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CHAPTER IX THE CITY OF THE FRIENDS Time and change have
touched Philadelphia with gentle hand. The Friends are, in the great
essentials, still its dominant class, and this fact appears not only in
its
asylums, its hospitals, and its practical methods of helping men to
help
themselves, but in a prudence of thought and action that is ever
reluctant to
prefer the new to the old. Thus it is that no New World city harbors
more
numerous or more eloquent reminders of the past, or in ancient
buildings and
landmarks bound up with great names and great events offers to the
wayfarer a
richer or more varied store of historic associations. Not to the coming of Penn,
but to the issue of a dream cherished by Gustavus Adolphus, attaches
the oldest
authentic legend of Philadelphia. A score of years before the Quaker
leader was
born the heroic and generous Swede, moved thereto by the bigotry and
poverty of
the age in which he lived, conceived the idea of founding in America a
city
“where every man should have enough to eat and toleration to worship
God as he
chose.” Gustavus's life ended before his dream could be fulfilled, but
eleven
years later the girl Queen Christina and her chancellor despatched an
expedition in the dead king's name. This colony of “New Sweden,” as it
was
called, effected a lodging-place along the banks of the Schuylkill and
Delaware,
in that part of Philadelphia now known as Southwark. The narrow strip of ground
on which the Swedes made their homes is given over in these latter days
to ship
stores, junk-shops, and salty, tarry smells, while a long line of
ships, come
and to go, walls in the view of the river; but if one might be frisked
by the
mere magic of a wish back to the middle years of the seventeenth
century, he
would find instead the low huts of the Norseland pioneers dotting green
banks
on the edge of a gloomy, unbroken forest, with hemlocks and nut trees
nodding
atop. Here dwelt, in peace and plenty, and “great idleness,” if an old
chronicle is to be believed, the long forgotten Swansons, Keens,
Bensons,
Kocks, and Rambos, some of them mighty hunters when the deer came close
up to
the little settlement and nightly could be heard the cry of panthers or
bark of
wolves. At Passajungh was the humble white-nut dwelling of Commander
Sven
Schute, whom Christina called her “brave and fearless lieutenant,” and
at
“Manajungh on the Skorkihl” there was a stout fort of logs filled in
with sand
and stones. Descendants on the female side of these
first
settlers are still to be found in the city, but Philadelphia's only
relic in
stone and mortar of the men who were once lords of all the land on
which it was
built is Gloria Dei, better known as Old Swedes' Church. Each
successive
sovereign of Sweden, loyal to the favorite idea of Gustavus, kept
affectionate
watch over the tiny settlement on the Delaware, and when the colonists
begged
“that godly men might be sent to them to instruct their children, and
help
themselves to lead lives well pleasing to God,” two clergymen, Rudman
and
Bjork, were despatched by Charles XII. in answer to their prayer. These
missionaries reached the colony in June, 1697, and were received, as
the
ancient record states, “with astonishment and tears of joy.” Soon after
their
arrival Gloria Dei was built in a fervor of pious zeal, carpenters and
masons
giving their work, and the good pastor daily carrying the hod. When it
was
finished Swedes, Quakers, and Indians came to wonder at its grandeur,
and it
long remained the most important structure in the little hamlet.
Old Swedes' Church,
Philadelphia Old Swedes' holds its
original site in Southwark, banked in by the sunken graves of its early
worshippers. The main body of the building is unaltered to the present
day. The
carvings inside, the bell, and the communion service were sent out from
the
motherland, given by the king “to his faithful subjects in the far
western wilderness;”
and from Sweden came also the chubby gilt cherubs in the choir which
still
sustain the open Bible, with the speaking inscription, “The people who
sat in
darkness have seen a great light.” Tablets in the chancel record the
sacrifices
and sufferings of the early pastors of the church who sleep within its
walls.
The last of these was Nicholas Collin, whose period of zealous service
covered
the better part of fifty years, and who with his devoted wife Hannah is
buried
just below the little altar. Another familiar face in Gloria Dei in the
opening
years of the century was that of Collin's friend, Alexander Wilson,
then the
half-starved, ill-paid master of a little school at nearby Kingsessing.
