PHILADELPHIA
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PHILADELPHIA
THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE
BV ACNES REPPUER
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Ntiv York igi2 LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO. LIMITED
COPTEIGHT, 1898,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped October, 1898. Reprinted December, j8 ; November, 1904 ; January, 1909.
Norfajoob ^rtgg
J. 8. Gushing & Co. Berwick & Smith Norwood MasB. U.S.A.
PHILADELPHIA'S FOUNDER
I
CONTENTS
Introduction xvii
CHAPTER I Thb Founder of the Quaker City.
William Penn's childhood. — Nonconformity at Oxford.
— Gay life in France and Ireland. — Converted to Quaker- ism by Fox. — " No Cross, no Crown." — Province of Penn- sylvania granted by Charles II. to Penn. — Framing the "Great Law" 1
CHAPTER II The Founding of the Quaker City.
Philadelphia's first homes. — " Great Treaty" at Shacka- maxon. — Dispute with Lord Baltimore. — Return of Penn to England 16
CHAPTER III The Quaker City's Childhood.
Early colonial life. — Philadelphia's first schools. — Her malefactors and witches. — Religious sects. — Whitefield. — Hostility to Roman Catholics. — Gloria Dei. — Christ Church.
— Its influence in the colony. — Contest between Quakers
and Episcopalians 25
CHAPTER IV The Last Years of William Penn.
Penn at the court of James II. — Disgraced, after the accession of William III. — Visits Philadelphia. — Penns- bury. — Discontent of wife and daughter. — Return to England. — Financial troubles. — Death. — Opinion of Swift 62
VIU CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
PAGE
How THE Quaker City Grew.
Paper currency. — Philadelphia's prosperity. — Pastimes.
— Actors. — The Hallams. — Opposition to plays. — Old South wark Theatre. — Deceits and devices .... 65
CHAPTER VI
The Birth of Learning in the Quaker City.
Academy of Natural Sciences. — The city's debt to Franklin. — Philadelphia Library. — Founding the college.
— Its stormy life. — Provost Smith. — Hostility of the Con- stitutionalists. — The Philosophical Society. — Transit of Venus. — Distinguished members 80
CHAPTER VII
The State House and its Message.
The "Towne House." — Building the State House. — Its historic interest. — The Liberty Bell. — Declaration of In- dependence 106
CHAPTER VIII
How the Quaker City spent its Money.
Increasing wealth of Philadelphia. — Quaker almshouses. — Gabriel and Evangeline. — Pennsylvania Hospital. — Creat- ure comforts and display. — Journal of Jacob Hiltzheimer.
— Franklin's household. — James Logan. — Stenton. — In
gay attire. — The Dancing Assemblies 114
CHAPTER IX
War and the Rumours op War.
Hostilities with the Indians. — "Walking Purchase." — Braddock's defeat. — Expedition against Fort Du Quesne.
— The " Paxton Boys." — Murder of the Conestoga Ind- ians. — Philadelphia threatened. — Bouquet's triumph . 137
CONTENTS IX
CHAPTER X
PACK
The Eve of the Revolution.
Philadelphia's country seats. — Belmont. — Mount Pleas- ant. — Fairhill. — Lansdowne. — John Bartrara. — Journal of Elizabeth Drinker 161
CHAPTER XI The Dawn of the Revolution.
The Stamp Act. — " Parmer's Letters." — Tea ship Polly — Continental Congress. — Conservative Quakers. — News of the battle of Lexington 178
CHAPTER XII War.
Committee of Safety. — " 'Common Sense' for eighteen pence." — Convention of 1776. — New constitution for Penn- sylvania. — Lee's resolutions. — Declaration of Indepen- dence. — Approach of General Howe. — The "Free Quakers " 191
CHAPTER XIII A Gay Captivity.
General Howe enters Philadelphia. — Battle of German- town. — Destruction of the forts. — Gayeties of the winter.
— South wark Theatre. — Letters of Miss Rebecca Franks. — The Mischianza. — General Howe recalled. — Departure of
Sir Henry Clinton. — Battle of Monmouth . . . . 216
CHAPTER XIV Lords of Misrule.
Triumph of the mob. — Unpopularity of General Arnold.
— The robber Doans. — Persecution of the Quakers. — Journal of Elizabeth Drinker. — Depreciation of the cur- rency. — Alliance with France. — Franklin in Paris. — Ar- nold's treachery. — Andre's death. — Arrival of French troops. — Surrender of Lord Cornwallls .... 237
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER XV
PAOB
Reconstruction.
Fete du Dauphin. — Attack on the Bank of North Amer- ica.— Robert Morris. — The Chevalier de Beaujour. — Na- tional Constitution. — Federal procession. — State Constitu- tion. — Death of Franklin 258
CHAPTER XVI Philadelphia Regnant.
Return of Congress to Philadelphia. — Washington's re- ceptions.— General extravagance. — "The dazzling Mrs. Bingham." — Brissot de Warville. — Art and letters. — Dis- comforts of travel 279
CHAPTER XVII Two Forms op Fever.
Enthusiasm for France. — L^ Ambuscade. — Genet. — "Dansons la Carmagnole." — Yellow fever. — Letters of Dr. Benjamin Rush. — Battle of the drugs. — Whiskey dis- tillers. — Dr. George Logan. — Withdrawal of state legislat- ure to Harrisburg, and of Congress to Washington . . 296
CHAPTER XVIII Depression.
Embargo Act of 1807. — War of 1812.— piscovery of Pennsylvania's coal mines. — Visit of La Fayette. — Wistar parties. — Franklin Institute. — " Old Ironsides." — Penn- sylvania Historical Society. — Stephen Girard and his school. — Refusal of President Jackson to re-charter the Bank of the United States. — Financial distress . . . 317
CHAPTER XIX Riots.
Negro riots. — Burning of Pennsylvania Hall. — " Native American" riots. — Hibernia Hose House. — Burning of St.
CONTENTS XI
PAGB
Michael's and St. Augustine's Roman Catholic churches. — Desperate fighting in the streets. — Consolidation Act of 1864 342
CHAPTER XX The Civil War.
Philadelphia's politics. — The Copperheads. — Battle of Gettysburg. — Drafting. — Sanitary Fair. — Hospitals. — Peace 366
CHAPTER XXI
The Quaker City of To-day.
Progress. — Centennial Exhibition. — Bullitt Bill. — Mere- tricious architecture. — City Hall. — Academy of the Fine Arts. — University of Pennsylvania. — Bryn Mawr College. —Fairmount Park.— The Quaker City .... 367
ILLUSTRATIONS
William Penn Frontispiece
PAGE
Penn's Crest 5
" A Site for a Fair City " 11
Penn's Seal 13
Penn's Wampum Belt 15
" The Demure Little Letitia House " 19
" Over the Cooling Wave " 23
Map of Philadelphia, 1682 26
" Along the River's Bank " 30
" The Meeting-House " 33
St. David's at Radnor 38
Gloria Dei 43
"The Antique Font" 44
Christ Church 47
Gloria Dei 51
" The Slate Roof House " 56
Penn's Desk 58
Logan Arms 64
Old House on Race Street Wharf 69
An Alley 77
Doorway on Pine Street 80
Franklin's Clock 86
Portrait of Franklin 88
"Woodlands" 91
Library of University of Pennsylvania 98
Doorways 100
xiii
XIV ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Liberty Bell 106
The " Towne House " 108
Old State House Ill
State House 112
Case containing Original of Declaration of Independence . .113
Quaker Almshouse .116
Pennsylvania Hospital 121
A Bit of Pennsylvania Hospital 123
Stenton 129
Franklin's Punch Keg 136
St. Peter's Church 145
In Old St. Peter's 156
" A stately, strong old House " 162
" In the old Wister Homestead " 165
" The old Bartram Homestead " . , . . . .171
Interior of Carpenters' Hall 178
Carpenters' Hall . 185
Inkstand in Independence Hall 191
House of Betty Ross, where First American Flag was made . 196
Room in State House where Declaration was signed . . . 203
" This strong old Country House " 219
Major Andr6 223
Walnut Grove 228
Mt. Pleasant : Arnold's Home 239
Woodford House 246
Stairway in State House 250
Washington's Desk 259
" The Old State House " 271
Franklin's Grave 278
Morris House, Germantown 284
Tea-Room in Morris House 288
" A Nymph holding a Swan " 291
Old Market-Place 295
ILLUSTRATIONS xv
PAGB
The Schuylkill's Bank 298
An Old Street 304
Jefferson's Chair 311
In Fairmount Park 317
The Mint 324
Old Houses by the River 325
Masonic Temple 330
Girard College 337
" The Silent City " 341
A Negro Alley 344
Interior of Roman Catholic Cathedral 350
Old Market-Place 353
"Over the Roof of Independence Hall" 358
Chestnut Street 362
Fairmount Park 367
Horticultural Hall 369
City Hall 374
Art Club 376
Library of University of Pennsylvania 379
Pembroke Hall, Byrn Mawr College 381
Lily Pond, Fairmount Park 384
The " Solitude " 386
Flower Beds, Fairmount Park 388
INTRODUCTION
/^UT of the mists that mercifully conceal those early ^""^ school-days which, being forgotten, are unduly praised, comes the spectre of a little American history with green sides and a red back, an odious little his- tory, arranged in questions and answers like a cate- chism, and wholly destitute of anything that could arouse childish interest or quicken childish enthusiasm. One page and one only lingers in my memory, as a re- turn for the many gloomy hours wasted in the com- panionship of this book, — a page containing a print of West's picture, of the " Great Treaty " at Shacka- maxon.
Our grandfathers loved this picture, and implicitly believed all the details of the incident it portrays. We have outgrown our grandfathers' narrow artistic standards, and their broad historic credulity ; and the agreeable consciousness of such double progress en- riches our self-esteem. Yet it is a pleasant scene that West painted in those easy, ignorant days, when im- pressionism had still to be invented, and people had not begun to make a fetich of truth. The "Treaty Elm" spreading its mighty branches, as proud and as
xvii
XVlll INTRODUCTION
honoured as England's "Royal Oak." William Penn, years older than his age, dressed as he never did dress in early manhood, benignantly blessing everybody. Venerable Friends, in the loosest and longest of coats, holding a parchment deed of mighty bulk, the docu- ment which has been lost for more than two hundred years. Boxes and bales of goods scattered on the sward. Indian braves solemnly inspecting their con- tents. Indian squaws and pappooses grouped pictu- resquely in the foreground. The whole composition suggesting an entertainment midway between a church fair and an afternoon tea, placid, decorous, satisfactory, and sincere.
This was the peaceful fashion in which the little Quaker colony took her infant steps, this was the atmosphere which nurtured her tender youth. And now, after two centuries have rolled slowly by, some- thing of the same spirit lingers in the quiet city which preserves the decorum of those early years, which does not jostle her sister cities in the race of life, nor shout loud cries of triumph in their ears, nor flaunt magnifi- cent streamers in the breeze to bid the world take note of each j)ace she advances.
Every community, like every man, carries to old age the traditions of its childhood, the inheritance derived from those who bade it live. And Philadel- phia, though she has suffered sorely from rude and alien hands, still bears in her tranquil streets the
INTRODUCTION XIX
impress of the Founder's touch. Simplicity, dignity, reserve, characterize her now as in Coh)nial days. She remembers those days with silent self-respect, placing a high value upon names which then were honoured, and are honoured still. The pride of the past mingles and is one with the pride of the present. The stainless record borne by her citizens a hundred and fifty years ago flowers anew in the stainless record their great- great-grandsons bear to-day ; and the city cherishes in her cold heart the long annals of the centuries, softening the austerity of her presence for these favoured inheri- tors of her best traditions. She is not eager for the unknown ; she is not keen after excitement ; she is not enamoured of noise. Her least noticeable character- istic is enthusiasm. Her mental balance cannot lightly be disturbed. Surtout pas trop de zele, she says with Talleyrand ; and the slow, sure process by which her persuasions harden into convictions does not leave her, like a derelict, at the mercy of wind and wave. She spares herself the arduous labour of forming new opinions every morning, by recollecting and cherishing her opinions of yesterday. It is a habit which pro- motes solidity of thought.
To those who by right of heritage call themselves her sons, and even to such step-children as are, by nature or grace, attuned to the chill tranquillity of their foster mother, Philadelphia has a subtle charm that endures to the end of life. In the restful atmosphere
XX INTRODUCTION
of her sincere indifference, men and women gain clear- ness of perspective, and the saving grace of modesty. Few pedestals are erected for their accommodation. They walk the level ground, and, in the healthy absence of local standards, have no alternative save to accept the broad disheartening standards of the world. Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbours, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name. Something of the old Quaker directness, something of the old Quaker candour, — a robust candour not easily subdued, — still lingers in the city founded by the "white truth- teller," whose word was not as the words of other men, — spoken to conceal his thoughts, and the secret purpose of his soul.
Deep is the debt of gratitude which the City of Peace owes to the many hands that have laboured for two hundred years in her behalf; but deepest of all is her debt to Penn who knew her little but who loved her well, whom she thrust aside from her coun- cils, and forgot in his hour of need, but whose in- fluence lingers to-day in that atmosphere of serenity which is the finest characteristic of Philadelphia. More impetuous towns speed like meteors on their paths, dazzling the western world by their velocity, and dazzled themselves by their own glitter and glory ; but the Quaker City sees, them rush by without envy, without ambition, without distaste, without emotions
INTRODUCTION XXI
of any kind. She knows, and she has known for many years, what is best for her ; and if this best be ever out of reach, it is not by mere swiftness of step that she can hope to overtake it. She is content to grow slowly if she can grow synnnetrically, and if grace and strength keep pace with her increasing bulk. She is content to face the future if she can hold closely to the past, recalling its lessons, valuing its traditions, respecting its memory, and loving in her cold, steadfast fashion the living links which connect her with her honourable history, with her part in the great story of the nation.
I
PHILADELPHIA
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDER OF THE QUAKER CITY
TT is hard for us who live in an age of careless and cheerful tolerance to understand the precise incon- veniences attending religious persecution. The lamen- table decline of church discipline leaves us powerless to interfere with the erroneous convictions of our neigh- bours, and our own polite indifference permits them to cherish their delusions unassailed. We are so full of courteous phrases, pulpit bowing to pulpit, and '•'•Apres vous^ Monsieur^'^ murmured all along the line, that it is like stepping into another world, into a bleak, clear, atmosphere of sincere ungraciousness, when we hear what old Robert Burton — a man of infinite good tem- per — has to say anent the Anabaptists ; or when we listen to the vigorous anathemas launched by Sydney Smith against the Methodists, or even when we open the diary of that fine old English gentleman, John Evelyn, and read his opinion of Quakers. On the eighth of July, 1656, he visits some of these innocent offenders in prison ; and, far from expressing any sym-
B 1
.2 PHILADELPHIA
pathy for their sufferings, or any admiration for their fortitude, he writes them coldly down a '' fanatic sect of dangerous principles, who show no respect to any man, magistrate or other, and seem a melancholy, proud sort of people, and exceedingly ignorant."
One year before this prison visit, little William Penn, a boy of eleven, enjoyed his first ghostly "manifesta- tion." There was "an external glory in the room," and the voice of the Lord rang in his ears and in his heart, summoning him to the life of the spirit, and to the relinquishment of earthly vanities. The visionary child, with his brilliant eyes, his fluent speech, his moods of strange abstraction, must have been a sore trial to his father, that hearty sailor. Sir William Penn, who, being himself singularly unvexed by nice distinc- tions of creed, failed, at any time, to understand what his troublesome son was worrying about. Vice-Admiral of England's navy at thirty-one. Sir William fought as valiantly and as blithely for Cromwell as for Charles. England's foes were his foes, and England's ruler was his ruler, and England's faith was his faith ; and it was certainly not a sailor's business to inquire too closely into these things, nor to meddle with church or state. The friend and associate of Mr. Samuel Pepys, — who at heart cordially detested him, — his careless gallantry to Mrs. Pepys aroused the jealousy of her neglectful and exacting husband. It was at Penn's house that Mr. Pepys supped so gayly one Sunday night — the
THE FOUNDER OF THE QUAKER CITY 3
Vice-Admirars brother, " a traveller and a merry man," being of the party — that the next morning found the wretched diarist sick and befuddled, with an aching head, and a spirit steeped in woe. Then came along Sir William, in nowise the worse for his potations, and, pitying the civilian's miserable plight, advised him jovi- ally to drink " two draughts of sack," as a sure remedy for his disorder, — which counsel Mr. Pepys promptly followed, and found the physic marvellously efficacious. Did little William peep in upon this scandalous sup- per party, and listen to the merry uncle's tales, made all the merrier by his mellow mood ? The boy was no youthful prig, for all his visions and manifestations. He was straight, and tall, and strong, loved athletic sports, had a fluctuating taste for cheerful company, and showed no lack of discernment anent things that were of the earth earthy. Between him and his father there existed a cordial understanding until at Oxford he began to attend the preaching of Thomas Fox, instead of going duly to the college service. This might have been passed over, but the immediate re- sults were of a character which demanded notice. Young Penn not only refused to wear his academic gown, — as savouring vaguely of i3relacy, — but he appar- ently refused to permit other students to wear theirs in peace ; and his attitude was so determined and annoy- ing— the gowns being unpopular at best — that he was sent down from college for nonconformity in 1661.
4 PHILADELPHIA
Sir William, angry, distressed, and hopelessly be- wildered by what seemed to him much ado about noth- ing, decided, like a wise old worldling, not to make a martyr of his son by showing any grave displeasure, but to despatch him at once to France, where he might be trusted to quickly forget this unimaginable folly. To Paris accordingly went the youthful Penn, was pre- sented at the court of Louis XIV., enjoyed the new experience amazingly, and made a brave, boyish figure amid those brilliant scenes. In fact, when he returned to England, he was what Mr. Pepys termed a " modish person"; and we note in the diary a ring of amusing but very human displeasure at the admiration this "compleat young gentleman" never failed to excite. " Comes Mr. Penn to visit me," writes the unpacified Pepys. " I perceive something of learning he hath got ; but a great deal, if not too much, of the vanity of the French garb, and affected manner of speech and gait."
The cure being thus happily effected, Penn began to enjoy life in earnest, and found London very little behind Paris in affording the means of entertainment. The terrible advent of the Plague oppressed him, in- deed, not unnaturally, with " a deep sense of the vanity of the world " ; but he shook off this heavy-hearted- ness in Ireland, whither his father had sent him to look after the family estates, and where we find him presently fighting with carnal weapons — and in the
THE FOUNDER OF THE QUAKER CITY
gayest of spirits — to put down one of those period- ical uprisings which for many centuries have diversi- fied the monotony of Irish life. So well did this brief campaign please him, that he decided with swift incontinence to adopt the profession of arms, which decision was, strangely enough, combated by the sail- or father, who had destined his clever son for the civil ser- vice, and who was shrewd enough to know in what field a man's fortunes might be most rapidly ad- vanced. It was dur- ing the warlike episode of 1666 that the charming picture was painted which now seems so utterly at variance with Penn's career, and which, for that very reason perhaps, has been prized, and cherished, and duplicated, until it is pleas- antly familiar to us all. The original still hangs, it is said, on the walls of that stately home which John Penn the younger built for himself on the Isle of Portland, and which is now the seat of J. Merrick
pbnn's crest
6 PHILADELPHIA
Head, Esq. ; but the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia possesses an excellent copy, and there is another at Tempsford Hall in Bedfordshire ; while Schoff's admirable engraving has found its way into hundreds of English and American homes. The half-length portrait in steel breastplate and lace cravat, with dark hair flowing loosely over the mail- clad shoulders, looks more like a cavalier than a Quaker. The brilliant eyes have the splendid confi- dence of youth ; a lurking smile is lost in the flexi- ble corners of the mouth. Altogether a gay and gallant young gentleman, and not unlike the portrait of the gay and gallant Admiral his father, which, painted by Sir Peter Lely, ruffles it in conscious pride on the walls of Greenwich Hospital.
At the very time, however, that the world's vic- tory seemed securely won, it was on the eve of dis- comfiture. The ubiquitous and untiring Fox was preaching now in Ireland, and Penn's pietism, which had been either lulled to sleep by pleasure, or for- gotten in the tumult of hard work, awoke again to vehement life under the controlling influence of a religion which satisfied all the spiritual requirements of his nature. The doctrine of renunciation, the yielding up of worldly distinctions, — this had always seemed to him God's word spoken to the soul ; and once more, and for the last time, he turned resolutely away from a life filled to the brim with honourable
I
I
THE FOUNDER OF THE QUAKER CITY 7
ambitions and rewards. In a very few weeks we find him arrested for "riot and tumultuous assem- bling,"— i.e., listening peaceably to Quaker ser- mons ; and — having not yet reached that point of sanctity when persecution becomes a pleasure — we find him also writing indignant letters to Lord Orrery, son of the Lord-Lieutenant, demanding an immediate release from jail. Six months later, Mr. Pepys records in his journal, this time with malicious satisfaction, — there is always something wliich does not displease us in the misfortunes of our friends, — that "Mr. Penn, who has lately come over from Ireland, is a Quaker again, or some such melancholy thing."
