readers, who, in thinking of this celebrated character, depict him to their mind's eye as a bland, elderly figure vaguely outlined, with an aspect of benevolent instruction, who carries in one hand a lightning rod, in the other a batch of proverbs. For the benefit of these, if such there are, we will venture to give a brief sketch of a career so intimately bound up with the fortunes of Philadelphia, and which, taken in all its parts, is perhaps the most noteworthy of any recorded in American history.

Born in Boston in the year 1706, one of the ten children of a tallow-chandler; apprenticed to his brother at the age of twelve to learn the art of printing, falling out with his master five years later, and escaping from his service, our runaway apprentice landed in Philadelphia in 1723, being then seventeen years of age. His first adventures in the city are too well known to be dwelt upon at length. Landing from the small boat which had brought him down the river from Burlington, footsore, travel-stained, and almost penniless, his first emotion was one of surprise at the quantity of bread given him in exchange for a threepence - "twice as much as any Massachusetts baker would have given." Walking down grassy, tree-shaded Market Street, Deborah Read, his future wife, stood in her father's doorway and smiled at the odd appearance which he made - all of which simple legend should be as familiar to American boys and girls as is the history of Whittington and his Cat. We doubt if it is so.

Seven months later he returned to Boston for a brief visit, well dressed, with money in his pocket, and the owner of a watch. The clever young printer had prospered at his trade and made friends, among them Sir William Keith, at that time governor of the colony. This friendship proved in the end misfortune to Franklin. Keith, a vague, chimerical, untrustworthy man, sent him to England in 1724 with a commission to purchase the outfit for a printing establishment of a superior kind which the Governor desired to establish in Philadelphia. His promises as to money and introductions were not fulfilled, and Franklin was left to shift for himself in London, as he had done two years before in Philadelphia. Fortunately for him, a good printer could hardly lack for work in those days, and he found no trouble in earning a maintenance . He returned to Philadelphia in 1726. Three years later we find him established in a considerable printing business of his own, and conducting "The Pennsylvania Gazette," the first paper of note produced in the colony.

In 1730 he married his early love, Deborah Read. In 1731 he started the first subscription library, probably in the United States, certainly in Pennsylvania. Two pounds sterling for the purchase of books and ten shillings a year afterward, were the terms of the first subscriptions. This was the nucleus of the great Library of Philadelphia. In 1785 the number of volumes was 5,487; in 1807, 14,451. In 1861 it had risen to 70,000; in 1881 to 100,000. "The institution is one of the few in America that has held on its way unchanged in any essential principle for a century and a quarter, always on the increase, always faithfully administered, always doing its appointed work" [Parton's "Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin," vol. i, p. 202].

In 1732 was given to the world the first volume of the renowned "Poor Richard's Almanac." This little work, besides giving the usual information as to moons, tides, and weather statistics, was made the vehicle of Franklin's admirable comments on the affairs of the day, of his equally admirable fun, and of a wealth of aphorism which still supplies our memories and conversation. "Honesty is the best policy;" "A word to the wise;" "God helps those who help themselves." How often these and their companion proverbs are used by us without any recognition of the source from which they come.

In 1733, having earned a certain privilege of leisure, Franklin resumed the education which, so far as schools go, had ended for him at the age of ten. He learned to read fluently French, Italian, and Spain. He made considerable progress with Latin. He was also accomplished in music, the master of a clear and effective English style, and fond of the game of chess.

In 1744, when the war and the defenceless condition of Philadelphia created general alarm, he published a tract entitled "Plain Truth," in which he depicted the horrors of war, pointed out the danger of the province, and cited Biblical arguments to show "the righteousness of self-defence." This tract produced a powerful impression. Within a month after its appearance, almost every man in the province not a Quaker had joined a military organization and procured some sort of weapon. Eighty companies were soon formed. Franklin was elected colonel of one of the Philadelphia regiments, but "thinking myself unfit," he declined. It is probable that the younger Quakers at least secretly rejoiced at the movement. Certain it is that Franklin's share in it did not cost him his influence in the Assembly, of which he was clerk, as had been feared.

In 1747, Franklin, then forty-two years of age, and in the enjoyment of an income of some L700 a year, deliberately retired from active business for the purpose of gaining time to devote to scientific study, notably to electricity, which was then the absorbing topic of the day. In 1752 he made his great discovery of the identity of the electric fluid in the clouds with that in the electrical battery. The same year he invented the lightning-rod. The experiment was first tried in his own house. "The rod came into the bed-chamber on the gable end, eastern side, and there being cut off from its communication with the rod descending to the ground, the intermediate space of about one yard was filled up with a range or chime of bells, which, whenever an electric cloud passed over the place, were set to ringing and throwing out sparks of electricity" [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i, p. 552]. In this manner the philosopher played with the terrible agent whose properties he was among the first to recognize. A vein of poetry runs through many of his scientific experiments. He was fond of the music of the AEolian harp, and accustomed wherever he went to stretch a silken string across some crevice which admitted air, in order to produce the sounds which delighted him. It is said that, revisiting many years after a house in which he had lived during his first visit to France, he found it shut up and deserted, under a suspicion of being haunted by spirits who made strange musical sounds. Investigation revealed the cause of this report - a forgotten cord stretched by himself across the window during his previous residence.

In 1752, through his instrumentality largely, the Academy and Charitable School of the Province of Pennsylvania (afterward to become the University of Pennsylvania) was founded, and soon afterward the Pennsylvania Hospital. It is to him that America owes the introduction of the willow-tree, and of plaster of Paris as a fertilizer. It was at his suggestion that the merchants of Philadelphia, in 1753, sent a ship to the Polar seas for the discovery of the Northwest Passage. He first detected the poisonous qualities of air exhaled from the lungs, and wrote effectively on the subject of ventilation. The open stove called the "Franklin," which has been in use among us ever since his day, was his invention. And it was his apt and fiery arguments which strengthened the popular party in Pennsylvania during their long struggle with the Proprietaries, and sowed the seeds of that determination after liberty which carried the colony through the hardships of the Revolution.

For sixteen years Franklin had held the place of Postmaster of Philadelphia. In 1753 he, in conjunction with Benjamin Hunter of Virginia, was commissioned by the Home Government as postmaster-general for America. It was under his administration that the mail-service first began to yield a revenue. Some of the improvements introduced by him into its management are part of our postal system to this day.

In 1755 he gave valuable assistance in fitting out Braddock's ill-fated expedition against Fort Duquesne. Visiting the camp for this purpose, he found leisure during the journey to observe and explain the movement of one of those spiral whirlwinds which were as common and destructive then as now. After the massacre of Braddock's force, and the onslaught of the savages on the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Franklin accepted for the emergency a military appointment, and led a body of volunteers to the relief of the Moravian settlement of Gnadenhutten, which had been laid in ashes by the Indians. The record of his two months' service in the field was so creditable to him, that he was urged by the Assembly to accept a general's commission and "undertake the reduction of Fort Duquesne," a proposal of which his wisdom and modesty alike forbade the acceptance.