The
great ornithologist is buried in the graveyard of the church in which
he asked
that he should be laid to rest, as it was “a silent, shady place, where
the
birds would be apt to come and sing over his grave.” When Old Swedes' was built
the only house nearby was that of Swan Swanson, from whose three sons
Penn,
when he came, bought the land to lay out his town of Philadelphia. That
was in
1682. A small band of pioneers had preceded the Proprietor, and he was
followed
by three-and-twenty ships, filled with Quakers of all classes. The
city,
speedily laid out by Thomas Holme, extended from river to river, and
appeared
magnificent — on paper; but, truth to tell, most of the new-comers
following
the example of the Swedes, who gave them kindly welcome, built their
homes in
the corner by the Delaware; and for nearly a hundred years the town
consisted
of but three or four streets, running parallel with that stream. Back
of these
streets lay a gloomy forest, drained by creeks, which cut the town into
three
or four parts before emptying into the Delaware. As late as the opening
year of
the Revolution Philadelphia extended only from Christian to Callowhill
Streets,
north and south, and until well on in the present century Frankford,
Roxborough, and Germantown were reckoned distant hamlets, being seldom
visited
by the people of the town. On a “pleasant hill”
overlooking the river, and with a noble sweep of forest land between,
the
Proprietor reserved a lot for himself, on which he had built the house,
which
he gave to his daughter Lætitia. The brick and other material for this
house
were brought from England, and within its walls Penn passed most of the
busy
and fruitful days of his first visit, preferring it to the costly and
imposing
pile he had reared at Pennsbury. The searcher after the site of the
Lætitia
House finds it in Lætitia Court, between Chestnut and Market, Second
and Front
Streets, — a narrow, dirty alley, cut off from the sunlight by the
backs of the
great importing houses which now cover the wooded glades where, in the
Proprietor's time, deer ranged at will. Elsewhere in Philadelphia there
are few
traces of the reign of the Penns. One of the few is what is known as
Lansdowne,
now included in Fairmount Park, which was once owned and occupied by
John Penn,
governor of the colony in its last days of submission to the British
crown. The Lætitia House was the
first brick building erected in Philadelphia. Most of the dwellings
built
during the earlier years of the Quaker occupancy, some of which are
still
standing within the precincts of the “old town,” were of black and red
English
brick, or of mortar mixed with broken stone and mica. They were, as a
rule,
small, hipped-roofed, two-storied structures, inferior in every way to
those
now occupied by people of moderate incomes. Gradually, however, as time
went
on, the more shrewd or fortunate among the Quakers acquired large
means, while
the steady growth of the town attracted to it a number of men, not
followers of
Penn, who brought with them or soon became possessed of much solid
wealth. From
these changed conditions resulted a division into two classes of the
social
life of the town, and the building of many splendid houses, the
grandeur of
which is reflected in more than one diary and chronicle of the period.
Among
these were the Wharton House, in Southwark; Wilton, the estate of
Joseph
Turner, in the Neck; Woodlands, Governor Hamilton's great house at
Blockley
Hill; the Carpenter mansion, which stood at Seventh and Chestnut
Streets,
surrounded by magnificent grounds; the spacious home of Isaac Norris on
Third
Street; the Pemberton countryseat, on the present site of the Naval
Asylum;
and, chief of all, Stenton, on the cityward site of Germantown. Stenton, “a palace in its
day,” according to old Watson, was built in 1731 by James II. Logan, a
keen-witted Scotchman turned Quaker, who, as agent of the Proprietor,
stood
between Penn and his debts on one hand and an impatient, grasping
colonial
Assembly on the other, serving both with fidelity and to good purpose.
He was
generous as well as shrewd, and at his death left the residue of a
large estate
to the public, including the splendid bequest of the Loganian Library,
a
literary treasure-house at any time, but invaluable a century and a
half ago,
when books were luxuries only for the wealthy. Logan was also the
trusted
friend of the Indians, who came in large deputations to visit him, and
pitched
their wigwams on the great lawn at Stenton. Logan, the famous Mingo
chief, was
the namesake of the good Quaker, and, in youth, was often numbered
among the
latter's savage guests. Stenton, in its builder's
time, was the seat of a sober but large hospitality, and the centre of
the
social life of the Quakers. Here gathered the grave, mild-mannered men
and the
quiet, sweet-faced women, who look down upon us from old family
portraits, and whose
rare and admirable traits included a perfect simplicity and that repose
which
can belong only to people who have never doubted their own social
position.