Sir William, exasperated beyond the limits of endur- ance, argued and entreated in vain. He was even then willing to temporize with his unmanageable son, being at heart sincerely indifferent as to what that son be- lieved, provided he would behave like other people, which was precisely what the ardent young convert de- clined to do. A compromise of the broadest kind was finally proposed. Sir William declared himself ready to close his eyes to all eccentricities — they were simply eccentricities to him — if Penn in return would consent to uncover to the King, to the Duke of York, and to himself. Penn stanchly refused, and left his father's roof for the troubled life of a nonconformist preacher in London. Mrs. Oliphant, who wrote an elaborate
8 PHILADELPHIA
sketch of Philadelphia's Founder, marked by her usual anxious sense of justice, and by more than her usual lack of sympathy, intimated that, beyond some gentle ridicule, the Quakers suffered little persecution from English laws. But if any of us were called upon to endure as much to-day, I doubt not we should think it heavy enough. The Quakers were not burned, that is true, stakes and fagots being out of vogue since Mary's reign ; but fines and imprisonment grow wearisome to the spirit, and so Penn probably thought when he found himself committed to the Tower for the unlicensed pub- lication of " Sandy Foundations Shaken."
The book made a profound impression upon many minds. Mrs. Pepys read it aloud to Mr. Pepys, who grows strangely serious in discussing it. It is well written, he thinks, so very well written that he can hardly understand how the young Penn came to write it ; yet it is a " serious sort of book, and not fit for everybody to read," — Mr. Pepys being of Lord Ches- terfield's opinion concerning those who disturb the serene convictions of society. The authorities consid- ered it eminently unfit for everybody, or for anybody, to read ; and its author, still in the Tower, defended his principles in " No Cross, no Crown," and in " Innocency with her Open Face," a charming title that sounds as though it had come straight from the " Faerie Queene."
The good offices of the Duke of York finally pro- cured Penn's release from prison, and Sir William, a
I
THE FOUNDER OF THE QUAKER CITY 9
perfect model of long-suffering paternity, took him back into favour, his contempt for Quakerism being somewhat modified by the knowledge that it had in no- wise weakened his son's natural aptitude for business. So he paid, with what serenity he could muster, the fines that followed on each new indiscretion, kept him in charge of the Irish estates, and bequeathed to him, when he died, his blessing, an annual income of sixteen hundred pounds, and a claim of sixteen thousand pounds against the crown, to which happy, though by no means unusual circumstance, we owe our Quaker town. To wring money, especially a just debt, from the Merry Monarch was something that bordered closely on the impossible. Penn realized this as fully as his father had realized it before him ; and, pondering the matter over, there came to him the first faint outlines of a plan which, if carried out, might mean not wealth alone, but such distinction as his new faith permitted him to enjoy, and, above all, a peaceful haven from the petty persecutions which assailed him. For more and more, as his convictions grew and strengthened, had he come into sharp conflict with the unyielding majesty of the law, and he was not fitted by nature for the pas- sive role of sanctity. His father's blood ran hotly in his veins, and, far from suffering in silence, he lifted up his voice with remarkable fluency, and a lamentable lack of meekness, in behalf of the holy cause. A young man who would call the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford a " poor
10 PHILADELPHIA
mushroom," must have studied but lamely the part of consistent and dutiful non-resistance.
So the King was entreated to pay the Old World debt with a grant of New World land, and was by no means ready to consent to even this kingly compromise. Much pleading and long waiting well-nigh wore out the pleader's patience, before Charles, urged by the friendly Duke of York, set his royal seal in 1680 to the parchment which made William Penn governor and proprietor of a province whose boundaries were to be disputed for many years to come. The land was vested in Penn in fee simple, subject to the quit-rent of two beaver skins, and a fifth part of its gold and silver ore, — at which we Pennsylvanians smile to-day, thinking of those other mines which lay with their untold wealth beneath the fertile soil. The governor was invested by the charter with executive and legislative power, sub- ject to the control of the Privy Council, and to the " advice and consent of the freemen of the province," who were to help make the laws before they reverenced and obeyed them. Sylvania was the pretty name chosen for the forest-covered district, to which appellation Charles prefixed the Penn, and was so pleased with his royal jest that he refused to relinquish it. So " Pen- silvania,'* as it is spelled in the original cliarter, like Baltimore, enshrines its founder's memory, and affords a welcome relief from the perpetual " New," — New York, New England, New Jersey, New Orleans, — which
THE FOUNDER OF THE QUAKER CITY 11
our unimaginative ancestors were never weary of re- peating with monotonous loyalty to their lost homes.
Matters having been brought to this successful issue, Penn applied himself immediately to a threefold task. He despatched his cousin William Markham, an officer in the King's navy, as deputy governor, to the province, to inspect its condition, to report upon its possibilities, to choose a site for '' a fair city," and above all to assure
A SITE FOR * A FAIR CITY
the Germans, Swedes, and English already settled along the Delaware that there should be no infringement upon their rights and privileges. The young Proprietor next drew up his first prospectus, addressed to the Free Society of Traders, in which he was exceedingly ex- plicit and businesslike concerning the cost of the trip, the buying and renting of land, the chances offered to agricultural and mechanical labour ; only permitting himself a few words of gentle allurement when describ-
12 PHILADELPHIA
ing the country he had never seen, — a country, he said, teeming with fish and game, and " six hundred miles nearer the sun than England," which truth prob- ably impressed itself forcibly upon the colonists' minds when their first July came around. The result of this excellent advertising was the almost immediate sale of five hundred and sixty-five thousand acres of land, in lots of from two hundred and fifty to twenty thousand acres.
A still more congenial occupation to the long-harassed and persecuted Quaker was the framing of a constitu- tion, of a code of laws which should temper justice with mercy, and restrain ill-doing, while it permitted the widest possible freedom to every citizen. In this labour of love Penn was nobly assisted by Algernon Sidney, and, between them, they produced those statutes which Montesquieu has so infelicitously compared to the laws of Lycurgus, but which in truth were far more distin- guished by leniency than by Spartan rigour. At a time when every convicted thief was promptly hanged in England, Penn found no crime save murder to warrant the death sentence. The clauses which punished pro- fane swearing, intemperance, and card playing ; and which strictly forbade the "drinking of healths," "stage plays," — of which there were none, — "masks and revels," and all "evil sports and games," — even the innocent old games of May-day, were added to the original code by the first Assembly, which met to rep-
THE FOUNDER OF THE QUAKER CITY
13
resent the '' freemen of the province " in 1682. A rather unruly Assembly this, and as troublesome as freemen and their representatives were ever wont to be. It marred Fenn's beloved constitution with a number of rigid little rules and regulations to promote sanctity, or the pretence of sanctity, before it permitted his statutes to pass into the '^ Great Law." Yet even in this altered form he was so strenuously attached to it that, as soon as the first schoolhouses were built in Philadelphia, he ordered it should be read aloud to all the boys and girls every scho- lastic year.
In one respect alone the code remained unchanged. There was to be tolerance in the new colony for every form of Christian belief ; " free- dom," as Gabriel Thomas aptly phrased it, " for all persuasions in a sober and civil way." This tolerance was so far in advance of its generation, that it awoke surprise and consternation rather than universal de^ liglit. The New World had been as ready as the Old to lay a chastening hand upon every unsanctioned and
PENN S SEAL
14 PHILADELPHIA
unwelcome creed, and in more than one instance the colonists had thoroughly enjoyed dispensing to others the hard fare they had received at home. Only Lord Baltimore and Roger Williams, strangely indifferent to the blessed privilege of " doing as you have been done by," proclaimed in Maryland and Rhode Island the absolute liberty granted to every subject of the King to worship God as he or she thought right. Quaker, Baptist, and Roman Catholic stood side by side, the pioneers of religious freedom in America.
To Penn, at least, it all seemed so natural, so reason- able, and so right. He was but thirty-six when the King signed that memorable parchment deed, and his heart beat high with hope as the peaceful city of his dreams shaped itself slowly into a realized ambition. He had married a wife of his own faith, the daughter of Sir William Springett of Brayle Place, Ringmere, Sussex. She had a charming Italian name, Gulielma Maria, a beautiful face, and a pious disposition. She bore him children, children who were still too young to bring sorrow and heartbreak in their train. A man in his early prime, with superb health, an ample fortune, an honourable career, and, above and beyond all, a mission — a mission in which he firmly believed, and for which he ardently desired success — what wonder that Penn felt an exultant "uplifting of the spirit" when he looked westward over the great grey seas to the land of promise, to the visionary city of peace !
I'KNN'S WAMPUM BELT
CHAPTER II
THE FOUNDING OF THE QUAKER CITY
XT was on a quiet afternoon in the autumn of 1681 that three ships lay in London harbour, making ready for a protracted voyage, fraught with some danger and every possible discomfort. Past these vessels came the royal barge, its silken banners flut- tering in the breeze ; and the King, noticing the swift bustle of departure, asked what ships they were, and whither they were bound? On being told that they bore the first Quaker emigrants to Penn- sylvania, Charles had the barge rowed closer, and gravely, yet with mirthful eyes, bestowed his princely blessing on the decorous groups, who stood, their heads covered, but their hearts filled with serious emotion, to receive it. They understood clearly enough that the good-natured monarch had always wished them well, and that the persecutions they had suffered were not of his contriving. Indeed, it is little wonder that both Charles and his less affable and less tolerant brother should have sincerely liked
16
16 PHILADELPHIA
the Quakers, who seldom gave any trouble, took no part in public life, and shrank from the noisy quar- rels of worldlings. With a strange indifference to science, to wit, to learning, and to literature, they combined a breadth of vision, a sane tolerance of humanity, and an instinctive knowledge of what we are apt to consider the principles of purely modern philanthropy. " Since the time of the primitive Christians," says Mr. Sydney Fisher, "there never had been such apostles of gentleness. They were a striking contrast to the Puritans, every one of whom was a restless politician, whose religion included a theory of civil government which he felt it his duty to enforce."
So Charles gave his blessing with the kindliest good-will to these innocent non-combatants, who, their hearts full of hope, their hands unstained by blood, set sail with the outgoing tide for the far- away shores of America. It would have been more picturesque had Penn accompanied them, but he remained in London, busy with the sale of land, and with schemes for the advancement of the colony. The three little ships carried with them in his place three commissioners, a plan of the proposed city, and a conciliatory letter to the Delaware In- dians, Avho had always claimed these heavily wooded tracts as their favourite hunting-ground. Friendly Indians they were for the most part, who had been
THE FOUNDING OF THE QUAKER CITY 17
conquered years before and reduced to subjection by the victorious Five Nations, and who were, moreover accustomed to the sight of white men dwelling within their territory. There was little trouble to be apprehended from them, unless goaded by un- kindness into hostility, and the Quakers were not settlers likely to arouse the fierce passion of resent- ment in the Red Man's bosom. They regarded him, neither as an unwarranted interloper, which is our modern point of view, nor as accursed of God, and cut off from all mercy in Heaven or on earth, which was the gentle conviction of the Puritan. • They made allowances for his being an Indian, since it had pleased God to create him one ; and they con- ceived that he was not without some claim to the land which Providence had granted him for his own. These extraordinary sentiments — the strangest her- esy ever yet carried from the Old World to the New — bore lasting fruit in the good- will shown to Pennsylvania's colony by its savage neighbours. The early history of the Quaker City is almost ignomini- ous in its peacefulness, monotonous in its unvarying, uninteresting prosperity. By the side of infant Phil- adelphia, so quiet and so well behaved, the story of infant New Orleans reads like some long fairy tale, in which the picturesque, the marvellous, the sinister, and the lawless, contend on every glowing page for mastery.
18 PHILADELPHIA
Yet the decorous record of the little settlement on the Delaware is not without its sober charm, a charm to be sought for in minute detail and simple inci- dent. With incredible speed, the colonists, who had first found shelter in caves along the river's bank, built themselves log cabins and frame houses, chilly, capacious, strong. The emigration increased rapidly. Twenty-three ships sailed from England to Pennsyl- vania in 1682, and by the close of 1683, three hun- dred and fifty-seven houses had been erected in Philadelphia. Already, though but three years old, it had become the city of homes. But the first child of English parents was born in a cave, after- wards used as a rude tavern, and called the "Penny- pot." To this child, John Key, Penn presented a lot of ground, and he lived to be eighty-five years old, and was known as the "first born" to the day of his death, though by that time early traditions and landmarks were rapidly disappearing from the town. When Penn arrived in November, 1682, he found his colony so well advanced, its surroundings so tranquil and beautiful, that in his enthusiasm he pronounced the country worthy of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob ; a land overflowing with the visible mercies of God. " Oh ! how sweet is the quiet of these parts, freed from the anxious and troublesome solici- tations, hurries, and perplexities of woeful Europe," he wrote joyously, and no doubt sincerely, being as
I
THE FOUNDING OF THE QUAKKli CITY
lli
yet new to the situation, and unaware of the persist- ence with which " woeful Europe " tugs at the heartstrings of an exile. The "fair mansion-house" of Pennsbury had not yet been begun, but he built the demure little Letitia House for his winter quarters, promising himself, doubtless, many years of peaceful
"the demure little letitia house
and congenial labour in the city which owed him her existence. His letter of 1683, to the Free Soci- ety of Traders, gives unstinted praise to the new province ; its game, its fruit, its abundant crops, its oysters "six inches long," its pure and wholesome water, (alas ! alas !) and its charming climate, which we might imagine had altered strangely since those halcyon days, were it not for another letter — a
20 PHILADELPHIA
private missive this time to Lord North — in which Penn ruefully confesses that " the weather often changeth without notice, and is constant almost in its inconstancy." " No climate at all," as M. Bourget wittily expresses it, — " only samples of weather."
The meeting of the first Assembly, which adopted Penn's code with many modifications, the unsuccessful attempt to settle the boundary line between Pennsyl- vania and Maryland, and the famous treaty with the Indians at Shackamaxon engrossed the governor's attention. The treaty is one of those historic facts or fictions, the details of which we are taught to believe as children, and to doubt as adults, with the result that we are credulous or sceptical according to our mental attitudes. Tliose for whom it is the sole incident that emerges from the mist of long-forgotten lessons are naturally unwilling to relinquish a single circum- stance, not even the broad blue sash, Penn's only emblem of authority. If there be no evidence beyond tradition for the support of the truth, there is no shadow of improbability, and there are no conflicting state- ments to give tradition the lie. The loss of the original document is of scant significance, for little importance was attached to it at the time, and many papers shared its fate in those early careless days. The fact that the speech assigned to Penn was really uttered by him twenty years later, is but an instance
I
THE FOUNDING OF THE QUAKER CITY 21
of the way in which history is made, the natural and admirable process by which anything that will harmo- nize is woven into the narrative. Nothing can be clearer than the story as it has come down to us, — the story of a great treaty made and kept. The Indians cherished its memory for generations ; the Quakers were justly proud of a deed that did them infinite credit ; and the Englisli have always vied with Ameri- cans in honouring a compact which, as Voltaire lucidly remarked, was "the only treaty between savages and Christians that had not been ratified by an oath, and that was never broken."
When the English army occupied Philadelphia in 1777, a guard was placed before the "Treaty Elm," to preserve it from the evil chances of war. The picture by which West has so deeply offended antiquarians has at least familiarized many of us with that famous tree, and with all that happened beneath its spreading branches. Penn was, indeed, at the time, no corpulent old man in full-skirted coat and broad-brimmed hat ; but tall, athletic, well formed, and, notwithstanding his Quaker creed, extremely fastidious about dress, especially about his curled and flowing wigs ; — " the liandsomest, best-looking, and liveliest of gentlemen," says an old chronicler, " affable and friendly with the humblest. "
Friendly wdth the Indians he certainly was, winning their affection by his kindness, and their respect by
22 PHILADELPHIA
his activity and endurance. The undeviating policy of conciliation which he pursued for years ensured the docility of the savages, and the consequent safety of an unarmed community, which went about its daily toil as unmolested as though it lived in the heart of civilization. There have not been lacking virtuous voices to protest against Penn's inadequate payment for land of which the Indians never realized the value ; but as so few colonists were in the habit of paying anything at all, or of acknowledging any claim, save their own, to provinces granted them by the crown, it seems hardly worth while to save up our resentment for the one man who gave what was demanded.
It was not from Indians that Penn suffered his keenest disappointments, but from those whose lasting gratitude he had rashly hoped to win. Already the bickerings had begun which were destined to over- shadow his life. Already he found it a difficult matter to please his colonists, to control the Assembly, to have his own way about anything. " Is it not the general history of colonies," says that garrulous old chronicler, John Watson, " to whine and fret like wayward chil- dren, to give immeasurable trouble and expense to rear them to maturity, and then to reward the parental care with alienation ? " If this be true, Pennsylvania was certainly no exception to the rule. Penn loved the province he had founded, the goodly city he had helped to build. He hoped to make her beautiful as
THE FOUNDING OF THE QUAKER CITY
23
well as prosperous, and had dreamed of a noble river front along the Delaware, of a promenade and a public park, with the trees of the forest primeval spreading their mighty branches over the cooling waves. The steady encroachment of warehouses and shipping yards upon this river front, the inevitable triumph of
"over the cooling wave"
the commercial over the picturesque, chagrined him deeply. But before ever the buildings rose frowning and ugly on the bank, there were more urgent anxie- ties to mar his peace of mind. Among them was the still unsettled boundary line, which promised endless trouble in the future. Lord Baltimore being a man loath to relinquish his territorial rights, and not
24 PHILADELPHIA
easily moved by arguments or solicitations. It seemed Penn's wisest course to return to England, and lay the matter once more before the Privy Council. Other questions arose which required his presence in London. He had left his wife and family in the Old World, not without serious misgivings ; for Gulielma Maria, pious and beautiful though she was, had her share of gentle feminine weaknesses, all of which are hinted at very plainly in the long letter of instruction which Penn wrote for her guidance in his absence. He entreats her, for example, to be more regular at her meals ; to have her dinner served promptly at the appointed hour ; to " guard against encroaching friend- ships," which lead to lamentable waste of time ; and, above all, to forbear grieving herself with careless servants ; — excellent but futile advice, easier at any time to give than to obey. So back to "woeful Europe," which seemed a little less woful after two years' absence, back to household cares and to graver issues went Penn in 1684. He intended to rejoin the colony within a twelvemonth. He remained in Eng- land nearly fifteen years.
CHAPTER III
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD
A COMPACT little town as level as the sands of the desert ; narrow streets running evenly from east to west, and from north to south, intersecting each other with monotonous regularity like the lines which mark out the squares on a checkerboard ; houses built of wood or of bright red brick, as much alike as the sea-god's daughters, — '^ as the faces of sisters should be." A town built between two rivers ; the broad and beautiful Delaware rolling on one side to the sea, and, on the other, barely two miles away, the placid little Schuylkill, unskirted yet by human habitation, un- tainted by mill, or mine, or factory, Avinding, a sylvan stream, through woods of oak and chestnut. There was much comfort and scant luxury within the red brick houses. Not a carpet nor a rug for many years upon the sanded floors. Heavy English furniture in the low-ceilinged rooms, pewter dishes on the shelves, huge logs burning merrily in the wide fireplaces, good food, and plenty of it, in the larders. For to the game, and fish, and six-inch-long oysters, the colonists had added swiftly the Indian delicacies, — corn, and liominy,
25
26
PaiLADELPRIA
UNT
A MAP
PHILADELPHIA
A.D. 1682.
Dsmn
OBBBB
IDDD
Donn
DDDD
Donn
innnnnBGDDia
sanDD nnnnr
.^^^^^ IBBBBBBDDDnDDDDDD □□□□□nnDDDCP'^nnnDDnnnncc DDBDnBBBnBELJnDDDDDDCnD
nBDDBnnnnmnBnn
onnGE
JBDDDDBD
DDDDnDnDDDDDDDDOD
ODDD
ODD
and the delicious succotash. Mighty drinkers they were, too, in their own sober fashion, consuming vast quantities of ale and spirits, and making no serious inroads on the " pure and wholesome " water ; although we are gravely assured that particular pumps, one on Walnut Street, and one in Norris Alley, were held in especial favour, as having the best water in the town for the legitimate purpose of boiling greens. The first beer was made from molasses, and we have Penn's assurance that when "well boyled, with Sassafras or Pine infused into it, this is a very tolerable drink," — which we should never have supposed. Rum punch was also in liberal demand ; and, after a few years, the
I
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD 27
thirsty colonists began to brew real ale, and drank it out of deep pewter mugs, such as still adorn the shelves of English rural inns.
It was a community where good wages Avere paid to all Avho toiled honestly with their hands, but where brain workers were not greatly in demand. Farmers and mechanics were made welcome ; " but of lawyers and physicians," writes Gabriel Thomas, " I shall say nothing, because the Country is very Peaceable and Healthy. Long may it so continue, and never have occasion for the Tongue of the one, nor the Pen of the other, both equally destructive to men's estates and lives." We know, alas ! how Bradford, the printer, fared in a town where there was practically nothing to print, yet which had advanced beyond her sister cities in New York, Maryland, and Virginia, by the mere possession of a press. Bradford came to Philadelphia in 1685, struggled for eight years with almanacs and an occasional pamphlet ; and then — Satan finding mis- chief for his idle hands to do — embroiled himself hope- lessly ill religious and political dissensions, which made him an exile for the remainder of his life.