In 1757 he was sent out to England as Agent of the Colony of Pennsylvania, to appeal against the vexatious conduct of the Proprietaries. He carried with him a memorandum of Heads of Complaint, which ran as follows: 1st. The Royal Charter gives to the Assembly the law-making power: the Proprietaries deprive them of that power. 2nd. The Charter confers on the Assembly the right to regulate supplies: the Proprietaries neutralize that right. 3d. The exemption of the estate of the Proprietaries from taxation is a manifest injustice. These complaints producing no impression on the minds of the Messrs. Penn, Franklin bent his energies toward influencing the Lords of the Council and the Board of Trade.

His mission kept him in England for nearly five years. They were laborious and harassing years, but they had their admixture of happiness, for the reputation of Franklin was now world-wide, and the best scientific and literary society of London welcomed him with open arms. In its main object his errand was a failure. The Proprietaries proved impracticable, and their influence prevailed with the authorities. In 1760 a committee of the Privy Council had a Report actually prepared, by which his Majesty was recommended to repeal the Bill which has passed the Assembly for the equal taxation of all estates. This was equivalent to a decision in favor of the Penns. Here the inimitable tact and dexterity of Franklin stepped in. He contrived so far to influence the committee as to secure an alteration in the terms of the Report, by which the King was recommended to repeal the Bill, unless the Assembly made certain alterations and concessions therein. This was, in effect, spiking the enemy's guns, for the Assembly found it easy to procrastinate, and evade the fulfilment of the conditions until the matter had passed out of men's minds and the immediate consideration of the Privy Council.

It may as well be said here that these feuds with the Proprietaries were not finally ended until the breaking out of the Revolution put an end to all property titles based on grants from the English Crown.

One year after Franklin's return to his own country, these discontents culminated. A majority of the Assembly signed a petition praying the King of England to take Pennsylvania under his protection as a Royal Colony. "On the twenty-sixth day of October they elected Benjamin Franklin as their agent, and in spite of the bitter protests of his opponents he sailed for England with the sacred charge of the liberties of his country in his custody" [Bancroft, vol. v. p. 220].

"Six times Franklin presented the petition of the province to the King; six times the Penns so opposed it that the appeal came to nothing. When the final disruption occurred, the Penns, being still in possession of the province, contrived to sell what they could no longer retain. The State of Pennsylvania voted them L130,000 sterling, and the British Government settled upon the head of the family a pension of L4,000 a year. They deemed the price far too small; but they nevertheless deigned to accept it, and Pennsylvania was rid of them forever" [Parton's "Life of Benjamin Franklin, vol. i p. 464].

The agitation caused by the passage of the Stamp Act, the following year, also operated to hamper Franklin's negotiations. He continued in London as representative, first for Pennsylvania, and later for the thirteen original colonies, for ten years, until the very eve of the great struggle of the Revolution, and until every hope of averting that struggle was past. He himself, in his own person and as the agent of his country, had been subjected to a public insult at the hands of the King's Solicitor-General, Wedderburn, in a speech before the Privy Council in 1774. Horace Walpole's epigram on this occasion will be remembered.
"Sarcastic Sawney, swol'n with pride and prate,
On silent Franklin poured his venal hate;
The calm philosopher, without reply,
Withdrew, and gave his country liberty."

The "calm philosopher" might not reply, but neither did he forget. "I am not insensible to injuries," he told a friend in after life, "but I never put myself to any trouble or inconvenience to retaliate." Five years later, on the day when the Treaty of Alliance between France and the United States of America was signed at Paris, it was observed that Dr. Franklin had put on the same suit of "Manchester" velvet which he wore on the day when he stood to be baited by Wedderburn, amid the applause of a great concourse of lords. He never wore it again, and he never remarked on the coincidence; but there can be no doubt that even the philosophic mind found satisfaction in linking together by this little act the day when, in his person, his country was humiliated, and that on which, through his assistance, she secured a powerful ally, and sprang into a new position of power and menace before the eyes of England.

Franklin's presence in France was in itself a triumph to the colonies" [Burke]. A member of the famous Congress of 1776, he was sent out to Paris in the autumn of the same year as Commissioner of the United States, and remained there until after the Treaty of Peace in 1782. His high repute in science and letters, his eloquence and dexterity, and his inimitable tact, contributed largely to the success of the negotiations and the ultimate triumph of the cause he represented. "Franklin charmed and captivated by a power so subtle and magnetic, as to be well-nigh indefinable" [Rosenthal, "France and America," p. 33]. His personal popularity was unbounded. " 'T is the fashion nowadays," sneered Longriet, "to have an engraving of M. Franklin over one's mantlepiece, as it was formerly the fashion to have a jumping-jack" [Capefigue, "Louis XVI.," vol. ii p.11].

The rest of his life may be summed up in a few brief sentences. Returning to Philadelphia in 1785, he was twice elected President of Pennsylvania. He died, 1790, at his own house in Market Street, being in the 85th year of his age. Next to Washington's, his life may be said to be that which was most useful to mankind of any life yet lived on the American continent.

Chapter 5 Old Philadelphia (1701-1766 Continued)

So late as the year 1760 Philadelphia continued to be an unpaved city. The soil being of clay, the streets in the wet season became almost impassable. Carts were frequently "stalled" in the mire of the principal thoroughfares. "Filthy-dirty was the jeering name given to the place by the farming folk in the neighborhood. The roads leading to the city were in even a worse condition. It was not an infrequent experience to see horses struggling in mud up to their knees. "Mr. Tyson has seen thirteen lime wagons stopped on the York Road, near Logan's Hill, to give one another assistance through the mire; and the drivers could be seen with their trousers rolled up, and joining team to team to draw out; at other times they set up a stake in the middle of the road to warn off wagons from the quicksand pits. Sometimes they took down fences, and made new roads through the fields" [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i., p. 257].

Even the ground about the Market Place was left neglected until, in 1752, Franklin, "seeing with pain the cleanly people wading in mud up to the stalls," used his influence to secure a pavement, and later set on foot a subscription for having it regularly swept. The convenience of this pavement aroused a general desire for the paving of other streets, and made the people willing to be taxed for the purpose.

Second Street was the first to be paved. A prominent citizen, riding there on horseback, was thrown from his horse, and broke his leg. This accident drew attention to the shocking condition of the street, and led to its reformation. In 1761 a lottery was announced for the raising of $7,500, to be used in paving the streets. Ten years later another lottery produced $5,250 for the same purpose.