“The men and women who met at Stenton,” writes one of Logan's
descendants,
“talked no scandal and spoke not of money.” Logan's home was the resort
of the
colonial governors, not only of Pennsylvania but other of the
provinces; and
among his frequent guests were William Allen, Isaac Norris, the three
Pembertons, and that Nicholas Waln who, educated for the bar, after
long
practice in the courts, so took to heart the moral short-comings of his
fellow-lawyers that he fell into a dangerous illness. He rose from his
bed a
changed man, went into the meeting and became a weighty and powerful
preacher. However, not all of the
guests at Stenton were as serious-minded as Waln. The men could laugh
and jest
on occasion; and their wives and daughters were pretty sure to display
a
woman's love of finery, setting off their beauty by white satin
petticoats,
worked in flowers, pearl satin gowns, gold chains, and seals engraven
with
their arms. Nor are lacking stray hints of love and courtship which
lend a
winsome interest to the old house, for pretty Hannah Logan's lover,
returning
with her from a summer day's fishing in the Wissahickon, writes in his
diary
that when they “came home there was so large a company for tea, that
Hannah and
I were set at a side table, and there we supped — on nectar and
ambrosia.”
Another of Stenton's daughters was Deborah Logan, a fair and gracious
woman in
youth and old age, who in the “Penn and Logan Correspondence,” compiled
by her
and by her given to the world, has given us a faithful and winning
picture of
the age in which she lived, an age marked by a lack of self-assertion
and an
inborn hatred of brag, whose influence abides in the Philadelphia of
to-day. Different in religion,
tastes, and habits from the Friends were the men of wealth and their
families
who constituted a not inconsiderable portion of Philadelphia's polite
society
during its first century of existence. These were the merchants and
ship-owners, who, though not followers of Penn, had been attracted to
his town
by its successful growth, and who, opening a trade to the West Indies
and
England, from small ventures quickly amassed colossal fortunes. The
wives and
daughters of these merchant princes, most of whom could show ancestral
bearings, followed afar off the reports of English fashions. They rode
on
horseback or went in sedan-chairs to pay visits; their kitchens swarmed
with
slaves and white redemptionists; they dined and danced, and — gambled;
and they
worshipped of a Sunday in a church dedicated to the Anglican creed. The parish of Christ
Church was thirty-two years old when the present building was commenced
in
1727. William of Orange was an active promoter of the parish, and the
service
of plate now in use in the church was a gift from Anne. Designed by the
architect of Independence Hall, Christ Church presents many points of
similarity to that historic structure, and is likewise closely
identified with
the struggle for independence. Here worshipped General and Lady
Washington,
Samuel and John Adams, Patrick Henry, James Madison, John Hancock, and
Richard
Henry Lee. Under its roof the Episcopal Church in America was
organized, in
1785, and within its walls is now housed a rare and interesting
collection of
ancient volumes, furniture, pictures, and tablets, each of interest to
the
student and lover of the past. One of the first rectors
of Christ Church was a Rev. Mr. Coombe. He was a Loyalist, and during
the early
days of the Revolution returned to England, where lie finally became
chaplain
to George III. It is probably from him or one of his family that an
alley, a
short distance above Christ Church, and running eastward, takes its
name. Here
it was that the namesake and heir of William Penn, when he came over to
play
the prince in the colony, once got into a brawl. He was spending an
evening in
Enoch Story's inn, when he fell to quarrelling with some of his
fellow-citizens
who were acting as the watch. The sober Friends, who had little
patience with
princely debauchees, arrested the young fellow for this affray,
whereupon he
incontinently forsook the Society for the Church of England, in which
faith the
descendants of Penn have ever since remained. Coombe's Alley, in the
younger Penn's time, was a prosperous quarter, and it still bears
traces of
better days. In 1795 it had a very large population for such narrow
limits, — boasting
its half-dozen boarding-houses, its merchants and laborers, its
soldiers and
mariners, its bakers and hucksters. Nor was it without its cares and
troubles;
for during the famous epidemic of 1793 thirty-two people died in the
course of
a year in this one small street. The old houses still standing in it
are built
of the red and black bricks so plentiful in the city's youth. In most
cases
curious wooden projections, like unfinished roofs, divide the first
story from
the second, making the latter look as though they had been an
after-thought. The chimes of Christ
Church, which on July 4, 1776, proclaimed the tidings of independence,
were
paid for by the proceeds of a lottery conducted by Benjamin Franklin.
