Historic Philadelphia

HISTORIC 

PHILADELPHIA 

An Illustrated History 

by James Smart 

A PUBLICATION OF HISTORIC PHILADELPHIA, INC.

Thank you for your interest in this HPNbooks publication. For more information about other 

HPNbooks publications, or information about producing your own book with us, please visit www.hpnbooks.com.

HISTORIC 

PHILADELPHIA 

An Illustrated History 

by James Smart 

A publication of Historic Philadelphia, Inc. 

Historical Publishing Network 

A division of Lammert Publications, Inc. 

San Antonio, Texas

✧ 

With yellow fever ravaging Philadelphia in 

1793, President George Washington moved 

to the safer suburb of Germantown and 

occupied the Morris House, then about 

twenty years old, which General Sir 

William Howe had lived in after the Battle 

of Germantown. It was the president’s 

summer dwelling again in 1794. 

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR. 

First Edition 

Copyright © 2001 Historical Publishing Network 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, 

including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to 

Historical Publishing Network, 8491 Leslie Road, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (210) 688-9006. 

ISBN: 1-893619-18-4 

Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2001088367 

Historic Philadelphia: An Illustrated History 

author: James Smart 

contributing writers for 

“sharing the heritage”: George Beetham 

Heather Harris 

Marie Beth Jones 

Historical Publishing Network 

president: Ron Lammert 

vice president & project coordinator: Barry Black 

project representatives: Matthew J. DeJulio, Jr. 

Timothy B. Dorr 

John Lehman 

William E. Ruff 

director of operations: Charles A. Newton, III 

administration: Angela Lake 

Donna Mata 

Dee Steidle 

graphic production: Colin Hart 

John Barr 

PRINTED IN SINGAPORE 

HISTORIC PHILADELPHIA 

2

CONTENTS 

4 FOREWORD 

5 INTRODUCTION 

“Here is Enough” 

6 PROLOGUE 

Before There Was A City 

the Lenni Lenape 

the explorers 

the Dutch 

the Swedes 

trouble on the river 

Dutch again 

and finally, English 

10 CHAPTER I 

William Penn’s City 

young William Penn 

founding a City 

building a city 

Governor Penn arrives 

land deals & great promises 

back in England 

trouble in Pennsylvania 

final farewells 

the city’s early years 

22 CHAPTER II 

Ben Franklin’s City 

the kid from Boston 

building a state house 

politics & play-acting 

a bell & other improvements 

trouble with taxes 

the declaration 

the British take over 

the convention city 

changing into the capital 

yellow fever 

46 CHAPTER III 

The Quaker City 

capital of a nation 

race, religion & politics 

life in the capital 

commerce & culture 

Strickland does Philly 

railroads & riots 

the turbulent Forties 

the Quaker city 

70 CHAPTER IV 

The Centennial City 

consolidation 

war years 

peace & progress 

centennial time 

the great exhibition 

the city at 200 

90 CHAPTER V 

The Corrupt & Contented City 

the Nineties 

the century turns 

corrupt & contented 

war & hoagies 

the Twenties 

the soggy sesqui 

the radio city 

the Depression years 

110 CHAPTER VI 

The Bicentennial City 

war and party conventions 

city hall scandals 

democrats take over 

restless decade 

the bicentennial 

124 CHAPTER VII 

The 300-Year-Old City 

the Eighties 

the century ends 

130 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

132 SHARING THE HERITAGE 

190 INDEX 

192 SPONSORS 

CONTENTS 

3

FOREWORD 

INTO THE TREES 

This book is not a scholarly work. Readers seeking comprehensive details, weighty analysis, or 

footnotes will have to look elsewhere. Its goal is to amble pleasantly through nearly four centuries 

of Philadelphia history, stopping here and there along the way to examine interesting people, 

events, buildings, and activities. It is anecdotal, episodic, possibly even erratic. Recording every 

worthwhile event and person would require a bookshelf, not a mere book. If some major items are 

ignored while trivial ones are emphasized, relax. History is more fun that way. 

In that spirit, the author assumes the customary responsibility for errors, and apologizes for 

omissions both accidental and intentional. 

Struthers Burt, in his 1945 book about the city, wrote: “Philadelphia is a fascinating place and 

one of the hardest subjects imaginable to write about. The trees are so thick, the little wandering 

forest byways and paths so numerous and so interesting, that it is almost impossible at times to see 

the forest.” 

Follow me into the trees. 

✧ 

This 1839 Massachusetts abolitionist 

pamphlet first applied the name Liberty Bell 

to Philadelphia’s nearly forgotten State 

House bell, starting it on the way to being a 

national icon. 

COURTESY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTION. 


4

INTRODUCTION 

“ HERE IS ENOUGH” 

“I doe Call the Citty to be layd out by the Name of Philadelphia and soe I will have it Called.” 

William Penn wrote that instruction on October 28, 1681, in a memo from London to his 

cousin, William Markham, his deputy governor in his new province of Pennsylvania. 

Philadelphia was the name of an ancient city that Christians since New Testament times had 

admired for its faithfulness. The Greek word is usually defined as “City of Brotherly Love.” Penn 

didn’t say what he thought it meant, but Thomas Blount’s Glossographia, a dictionary published in 

1656, said it “signifies brotherly or sisterly love.” 

The city that Penn and his helpers “layd out” has spread from two square miles to 135, and there 

are, at the moment, about a million and a half more residents than Penn ever saw. Through more 

than three centuries, his city has endured epidemics, military occupation, race and religious riots, 

economic depressions, political scandals, a Super Bowl loss, and other municipal catastrophes. 

His city has also enjoyed moments of glory. It produced the documents that created our nation. 

It gave America its first stock exchange, zoo, hospital, bank, abolition society, trade union, and ice 

boat. It has given the world a superior symphony orchestra, a glorious annual flower show, the first 

electronic computer, South Street and Manayunk nightlife, the oldest continuously functioning 

theater in the English speaking world, the revolving door, bubble gum, and hoagies. 

People of many races, nationalities, skills, ideas, and dreams became Philadelphians through the 

generations. Their experiences created the city, with its imperfections and its delights. 

“Here is enough for both poor & rich, not only for necessity but pleasure,” William Penn wrote 

of his city three centuries ago. For most Philadelphians, that remained true through all the years. 

This book tries to tell their story. 

✧ 

Thomas Blount’s Glossographia Anglicana 

Nova, or A Dictionary Interpreting Such 

Hard Words of Whatsoever Language as 

Are Presently Used, was first published in 

1656, when William Penn was a twelveyear-old 

pupil at Chigwell Free Grammar 

School in Wanstead, Essex, six miles east of 

London. Perhaps young Penn read in it that 

the name “Philadelphia” signifies brotherly 

or sisterly love. 

COURTESY OF RARE BOOK DEPARTMENT, 

FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA. 

INTRODUCTION 

5


6

PROLOGUE 

BEFORE THERE WAS A CITY 

THE LENNI LENAPE 

“Wapsiypayat.” The White, he comes. 

That word, recorded in the Walam Olum, the sacred writings of the Lenni Lenape, announced the 

ultimate doom of the Native Americans who lived on the banks of the Delaware River, where one 

day Philadelphia would be built. 

They were an old, proud nation. They believed that God had created them first upon the earth. 

Their very name, Lenni Lenape, means “the original people.” In ancient times, they had conquered 

this continent. The Europeans would take it away from them. 

THE 

EXPLORERS 

Englishman Henry Hudson, probing for a shortcut to India on behalf of Dutch merchants, 

poked briefly into Delaware Bay on August 28, 1609. He thought it was too shallow for his ship, 

and pushed north to discover the river that later was given his name. To the Dutch in 1609, the 

Hudson was the North River, the Delaware the South River. 

In 1610, a ship commanded by Sir Samuel Argall, an Englishman, wandered into the South River. 

Thomas West, governor of the three-year-old colony at Jamestown, Virginia, had sent Argall to Bermuda 

to buy hogs. Instead, Sir Samuel went to New England and bought fish. His reasons for the detour are 

unknown, but on his way home, he did some sightseeing on the river. He decided that it should be 

named to honor Sir Thomas, whose title was Baron de la Ware, and the Delaware River it became. 

THE 

DUTCH 

Captain Cornelis Jacobsen Mey showed up in 1614, named one shore of the bay Cape May after 

himself, and claimed the river for the Dutch. In 1623, Mey returned, on a ship called New 

Netherlands, with thirty families to be the first settlers. Most of the colonists went to the North 

River, but four married couples and some military men came to the Delaware. 

Captain Mey took the families to an island far up the river, where they built a brick house. The 

soldiers and sailors erected a log fort on the east bank of the river, opposite the mouth of the 

Schuylkill ( Dutch for “hidden river.”) These were the first Europeans to live in the Delaware Valley. 

It’s not known how long they stayed or why they left. 