The wages paid to women in the colony were dis- proportionately high, because young girls were sought so eagerly in marriage that female servants were always needed, and always hard to keep. Thomas enthusiasti- cally describes little Philadelphia — then in her seven- teenth year — as a sort of terrestrial paradise, and not
28 PHILADELPHIA
altogether unlike the happy village of the bucolic drama. " Here are no beggars to be seen," he writes, " nor indeed has anyone the least temptation to take up that scandalous, lazy life. Jealousy among men is very rare, nor are old maids to be met with ; for all com- monly marry before they are twenty years of age. The Christian children born here are generally well favoured and beautiful to behold. I never knew any with the least blemish." One is irresistibly reminded, as one reads, of Prester John, and the blameless people whom he ruled. "No vice is tolerated in our land, and, with us, no one lies."
It is but fair to record, however, that the praises of the local historian receive earnest confirmation from at least one stranger whom the perils of the sea had flung upon our hospitable shores. In 1710, Richard Castel- man, having suffered shipwreck on a voyage from Ber- muda, came to Philadelphia, and was so delighted with all he saw that he remained for many months, writing a minute account of his adventures, his " miraculous es- cape," and of the peaceful haven to which the kindly fates had led him. Castleman's eulogiums are as loving and as lavish as those of Gabriel Thomas. He does not even acknowledge that " inconstancy " of the climate which Penn lamented, but stoutly affirms the sky to be " rarely overcast," and the air " so healthy that there is no occasion for physicians, the people finding cures for their accidental diseases by simples." Even the horses
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD 20
are stronger and less liable to sickness than in England. Game of every kind is plentiful throughout the prov- ince, and he particularly admires " a creature called a Possum, tliat has a false belly into which the young retire in time of danger.""
As for the town itself, it is, though not yet thirty years old, " a noble, large, and populous city," having houses "that cost six thousand pounds the building." Here " all religions are tolerated, which is one means to increase the riches of the place " ; here " a journeyman taylor has twelve shillings a week, besides his board " ; and here " even the meanest single women marry well, and, being above want, are above work." "If the dis- tressed people of England knew the comforts of this colony, and the easy means there is of a livelihood, they would never stay where they are, in a continual scene of poverty and misery."
When the days were w^arm, INIr. Castelman was wont to seek recreation in walking "with some of the Town" to Faire Mount, " a charming spot, shaded with trees, on the river Schuylkill " ; and he can find no Avords glowing enough in which to describe the beautiful country that stretched for many miles along the river's bank. Altogether, he is plainly of the opinion that his lines are cast in pleasant places, and it is with keen regret that he meditates a departure from new- found, hospitable friends. "The generosity of the Pliiladelphians is rooted in their natures," he writes
30
PHILADELPHIA
warmly, " for it is the greatest crime among them not to show the utmost civility to strangers ; and if I were obliged to live out of my native country, I should not long be puzzled in finding a place of retirement, which should be Philadelphia. There the oppressed in fort-
r*ii>.'
" ALONG THE RIVBK'S BANK "
une or principles may find a happy Asylum, and drop quietly to their graves without fear or want."
The " well-favoured " Christian children born in this peaceful community had their young lives saddened by being sent as regularly and pitilessly to school as if merry England had been their home ; for the Quaker colonists were equally averse to extremes of ignorance or of erudition. Before Philadelphia was five years of
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD 31
age she had her first institution of learning, a very small and humble one, kept by Enoch Flower, whose modest charges varied with the amount he was expected to impart. For four shillings a quarter, the child was taught to read ; for six shillings, to read and write ; for eiglit shillings, to read, write, and cast accounts. Beyond these standard accomplishments. Master Flower wisely declined to lead his little flock. In 1G89 the Friends established their grammar school, and placed George Keith, a Scotch Quaker, at its head. His salary was a good one : fifty pounds a year, with dwelling and schoolhouse provided, and twice that sum for two years, if he would consent to teach the children of the poor separately, without charge. There was no royal and smooth paved road to learning in those days. The little scholars took their first reluctant steps along the dismal pathway of the New England Primer.
« In Adam's fall, We sinned all.
" Job feels the rod, Yet blesses God.
" Xerxes the great did die, And so must you and I."
After weary weeks spent in grappling with this theo- logical alphabet, — during which they freely shared Job's privilege, — the reward of actually learning to read was the cheerless history of John Rogers, burned
S2 PHILADELPHIA
at the stake for heresy, while the pathetic picture of his wife with "nine small children, and one at the breast," added unutterable gloom to the narrative.
George Keith, waxing fat in the fulness of his salary, proved himself a troublesome colonist. Like a true Scottish " unco gude," he felt the piety of his neighbours to be of an inconsistent and unsatisfactory character ; so founded his own little sect of " Christian Quakers," thus relegating his former brethren into the darkness of heathenism, an innuendo which they were not slow to resent. The schoolmaster was accused in Meeting of " enmity, wrath, self -exalt at ion, contention, and jan- gling," — a long indictment, — and also of making the Friends whom he reviled " a scorn to the profane, and the song of the drunkards," the meaning of which words they probably understood. After much animated quarrelling he returned to England, abandoned the Quaker creed, took orders in the Anglican church, and became Penn's most bitter opponent, arousing by every means in his power that sharp animosity which led to the Proprietor's being temporaril}^ deprived of his prov- ince. In return, Keith has been roundly abused by Voltaire, who condescended to pelt his insignificance into notice. " The wretch was doubtless possessed of the devil, for he dared to preach intolerance," said the great Frenchman, — himself the most genuinely intol- erant of mortals.
After the departure of this Scottish firebrand from
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD
33
Philadelphia, the .little grammar school flourished bravely under the care of less pharisaical masters, and the system of education organized by the Friends has been eminently successful for more than two hundred years. Like the Jesuits, — in this regard if in no other, — they have shown exceptional skill in teaching and controlling the young.
>a^.
vu;l'V;i^5^^
"the mkkting-house '
Side by side with the schoolhouse arose the meeting- house, the church, and the prison, amply providing for the needs of all classes of society. For twelve years an ordinary frame dwelling was the only jail the town possessed, and it was oftenest empty. Indeed, the prison at Third and High streets was never finished
34 PHILADELPHIA
and placed at the disposal of criminals until 1723 ; but in the interval they found both public and private accommodation. " A cage seven foot high, seven foot long, and seven foot broad" was constructed for the evil-doer, who dwelt temporarily therein, like a monkey at the Zoo; being taken out with due formality to be "smartly whipped," — perhaps for selling drink to Indians, perhaps for watering the white man's rum, both of them offences of which the law took especial cognizance. Twenty shillings was the fine imposed for working on the Sabbath day, ten shillings for being drunk on the Sabbath day, and twelve pence for smok- ing upon the streets on any day of the week. In 1702 George Robinson, a butcher, was fined for "uttering two very bad curses " ; and, for presenting a paper which was deemed disrespectful to the Council, An- thony Weston was whipped in the market-place three days, receiving but ten lashes each day, thus suffering as much ignominy and as little pain as could be easily held together. It is well to remember, however, that these public whippings were charged for at the exor- bitant rate of six shillings each, and that the offender was compelled to pay for the unwelcome service done him, — a touch of ironical thrift which fully justifies Lamb's admiration for the latent humour of Quakers. Could Anthony Weston have taken his thirty lashes at once, he would have l)een far easier in his mind, and full twelve shillings richer.
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD 35
As years went by, the criminal code became more severe, and the death sentence, which Penn had allot- ted to murderers only, was inflicted upon counterfeiters and highway robbers. Nor were the colonists dis- posed, like their successors to-day, to wax sentimental over female malefactors. They held women to be as accountable as men before the law, and punished their offences with impartial alacrity. In 1720 John and Martha Hunt were convicted of making counterfeit dollars, and both were promptly hanged, to the unqualified satisfaction of honest and law-abiding citizens.
If real crimes, however, were visited with careful retribution, imaginary ones created but little excite- ment in a community too sane for fanaticism. The Quaker colonist, indeed, devoutly believed in the possibility of witchcraft ; he enacted laws against witches ; but he hanged no witch. The opportunity was given him at the very outset of his career, and he passed it lightly by. In 1683 two Swedish women, Margaret Mattson and Yeshro Hendrickson, were accused of sorcery, Penn presiding as governor at the trial. The prisoners were ready, after the painful fashion of such culprits, to admit their guilt ; but the unmoved Friends declined to credit them with super- natural powers. Tlie verdict was alike in both cases ; vaguely worded, but satisfactory, and a miracle of sturdy common sense. *' Guilty of having the common
36 PHILADELPHIA
fame of a witch, but not guilty in the manner and form as she stands indicted."
This was a heavy blow to would-be warlocks, who found it difficult to thrive in an atmosphere of calm depreciation. They made frantic efforts from time to time, but with no dramatic success. In vain a negro arrogantly announced that he had sold himself to Satan. The colonists prayed over him, and strove with reasonable perseverance to banish the evil spirit ; but they declined to grant him the public honour of a hanging. In vain a white man affirmed that he was to be carried, body and soul, to hell, at six P.M. An idle crowd, foredoomed to disappointment, assem- bled to witness his departure ; but the authorities took no notice of the circumstance, and showed a most mortifying indifference as to whether he went or stayed. Even the phantom coach, which the super- stitious averred was driven by a demon at midnight through the silent Quaker streets, awoke but lanquid curiosity; and little wonder, when we consider how mild was the guilt of its ghostly occupant. " He was deemed," says the old narrative, "to have died with unkind feelings towards one dependent on him." If the town could boast no villain and no villany more picturesquely lurid than this, it had scant right to super- natural honours, to a cavalcade of spectres and evil spirits like the dark procession which bore with dread- ful pomp and rejoicing the soul of the terrible, brave
I
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD 37
old Laird of Lag down to its final doom. The legends which cling so naturally and sympathetically to the blood-stained soil of Scotland seem trivial and pitifully incongruous in the daylight atmosphere of our peaceful and prosperous colony.
The history of Philadelphia's churches is much longer and more disturbing than the history of her crimes and prisons. It is a record of quarrelsome Christian piety, which lacked on the one side the power, and on the other side the desire, to be keenly and consistently intolerant. The Quaker settlers had, indeed, hoped to establish a community where abso- lute freedom of conscience should silence the voice of discord. This was the "Holy Experiment" on which their hearts were set, and in pursuance of this amiable design they forbore, as far as possible, to meddle with any man's religion. Emigrants of every persecuted creed flocked hopefully to the new Ar- cadia. The Mennonites settled in Germantown, and Pastorius the schoolmaster, with wise eloquence and gentle ways, held them aloof from worldlings. The Dunkards joined them" after a few years, and the pretty straggling village with its substantial homes, its roomy gardens, its one long street, bordered by blossoming peach trees, possessed from the very be- ginning a charm which it has never wholly lost. The Moravians who founded Bethlehem made it the garden spot of Pennsylvania, and kept the best inns
38
PHILADELPHIA
— a proud distinction — in the province. Even the devout and mystic hermits, known as the " Society of the Woman of the Wilderness," came gladly over from Germany — which did not at all want them — and settled in the beautiful glades of the Wissa- hickon, where they awaited the coming of the Mil- lennium, and, in the interval, dabbled unmolested in astrology, fortune-telling, and the mildest of mild magic. The Welsh wisely chose the Schuylkill's lovely banks, and built the little church of St. David- at Radnor, ^ two hundred years ago.
^^^l'^^^
ST. DAVID'S AT RADNOR
" Dim and small Is the space that serves for the Shepherd's fold; The narrow aisle, the bare white wall, The pews and the pulpit quaint and tall Whisper and say : ' Alas ! we are old.' " *
Old St. David's." Longfellow.
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD 39
The Roman Catholics, who were well outside the pale of Christian clemency at home, stole over the sea quietly, and in small numbers, to discover whether or not the City of Brotherly Love held any charity for them. Penn's tolerance extended even to the Papacy. He loved and served a Catholic king loy- ally for years, and he was willing enough that Cath- olics should practise their own rites, provided they did so secretly, and in a manner that would give no scandal, and create no disturbance. More than this he had not the power to grant, for any open conces- sions were met by fierce hostility, both at home, where the Anglican party protested with vehemence against such dangerous lenity, and in England, where the old maxim, " Avoid Papishers, and learn to knit," was still held to embody sound morality and wisdom. There is something truly pathetic in the anxious letter which Penn writes from London to James Logan on the subject in 1708. Angry voices are at work maligning the colony, and seeking to bring it into disfavour. "With these is a complaint against your government, that you suffer public Mass in a scandalous manner. Pray send the matter of fact, for ill-use is made of it against us here."
There can be little doubt that for many years be- fore the building of St. Joseph's Church in Willing's Alley, 1733, — a church as carefully hidden away as a martyr's tomb in the Catacombs — the Roman
40 PHILADELPHIA
Catholics worshipped in small chapels which lay often beyond the town limits, and had the outward appear- ance of shops and dwelling-houses. The open appre- hension with which they were regarded by all except the Quakers was destined later to assume odious and terrible proportions ; and among those who helped to fan the flame of mad intolerance was the eloquent and hostile Whitefield, who preached out of doors to vast and eager crowds, — fifteen hundred people as- sembling at a time to hear him. He it was who succeeded in closing for a while ball-room and con- cert hall, and who deprived the good people of Phil- adelphia, not only of all amusements, but of all weak desire to be amused. And he it was who broadened and deepened the breach between Protestantism and Catholicity in the peaceful Quaker town. " He strikes much at priestcraft, and speaks very satiri- cally of Papists," writes Mr. James Pemberton in 1739 ; adding, with the exquisite serenity of the Friend and non-combatant : " His intentions are good, but he has not yet arrived at such perfection as to see so far as he yet may."
An eloquent proof of the ill-will aroused in Eng- land by the repeated protests of the Christ Church party against the tolerance of the proprietary gov- ernment may be found in a letter printed in the "London Magazine," 1737, which charges the growth of Romanism in the province to the weakness and in-
THE (^CAKLU CiYl .S L'lULDllOOD 41
differeiu'o of the Q linkers, and which vehemently demands reform. The letter is brimful of religious wrath, and gives us a very accurate idea of how gossip travelled in those tardy days.
"As I join with you about the Quakers," writes this devout correspondent, " I shall give you a small specimen of a notable step taken towards the Propagation of Popery abroad ; and as I have it from a gentleman who has lived for many years in Pennsylvania, I confide in the truth of it ; let the Quakers deny it if they can. In the Town of Phil- adelphia, in that Colony, is a Publick Popish Chapel, where that Religion has free and open exercise ; and in it all the superstitious Rites of that Church are as avowedly performed as those of the Church of England are in the Royal Chapel at St. James. And this Chapel is open, not only upon Fasts and Festivals, but it is so all day, and every day in the week, and exceedingly frequented at all Hours, either for publick or private devotion. . . . That these are Truths, (whatever use you are pleased to make of them) you may at any time be satisfied by any Trader or Gentleman who has been there within a few years, (except he be a Quaker) at the Caro- lina and Pennsylvania Coffee-House, near the Royal Exchange."
Little did it profit the Friends to be so peacefully in- clined towards every Christian creed, when their neigh-
42 PHILADELPHIA
bours repudiated with scorn this policy of concession. The Rev. Colin Campbell, secretary of the " London Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," complains bitterly in one of his reports that Quakerism in Pennsylvania is but a " nursery of Jes- uits " ; and the Rev. John Talbot, who held for years the same pious post, accuses Penn openly of being " a greater Antichrist than Julian the Apostate, inasmuch as instead of striving to convert the Indians to the faith, he labours to make Christians heathens, and proclaims liberty and privileges to all that believe in one God,''
Among the hosts of emigrants who flocked from the Old World to try their fortunes in the New, the Scotch- Irish Presbyterians had least patience with the gentle tolerance of the Quakers whom they regarded with un- concealed aversion and contempt. Men of brawn and muscle were these Scotch-Irish colonists, strong of pur- pose, steadfast in action, brave, thrifty, and intelligent ; but, on the other hand, quarrelsome, arrogant, and ex- ceedingly hostile to the Indians, whom they promptly antagonized by rough treatment, and to whom they showed scant equity, and scantier compassion. It be- came, in time, a difficult matter to keep the peace with savages, perpetually angered by encroachments and high-handed injustice.
The two most interesting places of worship now standing in Philadelphia are Christ Church and Gloria
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD
43
^y-'
OLOSIA DKI
44
PHILADELPHIA
Dei, — the first because of the important part it has played in the history of the colony, and the second because of its old age and curious associations. Five years before Penn sent his first ships over the sea, the pious Swedes had established a congregation, and met for service in a rude blockhouse, built of logs, and pierced with narrow loopholes, through which attacking Indians might be spied and shot. On the site of this primitive chapel they built in 1700 a brick church, costing twenty thousand Swed- ish dollars, which, at the time, was deemed " a great edifice, and finest in the town." Poor and few as were these simple wor- shippers, they gave fifteen thou- sand dollars before the first stone was laid in place ; and, with that laudable shrinking from debt which has ceased to harass the modern church builder, they left the belfry unfinished, " in order to see whether God will bless us so far that we may have a bell, and in what manner we can procure it." The antique marble font of Gloria Dei was once the sole adornment of the blockhouse chapel, and in the graveyard which surrounds its venerable walls are huddled close together mouldy and crumbling tomb-
" THE ANTIQUE FONT
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD 45
stones, from many of which the wind and weather have worn away all records of the forgotten dead. We read on one the name of a little child who died in 1708, nearly two centuries ago, when Anne ruled over Eng- land, and Marlborough carried the might of English arms past the Flemish frontier into France.
A keener and more combative interest attaches itself to Christ Church, which was for many years the sole rallying point of the Anglican party, a church militant in a peaceful community, and a standing peril to the dominant Quaker power. Its congregation, small in numbers, was strong in intelligence, in sustained hos- tility, and in the support of the English government. It was natural that such men should find much to anger them in the new province. They had expected the Quakers to claim complete tolerance for their own wor- ship, and they were prepared to concede as much with a good grace ; but they had never anticipated this strange, serene, perverse colony, where all creeds were on an absurdly equal footing, and where the time-hon- oured privilege of snubbing dissenters and persecuting Papists was rigorously denied them. English clergy- men, keenly alive to their distinction in representing the great National Establishment, were little disposed to receive poor Francis Pastorius, or Count Zinzendorf, the Moravian bishop, or even the Rev. Henry Mel- chior MuhlenLerg, pastor of the German Lutherans, as brothers in Christ. From the very beginning they and
46 PHILADELPHIA
their parishioners held themselves stanchly aloof, a small, compact, able, antagonistic body of men ; and, as a first step towards concentration and influence, they built a church which, for the time and place, must always be regarded as a marvel of extravagance and beauty.
Now church building was no easy task in colonial days, when fortunes were few, and men were reluctant to part with hard-earned gains. The present edifice, old though it be, — as we count age in the New "World, — replaced a still more ancient structure which for thirty-five years harboured the little congregation. Perhaps the second church would never have seen com- pletion, had it not been for the ever popular device of lottery tickets, by help of which our unscrupulous an- cestors reared most of their important public buildings. Two lotteries were projected by the vestry of Christ Church, the tickets for each selling at four dollars apiece. One of them, known as the " Philadelphia Steeple Lottery," was drawn as late as March, 1753, and paid for the steeple, nearly twenty years after the body of the church was built. Within its walls gener- ations of Philadelphians knelt to pray ; and from its vestry and congregation issued those endless petitions to the Privy Council which kept the colony in a state of perpetual agitation and alarm. Four times in sev- enty years the crown was urged to compel the Quaker Assembly to place the province in a state of defence
TUB QUAKER CITY'S CUILDHOOD
47
CHBI8T CHUaCH
48 PHILADELPHIA
against pirates and Indians, — a reasonable request ; and four times in seventy years it was urged to force upon the Quaker magistrates such oaths of office as were customary and obligatory in England, — an utterly unreasonable request, having for its aim and object nothing less than the exclusion of Friends from the Assembly, and from all positions of trust in a colony which owed to them its existence, its prosperity and peace. The Anglicans in the heat of their resentment did not hesitate to petition the King to dispossess the Proprietor, to dissolve the existing government, and to rule Pennsylvania as a royal province. In fact, they were as willing at one time to relinquish their charter, and with it their colonial rights, as they were deter- mined a few years later to protect and cherish both. The ardent churchman felt no sacrifice too great for the coveted privilege of correcting his neighbour's mis- demeanours.