The sidewalks were generally laid in brick. New York sidewalks of the same date were cobble-stoned. "Habit reconciles to everything," writes a Philadelphian about 1730. "It is diverting enough to see a Philadelphian in New York. He walks the streets with as much painful caution as if his toes were covered with corns, or his feet lame with the gout; while a New Yorker, as little approving the plain masonry of Philadelphia, shuffles along the pavement like a parrot on a mahogany table."

In the year 1742 the city "began to be illuminated with lamps." Most of the early houses had casement-windows fitted with leaded panes. Sun-dials were affixed to many of the house-fronts, and were consulted as timepieces by the passers-by. In 1842 such a dial was still in existence on a dwelling on the north side of Pine Street, opposite the Friends' Meeting-house. Every housedoor had its porch, under which the family sat on pleasant evenings to enjoy the fresh air. "It was customary to go from porch to porch in neighborhoods, and sit and converse" [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i., p. 174]. "Decent citizens had a universal speaking acquaintance with each other, and everybody promptly recognized a stranger in the streets" [Ibid., p. 175]. A watch of any kind was a rarity; when first watches came into use, the watchmakers found it an annoyance that they were so constantly called on by passers-by for the hour of the day. Carpets were scarcely known in the city till after 1750. Wall-papers followed later, about 1790, whitewash having previously been in universal use. In 1771 the first umbrellas appeared in Philadelphia, and were scouted as a ridiculous affectation. Blank cards seem to have been unknown down to the middle of the century. Playing-cards were the only ones imported, and invitations and tickets of admission were printed on the backs of these. A card for a ball still in existence, issued in 1749 by Mrs. Jeykill, one of the fashionable leaders of the day, bears on its face the glaring image of the queen of clubs.

Down to the time of the Revolution tooth-brushes were unknown. "The genteelest were content to rub the teeth with a chalked rag or with snuff. Some even deemed it an effeminacy in men to be seen cleaning the teeth at all" [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i. p. 279]. The dental art was in its infancy. By a printed advertisement of the year 1784, Dr. Le Mayeur, one of the first dentists known in the city, engages to pay two guineas for each tooth which may be offered him by "persons disposed to sell their front teeth or any of them!" These were wanted for the operation called "transplanting," by which a sound tooth is drawn from the mouth of one living person and set in that of another. Dr. Le Mayeur had great success in Philadelphia, and is said to have "transplanted" one hundred and twenty-three teeth in six months.

Carriages were scarcely used in the city till after the Revolution. "One of the really honorables of the colonial days has told me of his mother (the wife of the Chief Justice) going to a great ball in her youthful days, to Hamilton's stores on the wharf on Water Street, next to the drawbridge - she going to the same in her full dress on horseback" [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i p. 286]. In the year 1761 there were in the city but three coaches, two landaus, eighteen chariots, and fifteen chairs, making thirty-eight vehicles in all. The rapid progress in luxury immediately after this date is shown by the enumeration for duties on pleasure-carriages in 1794, which shows a list of "thirty-three coaches, one hundred and fifty seven coachees, thirty-five chariots, twenty-two phaetons, eighty light wagons, and five hundred and twenty chairs and sulkies" [Ibid., p. 208].

As late as the year 1762 the Schuylkill was still unbridged, and was crossed by means of ferries. In 1776 a floating bridge was placed on the river; but it was not till 1804 that a permanent structure took its place.

In 1704 the city was divided into ten wards, which division continued till 1800. The eastern front on the Delaware, from Vine to Walnut Street, made two, named the Upper and the Lower Delaware wards. From Walnut to Mulberry and from Front to Second Street made three more, Walnut, Chestnut, and High. The space between Mulberry and Walnut and Second and Seventh Streets was formed into the South, Middle, and North wards. Mulberry ward occupied the space between Delaware, Seventh, Walnut, and Cedar streets. The whole number of taxable persons in the city in 1741 was only 1621. The exports to Great Britain in the following year amounted to L8,527 12s. 8d., while the imports were L75,295 3s. 4d.

During the first thirty years of the century, piracies along the coast were of frequent occurrence, and lept the colony in continual alarm. In 1699 Captain Kidd was a standing menace to all sea-going people. Four of his crew were arrested and tried in Philadelphia. In 1717 and 1718 the equally infamous "Blackbeard" was plundering off the coasts of the Middle and Southern States. He is said to have made repeated visits to Philadelphia, and to have been countenanced and abetted by men in respectable repute. A son-in-law of the Deputy-Governor, Colonel Markham, was refused his seat in the Assembly on account of his alleged connection with him [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol. ii p. 216]. Blackbeard frequented an inn in High Street, near Second, and his vessel, which lay off State Island, was regularly victualled and supplied by a worthy Swede named Crane, who lived at the Upper Ferry on the Schuylkill, and went off in his boat to the pirates.

How great was the terror excited by this freebooter may be guessed from the correspondence of the times. In 1717 James Logan writes: "We have been extremely pestered with pirates, who now swarm in America, and increase their numbers by almost every vessel they catch [compelling them to enter by coercion and otherwise]. If speedy care be not taken, they will become formidable, being now at least fifteen hundred strong." And later: "We have been much disturbed the last week by the pirates. They have taken and plundered six or seven vessels of this place. Some of our people having been several days on board with them, had much free discourse with them. They say they are about four hundred strong at Providence, and I know not how many at Cape Fear, where they are making a settlement . . . The sloop that came on our coast had about one hundred thirty men, all stout fellows, all English, and doubly armed. They said they waited for their consort of twenty-six guns, when they designed to visit Philadelphia. Some of our masters say they know almost every man on board, most of them having been lately in the river . . . They are now busy about us to lay in their stores of provisions for the winter." The following year, writing to the Governor of New York, he says: "We are in manifest danger here, unless the King's ships [which seem careless of the matter] take some notice of us; they probably think a proprietary government no part of their charge. It is possible, indeed, that the merchants of New York, some of them, I mean, might not be displeased to hear that we are all reduced to ashes. [Even so clearly, it seems, there were jealousies of trade!] Unless these pirates be deterred from coming up our rivers by the fear of men-of-war to block them in, there is nothing but what we may fear from them; for that unhappy pardon [of Blackbeard] has given them a settled correspondence everywhere, and an opportunity of lodging their friends where they please, to come to their assistance; and nowhere in America, I believe, so much as in this town" [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol. ii, p. 216]. Here we have the direct fact of Blackbeard's being then on the coast, well armed, with a crew of one hundred and thirty men, and waiting the arrival of another vessel, when he meditated a visit of plunder and rapine on Philadelphia itself. "Think too, of his crew being men generally known to captains in Philadelphia - some of them born among us . . . and the whole busily concerting schemes to lay in their winter store of provisions" [Ibid, p. 218, 219].