The
printer-patriot takes his rest under a flat marble slab in the crowded
burial-ground at the corner of Fifth and Arch Streets, but his life and
works
are still vital influences in the city of his adoption. In truth, his
advent
into the town at the age of seventeen marks the date of the birth of
the
intellectual life of Philadelphia. Blending shrewd common sense with
keen, fine
humor, and a capacity for winning and holding friends, the young
printer, in a
space of time signally brief, gained recognition as a leader in the
town. Its
old respectabilities eyed him askance, but following where he led, made
him
clerk of Assembly, postmaster, and agent to England, or looked on with
grudging
assent as, out of the unlikely material of his fellow-workmen, he
established
his Junto, or philosophic club, and founded the first subscription
library in
the country, the first fire and military companies in the colony, and
the first
academy in the town, just as, in after-years, they held aloof while he,
with
two or three other Philadelphia radicals, united with Southerners and
New
Englanders in signing the papers which gave freedom to the country and
immortality to its makers. Though every effort for
the improvement of colonial Philadelphia can be traced to Franklin, one
comes
closest to him, perhaps, in the old library which grew out of his Junto
club,
and which, guarded by an effigy of its founder, long stood close beside
the
State-House, just out of Chestnut Street, but has now been removed to
Park
Avenue and Locust Street. Inside are dusky recesses filled with dusty
time-worn
folios, and from one of the galleries the great Minerva which presided
over the
deliberations of the Continental Congress looks down upon a desk and
clock once
owned and used by William Penn. The noise and hurry of the modern world
never
reach this cloistered recess, crowded with the shades of scholars dead
generations ago, and an hour spent therein is a page from the past that
will
linger long in the memory. A quaint hipped-roofed
house standing on Front Street, a few doors above Dock, recalls another
significant incident in the life of Franklin. To this house, erstwhile
occupied
by one generation after another of Quakers, he was conducted upon his
return
from England, just before the opening of the Revolution. Philadelphia
had for
some time presented the spectacle of an exceptionally temperate and
prudent
community slowly rousing to temperate, prudent resistance to injustice.
The
Friends, prompted by motives for which we can scarcely blame them, were
opposed
to armed rebellion; so were the great merchants, to whom a war with
England
threatened financial ruin. Facing the other way were a numerous body of
citizens eager for the moment of conflict. Loyalist and patriot alike
waited
anxiously for Franklin and his first words of counsel. The Friends in a
body
met him as he landed, and without a word, in solemn procession,
escorted him to
the Front Street house. Entering, they all seated themselves, still
silent,
waiting for the Spirit of God first to speak through some of them,
when, as we
are told, Franklin stood up and cried out with power, “To arms, my
friends, to
arms!” That his warning fell on reluctant if unheeding ears is known to
all.
The sudden influx of the leaders of the Revolution, in the stormy days
that
followed, pushed the Quaker class and the Tory families for the moment
to the
wall; and during the most glorious period of the city's history her old
rulers,
with few exceptions, yielded their places to strangers. Still another reminder of
the Philadelphia that Franklin knew is the house of his longtime
friend, John
Bartram, which yet stands near the Schuylkill, on the Gray's Ferry
Road. The
former home of the Quaker botanist is of graystone, hewn from the solid
rock
and put in place in 1734 by Bartram's own hands; for among his other
accomplishments he reckoned that of practical stonemason. A dense mat
of ivy,
out of which peep two windows, cover its northern end. The south end,
nearly
free from vines, is also pierced with two large windows, the sills
thereof
curiously carved in stone-work. Between these two windows, upper and
lower, a
smooth, square block of stone has been carved with this inscription: 'Tis God alone,
Almighty
Lord, The Holy One by me
adored.