An occasional success crowned these untiring efforts. After the accession of William and Mary, and the passing of what, by an exquisite stroke of irony, was called the Toleration Act, the vestry of Christ Church petitioned the Privy Council, through Colonel Quarry, to impose the "Test" upon all who wished to hold office, or worship publicly in Pennsylvania. The Coun- cil yielded to this demand, and a congregation of five hundred souls succeeded for a time in saddling the whole province with one of those petty exactions,
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD 49
harmless enough in itself, — as the only class it really iiijuied were the Roman Catholics, and they were too few for consideration, — but opposed to the broad- minded, tolerant spirit of the colony, and sufficiently annoying to keep a peace-loving population in a state of ill-humour and disquiet.
It must be frankly admitted, however, that this combative little church held within itself a large pro- portion of Philadelphia's ability, energy, and learning. As time went on, both the proprietors and governors of Pennsylvania added the weight of their influence to the Anglican party, in a ceaseless conflict with the Quaker Assembly, which held its own for nearly a hundred years by the simple and time-honoured device, dear to the Anglo-Saxon heart, of granting or with- holding supplies. Nothing could wrench from it the power of the purse, and nothing could long survive the closing of the purse-strings. Even the governors who came over from England with sovereignty in their hearts, and sealed letters of instruction in their pockets, found it more or less difficult to maintain the dignity of their position when the Assembly paid them no salaries ; and, after a year or two of high-handed autocracy, they were glad to temporize with the im- perturbable Friends for the sake of a necessary income.
No such humiliation as this befell the Christ Church rectors. Their stout-hearted congregations supported them liberally, and found money to spare for Intel-
50 PHILADELPHIA
lectual, as well as for spiritual and political requisitions. When Franklin conceived his plan for organizing the " College and Academy of Philadelphia," he found the assistance he needed in the Anglican party ; four- fifths of the college trustees were church members ; and the Rev. William Smith — one of the most able, irascible, and contentious men in the community, with whom Franklin was destined to have many a quarrel — was elected the first head-master. When the hostile French and Indians threatened the safety of the province, it was Christ Church again which main- tained the duty of a defensive — which rabidly be- came an offensive — warfare ; and Dr. Smith preached from its pulpit eight rousing military sermons, well calculated to increase the general discontent at the moderate measures of the Assembly. As usual, too, the Christ Church vestry, aided and abetted by the vestry of St. Peter's, which by this time had taken up its share of the dispute, petitioned the crown to exclude all non-resident Quakers from the legislative body, — a petition which was wisely ignored.
Finally, when the coming Revolution cast its signifi- cant shadow on the colony, the Anglicans, while always hoping for peace, remonstrated clearl}^ against the in- justice of the Stamp Act, and the impolicy of con- cessions to England. If they paused on the brink of open rebellion, it was through conservatism and not cowardicCo Three of the sigliers of the Declaration
THE QUAKER CITY'S CHILDHOOD
51
of Independence, — Franklin, Robert Morris, and Hop- kinson, — were Christ Church pew-holders ; and it was immediately determined to drop from the service the long familiar prayer for the King and the Royal Family. With the departure of that prayer, the politi- cal importance of the church ceased forever. Severed from the great English Establishment, it stood politi- cally on a par with every sectarian chapel in the land. The old order had passed away, and the new order concerned itself but little with doctrines and dogmas. No mt)re Tests ! No more petitions to the Privy Coun- cil ! Only an intellectual supremacy remained, and that was soon to be disputed by rival creeds. The clergy, the vestry, the congregation of Christ Church recognized clearly what the Revolution was to cost them. They did not long hesitate to sacrifice their own interests to the wider, greater, nobler needs of a country which demanded to be free.
CHAPTER IV
THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM PENN
"FN 1699 Penn returned to Philadelphia, and was welcomed with enthusiasm by the city, now nine- teen years old, and rapidly outgrowing her pretty primitive simplicity. Much had happened to her Quaker Founder in the last fifteen years, much that has no place in this New World chronicle, though it may be read with interest by those who love to follow a brave man through the intricacies and fatal fortunes of life. The accession of James II. placed Penn in a position of trust and influence at court, for the King had always regarded him and his sober followers with favour ; and one of the first acts of the new reign was the remission of the penalties imposed upon all who had refused to take the oath of allegiance, by which royal clemency more than twelve hundred Quakers were immediately released from prison. The faithful service rendered by Penn to the monarch who had befriended him from boyhood has been made the subject of much invidious and foolish criticism. Ma- caulay, whose attitude towards any adherent of the Stuarts resembles Voltaire's attitude towards Habak-
52
I
THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM PENN 63
kuk, has not hesitated to accuse the courtly Quaker of more than one harsh deed ; and though none of these accusations rest upon convincing authority, and most of them rest upon no authority whatever, there lingers in many minds a vague impression that Penn was at heart a time-server and a worldling. Even Mrs. Oliphant wonders with pious scorn, how a man who professed sanctity could obey a master so palpably imperfect as James, as though it were possible, under any form of government, to make character the condi- tion, of our obedience and our service to those who rule the land.
More dispassionate minds will find in the strange in- congruous friendship something equally creditable to king and subject. James held tKis gentle yet outspoken follower at his true worth, and many gracious deeds were the result of his influence and intercession. Penn's loyal heart found little to forgive. The King's Catholicity troubled him not at all, for in his serene breadth of mind he saw no reason why even a monarch should not cherish his own faith, an idea which had not then dawned upon the civilized world, and whicli has made but little headway in the intervening years. He believed James to be sincere — albeit sincerity was not a Stuart failing — and he had a grateful affection for the morose man who won so little love. The revolu- tion of 1689 brought him serious disaster, and was full of evil omens for the Quakers who clung to him as
54 PHILADELPHIA
their leader and support. He found himself an object of deep suspicion at court, was accused before the Privy Council of treasonable correspondence with the exiled King, and was promptly deprived of his pro- prietary rights. Disgraced, poor, well-nigh friendless, separated from his wife, who died before his restoration to favour, he bore this sharp reversal of fortune with unalterable patience and composure. It was not until England had grown calm again, and had reconciled herself sagaciously, though with no lively satisfaction, to the great and wise and disagreeable prince whom she had invited to her throne, that Penn was able to prove his absolute innocence. He had loved and served James. He neither loved nor wished to serve William. But his creed forced him to play a passive part in these strange shifting scenes which changed the destinies of nations, and made even his own little life the sport and plaything of conflicting fates.
When, after years of trouble and disrepute, the sun of royal favour shone faintly upon him once again, and the government of Pennsylvania was restored to his hands, he resolved to return to the province, which had been but little disturbed by the mighty changes at home. The flight of James and the accession of William had, in fact, made no particular impression apon the colonists, who paid scant heed to the start- ling news, but waited without impatience for further developments. James, they considered, might come
THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM PENN 55
back, and the Prince of Orange might fly in his turn. Neither possibility interested them very profoundly. Those were happy days, when the serenity of one hemi- sphere was not at the mercy of daily despatches from the other. Nine months passed before the new reign seemed so reasonably secure, that, in tardy little Phila- delphia, William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of England.
In matters nearer home, however, the colony was as actively contentious as its neighbours, and even across the ocean there had reached Penn's ears the echoes of constant strife. " For the love of God, of me, and of the poor country," we find him writing to Lloyd, "be not so governmentish, so noisy and open in your dissat- isfaction." He had failed to realize, amid the cares and dangers that beset his path in England, how in far-away Pennsylvania there was growing with every year a spirit of strong and bitter opposition to his proprietary powers. He thought that all would be well when he was with his own people once again ; but scarcely had the words of welcome which greeted his return to Philadelphia died away, when the struggle began which in two years left little of his cherished laws, or of his old authority. The Assembly was ready enough to assist him in the suppression of smuggling and piracy, which lawless but profitable professions had grown to scandalous magnitude. On other points they met his wishes with steady resistance, and the Christ Church
56
PHILADELPHIA
party, under the leadership of Robert Quarry, Judge of the Admiralty, grew more hostile every month. Penn took up his quarters for the winter in the Slate Roof House ; but at the earliest approach of spring he went gladly to Pennsbury, which had been furnished with a degree of elegance hitherto unknown to the colony.
" THE SLATE ROOF HOUSE
Turkish tapestry and satin hangings covered the bare white walls, the first carpet carried over the ocean adorned the drawing-room floor, silver and glass sparkled on the massive sideboard. Outside there were lawns and terraces, made with infinite pains, to give the house some sweet resemblance to an English country liome, and endear it in the sight of wife and child ; for Penn had married a second time, and his
k
THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM PENN 57
family accompanied him now to the strange New Woild, and liked it very little when they got there.
The successor of poor Gulielma Maria, who had es- caped forever from careless servants and encroaching friendships, was a '' devout and comely maiden," Han- nah Callowhill, the daughter of a Bristol merchant. Her letters, which have been ardently recommended as profitable reading for the young, show her to have been a woman of force and character, well fitted for the serious cares of life, and for the important part she was destined to play in the history of the province. She had three sons, one of whom, John Penn, was born in Philadelphia, and was commonly called " the American," though he did as little as possible to merit the title, or to make it an honourable distinction. "A lovely babe," writes Isaac Norris, with breathless enthusiasm, in 1701, " and has much of his father's grace and air, and hope he will not want a good portion of his mother's sweetness, who is a woman extremely well- beloved here, exemplary in her station, and of an excel- lent spirit, which adds lustre to her character, and has a great place in the hearts of good people."
Penn's only daughter, Letitia, and his scapegrace son, William, the children of his first wife, had accompanied him to the colony, and Letitia's discontent and home- sickness fully equalled her stepmother's. The "fair mansion house " seemed but a desolate dwelling-place to these sedate Englishwomen, who never learned to
58
PUILADELPHIA
love such unaccustomed freedom, and never ceased to fear the silent forest that surrounded them, nor the "insolent bears and painted savages" that roamed — most uncongenial neighbours — through its sombre
depths. Yet Penn maintained the dignity of his position in a manner that might well have satisfied, and even daz- zled, the Bristol merchant's daughter. Four horses drew his state coach bumping and jolting over the rough, ill-made road from Penns- bury to Philadelphia ; eight oarsmen rowed his barge when he took the smoother waterway. The colonists were impressed, amused, or exasperated, according to their dispo- sitions, by all this for- mality and display; but even those who least loved the Proprietor were com- pelled to admit that his was a nature broad enough to understand the needs of a community, and generous enough to begrudge neither labour nor wealth when the happiness of the people was at stake. Penn, like Washington, was a slaveholder, and, like Washington,
PENN S DESK
THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM PENN 59
he treated his slaves with uniform kindness and human- ity. He even urged upon the Assembly a bill obliging all colonists to instruct their negroes in Christian truths; and while the Quakers, as a rule, made but little effort to convert the Indians about them, they gave to the savages a rare example of that seldom seen Christianity which consistently practised wliat it preached.
Meanwhile the town grew and prospered. Active measures were taken against the pirates who swarmed along the coast, — unmitigated ruffians for the most part, who had no wrongs to avenge like Kingsley's warm-hearted and sentimental "Buccaneer"; but who robbed honest men, and assaulted honest women, and dishonoured the very seas over which their black crafts sailed. The commerce they had blocked was once again resumed. Emigration increased almost too rap- idly, people thought, for the welfare of the colony. It is curious to hear, echoed from the very begin- ning of the eighteenth century, the same apprehen- sive whispers that now disturb our peace. James Logan, who came to the province as Penn's secretary in 1699, an 1 who was for many years the best, the most loyal, and the most capable public servant that Pennsylvania possessed, wrote doubtfully, after thirty years of experience : "It looks as if Ireland is to send all its inhabitants hither. The common fear is that if they continue to come, they will make them-
60 PHILADELPHIA
selves masters of the place. It is strange that they thus crowd where they are not wanted."
Not very strange, for the land was fertile and the country was at peace, a peace to be broken and lost before many years had passed through the harshness and arrogance of these same Scotch-Irish emigrants, who tilled the soil with splendid industry, and an undeviating indifference as to its rightful ownership. In 1701 Penn was recalled to England by a fresh danger. Parliament was considering a bill for the purchase by the crown of all proprietary rights ; and to defend both the independence of the province and his own peculiar claims became the immediate duty of the governor. Before he left Philadelphia, the Assembly, ever prompt to secure an advantage, obtained the Charter of Privileges, which gave it the power to originate its own measures, and left to Penn, of all his old authority, little but empty hon- ours, and the quit-rents, which were destined in the coming years to enrich his children and his chil- dren's children "beyond the dreams of avarice," as the story books phrase it, though never beyond their own avaricious desires.
Hannah Penn and Letitia rejoiced openly at this chance of returning to England ; but Gulielma Maria's son was left in the colony, where it was hoped he would gain steadfastness of purpose, and propriety of behaviour. " Weigh down his levities, temper his re-
I
THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM PENN 61
sentments, and inform his understanding," wrote Penn to Logan who remained as Hamilton's provincial sec- retary, and upon whose capable shoulders fell a heavy burden of cares. The young man's resent- ments and levities, however, so far outweighed his understanding that no balance of sanity could be struck, and his riotous conduct sorely scandalized the quiet Quaker community. His father meanwhile set- tled once more into his old familiar life, became rather a favourite of good Queen Anne's, succeeded in checking the bill for the purchase of proprietary rights, and spent much time at court, very pleasantly and profitably, until overtaken by the serious finan- cial trouble which shadowed and saddened his old age. Many causes contributed to this disaster. The difficulty of collecting quit-rents, the extravagance of his dissolute son, and the greed of his parsimonious son-in-law, William Aubrey, — "a scraping man," says Penn with his usual felicity of phrase, who compelled the prompt payment of Letitia's portion when so large a sum could hardly be raised without ruin. Above all, an unjust steward — that character as well known in the eighteenth Christian century as in the first — completed the work of destruction, and forced Penn to live for many months within the confines of the Fleet prison.
It is not pleasant for us to contemplate the founder of our Keystone State, the founder of our Quaker
62 PHILADELPHIA
City, pent up in a London jail. It is not pleasant for us to remember that Robert Morris, who poured out his wealth like water for the support of our en- dangered commonwealth, was left to lie unhelped and unheeded in a debtor's prison. It is never pleasant to realize that every page of history is but a monot- onous illustration of TourguenefP's savage satire, a monotonous repetition of that pitiless scene, where, the virtues being gathered together in the azure halls, it is discovered that Benevolence and Grati- tude have never met before. Even in England and in France, the spectacle of Penn's misfortunes could not long be endured with equanimity, and his own unbroken courage heightened the feeling of sympathy and of resentment. A compromise was finally ef- fected, money was raised by the English Quakers for his release, and the man to whom had been granted absolute rights over vast and unknown terri- tories, was permitted to enjoy once more the fields and the skies of his native land. He rented a mod- est country house in Buckinghamshire, and the re- mainder of his life — until paralysis clouded his understanding — was spent quietly, though with little joy, for ever and again some fresh contention with the province disturbed his peace of mind. His last sad, serious letter to the colonists shamed them into an outburst of love and loyalty which came too late for comfort. He died in 1718, being seventy-four
THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM PENN 63
years old ; and his most sincere mourners were found, neither in London nor in Phihidelpliia, but in those trackless forests where tlie Indians — whose friends had been but few — still cherished and hon- oured the memory of the "white truth-teller." They sent gifts of skins over the sea to his widow, and bewailed in savage fashion around their camp-fires " the man of treaties unbroken, and friendships inviolate."
Calumny, which loves a shining mark, has never been sparing of her favours to William Penn. Many are the arrows she has winged ; many are the accusa- tions she has reiterated. In his own day he was denounced by sturdy Protestants as a concealed Papist, by angry Whigs as a rebel at heart, and by clamorous preachers as a Jesuit in disguise, which last accusation might have been spared a man who had two wives and five children. He offended world- lings by his Quaker creed, which to them was mere hypocrisy, and he scandalized the righteous by his association with courts and courtiers. His personal charm is vouched for by no less censorious a critic than Swift, who says that he spoke "very agreeably, and with much spirit." In 1710, Swift writes to Stella that he met at Mr. Harley's, "Will Penn the Quaker," and that they passed a lively evening, being exceedingly well entertained by one another. "We sat two hours, drinking as good wine as you
u
PIIILADELPIIIA
do," adds the great churchman with unwonted amia- bility ; and it is perhaps the strongest proof of Penn's lovableness that, . after drinking good wine with him for two hours at night. Swift has the next morning no word of dispraise for his companion.
LOGAN ARMS
CHAPTER V
HOW THE QUAKER CITY GREW
rFlIIE death of William Penn closes one period of Philadelphia's history. His proprietary rights passed to his widow, for the worthless son did not long, survive his father, and Hannah Penn's children were still minors, under her exclusive guardianship. She remained in England, and was ably assisted in her cares by Sir William Keith, the governor of the province, a man who behaved with great discretion for years, and then, losing his mental balance under pressure of a too sustained success, quarrelled with Logan, defied the Assembly, and, returning to London, perished miserably in the Old Bailey. He it was who first suggested paper currency to supply the needs of the colony, continually drained of gold by the excess of its imports over its exports, — a dan- gerous measure, but one which, in prudent Quaker hands, succeeded beyond all anticipation. For fifty years the notes never depreciated, and only with the darkening of the revolutionary cloud came their melan- choly and disgraceful downfall. In 1720, Franklin, then a sanguine young man of twenty, who, like other w 06
66 PHILADELPHIA
sanguine young men, believed in cheap money and plenty of it, rushed into the field with a pamphlet on "The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency," which, in the general absence of sounder arguments, created a wide impression, and brought its author into enviable notice. It was, nevertheless, a crude and shallow piece of reasoning, and Franklin in later years clearly recognized its folly. Older and wiser eyes saw, even amid the present prosperity, ominous shadows of trouble to come ; and only three years after the publication of Franklin's glittering generalities, James Logan confessed that his heart was heavy with apprehension. " I dare not say one word against the paper money," he wrote sadly in 1729. " The popular phrensy will never stop till our credit be as bad as in New England, where an ounce of silver is worth twenty shillings of paper. They already talk of making more, and no man dares to stem the fury of the rage. The notion is that while any man will borrow on good security of land, more money should be made for him, without thinking of what value it will be when made. They affirm that, while the security is good, the money cannot fall. The King's own hand should forbid this folly."
For a while, however, and a long while too, all went merrily as wedding bells. The province grew stronger and more populous, the city increased yearly in size and wealth. Luxury and gayety began to manifest
HOW THE QUAKER CITY GREW 67
themselves, and we hear the echo of many an unheeded protest against the insidious encroachments of the world ; against the use of snuff-boxes, for example, and of fans, wliich were carried even to the meeting- house, where they diverted women's minds from "inward and spiritual exercise." As early as 1726 devout female Friends were publicly cautioned against " the immodest fashion of hooped Petticoats," and even against " imitations of them by stiffened or full Skirts, which we take " (very rightly) " to be but a Branch springing from the same corrupt root of Pride." They were also forbidden to wear striped shoes, to lay pleats in their caps, " to cut or draw down their hair on their Foreheads and Temples," or to put aside that badge of demure and domestic womanhood — the apron. Much scandal was given, moreover, by the readiness with which the merry wives of Philadelphia joined in their husbands' comfortable potations. The eighteenth cen- tury was the great drinking era, and our colony fol- lowed in no halting measure the jovial fashions of the day. In 1733 the Pennsylvania Gazette laments that Philadelphia women, " otherwise discreet," instead of contenting themselves with one good draught of beer in the morning, take "two or three drams, by which their appetite for wholesome food is destroyed." Much might be written about the taverns which, from the very beginning, played an important part in this dull, cheerful, prosperous, unplagued colonial life.
68 PHILADELPHIA
Their faded sign-boards swung in every street, and curious old verses, copied by loving antiquarians, still remain to show us what our wise forefathers liked to read. One little pot-house had painted on its board, a tree, a bird, a ship, and a mug of beer, while beneath were these encouraging lines : —
"This is the tree that never grew, This is the bird that never flew, This is the ship that never sailed, This is the mug that never failed."
When the increasing hostility to Great Britain dis- turbed more and more the peacefulness of province and of town, the sign-boards caught the restless tone of discontent, and became belligerent rather than festive and hospitable. A diminutive, one-storied tavern with high pitched roof, near the old Swedes' church, displayed a hen, a brood of young chickens, and an eagle hovering over them with a crown in its beak. Below, in large letters, was this patriotic sentiment : " May the wings of Liberty cover the chickens of Freedom, and pluck the crown from the enemy's head! " — a valiant display of metaphors irre- sistibly suggestive of Elijah Pogram, the immortal, and his eloquent words anent the impetuous Mr. Chollop : *' He is a child of Natur' and a child of Freedom ; and his boastful answer to the Despot and the Tyrant is that his bright home is in the Settin' Sun."
When the colonists began to have sufficient leis-
HOW THE QUAKER CITY GREW
69
I
ure for ennui, the question arose in Pliiladelphia, as in every other community, " What shall we do to be amused?" and the answer was difficult to find. Amusements were held in no great esteem by decorous citizens, and for a while it seemed as if the primitive pastimes of cock-fighting and bull-baiting were the only admissible diversions. Cock-fighting, indeed, was
OLD HOUSE 0^ RACK STKKKT WHARF
SO universally popular, that even in later days when Mr. Whitefield's eloquent preaching had persuaded good Philadelphians to deny themselves the sinful joys of dancing and of music, the personal friends and warm supporters of the uncompromising divine were still as careful as ever in the rearing of their young game-cocks. As for bull-baiting, it held its own until 1820, when Mayor Wharton put an abrupt and final
70 PHILADELPHIA
end to the sport by confiscating the last bull ever seen in a Philadelphia ring.