The Dutch made another attempt to colonize the area in 1631, this time down on the bay, near 

the present Lewes, Delaware. They insulted the local Lenni Lenape, who destroyed the colony. In 

1632, Dutch colonization of the Delaware Valley was suspended. 

✧ 

This fragment of a map of the Delaware 

River, drawn in 1655 by Peter Lindstrom, 

royal Swedish engineer, shows early 

European spellings of Native American 

place names familiar today: Passayung, 

Meneyackse (Manayunk), Kackamensi 

(Shackamaxon), Penipackakyl (Pennypack), 

and Poaetguessingh (Poquessing.) With 

letters and numbers, Lindstrom also 

footnoted such enduring names as 

Tinnaconck (Tinicum) and Kinsessing. 


THE 

SWEDES 

Several Dutchmen still wanted to establish a presence on the Delaware, including Peter Minuit, 

who had been fired after six years as governor of the Dutch settlement on Manhattan Island. They 

applied to King Adolphus Gustavus of Sweden, who was killed in battle in 1632. His daughter, 

Christina, became queen at age six. Her adult advisers granted the Dutch adventurers twenty years 

exclusive trading rights on the Delaware River. 

The new company raised funds to outfit two ships, which arrived on the Delaware in March 

1638. In July a load of furs purchased from the Indians was shipped home. Their sale brought 

PROLOGUE 

7

✧ 

Top, left: A Lenni Lenape native family was 

depicted in a seventeenth century Swedish 

book about settlements in the Delaware 

River Valley. 


Top, right: Thomas West, Lord de la Ware, 

was honored in 1610 by having a river 

named for him. 

COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF PORTRAITS. 

Below: Johan Bjornsson Printz governed 

New Sweden on the Delaware with a tough 

attitude, backed up by a four-hundredpound 

physique. 



8 

14,500 florins, and the expedition had cost 

46,000 florins thus far. The investors in 

Sweden were unhappy, but the settlers on the 

Delaware were prospering. They built a fort at 

the present location of Wilmington and 

named it Christina. With the colonists was 

Anthony, a slave from Angola, certainly the 

first African resident of the Delaware Valley. 

TROUBLE ON THE RIVER 

In 1640, an Englishmen, George 

Lamberton, bought land from the Indians on 

the east bank of the Schuylkill. He was the 

first European to settle within the modern 

boundaries of Philadelphia. 

The Swedish government appointed 

a tough new governor for New Sweden: Johan 

Bjornsson Printz, a cavalry veteran of the 

perpetual European wars. He weighed four 

hundred pounds, ate constantly, and drank 

half pints of buckshot when he needed 

a laxative. The Indians nicknamed him 

“Big Belly.” 

Printz erected an eight-cannon fort across 

the river from the English claim, and fortified 

swampy Tinicum Island (just below the 

present site of Philadelphia International 

Airport), controlling river access to 

Lamberton’s homestead. He invited 

Lamberton to come down the river and 

discuss the situation. Lamberton and two 

followers paid the visit, and were instantly 

put in chains and forced to take a loyalty oath 

to Sweden. Big Belly built several other forts, 

including a block house on the site of the 

present Gloria Dei Church in South 

Philadelphia. “Send me 200 soldiers,” Printz 

said in a dispatch to Sweden, “and I’ll break 

the necks of everybody on the river.”

DUTCH 

AGAIN 

The Dutch just wouldn’t quit. In 1655 a fleet 

of five Dutch ships sailed up the Delaware, commanded 

by Peter Stuyvesant, the one-legged soldier 

who was governing New Netherlands from 

his Manhattan base. The 368 Swedish settlers 

were outnumbered, the Swedish government 

had lost interest, and so the names of all the forts 

and towns changed from Swedish to Dutch. 

AND 

FINALLY, ENGLISH 

In 1664 King Charles II of England gave his 

brother James, Duke of York, title to everything 

from New England to the Delaware Bay. 

Stuyvesant and his followers weren’t strong 

enough to resist the British fleet that arrived 

off Manhattan. So, New Amsterdam was converted 

to New York and the Delaware Valley 

became British. 

✧ 

Christina became queen of Sweden at age six 

in 1632. Regents advised her to commission 

Swedish traders to settle the Delaware Valley. 

The young queen enjoyed riding, hunting, 

shooting and swearing, and reviewed her 

troops on horseback while twirling an 

imaginary mustache. She also learned six 

languages before she was eighteen. 


PROLOGUE 

9


10

WILLIAM PENN’S CITY 

YOUNG WILLIAM PENN 

William Penn was born in London in 1644. His father, at age twenty-three, had just been 

appointed an admiral of the British navy. Before Penn’s first birthday, a Puritan army captain named 

Oliver Cromwell led a defeat of the king’s army. By 1649 King Charles I was beheaded and 

Cromwell was dictator of England. 

Admiral Penn served both Charles and Cromwell with equal loyalty. Cromwell rewarded him with 

estates in Ireland. It was at one of them, Macroom, a fifteenth century castle near Cork, that fourteenyear-old 

William Penn’s future was influenced when he heard a Quaker preacher named Thomas Loe. 

After Cromwell died in 1658, the quarreling British factions came to terms. The son of Charles 

I, exiled in France, was invited to occupy the English throne. Admiral Penn was commissioned to 

sail across the channel and bring back Charles II. William, fifteen, went along on the trip. 

William Penn entered Oxford University in 1660, but was thrown out in 1662. His father gave 

him a thrashing, but Penn couldn’t care less. Oxford, he snarled, was “a signal place for idleness, 

loose living, profaneness, prodigality and gross ignorance.” 

Sent to Ireland to collect rents from the family estates in 1666, Penn again encountered Thomas 

Loe. His developing religious opinions and his dissatisfaction with the royal Church of England fell 

together. He joined the semi-outlawed Society of Friends, and became an active Quaker preacher 

and writer. In December of 1668, one of his books drew a blasphemy charge. He was locked in an 

unheated cell in the Tower of London, underfed and allowed no visitors unless he renounced his 

religious opinions. His father pulled some strings and got him released in July. When he emerged, 

twenty-four-year-old Penn had lost most of his hair. For the rest of his life, he wore wigs. “He wares 

them to keep his head & ears warm & not for pride,” a Quaker friend wrote. 

Visiting some fellow Quakers, Penn met Gulielma Springett, a pretty Quaker his age who had 

inherited an income from real estate of ten thousand pounds a year, about five times the Penn family 

income and perhaps one hundred times the average London tradesman’s wage. They became engaged. 

Penn’s increasing Quaker activities guaranteed that he would pass a lot of time in jail. He spent 

a month in the Tower in 1670. Ten days after he got out, his father died. The admiral was forty-nine. 

Within two weeks of his father’s funeral, Penn was arrested for illegal preaching and sent to Newgate 

prison for six months. He refused his gentleman’s privilege of renting a decent room in the fourhundred-year-old 

prison, but stayed in the Common Room where thieves, prostitutes, and other 

offenders were thrown together without regard to age, sex or health. While there, Penn wrote 

religious pamphlets, letters, and poetry. 

After his release, he married Gulielma. And he got an appointment that changed his life. He was 

chosen to arbitrate a dispute among four Quaker businessmen over a land grant in North America, 

a place named New Jersey. Penn assumed control of part of New Jersey, and was able to send a 

group of Quaker colonists to settle at Burlington in 1677. 

The episode gave William Penn an idea. If he could get clear ownership of some land in North 

America, he might found a colony governed on Quaker principles. And nobody was doing much 

with the wilderness right across the Delaware River from New Jersey. 

On June 1, 1680, Penn petitioned King Charles II for all the land west of the Delaware, extending 

north from the border of Maryland for five degrees of latitude. 

✧ 

Benjamin West, a Philadelphian who went 

to England and became the favorite court 

painter of King George III, was 

commissioned by the Penn family in 1773 to 

paint William Penn’s legendary treaty with 

the Indians a century earlier. West’s 

conjectural depiction of an improbably 

overweight Penn offering some yard goods 

to the Lenape sachems is an image fixed 

indelibly in the Philadelphia psyche. 

COURTESY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE 

ARTS, PHILADELPHIA. GIFT OF MRS. SARAH HARRISON 

(THE JOSEPH HARRISON, JR. COLLECTION). 

FOUNDING A CITY 

Charles II was six-foot-three, a near giant by seventeenth century standards. He was a highliving 

spendthrift who loved tennis and women. He had thirteen mistresses at one time or another, 

CHAPTER I 

11

✧ 

Right: The bust carved nine years after 

William Penn’s death by Sylvanus Bevan, a 

London apothecary who knew Penn, may be 

the best likeness among the rare portraits of 

Philadelphia’s founder. Ben Franklin and 

eighteenth century historian Robert Proud 

both reported that friends of Penn praised 

its accuracy. 

COURTESY OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, 

DEPARTMENT OF RECORDS, CITY ARCHIVES. 