The "settled correspondence" of Blackbeard seems to have included persons high in authority. On his capture some months after the date of these letters, papers were found on board of his ship which incriminated both the Governor of North Carolina and his secretary as accessories in his infamous trade. They seem to have held a regular business connection with the pirates, who were allowed to bring their prizes into port and have them condemned, as though the freebooters were sailing under letters of marque. Their booty was openly sold, the Governor sharing in the spoils. He even lent the countenance of his presence to the marriage of Blackbeard with a young woman of good family, who wedded him without being aware of his character. It afterward proved that she was his fourteenth wife, twelve others being still living! It was not till the Governor of Virginia, moved by an appeal from North Carolinians, "who much distrusted their own Governor," came to the rescue, that anything was done toward checking this desperado.

His capture produced no immediate effect on the spirit of lawless adventure, for in 1723 we hear of "Lowe, the pirate, and his consort, Harris;" in 1724 of "Sprigg, the Pirate," of the "Bachelor's Delight," and Skipton, of the "Royal Fortune." Justice seems to have taken her time; but 1725 brought a check to this nefarious trade, and gradually it came to an end. The last executions were in October, 1731, when "Captain Macferson" and four others were tried for piracy and hanged, after a long day.

The low valuation of land within the city limits so late as the middle of the century is remarkable. In 1737 the whole square from High to Chestnut, and from Tenth to Eleventh streets, was leased for twenty years for the sum of forty shillings per annum and the additional consideration that the lessee should fence the plot and sow it with "English grass." Three years later this fortunate lessee sold out his title and interest in the ground for the remainder of the term for L5. William Penn is said to have offered his coachman the whole of the square included between Chestnut and Walnut and High and Second streets in lieu of a year's wages. An old lady living in 1842 relates that her grandfather was offered for L20 the whole square from High Street to Arch Street and from Front to Second Street, by William Penn himself. He declined, saying, "How long shall I wait to see my money returned in profit?" Water Street was a fashionable residence down to the beginning of the present century, "many of the richest and genteelest merchants living there." "The ground forming the square from Chestnut to Walnut streets and from Sixth to Seventh, was all a grass meadow, under fence, down to 1794 . . . The next square beyond, westward, was Norris's pasture lot." "Except one or two brick houses on the corner of Eighth Street, you met no other house to Schuylkill." When in 1792 a house was built on Market Street about Fifth, the owner was "almost considered as deranged for putting his building so far beyond the seat of civilization" [Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," vol. ii p. 238].

In 1751 the Burlington and Bordentown line of packet-boats was established for the transportation of merchandise to New York. In 1756 a stage line to the same place was "instituted," to start from the sign of "The Death of the Fox" in Strawberry Alley, and arrive in three days. Nine years later, a second line of stages was announced. They were covered Jersey wagons without springs, leaving Philadelphia twice a week, consuming three days on the journey, and charging a tariff of twopence a mile. The year following, the march of improvement and the demand for rapid transit resulted in the establishment of a third line, called the "Flying Machine," price threepence a mile, and warranted to push through New York in two days, "except during the winter season," when three days must be allowed.

Only three newspapers were published in Philadelphia previous to the Revolution, the American Weekly Mercury" started in 1719 and discontinued in 1746; its successor, the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser," begun in 1742, in size a foolscap sheet;" and Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette," which dates back to 1729, and was finally merged in 1840 into the North American." Those were the days when the Press was held under strict cencorship, both in England and America. As late as 1719, John Matthews, a boy of nineteen, was executed at Tyburn for publishing a tract in favor of the expelled Stuarts. In 1722 the Council of Boston condemned James Franklin, publisher of the Courant" to jail for what was held to be a reflection on the tardiness of the authorities in the matter of the pirates. In 1723 they attempted to suppress the same paper. Private as well as public opinion bore heavily on writers and printers, and held them to a strict account for their utterances. There is a droll and delightful story told of Franklin in connection with this.

Not long after Benjamin Franklin had commenced editor of a newspaper, he noticed with considerable freedom the public conduct of one or two influential persons in Philadelphia. This circumstance was regarded by some of his patrons with disapprobation, and induced one of them to convey to Franklin the opinion of his friends with regard to it. The Doctor listened with patience to the reproof, and begged the favor of his friend's company at supper on an evening which he named; at the same time requesting that the other gentleman who were dissatisfied with him should also attend. The invitation was accepted by Philip Syng, Hugh Roberts, and several others. The Doctor received them cordially, his editorial conduct was canvassed, and some advice given. Supper was at last announced, and the guests were invited to an adjoining room. The Doctor begged the party to be seated, and urged them to help themselves; but the table was only supplied with two puddings and a stone pitcher filled with water. Each guest had a plate, a spoon, and a penny porringer. They were all helped, but none but the Doctor could eat. He partook freely of the pudding, and urged his friends to do the same; but they tasted and tried in vain. When their facetious host saw that the difficulty was unconquerable, he rose and addressed them thus My friends, any one who can subsist on sawdust-pudding and water, as I can, needs no man's patronage.'" He might have added, and can afford to print the truth and his real opinion," - a luxury not common among editors, ancient or modern.

On the 14th of May, 1729, the Assembly of Pennsylvania made an appropriation of two thousand pounds for the building of a house for the Assembly of this province to meet in." A lot was purchased on Chestnut Street, extending from Fifth to Sixth Street. The building was begun in 1732 and finished in 1735. Not till 1750, however, were the tower and steeple added and the bell procured, with its prophetic inscription: Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land, and to all Inhabitants thereof."

It is a singular fact in municipal history that the first house built in Philadelphia still survives. This ancient dwelling was built in 1696 by Penn's order, to be ready for his use when he arrived. It was finally made part of the marriage portion of his daughter Letitia, and was known as Letitia Street, above Second, near Market, and for many years was occupied as a tavern, under the name of the Woolpack Hotel. It was recently removed from its original site and rebuilt in Fairmount Park, where it is shown to visitors.

Another quaint building, antedating 1700, was the Slate Roof House," on Second Street, at the corner of Norris Alley, which survived till 1868. Penn occupied this house during a part of both his first and second visits to this country; and in it was born his son, John Penn - the only one of his descendants not born in England.

Of other well-known buildings in Philadelphia which date back to the eighteenth century, we may name the original Friends' Almshouse, built in 1729; the German Lutheran Church in Fifth Street, built in 1743; the old London Coffee-house on the corner of Front and Market streets, built probably in 1702; and the Old Swede's Church, which antedates them all, having been begun in 1798. The First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia was built in 1704. The first place of worship for members of the Church of England was erected in 1695. It was a lowly structure of wood, occupying the present site of Christ Church. An old negro woman, who died in 1802 at the advanced age of 115 years, recollected its appearance. The ceiling, she said, she could touch with her lifted hands. The bell to call the people was hung in the crotch of a tree near by. When it was superseded by a more stately structure of brick, they ran their walls up so far outside of the first church, that the worship was continued unmolested till the other was roofed and so far finished as to be used in its stead [Watson's Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i p. 379]. Facts since brought to light seem to prove that the original wooden building must have been a temporary shed constructed within the walls of brick, and used till the walls and roofing could be finished.