John
Bartram, 1770. Dormer-windows jut out
from the roof of the old house, and between its two projecting wings
runs a
wooden porch, supported by a massive stone pillar, the front covered by
an aged
but still lusty Virginia creeper. Time has worked small change in the
ancient
structure. The great fireplace in its central room has been filled up,
and the
old Franklin stove, a present, mayhap, from Benjamin himself, has been
removed
from the sitting-room, but beyond this everything stands as it did in
its first
owner's time. Back of the sitting-room, in the wing looking towards the
south,
is an airy apartment that once did duty as a conservatory. Beside this
room is
the botanist's study, with windows facing the south and east. It was
here in
later years that Alexander Wilson wrote the opening pages of his great
work on
ornithology, under the patronage and aided by the suggestions of
William
Bartram, the successor of his father John, and himself a naturalist of
learning
and repute. Against the front of the
house grows a Jerusalem “Christ's-thorn,” and on one side of it a
gnarled and
tangled yew-tree, both planted by the elder Bartram's hands. Thence the
famous
botanic garden, the first one on this continent, which the good Quaker
constructed untaught, planting it with trees and shrubs gathered by
himself in
countless journeys through the wilderness, slopes gently downward to
the banks
of the Schuylkill. When Charles Kingsley visited Philadelphia, some
years ago,
his first request was to be taken to this old garden, which has now
become a
grove of trees, rare and various, of native and foreign growth, —
deciduous trees
and evergreens of many varieties, blossoming shrubs, white and red
cedars,
spruce, pines, and firs, thick with shade and spicy with odor. At the
garden's
lower edge and close to the river once stood a cider-mill, of which all
that
remains is a great embedded rock, hewn flat, with a circular groove in
it, in
which a stone dragged by horses revolved, crushing the apples to pulp.
A
channel cut through the rock leading from the groove served to convey
the juice
from the mill. It was a piece of Bartram's own handiwork, another
example of
the combining of the practical and ideal in his sturdy nature. Not far
from
this old cider-mill stands a stone marking the grave of one of
Bartram's
servants, an aged black, one time a slave, for even the Quakers held
slaves in
colony times. At the time of the old negro's death, however, he was a
freeman,
and had been for years, for Bartram was one of the earliest
emancipators of
slaves in America. All that Bartram, whom
Linnæus pronounced “the greatest of living botanists,” was enabled to
achieve
he owed, in the main, to his own efforts. His life was of the simplest
character; and to the last he retained the habits and customs of the
plain
farmer folk, of whom he accounted himself one. Touching also in its
modesty and
simplicity is his own account of how he became a botanist. “One day,”
he wrote
in his later years, “I was busy in holding my plough, and being aweary
I sat me
beneath the shade of a tree to rest myself. I cast mine eyes upon a
daisy. I
plucked the pretty flower, and viewing it with more closeness than
common
farmers are wont to bestow upon a weed, I observed therein many curious
and
distinct parts, each perfect in itself, and each in its way tending to
enhance
the beauty of the flower. ‘What a shame,’ said something within my
mind, ‘that
thou hast spent so many years in the ruthless destroying of that which
the Lord
in His infinite goodness hath made so perfect in its humble place
without thy
trying to understand one of the simplest leaves!’ This thought awakened
my
curiosity, for these are not the thoughts to which I had been
accustomed. I
returned to my plough once more; but this new desire for inquiry into
the
perfections the Lord hath granted to all about us did not quit my mind;
nor
hath it since.” The path upon which he
thus set forth made the Quaker farmer the peer and fellow of the
greatest
naturalists of his time, and in his later days royal botanist for the
provinces. Bartram lived to the age of eighty, hale and strong to the
last, his
only trouble being his dread that the ravages of the Revolution might
reach his
peaceful garden. His fear was groundless, for all alike reverenced and
loved
the gentle old man. His death occurred on the morrow of the battle of
Brandywine. Philadelphia, in 1774, had
grown to be a thriving, well-conditioned, prosperous city of thirty
thousand
inhabitants, the largest in the colonies, and, thanks to the genius of
Franklin, paved, lighted, and ordered in a way almost unknown in any
other town
of that period. It was, also, as nearly as possible, the central point
of the
colonies. Thus both its position and its condition drew to it the
strangers
from the North and the South, who began to appear in the streets and
public
places in the late summer of 1774. Few of these strangers were
commonplace;
most of them gave evidence of distinction, and all were prompt in
setting about
the work that had brought them from their widely-scattered homes. The members of the first
colonial Congress having found, on reaching Philadelphia, that the
State-House
was already occupied by the Provincial Assembly, determined to hold
their
meetings in the hall, on Chestnut Street above Third, built by the
Honorable
Society of Carpenters, and still used by them. Accordingly, on the
morning of
September 5 they assembled at the City Tavern, where most of them were
quartered, and went thence together to this little hall. We are told
that the
Quakers watched the little procession gloomily, but it was made up of
men who
have assumed for us heroic proportions. There were John and Samuel
Adams, of
Massachusetts, the latter with stern, set face of the Puritan type; the
venerable Stephen Hopkins, of Rhode Island; Roger Sherman, of
Connecticut, tall
and grave; John Jay, of New York, with birth and breeding written in
his clean-cut
features; Thomas McKean, of Pennsylvania, an Anak among patriots, and
lank
Cæsar Rodney, of Delaware. There, too, were Christopher Gadsden and the
two
Rutledges, from South Carolina, while Peyton Randolph, full of years
and
honors, headed a delegation from Virginia which included Patrick Henry,
Richard
Henry Lee, and another better known than any of them, with his
soldier's fame
won on hard-fought fields, — George Washington, of Mount Vernon. What
the
grave, silent Virginia colonel had done was known to every onlooker.