Below: The ruins of Macroom Castle, 

twenty-six miles west of Cork in Ireland, 

where a wandering Quaker preacher gave 

fourteen-year-old William Penn his first 

exposure to the new religious ideas of the 

Society of Friends. Oliver Cromwell had 

presented the Macroom estate, with its 

three-story fifteenth century castle, to 

Penn’s father when he retired as an admiral 

in 1656. 

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR AND 

THE IRISH TOURIST BOARD. 

and twelve illegitimate children by seven 

different women. He was probably pleased 

when William Penn requested land for a 

Quaker colony. Maybe those nuisance 

Quakers would all move out and leave the 

Church of England in peace. 

Also, he owed Penn money. Penn’s father 

once paid for rations for the Royal Navy out of 

his own pocket, when the crown was short on 

funds. The debt came to about sixteen 

thousand pounds. King Charles was surely 

happy that Penn would take land instead 

of cash. 

On March 4, 1681, Charles II signed 

documents giving William Penn forty-five 

thousand square miles, their boundaries illdefined. 

It was the largest tract of land ever 

owned by a private citizen. 

Penn set up a real estate sales operation 

immediately. His lawyer’s clerks began 

drawing up batches of deeds with blanks left 

for name, price and number of acres. He had 

agents peddling Pennsylvania land in Ireland, 

Scotland, Wales, Holland, and Germany. 

There were thirty-four sales the first week, 

471 by the end of the year. 

Penn offered a variety of lot sizes and 

payment plans. Buyers of large acreage in the 

country were offered bonuses of city lots on 

which to build a town house. City purchasers 

could get a bonus of liberty land (we would 

probably call it free land) in areas just outside 

the city; the Northern Liberties ultimately 

became the most built-up, and the name 

survives as a neighborhood just north of the 

original city limits. 

A group of “adventurers” (we would say 

investors) could buy fifty thousand acres and 

operate it under the feudal concept of “manor 

of frank.” The group could charter towns, levy 

its own taxes, resell land and use natural 

resources. This deal brought in a London 

investment group called the Free Society of 

Traders. Among its holdings was all the land 

between Spruce and Pine Streets from river to 

river. The hill at the east end of the Society’s 

tract became known as Society Hill. 

BUILDING A CITY 

While William Penn stayed home, 

drumming up customers, his cousin, William 

Markham, sailed for Pennsylvania to act as 

Penn’s deputy governor. With the help of two 

men already living along the Delaware, 

Thomas Fairman and Lasse Cock, Markham 

began inspecting land and measuring the 


12

iver, looking for the best spot to build 

Philadelphia. Fairman was a British Quaker 

who already had built a riverside brick house 

at Shackamaxon. Cock was a Swedish settler 

who spoke English and Lenni Lenape. 

Markham found villages at New Castle 

(Penn’s grant included what is now Delaware), 

Upland (now Chester), on Tinicum Island, on 

the banks of the Schuylkill and at Kingsessing 

and Passayunk. There were Swedish waterpowered 

mills on several creeks, and Swedish 

farmland under cultivation. The three 

Swanson brothers were using much of the 

land along the Delaware just above the 

Schuylkill, at the place called Wicaco. They 

had been farming there for nearly forty years. 

Hannah Salter, a Quaker widow, owned 

most of the riverfront land between the 

Swanson tract and Fairman’s. The Indians 

called the area Coaquannock. It means “pine 

tree place.” 

Elizabeth Kinsey, before she married 

Fairman, had bought Shackamaxon from Lasse 

Cock in 1678. The Cock family and other 

Swedes were using the land from Shackamaxon 

up to a creek called the Quessinawomink 

(today spelled Wissinoming.) 

Markham had his eye on Swanson 

territory, because he wanted to establish the 

new city at the best site for a harbor. The cove 

of Dock Creek created a natural landing place 

for waterborne arrivals. There was a sandy 

beach, with pine trees overhanging a high 

bank. The Swanson brothers agreed to swap 

the northern part of their claim (now covered 

by Society Hill and Old City) in exchange for 

equal land on the west bank of the Schuylkill. 

In October of 1681, a ship called Bristol 

Factor sailed with the first load of Penn’s 

purchasers, sixteen adults and some children. 

Bristol Factor arrived on December 15, got 

frozen in the ice on the river at Upland, and 

had to stay there all winter. The ships John & 

Sarah and Amity also sailed in 1681. By the 

end of 1682, there would be twenty-three 

shiploads of settlers. “Blessed be the Lord that 

of 23 ships, none miscarried,” Penn wrote. 

“Only two or three had smallpox.” 

On the John & Sarah was William Crispin, 

carrying instructions from William Penn on 

how to lay out the city. Crispin died on the 

voyage. Thomas Holme, appointed by Penn to 

survey the new city, didn’t arrive until August 

1682. Six other ships arrived that August. 

Edward Jones, one of the first Welsh 

immigrants, wrote home that he found “a 

crowd of people striving for ye country land, 

for ye town lot is not divided.” 

Holme had drawn a careful plan of the city, 

but people can’t live on a map. Some dug caves 

✧ 

Thomas Holme’s 1682 plan for the city, as 

he explained it, consisted of “a large Frontstreet 

to each river, and a High-street (near 

the middle) from Front (or river) to Front, 

of one hundred foot broad, and a Broadstreet 

in the middle of the city, from side to 

side, of the like breadth.” Later, the idea of a 

Schuykill Front Street was dropped, and 

numbering proceeded westward from the 

Delaware. Holme planned a center square 

to locate “buildings for publick concerns,” 

and designated eight-acre public squares in 

each quarter of the one-by-two-mile city. 

William Penn ruled the north-south streets 

should be numbered, and east-west streets 

should take their names from nature: 

Sassafras, Chestnut, Mulberry, and other 

trees, or, at the northern boundary of the 

city, Vine. Exceptions were the two main 

streets, High and Broad. In later years 

usage turned High into Market, because the 

marketplace was there. Cedar Street, the 

city’s southern boundary, became South. 

Mulberry became Arch because an arch 

carried it across Front Street. And because 

young men raced their horses on Sassafras 

Street, it became known as Race Street. 

COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

PORTRAITURE OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA IN THE 

PROVINCE OF PENNSYLVANIA IN AMERICA BY THOMAS 

HOLME, SURVEYOR GENERAL, ENGRAVING, 1683 

(OF610 1683H-1). 

CHAPTER I 

13

house faster than English carpenters using 

saws, planes, and fancy tools. 

The Philadelphians and their fellow 

Pennsylvanians in the countryside found, 

with the help of the Lenni Lenape, all sorts of 

fruits, berries and herbs growing wild. They 

began to cultivate grains and vegetables, raise 

horses and livestock, hunt deer and wild fowl 

and bring in fish, oysters, and mussels. 

It seemed just the kind of Sylvania that 

Penn had in mind. 

GOVERNOR PENN ARRIVES 

✧ 

Thomas Fairman’s brick mansion at 

Shackamaxon on the Delaware was William 

Penn’s first residence in Pennsylvania. 

Nearby was a giant elm tree under which, 

deep Philadelphia tradition insists, Penn 

made his major treaty with the Lenni 

Lenape sachems (or sakima, the Lenni 

Lenape word for king or chief). 



14 

into the Delaware River bank, the tops planked 

over and covered with sod, and lived there 

until properly settled. (Benjamin Chambers, 

who arrived later with Penn on the ship 

Welcome, a carpenter good with his hands, 

built such an elaborate cave that he didn’t want 

to leave and eventually had to be forced by the 

authorities to accept a normal building lot.) 

Most settlers wanted to be near the river, 

the main thoroughfare for travel and 

commerce. Few wanted to be off in the 

woodsy interior. Holme drew a start-up layout 

that went only five blocks back from the river, 

started surveying lots, and had a lottery to see 

which buyer got which lot. 

Supplies were coming in by ship, and the 

Swedes and Indians sold the newcomers food 

and other commodities. There was plenty of 

timber for building, and good local clay for 

making red brick, as well as four shiploads of 

bricks, some forty-eight thousand, that arrived 

from England in 1682. Sand and gravel were 

plentiful for mixing mortar for brick 

construction. (Zachariah Whitpaine tried to 

economize a bit by mixing ground up oyster 

shells with his mortar, thus achieving the 

distinction of being the first Philadelphian to 

have his house collapse.) 

For a low price, a settler could hire a team 

of Swedes who would move onto a wooded 

building lot and, working with only axes and 

wooden wedges, chop down trees, render 

them into beams and boards, and build a 

On October 24, 1682, a sailing ship 

entered the Delaware Bay and began moving 

smoothly upstream. It was the Welcome, 

Captain Robert Greenaway, master, fifty-three 

days out of Deal, England. On board was 

William Penn, soon to see the site of the great 

city he had been planning for two years. 

The Welcome was a 284-ton, three-masted 

bark, 140 feet long and 26 feet at the widest. 