In 1711, and again in 1720, Christ Church received considerable additions. The tower and steeple were not built until after 1744. This church is rich in antique communion plate, including a chalic and flagon presented by Queen Anne in 1708. Franklin and his wife are buried in Christ Church graveyard, corner of Fifth and Arch Streets.

In 1739 the famous preacher, George Whitefield, made his first visit to Philadelphia. His eloquence produced a deep impression, and no church could be found large enough to contain the audiences which flocked to hear him. He accordingly held forth, from the balcony of a court-house on the corner of Second and Market streets, to a crowd which extended eastward nearly to the Delaware. Franklin calculated that at times twenty-five thousand people may have been within the reach of his voice. In 1740 he made a second visit to Philadelphia, but speedily involved himself in controversies with the leading people of the city, which had the effect to impair his influence. He and his co-evangelist, Seward, undertook the bold measure of endeavoring to close the dancing-school, the dancing-assembly, and the concert-room; the two latter being kept up by subscription among us people of wealth and fashion who aspired to be leaders of society" [ Historic Mansions of Philadelphia," p. 157]. Seward writes: A friend came in and told us that some gentleman threatened to cane me for having taken away the keys of the assembly-room, dancing-school, and music-meeting, which the owner delivered to me on my promise to pay for any damage which he might sustain thereby. May the Lord strengthen me to carry on this battle against one of Satan's strongest holds in the city, supported in part too by the proprietor, whose father bore a noble testimony against those devilish diversions - which shows us how dangerous a snare it is to our children to leave them rich in this world's goods and not rich in faith!"

Many years later Whitefield, saw through light of sober experience, how unwise and uncharitable he had been, and with ripened opinions made the following confession: I have carried high sail whilst running through a torrent of popularity and contempt. I may have mistaken nature for grace, imagination for revelation, and the fire of my own temper for holy zeal; and I find that I have frequently written and spoken in my own spirit when I thought that I was assisted entirely by God" [ Historic Mansions of Philadelphia," p. 158].

The disfavor felt by the regular clergy toward Whitfield threatening to deprive him of the use of all places of worship for his meetings, it was determined to erect a building which should be controlled by him, and large enough to hold the vast crowds which came to listen to his teachings. This resulted in the building known as the Old Academy in Fourth Street. It was begun in 1740. Whitfield preached in it during the same year, before the roof was put on, and again in 1745 and 1746. During the week it was used as a free school under the name of The College Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia." On Sundays it was at the service of any regular minister of the gospel who was willing to subscribe to what was termed the Whitefield creed," with the proviso that the Rev. George Whitefield should have the free and uninterrupted use of the building whenever he should happen to be in Philadelphia. Later on this Academy College" was merged into the University of Pennsylvania.

The amusements of the century were mostly of a hearty and unrefined sort. Bull-baiting and cock-fighting were much countenanced. Horseracing was popular. All genteel horses were pacers. A trotting-horse was deemed a bad breed" [Watson's Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i p. 280]. Fairs with whirligigs and slack and tight rope dancing were much patronized. In winter there was a great deal of skating on the rivers. May-days were observed with the raising of the May-pole. It was not until 1754 that the first theatre was opened in Philadelphia, by a company of comedians from London." Their first place of exhibition was a store in Water Street. At the date of their arrival, popular prejudices were powerful against every species of theatrical exhibition, and petitions were more than once presented to the Legislature to put a stop to them. The Synod of the Presbyterians in a general convocation, July, 1759, also lent the aid of their influence against the theatre, by petitions to the Governor and the Legislature, which were published. A few days later the theatrical corps announced for exhibition, The Tragedy of Douglas, by the Rev. Mr. Home, minister of the Kirk of Scotland'" [ A Picture of Philadelphia," p. 329].

From the settlement of Philadelphia in 1682 until 1696 no public precautions seem to have been taken against fire. In the latter year the provincial Legislature passed a law by which persons were forbidden to fire their chimneys to cleanse them, or suffer them to be so foul as to take fire, under a penalty of forty shillings; and each houseowner was to provide and keep ready a swab of twelve of fourteen feet long, and a bucket or pail, under the penalty of ten shillings. No person should presume to smoke tobacco in the streets, either by day or night, under the penalty of twelve pence.

A similar Act was passed in 1700, providing for two leather buckets, and forbidding more than six pounds of powder to be kept in any house or shop, unless forty perches distant from any dwelling-house, under the penalty of ten pounds. The law was re-enacted in 1701, and the magistrates were authorized to procure six or eight good books for the tearing down of houses on fire" [Watson's Annals of Philadelphia," vol. iii p. 405]. In 1718 Abraham Bickley, a public-spirited merchant, imported a hand fire-engine from England, which next year was purchased of him by the Council. A destructive fire in 1730 led to the purchase of three more engines by the city, besides four hundred leather buckets, twenty ladders, and twenty-five hooks, an assessment of two-pence per pound and eight shillings per head being made to pay for the same.

In 1733 an article appeared in Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette," on fires, their origin, and the best methods for putting them out. This led to the formation of the first fire company. It was incorporated in 1736, Franklin being one of its founders. Each member at his own cost was to provide six leather buckets and two bags of good osnaburgs or woder linen. The bags and baskets were for packing and transporting of goods. Upon the alarm of each fire, each member was to repair with half of his buckets and bags to the fire, to extinguish it, and preserve the goods. The number of members was restricted to thirty, and this being filled up within a year, a second company was formed, March 1st, 1738, under the name of the Fellowship Fire Company, with thirty-five members" [Watson's Annals of Philadelphia," vol. iii p. 408].

In 1742 a third company, The Hand in Hand," was organized; in 1743 a fourth, The Heart in Hand;" three years later the fifth, named The Friendship;" and in 1751 The Britannia," disbanded in the time preceding the Revolution, probably on account of its name. Each of the companies had an engine imported from England, and these six organizations, with their appliances, were Philadelphia's reliance for protection against fire down to the end of the century.

Education was one of the earliest needs to which the Quaker colony lent its attention. The first English school was opened in 1683, one Enoch Flower being its master. The prices were moderate: to read English, four shillings; to write, six shillings; and to read, write, and cast accounts, eight shillings; for teaching, lodging, and diet, ten pounds per annum" [Watson's Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i p. 287]. In 1689 the Friends' Public School, which now stands in Front Street, below Chestnut, was begun. There were no separate schools for girls until near the close of the century. In 1770 a Mr. Griscom advertises his private Academy, free from the noise of the city," at the North end. It is amusing to reflect that this scholastic retreat was situated on Front and Water streets, a little above Vine - a spot which no student in search of quiet would be likely to select nowadays.

