PHILADELPHIA IN 1824.

PART I.

BRIEF SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

IT was the boast of some of the nations of antiquity, that they owed their origin to, and were aided in their progress by, the gods of their fabled Mythology. A more rational and certain satisfaction may be derived by the people of Philadelphia, from contemplating the character of the worthy and enlightened men by whom this city was settled. The pleasure that is felt by the patriot and philanthropist in looking back upon the rise and growth of Philadelphia, is almost wholly without alloy. Stained with no blood, darkened by few of the excesses of faction, unpolluted by tyrants or bigots, its foundations laid deep in religion and morality, and public liberty and political wisdom, the history of this city may be cited as a striking proof of the justness of the observation,* "That there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity."

The annals of Philadelphia, however, furnish little that will interest the lovers of the romantic and marvellous. The reader who seeks in its history for battles and sieges, for great incidents or striking exploits, will be disappointed. In the rise and progress of an industrious, moral, peaceable, and successful people, there is nothing poetical. Prosperity in a * Washington.

Α

nation is almost synonymous with barrenness of incident, and leaves little for the annalist to narrate.

At the beginning of the year 1681, the tract of ground upon which Philadelphia now stands was covered with forests; and wild men and savage beasts had a pretty equal title to it. Tradition has preserved the anecdote, that in the year 1678, a ship called the Shields of Stockton, the first that had ever ventured to sail so high up the river, approached so close to the shore in tacking as to run her bowsprit among the trees which then lined the bank, and the passengers on board, who were bound for Burlington, remarked upon it as an advantageous site for a town. Little could they foresee the city that was to be erected upon that spot, or the contrast between its growth and that of the still humble village for which they were destined.

The love of religious liberty led to the foundation of Philadelphia. William Penn had fixed his thoughts upon America as a land of refuge and freedom, many years previous to his acquisition of Pennsylvania. It was not, however, until August 1682, that this venerable lawgiver, with his worthy associates, took their final leave of England. They were accompanied with favourable winds, and on the twenty-fourth of October the proprietary landed at Newcastle, amid the acclamations of the Dutch and Swedish settlers. From this place he proceeded to Upland, (now called Chester,) and shortly afterwards concluded that famous treaty with the natives, which they promised should endure "as long as the trees should grow, or the waters hold their course;" a promise, which was faithfully kept during the whole period of the proprietary government.

One of the first objects of the emigrants was the selection of a suitable spot for the building of a town. Upon a survey of the banks of the river, they soon fixed upon the present site. Many circumstances combined to render it particularly eligible. Two rivers united their streams at no great distance; the Delaware was of sufficient depth to float vessels of any known magnitude; the Schuylkill was navigable for vessels of the smaller classes, and was nearly as wide as the Thames at London; the spot was covered with valuable timber, and beneath its surface lay a stratum of brick-clay; the harbour furnished a bed of sand; immense quarries of building stone existed in the adjoining hills, and the vicinity yielded lime

stone and marble. A prior title, however, to this tract of ground was claimed by the Swedes, and some difficulties occurring in the negotiation for its purchase, it is said, upon the authority of tradition, that the design was entertained of transferring the contemplated city to an elevated spot twelve miles higher up the river. Fortunately for the commercial prosperity of Philadelphia, (already situated at an inconvenient distance from the ocean,) the design was abandoned, and the difficulties in the way of the purchase of Coaquannockt were

removed.

*

The original design of the proprietary was on a scale of very inconvenient extent. He gave orders to his commissioners to lay out a town in the proportion of two hundred acres for every ten thousand sold, in which the purchasers of five hundred acres were to have ten. The whole amount sold having been nearly four hundred thousand acres, the city would have covered an area of eight thousand acres, or twelve and a half square miles. These vast dimensions, it was soon perceived, were incompatible with the chief advantages of a city in trade, society, and mutual protection, the latter being of primary importance in the existing state of things. A new plan was therefore framed, in which the city was to occupy an area of less than two square miles, or about twelve hundred acres, extending two squares westward of the river Schuylkill. A few years afterwards the plot was again contracted, and by the charter of 1701, the city was declared to be bounded by the two rivers Delaware and Schuylkill, and on the north and south by Vine and Cedar streets.

Previously to the arrival of the proprietor, some of the emigrants, who had preceded him, provided for themselves temporary accommodations on the site of the city, in bark huts, which the natives taught them to erect, or in caves dug in the high bank that overhung the Delaware. In one of these rude caves was born the first native Philadelphian. The first

* A little above the place now called "The Bake-House." †The ancient Indian name of the place where Philadelphia stands. John Key, who reached the patriarchal age of eighty-five, and died at Kennet, in Chester county, in July 1767. He was born in a cave, afterwards known by the name of Pennypot, on the bank near Race street. Proud relates of him, that when near eighty, he walked from Kennet to the city, a distance of thirty miles, in one day.

The natives of these dwellings of primitive simplicity, seem to have approached the primitive longevity; for Edward Drinker, who was also born in a cave, survived until the declaration of independence.