(By contrast, the Queen Elizabeth II is 67,000 

tons, 963 feet long.) Passengers were provided 

with bare wooden bunks in cramped cubicles. 

They had to bring their own food. They could 

store baggage below decks if they found room. 

Penn had brought along a disassembled flour 

mill and saw mill, plus furniture and woodwork 

for the mansion he planned to build, 

including carved doors and window frames. 

The open deck was equally crowded. Penn 

had brought several horses. Other livestock, 

chickens, turkeys, and ducks, mostly crated, 

was noisy and smelly. The best way for a 

passenger to bring his own food, without it 

spoiling, was alive. 

Of the 100 Friends on the eight-week 

voyage, thirty died of smallpox. Penn was 

immune, because he had survived the disease 

at age three. He spent the weeks tending the 

feverish sick, and encouraging them with 

inspirational sermons. 

The thirty-eight-year-old Quaker came 

ashore at New Castle at dusk on October 27 

and handed town officials legal papers from 

London, informing them that he was the new 

proprietor and governor of their colony. The 

next day, the Welcome moved sixteen miles 

north to Upland; Penn renamed it Chester.

There is no good record of Penn’s arrival at 

Philadelphia. Tradition has him rowing into 

the mouth of the creek picked for the site of 

the public boat landing, Dock Creek. 

Penn created six counties: Philadelphia, 

Bucks, Chester, and the “Three Lower 

Counties”, New Castle, Kent and Sussex. He 

appointed a sheriff for each, and ordered 

them to hold elections of three members of 

the Provincial Council and six members of the 

General Assembly. The first popularly-elected 

Assembly met on March 12, 1683. Giving all 

taxpayers the right to vote caused Dr. 

Nicholas More, president of the influential 

Free Society of Traders, to predict disaster 

for a colony “wherein every Will, Dick and 

Tom govern.” 

During his stay, Penn took over Thomas 

Fairman’s brick mansion at Shackamaxon, up 

the river from the city. He wanted to build his 

own manor house close to town, and for its 

site picked the highest spot with the best 

view, the place called Fair Mount. He never 

built his dream house; if he had, it would be 

where the Art Museum now stands. He did set 

in motion the construction of a country estate 

at Pennsbury, in Bucks County. 

LAND DEALS & 

“ GREAT PROMISES” 

William Penn’s first purchase from the 

Lenni Lenape was made by Markham on July 

15, 1682, mostly of Bucks County land 

including Pennsbury. A year later, Penn personally 

made five deals for land along the 

Delaware, agreements with the natives in 

which, he wrote, “great Promises past 

between us of Kindness and good 

Neighbourhood,” and by June 1684, had 

negotiated for five more tracts either near the 

city or extending west to the Susquehanna 

River. In 1685 and 1686, Penn’s agents would 

make two more purchases. Just what was 

being bought was not always precise. One 

purchase was measured from Conshohocken 

west “as far as a man can go in two days,” 

another from the Delaware “as far as a man 

can ride in two days with a horse.” 

The Lenni Lenape had their own way 

of doing things, and Penn tried to observe 

it. “They (tho in a kind of Community 

among themselves) observe property and 

Government,” he wrote. And in a letter to 

Markham, September 1683, Penn mentioned 

that “the Indians do make People buy over 

again that Land the people have not seated in 

some years after purchased, which is the 

practice also of all these Governments towards 

the People inhabiting under them.” About 

forty-five more ships arrived during 1683. 

While 10,000 of every 100,000 acres of 

Pennsylvania land were reserved for Penn, there 

was plenty to go around. Investors in England 

and Europe signed up. 

A German group with five of its eleven 

directors from Frankfurt am Main formed the 

Frankford Company and bought fifteen 

thousand acres. Its agent, Francis Daniel 

In 1857 Granville John Penn, greatgrandson 

of William Penn, gave the 

Historical Society of Pennsylvania a 

wampum belt he said had been presented to 

his ancestor in 1682. 

COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF 

PENNSYLVANIA, PHOTO BY WEAVER LILLEY. 

CHAPTER I 

15

✧ 

Historians tend to pooh-pooh the Penn treaty 

at Shackamaxon as legend because no 

official record exists. But after the massive 

Treaty Elm blew down in a hurricane in 

1810, sentimental Philadelphians placed a 

monument on the spot in 1824. Today the 

site is a public park. 


DEPARTMENT OF RECORDS, CITY ARCHIVES. 


16 

Pastorius, came to Pennsylvania in 1683. 

He soon moved to Germantown and became 

a Quaker. 

Welsh Quakers also formed land companies, 

some with the intent to buy large tracts and 

subdivide acreage among poorer Welshmen. 

In May 1684, the ship Isabella out of Bristol 

arrived from Africa with 150 slaves for sale. It 

was the only known slave ship to enter the 

Philadelphia port in the 1680s. The cargo sold 

out. Nicholas More bought four men; two ran 

away almost immediately. Dr. More, newly 

appointed by Penn as chief of the five justices of 

the provincial court, was busy dealing with a 

crime wave. “There is heare mutch robrey in 

City and Countrey,” he reported to Penn, 

“Breaking of houses, and stealing of Hoggs.” An 

Indian sachem named Nannecheschan was giving 

More a hard time over the case of a slave 

who, while drunk, snatched the sachem’s crown 

from his head on the street and ran away with 

pieces of it, which he sold to a Dutch baker. 

When Penn sailed back to England in August 

1684, there were 357 houses in Philadelphia. 

BACK IN ENGLAND 

William Penn arrived in London in 

October of 1684, rented a mansion in the 

Kensington section, and spent much time 

lobbying at court, hoping for favorable 

settlement of a boundary dispute with Lord 

Baltimore of Maryland. The following 

February, King Charles II had a stroke while 

shaving. His majesty was given the most upto-date 

medical treatment, including the 

application of red hot frying pans to his head, 

but he died anyway. His brother, the Duke of 

York, was proclaimed King James II. 

In 1686 Penn toured Europe, and in Holland 

he conferred secretly with Prince William of 

Orange, son-in-law of King James and the 

acknowledged Protestant leader of Western 

Europe. Two years later, William and his wife, 

Mary, landed in England and took over the 

throne. James II fled to France. The new rulers 

didn’t trust the rebellious Quaker: within a 

month, Penn was stopped by troops on a 

London street and hauled in for questioning. In 

1690 he was thrown into the Tower of London 

briefly “for some practices against the 

government.” In 1692 William and Mary took 

away Penn’s rights to Pennsylvania, and turned 

the administration over to the governor of New 

York. It took Penn thirty months of persuasion 

at court to regain control of his province. 

In the midst of all this, his wife, Gulielma, 

died in February 1694, at age fifty. He 

consoled himself by working, writing and 

preaching. On a preaching tour in 1695, he 

stopped at the house of Thomas Callowhill, a 

Quaker merchant in Bristol, England. Penn, 

then fifty-four, was smitten with Callowhill’s 

daughter, Hannah, who was twenty-four. He 

corresponded with Hannah and sent her gifts, 

and they were married in March 1696. 

Five weeks after the wedding, Penn’s oldest 

son, Springett, died. He was twenty. Of the 

seven children born to Guli Penn, only three 

had lived more than a year. Remaining in 

1696 were Letitia, seventeen, and William Jr., 

fifteen. In January of 1699, not yet eighteen, 

Billy Jr. married Mary Jones of Bristol, the day 

after her twenty-second birthday. 

And William Sr. was preparing to sail back 

to Pennsylvania and spend the rest of his days 

at his manor house on the Delaware. 

TROUBLE IN 

PENNSYLVANIA 

Before Penn left for England in 1684, he 

appointed Dr. Thomas Lloyd as deputy

governor, to head the Pennsylvania government 

in his absence. Lloyd was a Quaker physician 

who meant well, but lacked the clout of 

personality and reputation that Penn had. He 

was often ignored by Philadelphia settlers, who 

began to neglect rents and fees owed to Penn. 

Now that the governor was an ocean away, 

obligations of payment “are laid aside like an 

old tale told,” William Markham reported to 

Penn. The Provincial Council didn’t respond to 

Penn’s letters. Lloyd spent most of his time 

courting a wealthy widow in New York. 

Another Penn appointee was causing 

problems: Chief Justice Nicholas More, who 

had purchased ten thousand acres for himself, 

the Manor of Moreland northeast of the city. 

The Provincial Council impeached More in 

1685. The charges related to improper 

conduct in court, but it didn’t help that More, 

an Anglican, had publicly called the mostly 

Quaker Council “fools and loggerheads,” and 

said that “it will never be good times so long 

as the Quakers have the administration.” 

More refused to attend his hearing before the 

Assembly, and it was found that his secretary 

had kept the court records in a Latin 

shorthand that was indecipherable. The 

Assembly proclaimed More’s behavior 

“undecent, unallowable and to be disowned.” 

The arguments continued for two years, until 

More settled the matter by dying. 