What he
was yet to do no one dreamed, but we may easily believe that the people
who lined
the streets that sunny September morning felt dumbly what Henry said
for those
who met him in the Congress, “Washington is unquestionably the greatest
of them
all.” The work done in the
assembly-room of the hall of the Carpenters in the autumn days of 1774
cleared
the way for the call to arms. When the Congress met again, in May of
the
following year, it held its deliberations in the State-House, and
thenceforward
the history of the country takes this long, old-fashioned structure of
red
brick, with its white marble facings and thick window-sashes, as its
central
point of interest. In the little square before it gathered excited
groups of
patriots and Loyalists on the memorable days and still more memorable
nights
when within its walls, behind closed doors, the delegates of thirteen
colonies
were debating a resolution to declare them independent. On July 2,
1776, the
resolution was passed. “A greater question,” says Adams, “perhaps never
was
decided among men.” The Declaration was signed
by John Hancock and Charles Thomson, president and secretary of the
Congress,
on the Fourth of July, this act taking place in the east room of the
State-House on the lower floor, where during the next four weeks the
other
members of the Congress also affixed their signatures. The Declaration
had been
written by Thomas Jefferson in his lodging-house, which stood until
recently at
the southwest corner of Market and Seventh Streets. It was made public
on the
morrow of the Fourth, but was not officially given to the people until
noonday
on the 8th of July, when it was read to a great crowd in the
State-House yard.
The stage on which the reader stood was a rough platform, built some
years
before by David Rittenhouse, the astronomer, as an observatory from
which to
note certain important movements of the planets. The use to which its
builder had put it had resulted in the first determination of the
dimensions of
the solar system; and now serving a not less noble purpose, it heralded
a
platform of human rights broad enough for the whole world to stand
upon. Cheers
rent the welkin when the reading of the Declaration was finished;
bonfires were
lighted; the chimes of Christ Church rang until nightfall, and the old
bell in
the State-House tower gave a new and noisy meaning to the words
inscribed on
its side a quarter of a century before, — “Proclaim liberty throughout
the land
and to all the inhabitants thereof.” Thus the Republic was born.
The story of the days of storm and stress that followed has been
written again
and again, and ever finds new chroniclers; but over one act of the
great
Congress that adopted the Declaration the pen must always linger with
affectionate touch. On June 14, 1777, it was resolved by the Congress
“that the
flag of the United States be thirteen stripes alternately red and
white, and
that the union be thirteen white stars, in a blue field, representing a
new
constellation.” The first flag was modelled under the personal
supervision of
Washington, who was then in Philadelphia, and a committee from the
Congress.
They called upon Mrs. Elizabeth Ross, who conducted an upholstery shop
in the
little house yet standing at 239 Arch Street; and from a rough draft
which
Washington had made she prepared the first flag. The general's design
contained
stars of six points, but Mrs. Ross thought that five points would make
them
more symmetrical. She completed the flag in twenty-four hours, and at
Fort
Schuyler, New York, a few weeks later, it received its baptism of fire.