The stone prison on High and Third Streets was begun in 1718, and was probably the first built for the use of the colony. "The barbarous appendages of whipping-post, pillory, and stocks were placed full in the public eye, hard by, on High Street, directly in front of the Market" [Watson's Annals of Philadelphia," vol. i p. 363]. These punishments were in use till the Revolution. In 1720 the penalty of death was inflicted for making and passing of counterfeit dollars - the first case in the colony. In 1705 men were fined twenty shillings for laboring on the Sabbath day, and ten for being found tipping in a tavern on the same day. Profane swearing was a punishable offence. Barbers were indicted for shaving persons on First Day," and for trimming hair." In 1731 a woman was burned alive publicly for the murder of her husband. It was not until after the coming in of our own century that the present penitentiary system was inaugurated.

Down to the Revolution, slavery was a feature of Philadelphia life, and it was a common incident for family servants to be sent to jail to receive a dozen lashes as punishment for acts of insubordination. In 1762 Messrs. Willing and Morris advertised in the daily papers the sale of one hundred and seventy negroes just arrived from the Gold Coast. Redemption servants," or emigrants sold for a term of years to defray the expense of their passage, were numerous. An advertisement in 1728 reads: Lately imported, and to be sold cheap, a parcel of likely men and women servants." The practice was discouraged after a time, from the dread lest criminals should in this way be imported into the country.

"In 1763 the Treaty of Peace between England and France was signed at Paris. The savage tribes of America, however, remained unaffected by the pledges of the Christian rulers who for years had alternately employed them. They still continued their career of destruction, and of all the colonies, Pennsylvania suffered most" [Parton's "Life of Franklin," vol. i. p. 311].

Through the whole summer of that fatal year the western frontier of the State was ravaged by the hostile savages, till "every white man in Pennsylvania loathed the name of Indian." The terror and indignation excited by these attacks led during the winter to an act of unjustifiable reprisal, if reprisal it can be called which visits on the innocent and defenceless the wrongs of the guilty who are out of reach.

Twenty miles from Philadelphia, near Lancaster, there still dwelt a feeble remnant of the Costenogas, the tribe which had been first to bid the English settlers welcome on their arrival eighty years before, and to agree in the Treaty of Peace. One old man still survived who had touched the hand of William Penn. They had kept their treaty obligations loyally, and had always been faithful friends to the English. In 1763 only twenty of them were left, seven men, five women, and eight children. "They were still living in their village on the Shawanee Creek, their lands being assured to them by manorial gift; but they were miserably poor, earned by making brooms, baskets, and wooden bowls a part of their living, and begged the rest. They were wholly peaceable and unoffending, friendly to their white neighbors, and pitifully clinging and affectionate, naming their children after whites who had been kind to them, and striving in every way to show their gratitude and goodwill" ["A Century of Dishonor," by H.H., p. 303].

Upon this inoffensive community, which had never raised a hand against a white man, a party of armed ruffians descended on the 15th day of December, burned the huts, and killed and scalped every creature in them. As it chanced, only six of the Indians were at home that morning. The magistrates of Lancaster took charge of the remaining fourteen, and placed them in the workhouse for protection.

A fortnight later, the same band of murderers surrounded the workhouse. They were fifty strong. No one dared to interfere. "When the poor wretches saw that they had no protection nigh, and could not possibly escape, they divided their little families, the children clinging to their parents. They fell on their faces, protested their innocence, declared their love of the English, and that in their whole lives they had never done them injury; and in this posture they all received the hatchet. The barbarous men who committed this atrocious act hurrahed in triumph, as if they had gained a victory, and rode off unmolested" [From a pamphlet printed anonymously in Philadelphia at the time of the massacre.].

This tragedy could hardly find a place in a history of Philadelphia, though belonging to its immediate neighborhood, were it not for the consequences that followed.

The massacre of these twenty harmless and unresisting creatures seemed to light a flame of cruelty throughout the State. Men justified the act of "the Paxton boys;" worse, they burned to imitate it. The efforts of the magistrates to find the offenders were fruitless. All the Christian Indians were included in the unreasoning hatred of the multitude. "Everywhere in the provinces fanatics began to renew the old cry that the Indians were the Canaanites whom God had commanded Joshua to destroy. It became dangerous for a Moravian Indian to be seen anywhere. In vain did he carry one of the Pennsylvania governor's passports in his pocket. He was liable to be shot at sight, with no time to pull his passport out" ["A Century of Dishonor," p. 308].

In November an order reached the Moravian missionaries to bring the baptized Indians under their charge to Philadelphia, that they might be under the protection of the city. The Governor at that time was John Penn the younger, who had lately arrived from England. He seems to have acted in good faith in this order; but he found difficulties in carrying it out. When the little band of Indians arrived, one hundred and forty in number, including the aged, the sick, and little children, they were assigned to the "Barracks in the Northern Liberties" for shelter, but the Highland regiment quartered in the place denied them admission. For five hours the helpless creatures stood before the shut gate, the mob increasing and growing more riotous every hour, their missionaries bravely standing by them, and trying in vain to stem or control the insults of the crowd. At last an order came that they should proceed to Province Island - an island in the Delaware, joined to the shore by a coffer dam.

They remained at this place for more than a month, humane people in Philadelphia sending them provisions, fuel, and other necessaries. Meanwhile the Paxton boys, now swelled in number to some hundreds, began to march upon the city in two bodies, with the avowed intention of not leaving a single Indian alive. The Governor issued stringent proclamations, but had evidently no force of will to meet the emergency. The helpless Indians were hurried here and there - to League Island, back again to Province Island; to Amboy, with the intention of putting them under the protection of New York; back again to Philadelphia - all in the cold of midwinter. At last they were quartered in the same barracks which had once before refused them admittance.

News was received that the rioters in large force were approaching. It was only too probable that, should they enter the city, they would be joined by many sympathizers. Bells were rung, bonfires lighted. The whole city was in terror. Entrenchments were thrown up round the barracks, and cannon planted, many Quakers assisting in the preparations for defence. Dr. Franklin and three other gentleman rode out to meet the insurgents, at the request of the Governor - all this warlike demonstration and public fear being caused by the necessity of protecting less than two hundred of his Majesty's red lieges, members of the same communion, and amenable to the same laws, from the murderous assault of a body of their fellow-Christians of the same community!

The arguments of the delegation or the news of the defences of the city had the effect to discourage the rioters, and they withdrew their force, making no attack. The effect of the affair on the mind of Governor John Penn was, however, unfortunate. He lost all courage and spirit in the face of danger, and gave way to the tide of popular feeling. Terrified, and angry with himself for being so, he truckled to the murderers. A few weeks after these events, he issued a proclamation, which may justly be styled infamous, offering a bounty for Indian scalps - one hundred and thirty eight dollars for that of a male Indian, fifty dollars for that of a female, with the addition implied, if not stated, of "no questions asked." And this from a grandson of William Penn!