As reports of the performance of the 

Pennsylvania government reached London, 

William Penn wrote to Thomas Lloyd, “For 

the love of God, me, and the poor country, be 

not so governmentish….” 

The Provincial leaders found time for some 

constructive actions during all the bickering. 

A ferry service was set up across the 

Schuylkill at High Street. Roads were cleared 

from Philadelphia to Moyamensing, Radnor, 

Plymouth and Darby. The wide grassy strip 

in the center of High Street was developing 

into a central market, where butchers grazed 

animals, slaughtered them and sold the 

meat in moveable stalls. The Quakers 

established a school in 1689, now called Penn 

Charter School. 

Philadelphia was getting the reputation of 

a wild town, from tales told by happy sailors 

and outraged Quakers. “There is a cry come 

over into these parts,” Penn complained from 

London, “against the number of drinking 

houses and the looseness that is committed in 

the caves,” meaning the dugouts on the 

waterfront that early settlers had used as 

temporary housing. 

Penn needed a tough on-site deputy governor. 

In 1688 he hired John Blackwell, a former 

captain in Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan 

army, who was roundly resisted when he 

arrived in Philadelphia and tried to run the 

government. The Council split into Blackwell 

and Lloyd factions, and political arguing was 

incessant. Blackwell lasted until 1690, then 

resigned, commiserating with Penn: “Alas! 

Alas! Poor governor of Pennsylvania!” 

Lloyd regained control, and chartered 

Philadelphia as a city, appointing Humphrey 

Morrey as the city’s first mayor. Morrey (or 

Murray, or Merry, depending on which 

document you read) grazed sheep on his 

property along Walnut Street, but it isn’t clear 

what else he did. He eventually settled in 

Cheltenham Township. 

Delegates from the Lower Counties walked 

out of the Assembly in 1691, disagreeing with 

the Quakers who opposed setting up river 

defenses for the colony. Lloyd allowed them 

to form their own government, effecting the 

precedent that would one day create the state 

of Delaware. 

✧ 

Dr. Thomas Wynne, William Penn’s 

physician, built the first section of his house 

in 1690 and called it Wynnestay. “Stay” 

means “field” in Welsh, and the 

neighborhood around Wynnestay is now 

called Wynnefield. The house was expanded 

in the eighteenth century and is still 

privately owned. 

COURTESY OF SAUL WEINER. 

CHAPTER I 

17

This happened as King William took 

control of Pennsylvania. A royal governor, 

Benjamin Fletcher from New York, rode 

into Philadelphia with a military escort on 

October 24, 1692, where he antagonized the 

citizens by establishing a real estate tax, but 

also established a school and a rudimentary 

postal service. 

When the crown restored the province to 

William Penn’s control in 1694, Thomas 

Lloyd had died. Penn named William 

Markham deputy governor again, and the rest 

of the decade was a time of growth. 

The Quaker Yearly Meeting in 1696 

advised that “the Friends be careful not 

to encourage the bringing in any more 

Negroes.” It recommended taking slaves to 

religious meetings, and to “restrain them from 

loose and lewd living” and “from rambling 

abroad.” Germantown Mennonites and 

Quakers had already publicly expressed 

sentiments against slavery. 

In England, back in charge, married again, 

William Penn was happily preparing to return 

to Philadelphia. 

FINAL 

FAREWELLS 

When the ship Canterbury sailed from 

England on August 22, 1699, aboard were 

William Penn, his daughter Letitia, and his 

new wife, Hannah, who was pregnant. Young 

Billy decided to stay in London; his wife was 

also expecting a baby. Also with Penn was his 

secretary, James Logan, twenty-five, a poor 

but scholarly Irish schoolteacher. They had 

boxes of books with them, and a stallion 

named Tamerlane. 

Early on Sunday morning, December 3, 

Penn came ashore at Philadelphia. He could 

see that some caves on the riverbank were still 

occupied, but brick houses were visible, too. 

Just north of the public landing at Dock 

Creek, Thomas Budd was building a row of 

ten connected houses, violating Penn’s 

original concept that every house should be 

surrounded by garden, and starting a 

Philadelphia architectural tradition. Most 

of the city’s houses were frame, but about four 

hundred were red brick. There were about 

2,000 buildings and 5,000 citizens, most 

crowded along the river in the half square 

mile centered on Second and High Streets. 

A small delegation of citizens welcomed the 

governor. None were Quakers; the Friends 

were still at worship. Penn walked to the 

meeting house at Second and High, entered in 

the middle of meeting and offered a prayer. 

The Penn family stayed at Edward Shippen’s 

house at Second and Spruce for a month, then 

✧ 

William Rittenhouse set up the first paper 

mill in America on a stream near the Falls 

of the Schuykill in 1690, and built this 

house in 1707. The family constructed flour 

and grist mills nearby over the next century, 

and Rittenhouse Village remains as a 

historic site. Mills popped up on other 

streams all over the area in William 

Penn’s time, and settlers also began 

producing such necessities as rope, beer, 

and glass in the city, ships on the Delaware, 

and linen in Germantown. 



18

moved to the Slate Roof House, on the east side 

of Second Street just above Walnut. Teenaged 

Letitia hung out with the boy next door, Will 

Masters, whose family was one of the richest in 

the city. And in January, Hannah Penn gave birth 

to a son, John, the only American-born Penn, 

described by neighbor Isaac Norris as “a comely, 

lovely babe.” School teacher Francis Pastorious, 

up in Germantown, assigned all eight boys 

named John in his class to write greetings to the 

new baby and send them to Penn. 

The proprietor kept busy attending 

Friends meeting, arguing with politicians, 

and, in 1701, producing a charter for the 

city of Philadelphia, under which Edward 

Shippen became the first elected mayor. 

Back in England, there were again rumbles 

about the crown taking control of the North 

American colonies. Penn became convinced 

that a trip to England was necessary. He 

wanted the family to stay behind, but Hannah 

refused to remain alone at Pennsbury. 

The Penns sailed on November 3, 1701, 

and twenty-eight days later were in London 

for a planned short visit. On March 8, 1702, 

King William died after his horse threw him 

while hunting. The next day, Hannah Penn 

gave birth to a son, Thomas. (She would bear 

five more children over the next six years.) 

Her husband was busy trying to help the 

Quakers gain the friendship of the new 

monarch, corpulent Queen Anne, William’s 

sister-in-law and the daughter of James II. The 

government was probing into Penn’s title to 

the Lower Counties on Delaware, which Lord 

Baltimore insisted should belong to Maryland, 

and there were complaints that Penn’s pacifist 

colony refused to support England’s current 

war effort against France and Spain. 

Penn’s troubles began multiplying. Letitia 

married a Welsh widower named William 

Aubrey, who demanded a cash dowry that 

put Penn in debt. Hannah called Aubrey a 

“muck-worm.” Billy Penn, Jr., his wife 

expecting their third child, was running 

up liquor bills all over London, which his 

father refused to pay. Penn insisted that young 

Bill go to Philadelphia, where he behaved 

no better. And the widow of Phillip Ford, 

Penn’s former business manager, was suing 

Penn for alleged back debts. On January 7, 

1708, bailiffs yanked Penn out of a Friends 

meeting where he was preaching, and locked 

him up for non-payment of debt. While he 

was in prison, his five-year-old daughter, 

Hannah, died, and his wife delivered another 

daughter, again named Hannah, who lived 

less than five months. 

✧ 

Pennsbury was William Penn’s dream house 

in Bucks County. In April 1700, the Penn 

family left the city and climbed into the 

governor’s barge with the Penn coat of arms 

on the front. Six oarsmen propelled them up 

the Delaware to their new mansion. 

Hannah and Letitia began housekeeping, 

while Penn did what anyone does who has 

just had a house built: complained to the 

builder. He had specified an all brick house 

with brick foundations, but the builder had 

made the rear of wood and the foundation 

of stone. And the cistern on the roof leaked. 


CHAPTER I 

19

Life briefly began looking better. Penn 

made arrangements that settled some of his 

problems with finances and with the throne. 

But in 1712, he suffered three strokes that left 

him incapacitated. In what a Quaker visitor 

described as “a state of innocency,” Penn 

vegetated, sipping lemon flavored brandy and 

letting Hannah function as de facto proprietor 

of his colony, guiding her husband’s 

uncontrolled hand to sign papers. 

Queen Anne died in 1714, and none of her 

seventeen children had survived her. 

Parliament had voted in 1689 that no Roman 

Catholic could ever again rule England, so 

Anne’s closest Protestant relative, cousin 

George of Hanover, a German state, became 

George I. He was barely interested in the job 

and never bothered to learn English. 

William Penn died on July 30, 1718, never 

having seen his creation, Pennsylvania, again. 

THE CITY’ S EARLY YEARS 

When Penn went to England in 1701, he 

named Andrew Hamilton lieutenant governor. 