Occasionally, across the arid waste of dulness, came jugglers and tight-rope dancers, lending to the virtu- ous little town a transient air of excess. In the winter of 1724, a band of these roving acrobats was kindly received by all but the Quaker colonists, and especial favour was shown to a child of seven, " who danced and capered upon the strait roap, to the wonder of all spectators." A few years later, an eight-legged cat was exhibited to the delighted public ; also a moose, (spelled in the old notice, mouse, which is misleading) and " a beautiful creature, but surprising fierce, called a leopard." By the end of the century, our forefathers were still so easily entertained that they manifested wild enthusiasm for the skeleton of a mammoth, which had been found in a marl pit in New York, and which was brought to Philadelphia by the enterprising Mr. Peale, who generously restored all the missing bones ; and it was not until a comparatively recent date that the first waxworks made their appearance, and were greeted with universal enthusiasm.
None of the gracious tolerance manifested for the cock-pit and other virile amusements was shown to the poor actors, wlio from time to time ventured to try their fortunes in the Quaker City. When, in 1749, a little troop of shabby players presented themselves forlornly in an improvised theatre, and gave to Phila-
now THE QUAKER CITY GREW 71
delphia the unsolicited honour of seeing the first Shake- sperian representation in the United States, they were promptly suppressed by active magistrates, as "encour- aging idleness, and drawing great sums of money [?] from weak and inconsiderate persons." The stage, however, in every land and in every century, has been wily enough to present herself at first as a religious and moral teacher, and to gain her first hearing on the score of the good she hopes to do. She is like that adroit demon of Benozzo Gozzoli in the Campo Santo at Pisa, who enters the hermitage disguised as a pil- grim, and, notwithstanding the palpable evidence of horn and hoof, is welcomed joyously by the devout and unsuspicious hermit. In 1754, Hallam's Company from London established themselves modestly in a shop on South Street, obtained with difficulty a license to act for a few months, provided they offered " nothing in- decent or immoral," and proceeded at once to stem the stream of popular disapprobation by distributing on the streets a slender pamphlet, setting forth the harm- less nature of their occupation. The imposing title of this pamphlet ran as follows : —
"Extracts of Several Treatises,
Wrote by the Prince of Conti;
With the Sentiments of the Fathers,
And some of the Decrees of the Councils,
Concerning Stage Plays.
Recommended to tlie Perusal, and Serious Consideration of the
Professors of Cln-istianity, in the City of Philadelphia."
72 PHILADELPHIA
A curious pleading this, to urge against the ill-will of Quakers and Presbyterians who did not, as a rule, concern themselves deeply with the sentiments of the Fathers, or the decrees of the Councils, and for whom the opinions of the Prince of Conti must have carried marvellously little weight. A better argument in behalf of the players was the alacrity with which they gave the proceeds of one night's entertainment to the Charity School that had been established in connection with the newly founded Academy. But even this heavy bribe, which they could so ill afford, failed to soften the spirit of opposition, or to awaken general interest. Few people knew or cared anything about the actor's art ; fewer still could be persuaded that it was a justifiable vocation. Science was much in fashion, thanks to Franklin and his discoveries, and young men of education and leisure preferred, or said they preferred, the lectures of Professor Kinnersly on electricity to the purposeless soliloquies of Hamlet, or the wild ravings of King Richard III. It is to be feared that little, learned Philadelphia was something of a prig, until those gay and graceless days when an English army held her in thraldom, and English offi- cers taught her seductive lessons, in which science and lectures played but scanty parts.
After an absence of five years, the indomitable Hal- lams returned to the citj^ which had welcomed them so coldly, established themselves prudently outside the
HOW THE QUAKER CITY GREW 73
town limits, and printed their play-bills in a wary fashion ; promising as a rule "A Concert of Music," — which sounded harmless — " to be followed by a moral Dialogue on tlie Vice of Gaming," — or any other vice suitable for the occasion. The word '' play " was always religiously omitted from these early notices. We see " Hamlet " and " Jane Shore " described as "moral and instructive Tales"; and sometimes the whole entertainment, "The Fair Penitent," perhaps, and " Miss in her Teens," is mendaciously advertised as a lecture.
Of little avail, however, was all this strategy and subterfuge. Quakers, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Lutherans united their forces to rout from their virtu- ous town these brazen representatives of evil. The urgent petition they addressed to the Assembly set forth in no measured terms the mischief wrought in a peaceful community by " idle persons and strollers, who have come into this province from foreign parts, in the character of players, erected stages and theatres, and thereon acted divers plays, by which the weak, poor, and necessitous have been prevailed on to neglect their industry and labour, and to give extravagant prices for their tickets ; and great numbers of disorderly persons have been drawn together in the night, to the distress of many poor families, manifest injury to this young colony, and grievous scandal of religion, and the laws of the government."
74 PHILADELPHIA
A heavy arraignment against a dozen poor mum- mers, who could plead nothing in their own be- half, save that they were striving to give pleasure and amuse, and whose flimsy pretence of moral instruction was swept away like a cobweb by these vigorous home truths. Philadelphia had all the moral instruction of which she stood in need, with- out any assistance from the stage ; and so lier citi- zens probably felt, for, after a struggle of some months, hostile virtue triumphed signally, — the little playhouse was closed, the plays forbidden, and the dejected actors set forth once more in search of colonies less stanchly wedded to electricity and rectitude.
But not for long. There is a power of resistance in the world, the flesh, and the devil, which the up- holders of morality do not always take sufficiently into account. For seven years the Quaker City waxed fat in uncontaminated goodness, and then the fight with ApoUyon was again renewed, and renewed under ominous disadvantages. Apollyon had built himself a home, a real playhouse this time, albeit a poor, shabby little structure, miserably inadequate to the cause of vice. In this playhouse, long known as the (^Id Southwark Theatre, actors strutted through their nightly parts, Avhile the storm of righteousness rolled unheeded around them ; and to this playhouse was accorded the honour of producing the first
now THE QUAKER CITY GREW 76
American play ever publicly acted in the colonies. A strictly moral drama it was, entitled "The Prince of Parthia," written in deplorable blank verse, and of a dulness so uniform and sustained that even a lecture on electricity must have seemed sprightly by its side. Its author, Thomas Godfrey, was an aspir- ing young watchmaker of Philadelphia, a protege of Franklin ; and he acquired an enviable reputation as a poet in those halcyon days when literary criticism had not yet crossed the Atlantic, and when a book was necessarily a good book, a poem was necessarily a good poem, and a play was necessarily a good play, unless they offended public taste and decency.
Vehement were the remonstrances urged by the elect against the Southwark Theatre, and the sinful diversions it afforded. Play-acting, it was affirmed, was "akin to image-worship," though the connection between the two was not very clearly defined ; and the Assembly was entreated to put an end to this open scandal and iniquity. The Assembly, however, had grown less hostile to the stage, and Governor Penn stoutly refused to interfere with the actors. They were tolerated from year to year, though never assured of protection, and never released from assault. In the Pennsylvania Gazette, Dec. 19, 1768, we find a long communication from a sanctimonious gentle- man, who laments the hold which the theatre has gained upon the public mind. Young people, it
76 PHILADELPHIA
seems, were even guilty of going to the play on nights when they might have gone to church. He himself, so great was the general laxity, had been presented with a box ticket the day before ; but "having no taste for theatrical performances," he had attended religious service instead, and had handed over the ticket to a black servant, whose soul, he plainly considered, could not be easily injured. The negro apparently thought otherwise. "The virtuous slave immediately sold the ticket for half price, and purchased a prayer book with the money. An exam- ple of virtue and religion in a slave, worthy the imi- tation of the greatest ruler upon earth."
It was not until after the Revolution that Phila- delphia— no longer, alas! the Quaker City — ceased to look askance upon the stage. During those brief months in which the English army occupied the town, theatrical representations of every kind became a recognized source of amusement in a community which suddenly, amid dangers, battles, and bank- ruptcy, found out how delightful it was to be amused. The officers of General Howe's staff acted a number of plays in the Southwark Theatre, giving the proceeds always to the soldiers' widows and or- phans. Major Andre and Captain De Lancey achieved especial distinction, not only as comedians, but as scene-painters, costume rs, and property men. The famous drop curtain painted by Major Andre, and
HOW THE QUAKEli CITY GREW
77
representing a waterfall in a forest glade, was held to be a tiiuniph of art. It is described over and over again in contemporary letters as exceedingly
^1^:^^"
^<^>
AN ALLEY
beautiful, and was used with much pride for years, until lost in the burning of the theatre.
Nor were the American officers averse, as a rule, to the seductions of tlie stage. Washington honestly loved a good comedy or a rattling farce, and was
78 PHILADELPHIA
seen more than once in the east proscenium box of the Southwark Theatre, to the disedification of many good citizens. There must have been a sharp strug- gle now and then with deep-rooted prejudice on the one hand, and the respect it was impossible to with- hold from the President, on the other. This conflict of feeling is amusingly apparent in a letter written by Senator Maclay, who, being honoured by a seat in Washington's box, is divided between gratification at the privilege and a strong distaste for the enter- tainment. " The play," he writes, " was the ' School for Scandal.' I never liked it. Indeed, I think it an indecent representation before ladies of character and virtue. The farce that followed was ' The Old Soldier.' The house was greatly crowded, and I thought the players acted well ; but I wish we had seen the 'Conscious Lovers,' or some play that incul- cated more prudential manners."
It must be admitted that Philadelphia had wan- dered far from her early decorum, and the esti- mable "Prince of Parthia," when she sat, smiling and unconcerned, to see the "School for Scandal." The day was fast approaching when the stage, freed from the yoke of the pious oppressor, was to flaunt, a licensed libertine, unmindful of old promises, moral instruction, the decrees of the Councils, and the ad- mirable opinions of the Prince of Conti. For many months the Dramatic Association had striven unceas- g
nO]V THE QUAKER CITY GREW 79
ingly for the repeal of the Act of Prohibition, which liung like the sword of Damocles over each actor's head, blighting his peace of mind, and keeping him up to an uncomfortably rigid standard of ethics. At last, on the second of March, 1789, the efforts of the Association triumphed over all opposition. The obnoxious act was repealed, and the Southwark The- atre was opened "by authority" for the first time since it was built. Polite deceptions were henceforth at an end ; moral dialogues and fictitious lectures ceased to figure on the bills ; a play was a play, and a spade was a spade, for all the emancipated years to come.
CHAPTER VI
THE BIRTH OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY
n~^HERE is an especial charm to the modest student of history in contemplating the little beginnings of big things ; and most big things, whose bigness is of a lasting and satisfying nature, have started on so small a scale that we can afford to feel familiar with them from their birth. It is only in the present day, and only in this impatient western workl, that institutions are expected to spring into existence, as Pallas Athene sprang from the brain of Zeus, vigorous, mature, and
80
BIRTU OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER LITY 81
fully equipped for achievement. An impression pre- vails now among energetic people that a university can be finished oft-hand, and set running like a locomotive. All we need are the stone walls, the apparatus, and money to pay the professors. It is a mere question of steam. But the wise old monk who said to the mag- nificent Medici, " Ah ! Lorenzo, money does not make masters ; masters make money," knew whereof he spoke. Our great, great grandfathers had but little money when they planted the seeds of learning in the infant colonies ; but they gave unstintedly from their narrow resources, and were content that future genera- tions should finish their work, and reap the fulness of their harvest. Two young men, one of them a chemist and one a dentist, called together a few friends in their own walk of life, rented a little room over a milliner's shop, placed in it, with infinite pride, a dozen stuffed birds and a jar or two of reptiles, and met there at night to discuss " the operations of nature," pledging themselves wisely to leave politics and religion entirely out of their debates. From this modest beginning, this insignificant society, sprang the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, the oldest institution of its kind in America, which has borne a part in Arctic expedi- tions, diffused knowledge over the eastern States, and counted among its members the scholars and scientists of the land.
In another small room in Jone's Alley, a few books,
82 PHILADELPHIA
loaned by a club of gentlemen, were kept in three little bookcases for the benefit of members who might wish to consult them, and these three little bookcases cradled the infancy of the Philadelphia Library. The volumes grew so shabby under constant handling that their owners became dissatisfied ; and into the fertile brain of Franklin crept the project of a public library which should differ from all other public libraries, inasmuch as its books should be lent to subscribers, and carried home "into the bosom of private families." Much was hoped for the future, but little was exacted from the present, Franklin being wise enough to recognize the principle of growth. Fifty gentlemen willing to pay forty shillings each were sought for anxiously, but, as they were hard to find, half that number were held to be sufficient for a foundation, and when the Library Company saw itself in possession of forty-five pounds, it determined to send to England for books. With a modesty beyond all praise, the members of the Com- pany acknowledged their unfitness to select these precious volumes, and requested James Logan, "a gentleman of universg,! learning, and the best judge of books in these parts," to make out the necessary list. When the infant library arrived in Philadelphia, — a pedantic and somewhat ponderous infant it proved to be, — the room in Jone's Alley was prepared for its re- ception ; and from there it migrated to an apartment in the State House, and afterwards to Carpenter's Hall.
BIRTH OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 83
The elate directors met at the house of Nicholas Scull, '* who loved books, and sometimes made a few verses," elected a librarian, who only attended twice a week, designed a seal, and passed a resolution, placing their volumes at the disposal of any " civil gentleman " who wished to read them, though only subscribers were per- mitted to carry them away. A public library, it may be observed, was not then intended to provide young women with an inexhaustible supply of novels.
In 1733, Thomas Penn, second son of William Penn and Hannah Callowhill, visited the colony, and the adroit directors presented him with an address, asking his patronage for an institution which was to make Philadelphia "the future Athens of America." His Ex- cellency was not averse to a little well-timed flattery, and was ready to assist inexpensively in moulding an American Athens. He presented to the Library an air- pump, a microscope, and the promise of a lot of land, which was not definitely secured until twenty-four years later. Other gentlemen imitated his generosity, and donated a cabinet of medals, a collection of Indian fish-hooks, some Chinese slippers, the hand of an Egyptian mummy, and various articles of the kind that museums are now expected to accept from any- body who wishes to be rid of them, but which were particularly undesirable in a library which lacked sufficient space for its books. The volumes remained in Carpenter's Hall until after the Revolution, and
84 PHILADELPHIA
were an occasional solace to both the English and American officers, especially when the library-room was used as a hospital. Not a single book, it is said, was lost or mutilated during this period of usurpation, and the soldiers with scrupulous integrity or courtesy paid the customary fee for every work they read.
In 1789 the directors laid the corner-stone of the old library building in Fifth Street, with its curious homely inscription : — .
" Be it remembered
In honour of the Philadelphia youth,
(Then chiefly artificers)
That in MDCCXXXI
They cheerfully,
At the instance of Benjamin Franklin,
One of their number,
Instituted the Philadelphia Library ;
Which though small at first,
Is become highly valuable and extensively useful ;
And which the walls of this edifice
Are now destined to contain and preserve."
In December, 1790, the books were triumphantly carried to this their first real home. A statue of Franklin, executed in Italy, was presented to the Company by Mr. William Bingham, and placed in a niche over the doorway. Tradition says that this statue cost five hundred guineas, and history records that, before it was ordered, a committee of the direc- tors waited upon the illustrious scholar to learn his
BIRTH OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 85
wishes in tlie matter, and reported, to Mr. Bingham that Dr. Franklin desired " a gown for his dress, and a Roman head." The figure was accordingly draped in a toga, after the approved fashion of the eighteenth century, of which St. Paul's in London affords us so many delightful examples, and it looks like a benign old gentleman preparing decorously for his morning bath. It still stands over the portal of the new library building erected in Locust Street, in 1880, when the vast accumulation of books demanded a more spacious habitation.
For the few insignificant volumes in the little room in Jone's Alley have increased and multiplied exceed- ingly. In 1792 the Loganian Library, so called from its founder, James Logan, was added to the collection. In 1869 the bequest of Dr. James Rush placed at the disposal of the Company the beautiful building known as the Ridgway Branch of the Philadelphia Library. In this spacious mansion, stately, remote, and inac- cessible, a hundred thousand volumes repose in dig- nified seclusion. It is a granite mausoleum where knowledge sleeps serenely, unvexed by would-be readers, and the noisy tumult of the world. Far different is the fate of the remaining books which number nearly a hundred thousand more, and which, in the less imposing edifice in Locust Street, are com- paratively at tlie mercy of the crowd. Here, too, may be found a number of interesting historical relics
86
PHILADELPHIA
William Penn's desk, comfortable, commodious, and full of delightful little drawers ; his clock, still bravely keeping time ; Franklin's clock, which is far more ornate and elegant ; and the old in- scribed corner-stone of the Fifth Street Library, which has been care- fully transferred to the new walls. Here, in the words of the devout orni- thologist, Alexander Wilson, we may
" Feast with sages, and give thanks to God ; "
not altogether ignoring our debt of gratitude to the " artificers " of Phila- delphia, who, nearly two centuries ago, planned and plotted, worked and saved, to leave to future generations the little library which, grown into such fair proportions, is an inheri- tance carrying down to us in every volume the wisdom and the good-will of our ancestors.
It is to Franklin that the Quaker City owes her college as well as her books. Indeed, we can no more escape from Franklin when studying the history of Philadelphia, than we can escape from Michelangelo when studying the treasures of Rome or Florence ; and Mark Twain's ribald witticism is as applicable to
d-^ — ^^ — ^^ franklin's clock
BIRTn OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 87
the one case as to the other. Turn where we will, from the homeliest detail of practical life to the sharp strife of politics, the wild flights of philosophy, the freshly opened field of scientific research ; seek where we may for the beginning of everything that is most useful and most highly valued in the Philadelphia of to-day, and we are always confronted by the same ubiquitous figure. It was Franklin who invented the stove which warmed nearly every parlour in the town ; Franklin who invented the lightning-rod which pro- tected nearly every farmhouse in the State ; Franklin who organized the fire companies ; Franklin who started the Philosophical Society ; Franklin who obtained from England a fair taxation of the proprietary estates ; Franklin who pranked it gayly at the French court, flattered by fair women, and cheered by the sapient mob; and Franklin who, alarmed at the ignorance he saw on every side of him, resolved that the sons of Philadelphia citizens should have some higher educa- tion than that afforded them by the admirable but limited training of the Quaker schools.
In 1749, having thought the matter over for several years, he made known his views in a pamphlet entitled "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania." Many of these "proposals," it must be admitted, are of a serenely chimerical order, and suggest the Utopian dreams of Milton, who held that schoolboys should never be permitted to eat their
88 PHILADELPHIA
dinners, uncheered by the ravishment of music. For music, indeed, Franklin cared but little ; and as for dinners, they were to be of Spartan simplicity in the new establishment. " Poor Richard " was not likely
to see the college funds wasted in riotous living. But the school should be surrounded by an orchard and many green meadows ; the students were to learn how to write "a fair hand swiftly"; to acquire a moderate
BlliTll OF LKAliNI.\G IN TUK l^l AhhU ( llY 5'
knowledge of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and kindred subjects ; and to read Pope, Addison, Tillot- son, Algernon Sidney, and a translation of Cato's Letters, by way of acquiring good style and good prin- ciples. On Greek and Latin, alas ! no time was to be wasted, — it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a self-taught man to recognize the value of the classics, — but the grand underlying principle of the institution was that the students were to study nothing, unless they felt impatient to do so. Even a simple matter like geography was not to be essayed, until a familiarity with past events — how acquired we are not told — had awakened in them a desire to know the position and extent of countries where such events had taken place. Education, which hitlierto had meant the goading on of reluctant youth, was now at last to assume its true character, — a free and J03-0US pursuit of knowledge, of such knowledge, at least, as the Philadelphia lads deemed it incumbent to acquire.
The breadth and depth of Franklin's theories did not for one moment interfere with his severely practical plans for the establishment and support of the Academy. The subscription he set on foot for this purpose met with extraordinary success, the number of students increased rapidly, and the trustees acquired for very little money the great barn-like building on Fourth Street that had been erected for the benefit of
90 PHILADELPHIA
the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, after he had alienated the affections of his brother clergymen by passing " unwar- rantable sentences on men, as if he were the supreme Judge," — a habit ill calculated to promote charity and good-will. The selection of the Rev. William Smith for provost was due largely to another pamphlet — pamphlets carried wondrous weight in those colonial days — which that ardent young Scotchman had pub- lished a year or two before, and in which he gave his views upon the training and education of youth. Dr. Smith's literary methods were not wholly Unlike those of our modern social reformers. Instead of dry, logi- cal arguments, he contented himself with a lively description of an imaginary and ideal institution, the " College of Mirania," in which lads were taught, somewhat after the " Harry and Lucy " fashion, every- thing that mortal man could learn. Physics and fencing, mechanics and agriculture, the philosophy of politics and practical farming, — nothing came amiss to the Miranian youths, and nothing sated their inex- haustible thirst for information. Franklin, who knew most things himself, and saw no reason why other men should not know them too, was enchanted with the pamphlet, and eager to secure the services of its author. The trustees shared his enthusiasm, without his know- ledge to excuse it ; Smith was summoned from New York to Philadelphia ; and — if we may trust the cur- riculum of the infant college which embraces every art
b
BIRTH OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 91
and every science — the theories of Mirania were put as far as possible into practice.