Chapter 6 The Gathering Of The Storm (1766-1776)

When on the morning of the 22nd day of September, 1763, three Lords of the Treasury met in Downing Street, and, with little discussion and less hesitation, passed a casual minute providing for the taxation of the American colonies, neither of the three, as it would seem, had the least foreboding of the storm of resentment which the measure was to evoke. Parliament was equally unconscious. One man alone among the employees of the Government had an instinct of the coming peril. Richard Jackson, secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, warned his master to lay the project aside, and refused to take any part in furthering it.

"Ignorance of American affairs," said Burke, had misled Parliament; knowledge alone could not bring it into the right road." But knowledge came, as she too often does, only in time to point a moral after evil is an accomplished fact, and its consequences inevitable. All the colonies were in a flame of passionate indignation; the spirit of resistance, like a prairie fire, was fairly leaping over the land, before any one in England had wasted two thoughts on the matter, and even before the actual passage of the Stamp Act itself in 1765.

It was an act curiously well adapted to puzzle and disgust the people whom it was to affect. It imposed duties on fifty-four different articles. All parchment and paper, all legal documents, school and college degrees, bills of lading, licenses, bonds, leases, warrants, mortgages, all pamphlets, almanacs, advertisements, translations, all premiums paid by apprentices, deeds, conveyances, appointments to office - in short, every act between man and man which required the guarantee of a signature and a seal was to be taxed at a rate of from one shilling to four pounds each.

In addition, heavy restrictions on trade were imposed. The colonists were prohibited from exporting the great bulk of their produce to any country save Great Britain. They were prohibited from purchase, except of a few specified articles, in other than British ports. To increase their dependence on England, manufacturers of various sorts were interdicted, especially those of iron and ore and of wool.

The colonists abounded in land, and so could feed flocks of sheep. Lest they should multiply their flocks and weave their own cloth, they might not use a ship nor a boat, nor a carriage, no, nor even a pack-horse, to carry wool, or any manufacture of which wool forms a part, across the line of one province to another. They could not land wool from islands in the harbor, or bring it across a river. A British sailor finding himself in want of clothes in one of their harbors might not buy there more than forty shillings' worth of woollens" [Bancroft, vol. v. p. 265].

Printing the Bible in America was also prohibited, and, except in the Indian dialects, it never was printed there till after the Revolution. These laws were to be enforced, not by the civil officers only, but by naval and military officers irresponsible to the civil power in the colonies. The penalties and forfeitures for breach of the revenue laws were to be decided in courts of vice-admiralty, without the interposition of a jury, by a single judge, who had no support whatever but from his own share in the profits of his own condemnations" [Ibid, p. 267].

Looking at the measures in the light of their after results, it seems singular indeed that even the colonial agents dwelling in London should have been so little prepared for what was to follow. Franklin himself seems never to have doubted but that the tax, however unpalatable, would be peacefully levied. Nobody could be more concerned in interest than myself to oppose it," he writes to a friend; but the tide was too strong against us. We might as well have bindered the sun's setting; that we could not do. But since t is down, my friend, - and it may be long before it rises again, - let us make as good a night of it as we can. We may still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way toward indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we can easily bear the latter." To a friend he added privately, We are not yet strong enough to resist."

Meanwhile all America was in a ferment. In Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, the collectors were compelled by threats or by the urgency of public opinion to resign their offices. An ardor for retrenchment seized the colonists. Resolutions for the practice of economy were everywhere passed. Communities bound themselves, by way of encouraging the production of wool, to eat no mutton or lamb; and they resolved to dispense with the use of all British-made goods.

Self-denial for the living was not enough: it was decided to restrict the expense of burying the dead; and accordingly in Philadelphia, that year, B. Price, Esquire," was buried in an oaken coffin with iron handles, and Alderman Plumstead without pall or mourning dresses.

In hope of making the objectionable Act more palatable, several of the colonial agents in London were consulted by Grenville, the Prime Minister, as to the choice of persons to serve as stamp-collectors. Franklin, when applied to for the choice of someone who should be acceptable to Pennsylvania, designated Mr. John Hughes, a respectable merchant of Philadelphia and an old friend of his own. His feeling seems to have been that, the tax being inevitable, it was wise to make the best of the matter; but at home the action was constructed as indicating a sympathy with the unpopular measure, and for a time his townspeople were very angry with him. The unlucky Mr. Hughes, who does not seem to have been in any way responsible for his appointment, became the object of general execration. When the English ships bearing the detested stamp-paper came up the river, all the vessells in the harbor hung their flags at half-mast, and the bells of the city were muffled, and tolled as if for a funeral. The stamps were not allowed to land, and were sent back to England. A similar fate awaited a similar freight a few months later. To evade the provisions of the Act, the almanacs of that year were published in advance of their usual date; and on the day before the Act was to go into effect the two newspapers then existing in the city came out with black borders, a heading of skulls, cross-bones, pickaxe, and spade, and, by way of a tail-piece, a coffin. Several thousand citizens assembled in the State House yard and appointed a committee to wait on Mr. John Hughes and request him to resign his position as collector. This he refused; but subsequently, under pressure, did.

So high did popular feeling run, that the house of Franklin himself was threatened with destruction at the hands of the mob. It must have been particularly trying to be misjudged by a distant constituency at a time when explanations and exculpations took two, three, sometimes four, months to cross the sea.. Franklin's repute did not, however, long suffer wrong at the hands of his countrymen. Presently came the report of his examination before parliament on the question of the day - an examination which did much to influence the repeal of the Stamp Act, which soon after followed; and the record of his clear, vigorous, outspoken explanations and replies riveted to him afresh the affection of every loyal heart in America.

News of the repeal reached Philadelphia in May, through the captain of a merchant vessel. The overflowing and general joy expended itself in acts of hospitality toward this bearer of good tidings. He was escorted through the streets, treated to punch at the Coffee-house, and presented with a gold-laced hat. The following day an entertainment was given in the State House, to which the officers of the royal ships then in harbor were invited. Mutual pledges were exchanged, and all was amity and goodwill, not in Philadelphia only, but throughout the colonies. In Boston the debtors even were brought out of prison to share in the general rejoicing.

Franklin's relief at the repeal was deep and fervent; but he instantly wrote to warn his friends at home not to express their gladness in a way which should give a handle to their enemies in England. Our relief," he writes, is chiefly imputable to what the profane call luck and the pious call Providence." Neither he nor any American had occasion for enduring satisfaction. Their defeat in the matter of the Stamp Act rankled in the breasts of his Majesty's ministers; and a year later the excitement and distrust of the colonies were reawakened by the passage of an Act to tax glass, paper, painter's colors, lead, and tea.

These duties, being only designed to produce a revenue of some twenty-four thousand pounds, were treated in a light and matter-of-course way by Parliament, which ignored the fact that the question at issue with the colonies was the principle of taxation, rather than the avoidance of its immediate burden.