The city council, which consisted of two 

groups, eight aldermen and twelve councilmen, 

was required to elect one of its members 

to be mayor for a year. Edward Shippen became 

the first elected mayor of Philadelphia, serving 

in 1701 and again in 1702. His son, Edward Jr., 

would be mayor in 1744 and 1745. Shippen, 

Sr., lived on the west side of Second Street 

north of Spruce, and kept a herd of deer on his 

lawn. He also had a country home at Broad and 

South Streets. 

Shippen was succeeded by Anthony Morris 

in 1703. The council divided the city into ten 

parts. Each had a constable, who was expected 

to supply men to “serve upon the watch,” with 

nine men and the constable to “attend the 

watch each night.” A fourteen-by-sixteen-foot 

watch house was built in the market place. A 

tax of twelve pence per annum was placed on 

all cows two years and older, toward the 

upkeep of the two town bulls. An ordinance 

was drawn up to regulate taverns and public 

houses. Seven men and one woman were sent 

for by council and “admonished to take care 

how they drive their Carts within this City….” 

✧ 

William Penn was a witness in 1700 at the 

dedication of the Swedish Lutheran church 

building that replaced an old fortified block 

house just south of the city. Gloria Dei, still 

in use, is now an Episcopal church and 

popularly known as Old Swedes. 



20

Governor Hamilton died in 1703. Penn’s 

next appointment was John Evans, twentysix, 

“sober and sensible, the son of an old 

friend,” according to Penn. Evans arrived in 

Philadelphia in 1704, and with him came 

William Penn, Jr. 

Young Billy was twenty-three, a widower of 

about a year, who left behind two hundred 

pounds of entertainment debts for his father 

to pay in London. Penn wrote to James Logan 

to keep an eye on Billy, pleading: “Allow no 

rambling in New York.” Logan permitted Billy 

one pound a week spending money. 

John Evans made a stab at governing, but 

his interests lay elsewhere. He and Billy lived 

in William Clarke’s “Great House” at Third 

and Chestnut Streets, and kept it well 

equipped with liquor, hunting dogs, and 

visiting young women. 

One muggy September evening, Billy, 

Governor Evans and some cronies were 

hoisting a few in the not completely reputable 

tavern of Enoch Story in Pewter Platter Alley, 

near Christ Church. Things got a bit 

boisterous, and the watchmen were called. 

Led by Alderman Joseph Wilcox, the 

watchmen suggested that the carousers hold it 

down. The situation escalated, and at one 

point, Wilcox punched Billy Penn in the face. 

The episode was smoothed over. A few weeks 

later, Billy Penn renounced the Society of 

Friends, buckled on a sword, sold his 

Philadelphia land cheaply to Isaac Norris, 

and went back to England after only nine 

months as a Pennsylvanian, leaving a stack 

of unpaid bills. (The Norris holdings would 

one day bring forth Norristown and two 

Norriton townships.) 

Evans stayed on, and soon was in another 

tavern brawl. Constable Solomon Cresson 

reported that he was “bidding a lewd tavernkeeper 

disperse her company” when some 

patrons got rough. Alderman Wilcox was 

summoned, and took the opportunity to slug 

the governor with a cane before (he maintained) 

he recognized him. The incident made Wilcox a 

celebrity. The next year he was elected mayor. 

Common Council’s minutes in 1712 

indicated that, “The Poor of this City Dayly 

Increasing,” a workhouse was needed. In 

1713 it was ruled that a new gaol (pronounced 

jail) was also needed. The Quakers built an 

Almshouse to shelter the homeless, on the 

south side of Walnut between Third and 

Fourth. There would be charitable buildings 

there through the years, as late as 1876. 

William Bradford had come from England in 

1685 and did the first printing in town. 

His work included some religious pamphlets 

the Quaker establishment didn’t care for. In 

1693 he was run out of town and moved to 

New York. His son Andrew brought the print 

shop back to Philadelphia in 1718, and in 

1719, Andrew Bradford published the American 

Weekly Mercury, the city’s first newspaper. 

The Quaker administration was undoubtedly 

disturbed to find that the Swedes 

and the Dutch were inclined to boisterous 

holiday celebrations. Much musket firing was 

done on New Year’s Eve, March 24 by the 

calendar then in use, and at Christmastime. A 

British custom of going door-to-door in 

costume, asking for food and drink, also had 

aspects that upset the Quaker authorities. In 

1702 a grand jury accused a man of “being 

maskt or disguised in women’s apparel; stalking 

openly through the streets of the city from 

house to house” on the day after Christmas, 

which is still a traditional day for Christmas 

pantomiming in England. A woman was 

charged with being on the street “dressed in 

man’s Cloathes, contrary to ye nature of her 

sects.” Both the costumes and the gunfire were 

early stages of the Mummers tradition that still 

erupts, in more organized form, every New 

Year’s Day. 

✧ 

In 1709, the first city government building, 

a town hall and courthouse, was built in the 

middle of High Street at Second Street, at 

the head of the developing market sheds 

which would soon lead High to be popularly 

called Market Street. The site was across 

from the Great Meeting House the Quakers 

had erected in 1695. The balcony of the 

Courthouse became a speaking platform for 

politicians and preachers. The Provincial 

Assembly and City Council would meet 

there for a quarter century. 


CHAPTER I 

21


22

BEN FRANKLIN’S CITY 

THE KID FROM BOSTON 

On a late spring Sunday morning in 1723, a scruffy looking seventeen-year-old kid strolled into 

Philadelphia, and the city would never be the same. His name was Benjamin Franklin. His working 

clothes were rumpled from a rain-soaked trip through New Jersey, and down the Delaware in an 

open boat. His pockets and inside his shirt bulged with extra socks and shirts. He was tired from 

helping to row. He had one Dutch dollar with him. 

He was the third youngest of thirteen brothers and sisters. He could read as far back as he could 

remember, and at the age of twelve he was working in the Boston printing shop of his brother 

James. Unable to get along with his brother, Ben ran away to Philadelphia. On that Sunday 

morning, he struggled up the river bank from the boat, and bought three big rolls for a penny a 

piece from a bakery in Second Street near the market. He strolled out High Street, munching a roll. 

A girl about his age, standing in a doorway, giggled at the sight of the gawky boy and his 

ambulatory breakfast. Franklin couldn’t have guessed that this was his first sight of his future wife. 

Franklin got a job with Samuel Keimer in his printing shop on Second Street opposite Christ 

Church. Looking for a room to rent, he was sent by Keimer to the house of John Read on High Street. 

His new landlord’s daughter, Franklin was startled to find, was the girl who had laughed at him as he 

straggled past on his first day in town. Debbie Read was a hefty, well-built girl, and pretty enough. 

She was not as brilliant and well informed as Franklin might have wished, but they liked each other. 

Franklin soon developed a circle of friends his own age who liked to read and were good conversationalists. 

His reputation grew. 

The lieutenant governor since 1717 was Sir William Keith, thirty-eight, suave and fashionable, 

the son of a Scottish baronet. Keith approached Franklin, and offered to set the teenage printer up 

in business. Keith dazzled Franklin by suggesting that the lad go to London to buy printing 

equipment. In the fall of 1724, Franklin and Debbie Read “interchanged some promises” and he 

sailed for England. Keith told Franklin that letters of introduction and credit were in the captain’s 

dispatch bag. When the ship entered the English Channel on the day before Christmas, the captain 

opened his bag, and there were no such letters there. 

It would be months before a ship sailed for Philadelphia, and Franklin didn’t have the fare, 

anyway. He got work as a printer. Then, a Philadelphia Quaker merchant in London offered to pay 

Franklin’s way home and give him a job in a store. Franklin agreed. On October 11, 1726, he was 

once again walking up High Street. 

Franklin worked in the store for a while, but before long was managing Keimer’s print shop. He 

also organized the Junto, a club of his “ingenious acquaintances,” who met regularly “for mutual 

improvement” and pooled their books for membership use. Out of that came Franklin’s founding 

of the first subscription library in North America, the Library Company of Philadelphia. 

In 1728, Franklin started his own printing business, and the next year, began publishing a 

newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. He started an annual almanac, published under the name 

Poor Richard, in 1733. 

On September 1, 1730, Franklin and Debbie declared themselves married under common law. 

About six months after the marriage, Franklin brought home a newborn son. He never identified 

the mother. The Franklins never discussed the situation publicly, named the baby William, and 

raised him without apology. The lamps in the print shop on High Street often burned until 11 p.m. 

as Ben Franklin, early to rise and late to bed, became, at age twenty-four, one of the best regarded 

and most prosperous businessmen in North America’s leading city. 

Ben may have found time to take in a show occasionally. Despite Quaker attempts to pass laws 

against “plays, games, lotteries, music and dancing,” Philadelphians managed to participate in such 

✧ 

Benjamin Franklin had this portrait painted 

in 1759, when he was fifty-three. British 

officers confiscated it from Franklin’s house 

during the Revolution, and sent it to 

England. It was returned in 1906 and is 

now at the White House. 