The wisdom of Providence, however, has placed an insurmountable barrier between such theories and their accomplishment, in the steady, wholesome resistance of the average boy, who can be trusted impli-
e'JbNWu • • • . 1
" WOODLANDS "
After an old painting
citly to protect himself from the perils of over- instruction. Girl students are led with dangerous ease over the thorny paths where knowledge stalks unchecked ; but the stolid sanity of the boy stays his footsteps in good time, and frequently a little earlier than need be. The lads who thronged with cheerful tumult and confusion into the old collegiate
92 PHILADELPHIA
rooms on Fourth Street resembled but indifferently their Miranian models, and learned only as much of the abundance that was offered as it was wise and well for them to know.
It seemed inevitable that the college, though priding itself originally on its purely liberal basis, should gravitate towards the Episcopal and proprietary party. Where should it have turned, if not to its friends and supporters? The Penns, recognizing it as an able ally, gave liberally out of their abundance to its needs ; and when Dr. Smith went to England to collect funds, he naturally addressed himself to digni- taries of his own church. The long list of clergymen, bishops, archbishops, and peers who swiftly responded to his appeal, proves the generous interest taken by the English establishment in the little colonial college ; and the great universities of England held out helping hands to their small sister over the seas, who was battling against heavy odds for life.
For the Quakers were disposed to look askance upon Mirania, and the learned Dr. Smith, being the most belligerent of men, took infinite pains to arouse their resentment and animosity. After Braddock's defeat had awakened Pennsylvania to a sense of mingled shame and apprehension, he published two pamphlets, charging the Assembly with supine cow- ardice and neglect of its duties. The Indian massa- cres, in his opinion, were due wholly to the Quakers
BIRTH OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 93
and their abominable religion, which left the prov- ince at the mercy of savages. It would be well, he gently asserted, to stamp this religion from the face of the earth, and to drive the Quakers from their places of authority, — or, if necessary, cut their throats. These Rienzi-like sentiments from a young man of twenty-nine were hardly calculated to soften the hearts of his opponents ; and when he followed them up by enthusiastically supporting the seditious utterances of William Moore, the Assembly exerted its "tyrannous power," and clapped him into jail for libel.
This was a serious drawback to the prosperity of the college, but a magnificent opportunity for the warlike and oratorical provost. He made the most of it ! The day of his trial was one of profound and delightful excitement. Dr. Smith in heroic periods defied the Assembly, refused to retract his statements, demanded a writ of habeas corpus^ and swore that he would appeal to the crown. Storms of applause greeted him from his friends ; but the unmoved Assembly remanded him to prison, where he remained, at some inconvenience to himself and others, for eleven weeks. The trustees of the college ordered that his classes should attend him there at their usual hours, and the enthusiastic students had the supreme felicity of swarming into the jjiil, and manifesting the exuberance of their zeal. It was a
94 PHILADELPHIA
trifle demoralizing perhaps, and hardly conducive to the calm acquisition of knowledge ; nothing of the kind had ever happened in Mirania ; but for pure enjoyment it surpassed any diversion offered to the Miranian youths.
The provost wrote joyously to the Bishop of Lon- don that his cell was crowded with visitors from morning to night, and that he transacted there all the important business of the college. In fact, those who suffer persecution for justice' sake do not always have to wait for another world in which to meet with their reward. They are apt to get a large in- stalment of it here. Love and fame stand at the martyr's door. An interesting young woman gave her heart to the captive scholar, and promptly mar- ried him. When released from prison for the second time, for he had been rearrested after his first dis- charge, he sailed for England, and was received with that sympathy and admiration which every nation is so swift to manifest for another nation's ill-used patriots. The Church recognized in him a champion of the faith whom the tyrannous Quakers had sig- nally failed to subdue. Oxford and Aberdeen granted him degrees. London gave him dinners and applause. His appeal to the Privy Council met with supreme success. The Assembly was censured for its uncon- stitutional disregard of a subject's rights and privi- leges, and, when Dr. Smith returned to Philadelphia,
BIRTH OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 95
it was as a justified and triumphant man. The epi- sode had sadly disturbed the serenity and the utility of the college ; but it brought unqualified satisfac- tion to the provost, and heartened him for fresh crusades.
It was a period of strange hostilities. The vain attempt to abolish the proprietorship left the province sullen and disturbed. The coming of the Revolution threw its mighty shadow over the hearts of men, and they wrangled bitterly, filled with mistrust and anger. In the first meetings held by prominent citizens of Philadelphia to express sympathy for poor locked-up Boston, we find the college provost emphatically assert- ing the indefeasible right of the colonies to vote their own supplies, — a right which they would never aban- don. His seemed a voice destined to uphold the cause of freedom, and help an injured people to rebel ; but the overwhelming speed with which rebellion, once set going, advanced, disconcerted him, as it did many older and wiser men. The college, moreover, was closely bound to England by ties of creed, by gratitude for favours given, and by that reverent admiration which every little, but right-thinking, school feels for the great universities, which stand crowned by the scholar- ship of the past, rich with the inheritance of the centuries. It was a loyal college ever ; loyal to its own traditions, but more loyal still to the claims of the commonwealth which were stronger than any
96 ptiiladi:lpbia
tradition. The stormy years of revolutionary war were ill adapted for the advancement of education ; but the triumph of the Constitutionalists should have meant protection and safety for Philadelphia's scholars. This was what Franklin strove in vain to insure by a clause in the new Constitution, providing that all schools and all churches should be left in undisturbed possession of their privileges. What really happened is almost too scandalous to be told. The Assembly, composed now of extremists under the leadership of Reed, professed to doubt the patriotism of an institution which had never failed in respect and obedience to the national government, and which had for its trustees men like Robert Morris and James Wilson, who had signed the Declaration of Indepen- dence, and striven unceasingly for the freedom and the honour of their land. In 1779 the college charter was declared void, the Faculty was dissolved after the par- liamentary fashion of Cromwell, and the property was handed over to new trustees, with directions to found a brand-new alma mater, which was to be modestly en- titled, " The University of the State of Pennsylvania." It was an act of spoliation, without excuse and with- out redress. Its immediate result was the collapse of education in Philadelphia. The old college, deprived of charter, roof-tree, and funds, refused to die peaceably when requested, but struggled ^on, crippled and well- nigh useless. Its provost, whose heroic pluck would
lilHTll OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 97
never allow him to know when he was beaten, retired to Maryland, only to plan fresh campaigns for the future. The new " University " found its honours heavy to bear, and its task impossible of performance. The magnificent title mocked the feebleness of its intellect, the inadequacy of its work. Poor minion of fortune, it could not even rely upon its own friends. After nine years, the Assembly which had bidden it live, took from it all means of livelihood. The act of 1779 was pronounced " repugnant to justice, and a violation of the Constitution of the Commonwealth." The property was handed ruthlessly back to its rightful owner, the old College of Philadelphia, and Provost Smith, victorious and elate, took his place at the head of the institution.
But not for long. There could be no stability any- where amid such hopeless elements of disorder. As the strife of factions ran higher and higher, scholarship sank lower and lower. The college and the university stood side by side, weakened and well-nigh weaponless. They could do nothing worth the doing apart, and it was hoped they might accomplish something together. With the consent of the Legislature, a union was effected in 1791 ; the simple old name was abandoned in favour of the more aspiring designation ; and the trustees were impartially selected from every con- testing clique and party the city could afford, in the hope, as Mr. Sydney Fisher aptly expresses it, "that
98 PHILADELPHIA
the more dissimilar and disunited they were, the more they would work in harmony." Dr. Smith disappeared forever from the collegiate halls, and education de- parted with him. Mirania was no more, and, in her place, an enfeebled school, calling itself a university, struggled for existence, and graduated a pitiful hand- ful of students every year. Only the medical depart- ment, established in 1765, was strong enough to resist the dismal influence of the times ; and through the unceasing efforts of Dr. Shippen, Dr. Rush, Dr. Wistar, and other physicians of distinction, advanced steadily step by step to the splendid future that awaited it. In medicine and surgery Philadelphia always claimed preeminence, and her doctors to-day need look back upon no period of their history with shame in their hearts for its dishonourable inactivity. But it was not until after the Civil War that the Uni- versity began slowly to raise its downcast head, that head now held aloft in conscious and justifiable ela- tion. In 1871, one of Franklin's early " Proposals " was realized in part by the erection of the ncAV college buildings in West Philadelphia ; where, if no green meadows and fruitful orchards win the students from their books, and no river rolls invitingly under col- legiate windows, there is at least a campus and a little breathing space, turf under foot, and blue sky over- head. In these buildings, whicL from year to year have received important additions, the college which has
I
BIETH OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 99
passed through so many vicissitudes, so many changes of scene and fortune, has at last fulfilled the proudest hopes of those who first sped her on her way for the help and enlightenment of posterity.
Six years before the ever famous " Proposals " saw the light of day, another and very different scheme of education was being slowly shaped into action by the resistless energy of Franklin. In 1743 he conceived the admirable idea of forming a society " for promoting useful knowledge among the British plantations in America," or, in other words, for connecting the aspir- ing science of the New World with the supercilious science of the Old. The members of this society were naturally chosen from the " Junto," a club organized by Franklin "for mutual improvement," when he was but twenty-one years old. The Junto was a serious club, not given to youthful frivolities, still less to youthful indiscretions. It met, indeed, in a tavern ; but the members asked each other difficult questions, such as " Is there any essential difference between the electric fluid and elementary fire ? " or " What becomes of the water constantly flowing into the Mediter- ranean?" and took a sincere pleasure in endeavouring to answer them. In fact, they solemnly promised, on admission, not only to love truth for truth's sake, but to receive it impartially themselves, and to communi- cate it industriously to others.
Here was exactly the material needed by Franklin
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PHILADELPHIA
for the formation of a Philosophical Society. Young men who diverted themselves in this exemplary manner were surely born to be philosophers. Nevertheless, the old Junto did not, as is commonly supposed, melt
DOORWAYS IN PINE STREET
at once into the new organization. It held together as a club until 1766, when it became the formidable "American Society for promoting and propagating Useful Knowledge ; " and it was not until three years later that the Philosophical Society and the American Society united their forces, and became one. Franklin
BIRTU OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 101
was elected the first president of the combined fraterni- ties, and held that position until his death. Richard Penn, the most affable of the proprietors, consented to act as patron. The Quaker Assembly looked with favour upon philosophers who proposed to push their investigations into practical matters, and who, in the intervals of discussing the best form of government, or the secret of happiness, were not above a care for smoky chimneys, and a farmer-like regard for manures. In fact, " the useful science of agriculture " occupied a great deal of their leisure and attention. Franklin's enthusiasm for rice equalled Napoleon's for beets, or Edmund Burke's for carrots. Thomas Jefferson, who was at one time president of the philosophers as well as of the United States, designed a model plough, almost as good in its way as Franklin's model stove. The Assembly generously voted a thousand pounds to assist the Society in planting mulberry trees for the benefit of silkworms, which were to be invited to emigrate to the New World and feed on them.
'* Botany, medicine, mineralogy, chemistry, mining, mechanics, arts, trades, manufactures, geography, and topography," also appear on the list of subjects to be studied and discussed ; yet, even under this severe pres- sure of erudition, the genial philosophers found time to give themselves, and occasionally their neighbours, very good dinners, and to turn their minds to the considera- tion of those practical details which philosophy is wont
102 PHILADELPHIA
to ignore, but upon which the comfort of colonial life was largely dependent. This was in keeping with Franklin's character, and avowed inclinations. " No other writer," says Mr. MacMaster, "has pointed out so clearly the way to obtain the greatest amount of com- fort out of life ; " and the old panegyrist who penned this glowing tribute, —
" Immortal Franklin, whose unwearied mind Still sought out every good for all mankind ; Searched every science, studious still to know, To make men virtuous, and to keep them so,"
would have been nearer the mark if he had written the last line, —
" To make men prosperous, and to keep them so."
To increase the comfort and prosperity, as well as the scholarship of the province, was the laudable ambition of the Philosophical Society. Its members, drawn from every creed and every rank of life, present a curious medley of colonial pundits. David Ritten- house, the astronomer, who succeeded Franklin as president ; ex-governor Hamilton, the distinguished leader of the proprietary party ; and Brother Jabetz, Prior of the Ephrata cloister, who was wont to walk eighty miles, it is said, to attend the meetings, and whose tall spare figure in flowing robe, girt by a hempen cord, added a charming element of pictu- resqueness, as well as a flavour of asceticism which
BIBTH OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKER CITY 103
seemed just what the philosophers required. It was this unworldly monk who, after the Revolution, trans- lated the Declaration of Independence into seven languages, and proved himself of great service to the State in reading diplomatic correspondence. Tradition says that for all this work he never demanded, and alas ! never received a penny of pay from a too thrifty government. The Prior, however often he may have walked the eighty miles, had neglected to learn one important lesson from the lips of Franklin, who would have, taught him plainly that the labourer is worthy of his hire.
The first momentous task undertaken by the Philo- sophical Society was the scientific observation of the transit of Venus, in 1769. This was an enterprise re- quiring a large expenditure of money, as well as the closest care and calculation ; but it was the looked-for opportunity for the colonial scientists to associate them- selves with the scientists of Europe, and to add their quota to the accurate information of the world. Ob- servatories were erected in Philadelphia, in Norristown, and at Cape Henlopen. The Assembly voted one hun- dred pounds for the purchase of a telescope. Thomas Penn sent a second admirable telescope from England. The day of the transit, June third, was one of unbroken clearness and brilliancy, nature having abandoned her usual perversity for this ever memorable occasion ; and the observations taken were so completely successful
104 PHILADELPHIA
that Dr. Maskelyne, the astronomer royal, pronounced them enthusiastically to be an honour to Pennsylvania, and to all the learned gentlemen whose indefatigable exertions had accomplished this splendid result.
With the approach of war, the zeal of the philoso- phers for scientific research grew visibly less. It was not a time for study ; and during three tumultuous years the Society never held a single meeting. Its members were mostly occupied in making history, and had scant leisure for the calm pursuit of agricul- ture or astronomy. On the fifth of March, 1779, they % reassembled to gather up the broken threads of their past work ; and a year later they were granted their first charter, and a lot of ground adjoining the State House on which to build a hall. In 1787 this hall was completed, and still stands undesecrated, save in a few details, by modern renovations. Here on their dusty shelves are the ancient volumes which Franklin and Rittenhouse handled ; here are many curious relics of the Society's vigorous youth, and of days so long past we have well-nigh forgotten the lessons that they taught us. In one of these beautiful rooms Wash- ington was painted by the three Peales, and the historic mantel-shelf which forms the background of the portrait has now, alas ! been dug from the wall, and banislied as lumber to the cellar. When La Fayette returned to America, the Philosophical Society entertained him under its own roof-tree, and Mr.
nTRTfl OF LEARNING IN THE QUAKEH CITY 105
Charles Ingersoll delivered an address of such flat- tering eloquence that it would have abashed NajDoleon, and made Ca)sar blush beneath his civic wreath, though, to the insatiable vanity of the genial Frenchman, it was probably no more than a bare recognition of his merits.
Among the philosophers may be found long lists of distinguished names, both European and American. Noah Webster, Washington Irving, George Bancroft, Dr. Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Louis Agassiz, and Joseph Leidy were members. Even women are not altogether lacking from the rolls. Mrs. Somerville, Mrs. Agassiz, and Mrs. Seller were elected as valued members ; and also that very different exponent of feminine scholarship, rich in knowledge and in many experiences, the Princess Daschkof. The Empress was not pleased at her favourite's acceptance of the proffered honour. Catherine the Second never liked Benjamin Franklin, and had scant tolerance for his philosophy. She refused coldly to receive him, and refused to give any reason for her denial. It was not for the ruler of all the Russias to cheapen her deeds with reasons. " I do not care for him," was the only opinion she ever vouchsafed. The same imperial and comprehensive criticism was passed by Elizabeth of England upon John Knox, when she forbade him Eng- lish soil.
CHAPTER VII
THE STATE HOUSE AND ITS MESSAGE
rpHE birth of law in Philadelphia was as modest as the birth of learning, at least so far as out- ward circumstances were concerned. When Penn returned for the first time to England in 1684, he left the little Letitia House to his secretary, Mark- ham, and directed that it should be at the service of the Provincial Council. The wine and beer stored in the cellar were placed at the disposal of the deputy governor, Thomas Lloyd, "for the use of
106
THE STATE HOUSE AND ITS MESSAGE 107
strangers," a kindly and hospitable thought. Penn's periwigs, which were of the finest order, were also consigned to the care of Lloyd, who was permitted to wear them during their owner's absence, and had, as it chanced, an admirable opportunity to wear them out in the fifteen years that followed. The Letitia House was, accordingly, for some time the State House of the province ; and in its small, low- ceilinged rooms the men who carried their country's cares upon their shoulders met in anxious delibera- tion. Four years later, we find Penn writing that he fears the cottage is too contracted for such a pur- pose, and that the Council should have a building fitted to its needs. The Council thought otherwise. Debt was a thing its members abhorred as only Quakers can, and money was hard to find in the prosperous little colony, already drained of gold by the number and variety of its imports. So for twenty-five years the lawmakers of the province met wherever they could find accommodation, — under the roofs of private citizens, in schoolrooms, and in the Quaker meeting-house. Those were primitive, almost Arcadian days, when the character of public men, and the nature of the laws they en- acted, were deemed of greater importance than stone walls, marble floors, and upholstery. The country court-house, the "Towne House" as it was called, was finished in 1709, and in this unpretentious little
108
PHILADELPHIA
building the Colonial Assembly and the Supreme Court of the province held their sessions. It was not until the issue of paper currency made money
• - >
'•>C«'> ,'»jw ^
IT. C-^«
THE "TOWNE HOUSE
seem more abundant, and relaxed the vigilant econ- omy of our forefathers, that Philadelphia aspired to a State House of her own ; and even after two thousand pounds had been appropriated to this pur- pose in 1729, the work proceeded very slowly, and
THE STATE HOUSE AND ITS MESSAGE 109
with a due regard to the reluctance of tax-payers, — a class of people who, however contumeliously they may be treated now, were then held in the greatest consideration and esteem.
In 1785 tlie Assembly met for the first time in the new State House, which was still far from finished. The great chamber now known as Independence Hall was not completed until seven years later ; the modest wooden steeple was not added until 1751. A bell was felt to be an imperative necessity, and was ordered forthwith from England, its cost not to exceed two hundred pounds. It was cast in White- chapel, and around its sides ran the prophetic words, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land, to all the Inhabitants thereof." This English bell, to the bitter disappointment of the colonists, was cracked at its first trial by a stroke of its own clapper, and had to be recast in Philadelphia before it was hung honourably in the little steeple which had been built for its accommodation. The graceful outlines of the State House, an admirable example of colonial architecture, full of dignity, and with an exquisite sense of fitness and proportion, were rendered still more charming to the eye by the deep green of the magnificent trees that surrounded it. These vet- erans of the primeval forest, the last survivors in Philadelphia of the mighty woods which had gained for Pennsylvania its sylvan name, were sacrificed,
110 PHILADELPHIA
one by one, to the indifference or the dislike of the colonists. Penn had dearly loved the deep shadows of their spreading branches. He had hoped and de- sired that his settlers would spare the trees when possible, and would build their homes at reasonable distances, "so that there may be ground on each side for gardens or orchards, and that the town may be a green country town, which will never be burned, and always be wholesome."
But the early Philadelphians pressed their houses closer and closer together, and they cut down their beautiful trees to economize space, or under the strange pretext of guarding "against fire and stagnant air." The State House was gradually denuded of its green girdle, and stood bare and desolate until after the Revolution ; when more room was added to its shabby enclosure, new trees were planted, new walks laid out, a new brick wall built to protect it from vulgar intru- sion, and, under the new and dignified name of Inde- pendence Square, the old State House yard became for a few years a fashionable loitering-place, upon whose genteel and urban charms Philadelphia poets wrote stilted verses in the columns of the local press.
There were other and far different scenes, however, to be enacted on this hallowed ground before the citizens of the young Republic had leisure for sylvan strolls and verse-making. No building in the United States has an historic interest comparable to that of
TEE STATE HOUSE AND ITS MESSAGE
111
the Philadelphia State House, the birthplace of our national life. Its venerable walls heard the vehement denunciations hurled against the Stamp Act, and the still more vehement resolutions which sent Captain Ayres and his ship-load of tea back to the port of
OLD STATE HOUSE
London. Here, after the battle of Lexington, as- sembled that eager, angry crowd who expressed the sentiments of the wliole people in a single curt resolu- tion, " to defend with arms their property^ liberty, and lives." Here Washington was appointed, by the second Continental Congress, commander-in-chief of the army ;
112 PHILADELPHIA
and here Richard Henry Lee of Virginia moved on the seventh of June, 1776, that " these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection be- tween them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.''