All the agitations provoked by the Stamp Act were at once renewed. In September, 1768, the traders of Philadelphia, in concert with those of New York and Boston, entered into a formal agreement to import no goods whatever from England till the tax should be abolished. In 1769 a vessel freighted with English malt arrived in the city. The brewers held a meeting, and by a unanimous vote resolved not to purchase or use a pound of it. In 1770 the New York traders, under the pressure of a strong local influence, receded from the agreement, and reopened importation. This act gave great umbrage to the patriotic Philadelphians who, in a public meeting, agreed to buy nothing whatever in New York - that faction unfriendly to reduction of grievances." The general desire to encourage home manufactures led in 1771 to the establishment of a flintglass factory near Lancaster and a china factory in Philadelphia. In this year also a piece of fine broadcloth was exhibited at the Coffee-house - probably the first ever made in America.

The feeling in Philadelphia was shared or surpassed by the colonies in general. It was during this period of intense agitation that Franklin, still in London, published anonymously his famous satire, entitled Rules for reducing a Great Empire to a Small One. Presented to a late Minister when he entered upon his Administration."

This trenchant burlesque began as follows: An ancient sage valued himself in this, that, though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a great city out of a small one. The science that I, a modern simpleton, am about to communicate, is the very reverse." Then follow the Rules," which are full of humor. A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. Turn your attention, therefore, first to your remotest provinces, that, as you get rid of them, the next may follow in order. Take special care that the provinces are never incorporated with the mother country; that they do not enjoy the same rights, the same privileges, in commerce; and that they are governed by severer laws, all of your enacting, without allowing them any choice of the legislators. By carefully making and preserving such distinctions, you will (to keep to my simile of the cake) act like a wise gingerbread baker, who, to facilitate a division, cuts his dough half through in those places where when baked he would have it broken to pieces. Quarter troops among them, who by their insolence may provoke the rising of mobs, and by their bullets and bayonets suppress them. By this means, like the husband who uses his wife ill, from suspicion, you may in time convert your suspicions into realities. Scour with armed boats every bay, harbor, river, creek, cove, or nook throughout the coast of your colonies; stop and detain every coaster, every wood-boat, every fisherman; trumble their cargos, and even their ballast, inside out and upside down; and if a pennyworth of pins is found unentered, let the whole be seized and confiscated. Then let these boats' crews land upon every farm in their way, rob their orchards, steal their pigs and poultry, and insult the inhabitants. If the injured and exasperated farmers, unable to procure other justice, should attack the aggressors, drub them, and burn their boats; you are to call this high treason and rebellion, order fleets and navies into their country, and threaten to carry all the offenders three thousand miles to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Oh, this will work admirably! If you have carefully practised these few excellent rules of mine, take my word for it you will get rid of the trouble of governing them, and all the plagues attending their commerce and connection, from thenceforth and forever."

This ingenious bit of fun and satirical sense had a great run, and was copied into many newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic.

In 1770 Parliament decided to abolish all taxes in the colonies excepting that on tea. The concession produced no effect. The right to levy imposts was as much involved in the taxing of a single article as of a dozen, and the determination to resist such a right had only grown stronger with time. Smuggling became common practice. In 1771 a revenue schooner belonging to the King made a prize on the Delaware of a pilot-boat loaded with tea intended for the Philadelphia market. A rescue party at once set out, boarded the King's vessel near Red Bank, overpowered and bound her crew, and taking possession of the pilot-boat and her cargo, sailed away with her.

All the agreements for non-importation were continued. In 1773 the East India Company resolved to ship cargoes of tea to the principal American seaports. What this resolve led to in Boston all the world knows.

In Philadelphia a large meeting of citizens was held in the State House yard to protest against the enterprise. Eight Resolutions were adopted, the seventh of which was as follows:

Resolved - that whoever shall, directly or indirectly, countenance this attempt, or in any wise aid and abet in unloading, receiving, or vending the tea sent, or to be sent, out by the East India Company while it remains subject to a duty here, is an enemy to his country."

Two months later, on Christmas Day, word came that the tea-ship Polly," Captain Ayres, was in the river, and had got up as far as Gloucester Point. Another meeting was at once called, even more largely attended than the previous one. The Resolutions it passed were curt and to the point. Resolved:
1. That the tea on board the ship Polly,' Captain Ayres, shall not be landed.
2. That Captain Ayres shall neither enter nor report his vessel at the custom-house.
3. That Captain Ayres shall carry back the tea immediately.
4. That Captain Ayres shall immediately send a pilot on board his vessel, with orders to take charge of her and proceed to Reedy Island next high water.
5. That the captain shall be allowed to stay in town till to-morrow to provide necessaries for his voyage.
6. That he shall then be obliged to leave town and proceed to his vessel, and make the best of his way out of our river and bay.
7. That a committee of four gentleman be appointed to see these resolves carried into execution."

Handbills and broadsides purporting to be issued by the Committee for Tarring and Feathering' were printed. They were addressed to the Delaware pilots and to Captain Ayres himself, warning the former of the danger which they would incur if they brought the tea-ship safely up the river, while Captain Ayres was threatened with the application of tar and feathers if he attempted to land the tea [Guide to Philadelphia, p. 25].

But Captain Ayres had landed in advance of his cargo, had attended the State House meeting, and needed no further warning. He discreetly took the hint. Very little time was given him for trifling. In two hours the Polly" was loaded with fresh provisions and water, her bow was turned seaward, and Captain Ayres sailed out of the Delaware to convey the detested tea back to its old rotting-place in Leadenhall Street."

The eyes of all the world," writes Bancroft of this period, were riveted on Franklin and George the Third." The former still remained in London, though encompassed by dangers. He knew himself in daily peril of arrest, but so long as a glimmering hope of mediation remained he would not desert his post, though matters in England steadily grew worse. The colonies were systematically misrepresented, bribery was on the increase, offices and votes were openly sold. If America," said Franklin, would save for three or four years the money she spends in the fashions and fineries and fopperies of this country, she might buy the whole Parliament, Ministry and all."

Seven years of alternate usurpation and concession, hope, and fear, faith and distrust, ripened at length in the first Continental Congress. The time had come for the fulfillment of Bonaparte's subsequent epigram: The youth must become a man; the time must arrive when the child must cease to sleep with its mother." The Congress held a preliminary meeting in Smith's tavern, to select a place for their deliberation. The carpenters of Philadelphia offered the use of their plain but spacious hall," and the offer was accepted. John Adams thus tells the story of the acceptance:

We took a view of the room and of the chamber, where there is an excellent library. There is also a long entry, where gentleman may walk, and also a convenient chamber opposite the library. A general cry was that this was a good room, and the question was put whether we were satisfied with this room, and it passed in the affirmative. A very few w