COURTESY OF THE WHITE HOUSE COLLECTION. 

CHAPTER II 

23

✧ 

Andrew Hamilton, whose slick work in a 

New York court in 1735 established freedom 

of the press as a concept of British law, drew 

the plan for the Pennsylvania State House 

in 1732. It would one day be known as 

Independence Hall. 

COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

ELEVATION OF THE STATE HOUSE ATTRIBUTED TO ANDREW 

HAMILTON (ACCESSION #BC47-H18). 


24 

sinfulness. The first indication of a theater was 

in 1723, when “a Player who had Strowled 

hither to act as a Comedian” set up some kind 

of stage “without the verge of the City.” It 

would be standard practice for years to house 

entertainment across Cedar Street (now South 

Street) and thus outside city jurisdiction. 

Mayor James Logan lamented “How grievous 

this proves to the sober people of the place,” 

but since Governor Keith was a regular at the 

shows, they were unlikely to be outlawed. In 

1724, the first thing close to being a theater 

building appeared, “The New Booth on 

Society Hill,” featuring, according to 

advertisements, “your old friend Pickle 

Herring” (an Elizabethan clown name.) 

William Penn’s will left his Pennsylvania 

holdings to his sons by Hannah. John, then 

eighteen, got half. The other half was divided 

among Thomas, fifteen; Richard, twelve; and 

Dennis, eleven. Billy, from the first marriage, 

was granted the family’s Irish lands and the 

title of Proprietor of Pennsylvania. He had 

already inherited his mother’s extensive 

properties. Billy’s two sons, and his sister, 

Letitia, each were bequeathed ten thousand 

acres in Pennsylvania. 

Billy contested the will, claiming that all of 

Pennsylvania and Delaware should be his. 

Billy died in 1720, at age forty. His son 

Springett, nineteen, continued the suit. The 

case dragged on until 1726, when it was ruled 

that Penn’s will stood as written. Hannah 

Penn died a week later. 

BUILDING A STATE HOUSE 

The Provincial Assembly had decided in 

1729 that the Courthouse at Second and 

Market was getting crowded, and voted to 

build a State House, appropriating two 

thousand pounds for the project. Andrew 

Hamilton, a lawyer, who was speaker of the 

house, drew up a plan. So did Dr. John 

Kearsley, who had designed Christ Church. 

Hamilton’s prospective son-in-law, William 

Allen, who founded Allentown and Mount 

Airy, quietly began buying land on the edge of 

the built-up part of town, on Chestnut Street 

between Fifth and Sixth. When ground was 

broken in 1732, Kearsley raised a ruckus over 

both the design and the location. The 

assembly debated for several days, and gave 

the nod to Hamilton. Then, to the builder’s 

annoyance, the legislators began making 

changes in the plan. It voted that two office 

wings should be added to the building. 

Hamilton had the alterations under way in 

summer of 1733, when the construction 

workers, under Edmund Wooley, a master

carpenter, struck for higher wages. It was 

1735 before the House met in the Assembly 

chamber of the building that would one day 

be called Independence Hall. The paneling 

was not installed and all the glass was not in 

the windows. 

John Bartram added a stone wing to his 

house in 1731. The house was (and still is) on 

the west bank of the Schuylkill about three 

miles below Market Street. Bartram was born 

in 1699 and grew up on his father’s farm 

along the Darby Creek west of Philadelphia. 

One day, while sitting under a tree, resting 

from plowing, he picked a daisy and plucked 

it apart, as farm boys will. That simple 

moment led him to study Latin so he could 

read the botany books of the day. In 1728, 

Bartram bought 102 acres at sheriff’s sale. On 

it stood a one and a half story stone house of 

two tiny rooms, built before Bartram was born 

by Swedish settler Peter Peterson Yocumb. 

The fledgling botanist began developing a garden 

around it, with specimens of hundreds of 

native trees and plants. In 1731, he expanded 

the house and made the original part the 

kitchen. On the new wing, he carved his 

name and his new bride’s. The inscription can 

still be seen: “John, Ann Bartram, 1731.” And 

he kept collecting those plants. 

Benjamin Franklin instigated the start of the 

Union Fire Company, the first formal fire 

fighting organization, on December 7, 1736. 

Each member agreed to have six leather buckets 

and two osnaburg bags (coarse linen cloth), and 

to respond to cries of fire with at least half his 

buckets and bags, where the company would 

“exert our best endeavors to extinguish such 

fires, and preserve the goods and effects of such 

of us as may be in danger,” according to the 

written rules. Five more fire companies were 

organized in the next sixteen years. 

Anthony Palmer, a British sea captain from 

Barbados, had bought “several parcels of land, 

meadow, swamp and cripple” along the 

Delaware above the city about 1704, and 

lived on his Hope Farm there until 1729. 

Then he sold the place to William Ball, 

who renamed the estate Richmond Hall, 

providing a name for a future Philadelphia 

neighborhood. Palmer bought the Fairman 

place down the river at Shackamaxon. Thomas 

Fairman had died in 1714. The captain bought 

191 adjoining acres, and set to work laying out 

streets and selling building lots. He called the 

development Kensington. A marketing ploy 

was to establish a cemetery, and offer a burial 

lot there to each purchaser. Palmer’s daughter, 

Thomasine, in her will written soon after her 

father’s death in 1749, left the cemetery “to be 

freely occupied and enjoyed by all the 

inhabitants of Kensington forever.” Inhabitants 

of the old, original part of Kensington, now 

called Fishtown, continue upon their decease 

to occupy the old cemetery; whether any enjoy 

it is a metaphysical question beyond the scope 

of this book. 

From 1738 to 1742, William Whitebread 

advertised in Philadelphia that he was an 

“operator for the teeth,” presumably our 

✧ 

Working from Hamilton’s plan, master 

carpenter Edmund Wooley and his crew 

erected the brick State House with its 

wooden steeple. 


CHAPTER II 

25

✧ 

Right: Settlers in Kensington, a new town 

just above the city, got a free cemetery lot 

with their purchase of a building lot in 1730 

from entrepreneur Anthony Palmer. Their 

descendants still use the cemetery. 


Below: Architect William Strickland did this 

painting of Christ Church in 1811. A group 

of Anglicans had erected a small brick 

church building on Second Street just above 

Market in 1696. Between 1727 and 1735, 

the rear of the existing edifice was added, 

and the interior and new front were finished 

in 1744, planned by Dr. John Kearsley. The 

209-foot steeple was erected in 1754, and 

was the city’s tallest structure until 1891. 

Many of the Founding Fathers attended 

services there. Today, the church is shared by 

Sunday worshippers and weekday tourists. 


PENNSYLVANIA. ORIGINAL PAINTING BY WILLIAM 

STRICKLAND (ACCESSION #1891.22). 


26 

town’s first dentist. And William Fishbourne, 

who served as mayor from 1719 to 1722, 

wrote a history of Philadelphia in 1739. The 

city was fifty-seven years old. 

POLITICS 

& PLAY- ACTORS 

Andrew Hamilton died in 1741, and the 

State House still wasn’t finished. Plastering 

needed to be done, and the Assembly decided 

to add a tower on the south side, for possible 

accommodation of a bell. The Library 

Company moved into the upper floor of the 

west wing in 1740, but the Supreme Court 

chamber wasn’t ready until 1743. The 

Assembly room was fully completed in 1745, 

the upstairs offices in 1747. 

Urban problems continued burgeoning in 

1741. There were complaints, according to 

Common Council records, that “…many 

Disorderly persons Meet every Evening about 

the Court house of this City, & great numbers of 

Negroes & others Set there with Milk Pails & 

other things late at Night, & many Disorders are 

there committed….” A curfew was established, a 

half hour after sunset. In 1742 a Pest House was 

established on Province Island below the city, as 

an isolation hospital for contagious diseases and 

a place to check the health of incoming 

immigrants. Ben Franklin founded the 

American Philosophical Society in 1743, the 

same year his daughter Sarah was born. 

The 1742 election, in October, found two 

factions in fierce contention. Members of the

Quaker party stood on the winding steps of 

the courthouse, up which voters had to pass, 

to try to persuade citizens to cast ballots their 

way. The opposition hired a bunch of sailors 

to toss the Quakers off the steps. Pacifism has 

its limits; the Quakers beat the tar out of the 

tars and drove them back to the waterfront. 

This sort of behavior may have foreshadowed 

the change in Philadelphia leadership over the 

coming two or three decades, which would 

see Quakers withdraw more and more from 

politics, while those Quakers who took a liking 

to civic leadership and worldly prosperity, 

including William Penn’s descendants, would 

shift to Episcopal or Presbyterian profession. 