From the little observatory, the "awful platform," as John Adams calls it, that had been erected in the State House yard for the peaceful study of Venus, the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to the people of Philadelphia, — to the few at least who gathered to hear it, and by whom it was received in serious and puzzled silence. The dramatic side of this great historic event was not, as has been often ob- served, apparent to men who thought less of the docu- ment itself, than of how it was to be supported and enforced. They had thrilled with \ anger and pity when Boston called to them for help. They had exulted jubilantly over the repeal of the Stamp Act, and had watched with proud hearts the last white sail of Captain Ayres' tea ship, Polly^ as she turned sea- ward with her hated cargo. But it was no longer a time for passing resolutions, and rejecting tea. Grim war was at their doors, and the horror of it sobered their enthusiasm, and chilled the first wild rapture of defiance. The men who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence realized to the utmost all
THE STATE HOUSE AND ITS MESSAGE 113
the consequences it involved, and the terrible responsi- bility they had placed upon their own shoulders. The State House bell rang out its message, proclaiming for the first time '' liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof"; but the people listened gravely, and with no apparent response. Those who knew what it meant, knew also that liberty is not to be won by proclamation, but bought with the life-blood of brave men who die that their brothers may be free.
CASE CONTAINING ORIQINAL OF DECLARATION OF INDBPBNDBNCR
I
CHAPTER VIII
HOW THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONEY
TT^OR nearly a century the history of Philadelphia is a placid record of unbroken good fortune. The tireless wrangling of two great conflicting interests injured the province very little, and gave her that most precious boon, — a standing quarrel which could be taken up by the combatants whenever they had leisure to engage in it. Had the Assembly and the proprie- tary party worked together in accord, the colonists would have suffered grievously from the benumbing of those angry passions which childhood is bidden to restrain, but which make life a thing of abounding interest to healthily contentious men. The Indian wars, though they cost Pennsylvania both troops and money, left the city undevastated by the horrors which dyed deep with blood the annals of less fortunate com- munities. The stubborn and conservative Quakers guarded their town — Penn's precious legacy — with a wise watchfulness, and she waxed fairer and stronger every year. Her prosperity was not, indeed, a matter of sudden acquisition, like the affluence of New Zea- land, where, Mr. Froude assures us, the labourers eat
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HOW THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONEY 115
hot-house grapes. It was built up on solid foundations of industry and thrift, having Franklin's maxims for its week-day sermons, and Franklin's shining example to illustrate the text. The man who amassed his fort- une penny by penny, and retired from business at the early age of forty-two, with a modest income of three thousand dollars, taught his neighbours a triple lesson of assiduity, economy, and moderation. It is only to be regretted that the edifying spectacle of colonial honour and enterprise should be marred by the dark shadow of privateering. In the Spanish war, and in King George's war, the virtuous Quaker City sent forth these armed marauders to snatch what prey they could ; and that she was proud of their success, and pointed them out with elation to strangers visiting her busy docks, proves the exactness of Sydney Smith's cynical observation anent the stanch moral support to be derived from the most dubious of theories.
The increasing wealth of the province manifested itself in farmhouses so strongly and admirably built that time leaves no impression on their massive walls ; in country-seats more spacious and beautiful than could be found in any other State save Virginia ; in the fast-growing luxury of town life ; and in a sane philanthropy, devoid of whims and sentiment. The charity of the Quakers has always extended to the bodies as well as to the souls of men. In 1713, when the city was still in its infancy, they built " for
116
PHILADELPHIA
the habitation and succour of the poor and unfortu- nate," the pretty rural cottages long known as the
•"^•- -V:^ #-/•
QUAKER ALMSHOUSB
Quaker almshouses. Each cottage had its patch of ground, where the aged inmates — unshamed by the
HOW THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONET 117
stigma of pauperism — cultivated bright flowers and healing herbs. It was a peaceful haven, affording, not only shelter, but, as an old historian earnestly assures us, "opportunities for study and meditation." We smile when we read the words, but we sigh, too, recalling the bleak desolation, the abiding horror of a modern almshouse, and comparing it with the decent privacy of the happier poor nearly two hun- dred years ago, when the wisdom of our forefathers drew a deep line of distinction between the old and helpless, "the afflicted of God," and the sturdy beg- gar or shameless wench, for whom was made sharper and sterner provision. It is to the Quaker alms- house,
" Home of the homeless, Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and woodlands,"
that tradition points as the final meeting-place of Gabriel and Evangeline ; and antiquarians who dis- prove the story with aggressive and importunate details might find a better use for their time and knowledge. In the graveyard of old St. Joseph's — hidden away in Willing's Alley from the wrath of hostile creeds — the lovers slept side by side : and the clamour of a great city echoed but faintly through the narrow, walled-in strip of consecrated ground, where, after so many years of sorrowful wandering, their faithful hearts found rest.
118 PHILADELPHIA
What the college was to the Episcopal and pra prietary party in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Hos- pital was to the Quakers, — a party stronghold, as well as a cherished and admirably administered insti- tution. On its ancient corner-stone was cut deep this cheerful and devout inscription : —
"In the year of Christ MDCCLV, George the second happily reigning, (For he sought the happiness of his people) Philadelphia flourishing, (For its inhabitants were public-spirited)
This Building By the bounty of the government, And of many private persons,
Was piously founded For the relief of the sick and the miserable.
May the God of Mercies bless the undertaking."
Of the public spirit here gratefully commemorated, the erection of this hospital gives abiding proof. When, in 1750, Dr. Thomas Bond and a few chari- table citizens realized the necessity of providing shelter for "sick and distempered strangers," their appeal for funds met with an immediate response. The Assembly voted at different times five thousand pounds to help them with the work. All classes endeavoured honestly to assist. An especial sub- scription was asked from "rich widows and other single women," and they answered nobly by raising
now THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONEY 119
a fund sufificient for the purchase of drugs. Al- though most of the money came from the Quakers, who kept the hospital always under their control, yet other churches contributed with amazing gener- osity. The pious free-lance, Whitelield, collected, . after an ardent and persuasive sermon, one hundred and seventy pounds. England, ever liberal to colo- nial charities, lent such material aid that the directors found their burden almost easy to bear. An Act of Parliament gave to the hospital all the unclaimed funds remaining in the hands of the trustees of the Pennsylvania Land Company in London, and this extraordinary windfall amounted to thirteen thousand pounds. The Proprietors, Thomas and Richard Penn, gave a portion of the land on which the building was erected, and an annuity of forty pounds a year. Finally, Dr. John Fothergill of London sent a beau- tifully articulated human skeleton, and so admir- able a collection of anatomical models and drawings that the thrifty Friends refused to exhibit them gratuitously to the public. They were placed in a room apart, and Dr. Shippen explained them learn- edly every other Saturday afternoon to such seek- ers after knowledge as were willing to pay a dollar for its acquisition.
It does not surprise us to find the name of Benjamin Franklin on the first board of managers. In point of fact, a Philadelphia board of managers which did not
120 PHILADELPHIA
include Franklin would have been as great an anomaly as a Roman or a Florentine church without a trace of Michelangelo. It was Franklin who drew up the very sensible rules for the direction of the hospital, Franklin who was elected president of the board in 1756, and Franklin who characteristically proposed the distribu- tion of tin boxes, lettered in gold, " Charity for the Hospital," and destined to receive the chance donations of benevolent friends and visitors. A penny given was a penny made, and the yearly reports of the insti- tution show how much of its income was derived from the small contributions of well-wishers whose narrow means forbade' a larger dole. Gifts of various kinds were proffered by prominent citizens ; among them a second skeleton (skeletons were rare enough to be held in high esteem) which, being presented by Miss Deborah Morris, after the death of her brother. Dr. Benjamin Morris, was, we are assured, "gratefully received, and honourably deposited in the apothecary's shop."
The site on which the hospital was erected — not without long contention, for the Proprietors had wished to donate a less available piece of ground — was ad- mirably chosen, and the building itself, like all other important buildings of the time, is a model of dignified simplicity, finely proportioned, and free from meretri- cious decoration. It is well for us who live in an age of over-ornamentation that we can rest our weary
o"
^
122 PIIILABELPIIIA
eyes upon the graceful severity of colonial architecture Avhere nothing needless can be found. The ample lawn was shaded by two rows of beautiful trees planted by Hugh Roberts, one of the first managers, in 1756, and among them grew and flourished a scion of the famous Treaty Elm, pleasantly refuting the slanderous tongues which mocked that historic monu- ment, that mute witness of a n^ttion's peace.
The prosperity of the hospital was unbroken, its efficiency unimpaired, until the dark days which fol- lowed the Revolution, when the terrible depreciation of the currency, the chaotic confusion of the public service, and the determination of the legislature to tax charitable institutions, crippled and well-nigh ruined it. Resolute labour and resolute resistance on the part of the managers averted the impending shipwreck, but years dragged by before the old sphere of quiet useful- ness was even partially regained. It is pleasant to record that at this juncture the First Troop of Phila- delphia City Cavalry gave to the Pennsylvania Hospital the entire sum received by it for services during the Revolutionary war ; and the maternity ward for poor married women was built and endowed with this money. A very different, but equally welcome donation was the picture of " Christ Healing the Sick," which Benjamin West generously presented to the institution in 1817, and which awakened such enthusiasm in the hearts of our uncritical grandfathers that the adroit
now THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONEY 123
managers of the hospital — mindful still of Dr. Frank- lin's maxims — placed it on exhibition, and realized nearly twenty thousand dollars from the eager crowds
A BIT OF PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL
who thronged to see it. The big canvas is a replica of the painting originally intended by West for" Phila- delphia; but which, wlien it was seen in London,
124 PHILADELPHIA
excited, we are told, " such a glow of admiration that nobles and commons, rich and poor, united in the de- termination to retain it in the country." Verily, an artist so blessed by the patronage, so burdened by the praises of his own generation, might well afford indif- ference to the acrimonious verdicts of posterity.
It was not in philanthropy alone, in the building of almshouses, libraries and hospitals, that the rich colo- nists of the Quaker City found a use for their ample incomes. They spent their money, after a reasonable fashion, upon creature comforts, and in moderate dis- play. Within their red brick houses, " stately and three stories high, in the mode of London," writes Gabriel Thomas as early as 1696, reigned security and modest affluence. Balconies and sun-dials lent to these demure homes an occasional air of gayety and picturesqueness. " Every necessary for the Support of Life throughout the whole Year," might be found in the far-famed Philadelphia markets ; and, if we may trust the evi- dence of colonial letters and diaries, more ingenuous and less jubilant as a rule than colonial chroniclers, our forefathers heartily enjoyed the good things which Providence had kindly placed at their disposal. In the published journal of Jacob Hiltzheimer, who lived to see the Revolution, and was apparently but little interested in that great crisis, we find such scandalous entries as this : " Feb. 14th, 1766. At noon went to William Jones's, to drink punch ; met several of my
now THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONEY 125
friends, and got decently drunk. The groom could not be accused of the same fault." Whether this means that the groom drank not at all, or that his libations went beyond the limits of decency, does not very clearly appear ; but noon seems an early hour to settle down seriously to punch, even on Saint Valentine's day. On other occasions we read that Mr. Hiltzheimer went with his two sons and Daniel Wister to Joseph Galloway's place, "to eat turtle," — a more innocent indulgence ; that on the tenth of May he saw a " ten- pound race between Joseph Hogg's and John Bucking- ham's horses " ; and that — being well disposed to divers sorts of entertainment — he found equal pleasure in bull-baiting, and in witnessing the performance of "Romeo and Juliet," at the Old Southwark Theatre. An opportunity for especial festivity was the King's birthday, June 4th, when he dined on the green banks of the Schuylkill, in company with three hun- dred and eighty loyal citizens, all in most jovial humour. Any number of healths were drunk at this gay repast, "among them Dr. P>anklin's, which gave great satisfaction to everybody." A long boat was then dragged to the water's edge and launched, while the firing of "many great guns" announced King George's birthday to the town.
No one was better disposed towards a moderate conviviality than Franklin himself, for all his maxims and apothegms. In tliat old house on High Street
126 PHILADELPHIA
where he lived and died, where, in the garden, he flew his immortal kite, and where he attached his own lightning-rod to his own wall, thereby greatly entertaining his curious neighbours, there reigned always hospitality and good cheer. True, he sent his sister Jane a spinning-wheel instead of the coveted tea-table, desiring her to be a "notable housewife." True, he recommended the " Whole Duty of Man," and the "Young Lady's Library," as proper reading for his daughter Sally, in place of the novels for which her spirit yearned. But, never- theless, there remains now in the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society that delightful punch- keg which could be rolled so easily from guest to guest, and which carried the generous liquor circling around Franklin's board. A curious little keg this, pretty, portly, and altogether unlike other punch- bowls left us from colonial days. And what of that often quoted letter written by Franklin in England to his wife, and promising her, not spinning-wheels and decorous dull books, but the foreign crockery dear to the hearts of all colonial dames. Yet not every spouse would have felt pleased by this dubious compliment from an absent husband.
"I also forgot to mention among the china a large fine jug for beer, to stand in the cooler. I fell in love with it at first sight ; for I thought it looked like a fat jolly dame, clean and tidy, with a neat
now THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONEY 127
blue and white calico gown on, good-natured and lovely, and put me in mind of — somebody. "
Praise is not always charming. Had Mrs. Frank- lin loved poetry as well as she loved her husband, which happily does not seem to have been the case, she would have felt more pain than pleasure at hear- ing her merits extolled by him in such halting verses as these : —
"Not a word of her face, of her shape, or her air,
Or of flames, or of darts, you shall hear; • I beauty admire, but virtue I prize, That fades not in seventy year.
* Ik * *
"In peace and good order my household she guides, Right careful to save what I gain ; Yet cheerfully spends, and smiles on the friends I've the pleasure to entertain."
Well, the lines show at least that Franklin did like to entertain his friends, and that it gladdened him to see his wife lay aside her customary frugality on those blithesome occasions, when the punch-keg went rolling round. Mrs. Franklin — being but a woman, albeit a great man's helpmate — found per- chance a keener- joy in furnishing her house than in feeding her husband's guests. There is a delightful blending of conscious thrift and timorous extrava- gance in the account she writes him of her modestly garnished chambers.
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"The chairs downstairs are plain horsehair, and look as well as Paduasoy, and are admired by all. In the little sonth room is a carpet I bought cheap for its goodness, and nearly new. In the parlour is a Scotch carpet which has much fault found with it. In the north room, where we sit, we have a small Scotch carpet, the small bookcase, brother John's pict- ure, and one of the King and Queen. In the room for our friends we have the Earl of Bute hung up, and a glass."
The simplicity of the philosopher's surroundings contrasted sharply with the beauty and elegance of more pretentious dwellings ; with Edward Shippen's house, for example, which is described by a contem- porary chronicler as a veritable palace of delights, girt by an ample park, " and having a very famous and pleasant summer-house erected in the middle of his garden, abounding with tulips, pinks, carnations, roses, and lilies, not to mention those that grew wild in the fields ; and also a fine lawn upon which reposed his herd of tranquil deer."
A herd of deer reposing on South Second Street seems as strange an anomaly as the concealed staircase, the "priest's escape," in James Logan's country-seat, "Stenton." Who in that dignified and law-abiding household could ever have needed to escape, save from importunate visitors, or from the friendly Ind- ians who came again and again to Logan, as to
nO]V THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONEY 129
their truest ally, seeking counsel and aid in their difficulties. It was not unusual for several hundred Indians to stay a week encamped in the S teuton woods, and treated always with the greatest kind- ness and hospitality by the master of the house, whose public duties left him scant leisure for rest. Small wonder that Cannassetego, chief of the Onondagas,
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bewailed the approaching end of their most trusted friend, and touchingly entreated the Council that when Logan's soul went to God, another might be chosen in his place, "of the same prudence and ability in counselling, and of the same tender dis- position and affection for the Indians."
The beauty of Stenton lay in its broad lands, its superb avenue of hemlocks, which tradition pleasantly
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but mendaciously asserted to have been planted by William Penn, its lofty wainscoted rooms, its gener- ous fireplaces, ornamented with blue and white tiles, its graceful staircase, — that test of colonial architect- ure,— its air of dignified and scholarly repose. Here, in the well-lit library, were ranged those noble old books which subsequently became the city's legacy ; and looking at them w^ith love and pride, their owner felt a not unreasonable regret that no one in the future was likely to cherish them as he did. " I have four children now with me," he writes to Thomas Story in 1734, " who I think take more after their mother than me, which I am sure thou wilt not dislike in them ; yet if they had more of a mixture, it might be of some use to bring them through the world ; and it sometimes gives me an anxious thought that my considerable collections of Greek and Roman authors, with others in various languages, will not find an heir in my family to use them as I have done, but after my decease may be sold or squan- dered away."
If ghosts can reasonably rejoice as well as groan and rattle chains, then must the spirit of James Logan, scholar and statesman, have exulted over the patient toil of his grandson's wife, heir of his name though not of his blood, as she faithfully and intel- ligently sorted, copied and annotated the important letters stored in the Stenton library, and wrought
IIO]V THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONET 131
from them a lasting record of his life and work. The " Penn and Logan Papers," with their wealth of historic and colonial interest, might never have seen the light, had not Deborah Logan worked year after year with unwearied and unrewarded fidelity in those too scant hours of leisure which the mistress of a large and busy household could dare to call her own.
We think of Quakers now as clad perpetually in sober drab, with close bonnets or broad-brimmed hats ; but for many years after the founding of Phila- delphia they wore no exclusive costumes, contenting themselves with avoiding in a general way the allure- ments of fashion and finery. Hence the stern warn- ings, the sharp reproofs directed from time to time against those daughters of Eve who yearned after fancy fig-leaves, who let their hair stray wantonly over their brows, or sought to widen their modest petticoats with the seductive crinoline. As Thomas Chalkley vigorously but vainly remarked, "If Al- mighty God should make a woman in the same Shape her hoop makes her, Everybody would say truly it was monstrous ; so according to this real truth they make themselves Monsters by art."
Nor were the female Friends averse to glowing colours, remembering perhaps Penn's sky-blue sash which gave them warrant for their weakness. Their silk aprons rivalled the rainbow, and not infrequently their gowns were of red or green, instead of that dove-
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like hue which Whittier loved and praised. Sir God- frey Kiieller's portrait of Sarah, elder daughter of James Logan of Stenton, and wife of Isaac Norris of Fairhill, shows us a stately young woman dressed in deep blue, and with the air of an English court beauty rather than a colonial Quaker matron. Thomas Lloyd's daughter, Mary, who married Isaac Norris the elder, is also painted in a blue gown relieved with crimson ; and her granddaughter, Mary Dickinson, appears all in red, that deep seducing red which the Paris artists of to-day love better than any other shade. These women, despite their partiality for vivid tints, were strict Quakers, but Quakers upon whom the rigid rules of an exclusive costume had yet to be imposed. Perhaps Mrs. Dickinson was one of the last to rejoice in the glory of colour, for we find her daughter, Maria Logan, painted in the orthodox dress of the Friends, and presenting a curious contrast to her resplendent kinsfolk. There is ample evidence to show that the scarlet cloaks so popular in provincial England (who does not remember poor ill-fated Syl- via's?) found their way over the ocean, and created much disturbance among the sober-minded and austere. That one of these gay garments, " almost new, with a double cape," was stolen from Franklin's house in 1750, proves that the philosopher did not seek to restrain the natural longing of wife and daughter for the shining, dress-laden booths of Vanity Fair.
now THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONEY 133
Gayer mid ^^ayer grew the Quaker City that had been so deniuie in childhood. Coaches emblazoned with heraldic devices rolled through the ill-paved streets. In the bitter cold of winter days the frozen Delaware was covered with merry throngs ; and there is a pleasant flavour of colonial simplicity in the inter- esting inforniiition, wafted along a century and more, that the best skaters of their day were General Cad- walader and Massey the biscuit-maker. In the bitter cold of winter nights, wax candles shone softly down on Philadelphia's sons and daughters, as they met for the famous Dancing Assemblies that date from 1749, and lend an air of prim worldliness to the uneventful annals of the town. Dancing seems never to have been regarded with the same stern disapprobation that made the theatre a forbidden joy. Whitefield, indeed, who was impartially opposed to cakes and ale in any shape, waged an earnest crusade against this, as against all other diversions, and set himself the serious task of remodelling the nature of youth. But before he came to make a dull world duller, the colonists who were not Quakers had smiled indulgently upon such harmless mirth ; and the Quakers, though not dan- cing themselves, had been serenely content that others should. Mr. Richard Castelman, writing in 1710, records with a grateful heart the kindness and courtesy of " the facetious Mr. Staples, the dancing-master, who was the first stranger of Philadelphia that did me the
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honour of a visit. To his merry company I owe the passing of many a sad hour, that might have hung heavy upon the hands of a man deprived of friends and fortune in an alien land."