“Betsy”
Ross was appointed by Congress to be the manufacturer of the government
flags,
and she followed this occupation for many years, being succeeded by her
children. In September, 1777, the
British entered Philadelphia, and it was not reoccupied by the patriot
army
till 1779. Meantime in its northern suburbs was fought the desperate
and
luckless battle of Germantown. About many of the old houses of that
village
hang pulse-moving legends of the one eventful day in its history. Chief
among
these is the Chew House, built in 1763, about which the fight raged
furiously
for hours. This house was held by Colonel Musgrave and six companies so
long
that a gallant lad, the Chevalier de Manduit, with Colonel Laurens,
crept up to
fire it with a wisp of straw. They escaped under a shower of balls,
while a
young man who had followed them fell dead at the first shot. Another old house at the
corner of Main Street and West Walnut Lane was used as a hospital and
amputating-room, while the Wistar House, built in 1744, was occupied by
some of
the British officers, one of whom was General Agnew, “a cheerful and
heart-some
young man,” according to tradition. As he passed out to join his
command he
encountered the old servant Justinia at work in the garden, and bade
her hide
in the cellar until the fighting was at an end. But Justinia refused to
obey,
and had not finished hoeing her cabbages when Agnew was carried in
wounded unto
death, a decoration which he wore on his breast having offered a mark
for a
patriot rifleman. A quaint room of the Wistar House, now filled with
relics of
early times, is the one in which the heartsome young officer breathed
out his
life. His blood still stains the floor. Yet another reminder of
the Revolution is to be encountered in a stroll about Germantown, for
in the
yard of St. Michael's Lutheran Church sleeps one who played a useful if
humble
part in the struggle. Chris. Ludwick was a Dutch baker of Germantown,
who had
saved a comfortable fortune before the commencement of the seven years'
war.
Half of this property he offered to the service of his country,
swearing at the
same time never to shave until her freedom was accomplished. Washington
gave
him charge of the ovens of the army, and Baker-General Ludwick, with
his great
grizzled beard and big voice, was a familiar and not unheroic figure in
the
camp. He died an old man of eighty, in 1801, leaving his entire fortune
for the
education of the poor. After the Revolution came
the making of the Constitution and the setting afoot of the Union, with
Philadelphia as the national capital. The city's condition during the
years in
which it was controlled by Washington's simple high-bred court is known
to
every reader of history. In the great house once occupied by Richard
Penn,
afterwards owned by Robert Morris, and gone long since from the south
side of
Market Street, Washington had his home from 1791 to 1797. It was deemed
the
fittest dwelling in the city for the President of the new nation, and
must have
well deserved to be called a mansion. There are many pleasing pictures
of the
life led there by Washington and his family, but none half so winsome
and
delightful as that of a girl friend of Nelly Custis, who spent a night
in the
President's house. “When ten o'clock came,” she tells us, “Mrs.
Washington
retired, and her granddaughter accompanied her, and read a chapter and
psalm
from the old family Bible. All then knelt together in prayer, and when
Mrs.
Washington's maid had prepared her for bed Nelly sang a soothing hymn,
and,
leaning over her, received from her some words of counsel and her kiss
and
blessing.” One other picture, and the
last, of the Philadelphia of a century ago. The time was March 4, 1797,
and a
vast crowd had assembled in the State-House to witness the inauguration
of John
Adams as Washington's successor. Few in the throng, however, gave heed
to the
entrance of the new chief executive. Instead, every eye was bent upon
Washington, for the people knew it was to be the last public appearance
of their
idol. “He wore,” writes an eye-witness, “a full suit of black velvet,
his hair
powdered and in a bag, diamond knee-buckles, and a light sword with
gray
scabbard.” Beside him was the new Vice-President, Jefferson, awkward
and
ungainly; and nearby was the boyish Madison and the burly Knox. When
Adams had
read his inaugural and left the room the crowd cheered, but did not
move.
Jefferson, after some courteous parley, took precedence of Washington,
and went
out. Still the people remained motionless, watching the noble figure in
black;
nor did any one stir until Washington descended from the platform and
left the
hall to follow and pay his respects to the new President. Then they and
all the
crowd in the streets moved after him, but in silence. Upon the
threshold of the
President's lodgings he turned and faced this multitude of nameless
friends.
“No man ever saw him so moved.” The tears rolled unchecked down his
cheeks.
Then he bowed slowly and low and went within. After he had gone a
smothered
sound, not unlike a sob, went up from the crowd, for they knew that
their hero
had passed away to be seen of them no more. |