Thirty years later, we find several dancing-masters prepared to teach "fashionable English and French dances, after the newest and politest manner practised in London, Dublin, and Paris " ; and, with the per- fection of such accomplishments, there came naturally in time subscription balls, in which the graces thus acquired could be properly shown to the world. These balls, if they somewhat scandalized the elect, were favoured with the approbation and patronage of the Episcopal clergy, who were well disposed towards any form of entertainment which the Quakers rejected, and of which the Presbyterians disapproved. The Assem- blies were not scenes of wild dissipation, nor was there any excessive extravagance to provoke the direful elo- quence of the pulpit. They began at precisely six o'clock in the evening, and by midnight the dancers were all wending their ways homeward. The old subscription ticket cost forty shillings ; and for this moderate outlay a gentleman could take the lady of his choice to sixteen or eighteen entertainments, the dances being given every Thursday night in the winter and early spring. The supper was of the very lightest order, consisting, it was said, "chiefly of something to drink " ; a not inadequate description of a repast
now THE QUAKER CITY SPENT ITS MONEY 135
where five gallons of rum and two hundred limes were consumed in punch, and nine shillings' worth of " milk bisket" represented the solid food, — a half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack. Card-tables were prepared for the amusement of those who did not dance, and who appear to have been less patient then than now, an^ less disposed to play a purely passive part.
The invitations were often printed on the undeco- rated backs of common playing-cards, blank cards of any kind being exceedingly scarce, and spades and hearts being only too abundant in an age which had not yet learned to repudiate gambling as a sadly unprofitable vice. No wife nor daughter of mechanic or tradesman Avas suffered to enter the Assemblies which were rigidly aristocratic, and no flippant co- quetry was permitted to interfere with the decorous or- der of procedure. The ladies who arrived earliest had places duly assigned them in the first set, and those who followed were distributed throughout other sets, either at the discretion of the directors, or according to the numbers they drew, — a melancholy arrange- ment, fraught, like the modern dinner, with many painful possibilities. It was Miss Polly Riche who in 1782 first revolted against this stringent rule, and insisted on standing up in any set she fancied, thus precipitating a quarrel between the gentlemen who supported her recusancy and the managers of the
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PHILADELPHIA
Assembly. But what other conduct could have been expected m 1782? Cornwallis had surrendered; the war of the Revolution was practically at an end ; inde- pendence had been won, and Philadelphia was slowly struggling to emerge from chaos into a new law and order. An evil time this for conservatives, as Miss Polly Riche doubtless understood : so she struck her little blow for liberty, and struck it not in vain. The exaltation of freedom manifested itself on all sides in a general disposition to obey nobody, and the hour was ripe for revolt.
FRANKLIN S PUNCH KEG
CHAPTER IX
WAR AND THE RUMOURS OF WAR
TTTHILE the province was growing rich in long years of peaceful industry, the Proprietors were amassing noble fortunes from the increased value of their quit-rents. John Penn, "the Ameri- can," visited Philadelphia in 1732, and was received with clamorous delight : flags flying, cannon thun- dering, addresses without stint, and a grand banquet which cost the town exactly forty pounds, twelve shillings, and twopence. It is pleasant to find the little twopence so faithfully and accurately recorded. Thomas Penn, John's younger and cleverer brother, lived for nine years in the colony, and showed equal ability in the management of public affairs and of his own interests. He had more than his father's shrewd- ness, but lacked the distinction of character which made Pennsylvania's Founder a marked man, whether he lived in the two-storied Letitia House, or in the courts of kings. Thomas had no mind for two-story cottages. He purchased in 1760 Stoke Park, which had been the home of Sir Christopher Hatton in the days of Queen Elizabeth ; and his son John made of
137
138 PHILADELPHIA
this noble old place, and of Pennsylvania Castle, his other country-seat on the Isle of Portland, two great estates, famous during half a century for their ele- gance and beauty.
There is no denying that it was the persistent peace policy of the Quakers which secured for Penn- sylvania its unmarred prosperity, and that this policy received the support of the people, notwithstanding the clamour raised by angry and belligerent agitators. What did the Quaker Assembly care if Spanish privateers flaunted their hostile colours in Delaware Bay ? They knew enough about privateering them- selves to be well aware that no serious injury was to be feared from these rovers of the sea, who preferred robbing to fighting any day, and who sought easier prey than a town protected by the dangerous shoals in its river bed. The war with Spain seemed no con- cern of Philadelphia's, and for a long time the wars between France and England fretted her but faintly. She protected her merchant ships with convoys, and she listened calmly to glowing harangues, mostlj^ preached from Episcopal pulpits, which described the horrors to come : the city wrapped in flames, fathers slain, children homeless and weeping, desolation and ruin everywhere, — all because the Quakers would neither fight themselves, nor vote money to pay for fighting men. Pamphlets circulated at this time resemble in tone the appeals made to rural and pro-
I
WAR AND THE RUMOUliS OF WAR 139
vincial England, when every week brought a fresh rumour that Napoleon and his troops had landed upon English soil.
Occasionally, but not often, the Quakers put forth a defensive pamphlet of their own. They were never much addicted to talking nor to printing ; and the wealth of argument, animadversion, and personal ap- plication of strong passages from Holy Writ, launched at their devoted heads, won little response, save that of quiet and obstinate resistance. Abusing them was like hurling a missile against a padded wall ; there was not even a rebound. The Assembly was as willing that Franklin should organize the first militia com- pany as that he should organize the first fire brigade. It even permitted him to buy gunpowder Avith some of the money voted for "wheat and other grains," and serene Friends frankly acknowledged that they did not condemn the use of arms in those who thought it right to bear them. But they were determined that the peace of the province should not be lightly broken, and they were disposed to temporize as far as possible when the growing hos- tility of the Indians brought real danger close to their city's doors.
The cause of this hostility is not hard to find. Every year, as the colony increased, it became more difficult to control the frontiersmen, who had no scruples in occupying the Indians' land, and no hesi-
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tation in shooting the Indians, if they presumed to interfere. Sturdy farmers, Scotch-Irish and Ger- mans principally, deemed it as preposterous to talk about the rights of savages as the rights of wolves and foxes. God never intended the fertile soil to be wasted on wandering heathens. Even Franklin philo- sophically remarked that rum, which had already wrought dreadful havoc among the tribes of the sea- coast, was perhaps the means appointed by Provi- dence to destroy a race that blocked the way of advancing civilization. The shameful " Walking Pur- chase " was another wrong that sank deeply in the Indians' hearts. They knew they had been outwitted by the Proprietors, and they felt themselves at the mercy of the Six Nations, whom the white men had summoned as allies. The Albany Treaty of 1754, by which the colonists gained the fertile land lying west of the Susquehanna, destroyed the last sentiments of good-will that lingered in the red men's souls. Driven practically out of Pennsylvania, and forced to seek shelter amid alien tribes, their anger and deep humiliation made them only too ready to listen to the wily advances of the French, who were then planning a chain of forts to stretch from the Great Lakes to New Orleans. That tenacious memory of the Indian, which never permitted him to forget either benefit or injury, had its serious inconven- iences. He was still well disposed towards the
WAR AND THE RUMOURS OF WAR 141
Quakers, still loved and honoured the name of Wil- liam Penn, '' the white truth-teller," who had so con- sistently practised what he preached. Hut new wrongs could no more be forgotten than old friend- ships. The long peace of seventy years which Penn had bequeathed to his colony was drawing to a close ; and the savages, once helpless as well as harmless, but now made sullen by ill-usage, and dangerous by the French alliance, had become a menace to the safety of the province, pacified and bribed into inaction by generous presents from the Assembly.
This was a state of things which could not long endure. The treaty between England and France was broken in 1755, and Major-General Braddock was sent to stop the advance of the French troops and their Indian allies. The Assembly, though occu- pied at this time in a particularly lively quarrel with Governor Morris, recognized the greatness of the emergency, laid aside its scruples anent war, and borrow^ed twenty thousand pounds on its own credit to supply Braddock with horses and provisions. The result of the campaign is too well known to need another telling. Not only Macaulay's omniscient schoolboy, but less admirably instructed people re- member well what happened. Seven miles from Fort Du Quesne the English forces were surrounded by the French and Indians, and killed, easily and ruthlessly, like wild beasts in a trap. Of thirteen
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hundred men, only four hundred and sixty escaped that dreadful slaughter; sixty-three out of eighty- six officers were slain or wounded. The French loss was slight, and the fifty or sixty Indians whom the hemmed-in English succeeded in shooting could easily be replaced. It was a massacre rather than a battle, and it left Pennsylvania at the mercy of her foes.
The time for temporizing was past. The Indians, savagely elate that their day of reckoning had come, ravaged the province, and their stealthy attacks filled all the land with terror and despairing rage. It was absolutely necessary to send troops to the frontier, and the Assembly was ready and eager to vote the necessary funds, either by a new issue of paper cur- rency, or by direct taxation, from which it justly insisted the estates of the Proprietors should no longer be exempt. To these measures, however. Governor Morris refused his consent, and for a while it seemed as if all the farmers of Pennsylvania might be scalped, because the Proprietors would not relinquish their privileges, nor the Assembly its con- stitutional rights. Happily, before the country was rendered wholly desolate, a compromise was reached. Thomas Penn offered in his own name, and in the names of his brothers, to contribute five thousand pounds towards the expenses of the war; the Assem- bly responded with equal generosity by raising the
WAR AND THE RUMOURS OF WAR 143
really noble sum of sixty thousand pounds, indepen- dent of the proprietary estates, and by promptly passing Franklin's militia bill, which sent a thousand sturdy men at once to the frontier.
It is a little surprising, accustomed as we are to the inevitable appearance of Franklin in all emergen- cies, to find liiiii, not only organizing the militia, — there was nothing on earth he could not organize, — but actually marching at its head into the Lehigh Valley, prepared to defend his country with his sword or his rifle, whichever he carried,' and surpassing in this one respect, at least, the labours of Michel- angelo for Italy. He built some little forts in the valley, and succeeded in partially checking the Ind- ian raids. Only ten farmers, we are told, were massacred in that district during his two months' occupancy; and while this does not sound to us now like satisfactory protection, it seems to have been considered at the time a very creditable piece of work. Franklin returned to Philadelphia to be made a colonel, and receive the ovations of the populace ; and his fort at Gnadenhutten, being surprised by the savages while its garrison were skating one fine afternoon, the vil- lage it defended was burned to the ground, and nearly all the inhabitants slain.
Mr. Sydney Fisher has pointed out with admirable accuracy and good temper that Pennsylvania, so far from being the languid, supine province which Mr.
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Parkman is never weary of contrasting with vigorous and altogether inimitable New England, was in reality playing an active and prominent part in these years of hand-to-hand struggle with the Indians. She gave men, and she gave money with unstinted liberality, but she asked in return the preservation of her own rights ; and the governors who fancied that the exi- gencies of war could be used as a weapon to wrest from the Assembly an authority cemented by seventy years of masterdom, found themselves signally mis- taken in their calculations. The violence of party spirit was now so thoroughly aroused that even a common danger was powerless to allay it. The Quakers clung stubbornly to their prerogatives, and their opponents appealed to England for protection, asserting that the safety of the colony was at stake. It was at this juncture that Provost Smith made his furious attack upon the Assembly, and the exuberant impetuosity of his sentiments reflected fairly the hostile attitude of the Episcopal and proprietary party. It was but natural that the Privy Council should lend an attentive ear to complaints urged against men who had ever opposed the voice of home authority. The Penns were assured that unless the Friends acted "a more rational and dutiful part," they should not be permitted " to continue in stations to perplex the government " ; and an imperious mes- sage was sent over the seas, condemning in no stinted
WAR AND THE RUMOURS OF WAR 145
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146 PHILADELPHIA
terms the tardiness of the provincial rulers in prose cuting the war, and defending their own frontiers.
Historic fiction is deathless. It can never be si- lenced nor discredited. The Quakers have always borne the blame for Pennsylvania's failure to beat back her savage foes. It is true that, when the mes- sage of the Privy Council was received, the Assembly at once passed a compulsory militia bill, and that the governor promptly vetoed it ; true that the Assembly voted a second grant of one hundred thousand pounds — an enormous sum in those days — for the expenses of the war, and that the Proprietors still refused to bear their share of the taxation. But these details are wisely ignored by historians, as both annoying and unmanageable. Once weakly admit such in- trusive facts into history, and the smoothness and brilliancy of the narrative is forever destroyed.
What does seem tolerably sure, is that while Quakers and Episcopalians contended for mastery, the Indians had things pretty much their own way, and came within thirty miles of Philadelphia. Penn's city of peace bid fair to become — as in later years — the headquarters of war, when the wise and energetic measures of the elder Pitt restored some semblance of harmony to the combative colonists, and infused fresh vigour into the provincial government. The Prime Minister's clear eyes saw the absurdity of the situation, his impregnable common-sense mastered its
WAR AND THE RUMOURS OF WAIi 147
difficulties. Born ruler of men, he knew wlien to abandon the policy of coercion for one of conciliation and kindness. His counsel and generous assistance put the wearisome struggle with the Indians on a wholly fresh basis. Arms, ammunition, and other necessities for the troops were despatched at once from England ; three thousand recruits, raised in Pennsylvania, promptly joined the expedition against Fort Du Quesne ; and the Quaker Assembly voted another hundred thousand pounds to meet the emer- gencies of this final struggle. A bounty of five pounds was also offered for every volunteer, thus putting a positive premium upon war ; while at the same time, to leave no stone unturned, the Moravian missionary, Frederick Post, was sent on an embassy of peace to the Shawanese and Delaware Indians, who, though alienated from the English, were not closely allied with the French. Post was as success- ful in his negotiations as were General Forbes and Colonel Bouquet in their military manoeuvres. A convention was held at Easton, three hundred chiefs of various tribes being present. The Proprietors, through their agents, restored to the savages a large portion of the land taken from them by the Albany Treaty ; and the chiefs solemnly declared themselves satisfied with the restitution, and despatched at once to their young braves the white wampum belt, em- blem of peace and good-will. No words can ade-
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quately praise the heroism, the quiet unflinching courage which carried an unarmed Moravian with two or three devoted followers into the very heart of the hostile country, where death lurked day and night amid the sombre woods.
In the meantime, arguments of a different order had been brought to bear upon the allied French and Indians at Fort Du Quesne, and they were found to be so convincing that, after two assaults and one long bloody battle, the French troops withdrew from the fort, setting fire to it before their departure, and carrying safely away their guns and ammunition, though beset by an invading army outnumbering them ten to one. Their departure restored safety and tran- quillity to Pennsylvania. Thousands of farmers re- turned to their abandoned homes. Fort Pitt was built for their protection on the site of Fort Du Quesne, and where the city of Pittsburg now stands, commemo- rating the name of the great statesman to whom was mainly due the renewed prosperity of the province. Forbes, shattered in health, was carried back to Phila- delphia, where he died the following spring, and was buried in Christ Church. For a few years peace reigned in the city of peace, and the Assembly gained a real and lasting victory when Franklin, who had exchanged military glory for the more congenial field of diplo- macy, obtained the consent of the Privy Council to a bill authorizing the taxation of the proprietary estates.
\
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WAR AND THE ttUMOURS OF WAIi 149
This was the most important service he had rendered yet to the commonwealth. It had cost him two long years of hard work and weary waiting in England ; it had taxed his ingenuity, his resources, his patience to the utmost ; but it established his fame as a diplo- matist, and was the beginning of his successful public career.
In 1763 the treaty of Paris ended the war with France. There was a reasonable hope in every heart that the evil times were over, and that the old days of peace and comfort had returned to the province, now more thickly settled, more assiduously cultivated than before. But although the French had been driven westward, the Indians remained, and the set- tlers, having learned nothing from experience, treated them more cruelly and contemptuously than before, believing that, unaided by European allies, they were no longer to be feared, and that they should be punished for all the trouble they had dared to give. Perhaps it is never wise to provoke a savage foe beyond his rather limited powers of endurance. When the game seems easiest, then is danger near at hand. The story of Pontiac is no part of Philadelphia's history, save that his ruthless and terrible wars brought devas- tation to the fertile farms and smiling hamlets of Pennsylvania; for this Indian Attila, who combined the fierceness of the barbarian with the genius of a great commander, had organized the scattered tribes
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into a destroying army, infinitely more dangerous because ruled by a single mind, bent on the extermina- tion of the white man. Fort Pitt, the one defence and stronghold of the province, was surrounded and patiently besieged by the savages ; but the splendid courage of its Swiss commander. Captain Ecuyer, nerved his soldiers to resolute resistance, and they held out bravely until relieved by Colonel Bouquet who, with a mere handful of veterans, went gallantly to the rescue of his countryman. He asked help in this desperate enterprise from Pennsylvania's frontiers- men, from those Scotch-Irish farmers to whose hostile attitude was due much of the present trouble ; but not one of them consented to accompany him. The glorious battle of August 5th, which saved Fort Pitt, checked the triumphant advance of the Indians, and warded off from many a hearth the torch and the scalping knife, was fought by two regiments of English soldiers, so enfeebled by service in the West Indies that many of them died in the long, cruel marches before their goal was reached.
The danger once lifted, however, the hearts of the settlers grew hot with rage, and they formed them- selves into companies for the easy extermination of scattered and often harmless bands of Indians, whose depredations had never gone further than a gypsy-like pilfering of hen-roosts. The history of the so-called Paxton Boys is one of the dark stains on Pennsylva-
WAR AND THE RUMOURS OF WAR 151
Ilia's record. It lias been told many times already, and each new telling makes it seem more thoroughly disgraceful than before. A little band of friendly Indians, direct descendants of the savages with whom William Penn had made his first successful treaty, was settled at Conestoga, near Lancaster. All its members had long since been converted to Christianity by the kind Moravians, and supported themselves by basket- weaving, that time-honoured industry of their race. The wrathful colonists of Paxton, inflamed by the preaching of the church militant, as embodied in the fierce harangues of John Elder, determined to pluck out, root and branch, these abominations, hated of the Lord. With this pious purpose, fifty-seven of them went at daybreak on the fourteenth of December, 1763, to the Indian village, and found there only three men, two women, and a young boy. One hun- dred and forty of the tribe had been carried off to Philadelphia the day before, and fourteen of them were wandering about the country, selling their baskets and brooms. Though sorely disappointed by the smallness of the catch, the Paxton rangers promptly killed the men, the women, and the boy, set fire to the village, and retired jubilantly, trusting that Providence would soon deliver a more satisfac- tory pre}^ into their hands.
They had not long to wait. The Lancaster sheriff, hearing what had been done, and eager to avert
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further bloodshed, collected together the fourteen Indians who had escaped the massacre, and lodged them for protection in the jail. His action was kindly meant, but the jail was old and weak. The Paxton Boys knew now where to find their victims. They rode in a body to Lancaster, thrust aside their pastor, John Elder, who vainly strove to turn them from the meditated murder, beat down the jail doors, and cut the fourteen Indians, men, women, and children, into pieces with their hatchets. And these were the settlers who had refused their aid to Bouquet's fever- stricken troops, when they were asked to defend their own province in open and honourable warfare.
The deed awoke shame and anger in every honest breast. Brave men loathed its cowardice, good men its sickening brutality. Franklin laid aside his phil- osophic theories concerning savages and the march of civilization, and wrote his famous "Narrative," telling in simple, straightforward phrases the whole horrible story, and sternly reminding the colonists that, even in the improbable event of the butchered Indians having been on friendly terms with hostile tribes, the lawless murder was no less a crime against God, against the commonwealth, and against the very essence of civilization, which such acts of violence inevitably and hopelessly blighted. As for the Quakers, who felt themselves in an especial manner outraged by the cruel slaughter of their helpless
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dependents, they were aroused to a state of un- Quakerlike wrath, which it is both pleasant and whole- some to contemplate. Governor Penn issued two proclamations, denouncing the murders, and instruct- ing the magistrates to arrest the murderers, which, of course, they never did. On the contrary, the Paxtons found themselves so agreeably free from molestation that they grew valorous, and set out for Philadelphia, with the openly avowed intention of killing the one hundred and forty Moravian Indians who had been taken there for safety.
The Friends prepared to give the invaders a hot welcome. They even took up arms with an alacrity foreign to their principles, and which left no shadow of doubt as to the course they intended to pursue. English regulars were summoned to their aid, and the city swarmed with defenders. It had been deemed prudent to place the frightened Indians out of harm's way by sending them to a distance, but neither New Jersey nor New York would consent to receive them. Apparently there was no such thing as a colonial government which did not fear a mob.
Philadelphia honourably resolved that no power on earth should wrest from her these poor hostages to fortune. They were lodged in the soldiers' bar- racks, freshly fortified with trenches and cannon, and we see the ubiquitous Franklin assuming the personal charge of their defence. When the Paxton
154 PHILADELPHIA
rangers,