Anthony Morris had put in a year as mayor 

in 1738, and apparently thought he had done 

his duty. In 1746 when City Council elected 

him mayor again, he didn’t show up at the 

next meeting, so two councilmen were sent 

out to get him. The Council minutes reported: 

“The two members appointed to acquaint 

Alderman Morris that he was elected Mayor, 

returned and informed the Board they had 

been at his House, and were told by his 

daughter that he had gone out of Town.” For 

two days, the Council tried to deliver a notice 

of election to Morris. His wife “refused to 

receive it, and said her husband was from 

home,” according to the minutes. Finally, the 

council surrendered and appointed William 

Attwood. After serving two years, Attwood 

donated sixty pounds to the city treasury in 

lieu of the customary mayor’s farewell party, 

ending that expensive tradition. He also convinced 

the council that mayors should get a 

salary; one hundred pounds was appropriated 

to pay the next mayor. 

Immorality reared its head in August of 

1749. Some actors, with scenery and props 

from England, put on a play, Addison’s 

tragedy Cato, in William Plumstead’s dark 

glazed brick warehouse on Water Street north 

of Pine. Plumstead’s late father, Clement 

Plumstead, a former mayor, had been a 

staunch Quaker, but William had turned into 

an Episcopalian and even helped found Christ 

Church. (He would become mayor at the end 

of 1750.) One Quaker who heard that actors 

were in town “expressed my sorrow that anything 

of the kind was encouraged,” and a 

Philadelphia girl named Nancy George was 

ostracized because she went to the warehouse 

“to play” (that is, to be an actress.) Despite 

criticism, the abomination continued. On 

December 30 the common council minutes 

report that the recorder, William Allen, 

“acquainted the Board that certain persons 

had lately taken upon them to act plays in this 

city, and as he was informed, intended to 

✧ 

The first section of Cedar Grove, a stone 

farmhouse, was built near Frankford in 

1746. The same family lived there until 

1888, when the area started to fill up with 

mills and brick row houses. The residents 

then, John Morris and his sister, Lydia, 

decided to move permanently to their 

country place, Compton in Chestnut Hill; it 

is now the Morris Arboretum. Cedar Grove 

was boarded up in before World War I, and 

in 1926, Lydia Morris donated the house 

and its antique furnishings to Fairmount 

Park. It was moved there, stone by stone. 


CHAPTER II 

27

✧ 

James Logan (right), who had arrived 

humbly as William Penn’s secretary a half 

century before, died wealthy and famous in 

1751. He knew seven languages, and was a 

mathematician and scholar. Between 1714 

and 1747, he had assembled 511 acres just 

northwest of the city, and built a fine 

mansion he named Stenton after his father’s 

birthplace in Scotland (above). There, Logan 

amassed a library of more than three 

thousand books, unrivaled in the colonies, 

which he willed to the city. The Library 

Company ultimately took custody of the 

books. His son, William, succeeded him as 

Penn family attorney and added to the book 

collection. Six generations of the Logan 

family occupied Stenton before it was 

acquired by the city a hundred years ago. 

MANSION PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR. PORTRAIT 

COURTESY OF THE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PORTRAITS. 


28 

make a frequent practice thereof.” This, naturally, 

would “encourage idleness.” City government 

should “take the most effectual 

means for suppressing the disorder.” The 

“company of comedians” in question, known 

as Murray & Kean’s, five men and three 

women including the debauched Nancy 

George, moved to New York in March of 1750 

and opened with Richard III. 

A BELL & 

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS 

The brick base of a tower for the Provincial 

State House had been finished in 1741. In 

1750 the Assembly finally got around to 

passing a resolution “That the Superintendents 

of the State House proceed as soon as 

conveniently they may to carry up a building 

on the south side of the said house to contain 

a staircase, with a suitable place thereon for 

hanging a Bell.” In 1751 State House Trustee 

Isaac Norris wrote to Robert Charles, 

Pennsylvania’s agent in London, instructing 

him to buy a bell. 

Charles ordered a bell from Whitechapel Bell 

Foundry, founded in 1570 (and still in 

business.) The one-ton bell bore on its face the 

name of Whitechapel’s master founder, Thomas 

Lester. It also bore the inscription specified by 

Isaac Norris: “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All 

the Land, Unto All the Inhabitants Thereof.” 

The idea was to commemorate the fiftieth 

anniversary of William Penn’s charter of 1701. 

The quotation is from Chapter 25, Verse 10, of 

the Bible’s book of Leviticus, which begins, 

“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and 

proclaim liberty….” Norris was a Quaker 

student of the Bible who read the scriptures in 

the original Hebrew. 

Norris cautioned Charles, “Let the bell be 

cast by the best workmen, and examined carefully 

before it is shipped….” He also warned, 

“Let the package for transportation be examined 

with particular care….” The bell, shiny 

and uncracked, was loaded aboard the 

250-ton armed merchant ship Myrtilla, 

owned by Nathan Levy and David Franks of 

Philadelphia. On September 1, 1752, Norris 

sent a report to Charles: “The bell is come on 

shore and in good order and we hope it will 

prove a good one, for I have heard that it is 

approved by all hitherto, though we have not 

yet tried the sound.” 

A few days later, Norris recorded bad news: 

“…it was cracked by a stroke of the clapper 

without any other violence, as it was hung up 

to try the sound.” Not to worry. Charles Stow, 

doorkeeper of the governor’s executive council 

that met in the State House, had a son, John, 

who, with his partner, John Pass, knew how to 

recast bells. Pass and Stow made a mold of the 

bell, melted it down, added a little copper, and 

remade it. They produced the new bell on 

March 10, 1753, “the greatest bell,” wrote 

Norris, “for ought I know, in English America.”

The ingenious workmen had recreated the 

inscription, but replaced Thomas Lester’s 

name with their own. 

The new bell looked beautiful. It sounded 

terrible. Pass and Stow were “so teased with the 

witticisms of the town” that they moved fast to 

make a new mold, break up the bell and melt it 

down, and recast it again. By November, the bell 

was in the tower and in use. Isaac Norris said 

that “though some are of the opinion it will do, 

I own I do not like it.” It hung there and clanged 

sourly for routine reasons, waiting to validate its 

inscription one day and proclaim liberty. 

On October 19, 1752, in his Gazette, 

Franklin mentioned for the first time that, earlier 

in the year, he had proved that lightning was 

electricity by flying a kite in a thunderstorm. 

Franklin had been proposing a school of 

higher learning since 1749. His native 

Massachusetts had one, founded in 1636 and 

named after a Puritan minister, John Harvard. 

Virginia, Connecticut, New Jersey and New 

York already had colleges. Franklin raised 

money, and in 1753 took over a building on 

Fourth Street at Arch that had been erected 

for the evangelism of George Whitefield, the 

best known and, reportedly, loudest preacher 

of his day. The first class was graduated in 

1757. It would be called the Academy of 

Philadelphia, later the College, and ultimately 

the University of Pennsylvania. 

Thomas Bond was a Maryland Quaker who 

came to Philadelphia in the 1730s and, in 

1738, went abroad to study medicine at the 

Hotel-Dieu in Paris, a major example of that 

relatively new European phenomenon, a 

hospital. Back in Philadelphia in 1750, Dr. 

Bond began asking potential contributors to 

help finance a hospital. He got Ben Franklin’s 

endorsement, funds began to roll in, and, 

within a year, the Pennsylvania Hospital was 

functioning in a house on the south side of 

Market Street west of Seventh, keeping 

possible contagion well away from the 

populated part of the city. Wanting a 

✧ 

Above: William Bradford’s London Coffee- 

House at the southwest corner of Front and 

Market was the business meeting place of the 

city. Like Lloyd’s Coffee House in London, 

Bradford’s posted lists of ships’ cargoes, and 

merchants who would accept a fee to share 

the risk of insuring a cargo would write their 

names under it. Underwriting became so 

popular that by 1758, the insurance office at 

the coffeehouse had two clerks on duty daily 

from noon to 1 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. 


Left: Pennsylvania Hospital’s cornerstone was 

laid for the east wing on May 28, 1755, 

witnessed by a big crowd including school 

children excused from class for the occasion. 

The stone can still be seen, with an 

inscription composed by Ben Franklin that 

begins: “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 publick spirited) This building by the 

Bounty of the Government And of Many 

private persons was piously founded For the 

relief of the Sick and Miserable. May the God 

of Mercies Bless the Undertaking.” The 

center and west wing were finished in 1804. 

Modern medical services have expanded into 

newer buildings through the decades in the 

blocks around the original hospital. 


CHAPTER II 

29

permanent location even further out in the 

woods, the managers bought from the Free 

Society of Traders a tract bounded by Eighth, 

Ninth, Spruce and Pine Streets. Architect 

Robert Smith planned a three-and-a-halfstory 

central section with two wings of two 

and a half stories. 

Franklin proposed in 1752 the formation of 

the Contributionship for the Insuring of Houses 

from Loss by Fire, the first fire insurance 

company. Christ Church’s congregation felt the 

need to erect a steeple, and Franklin organized 

lotteries to pay for it. (Robert Smith was the 

architect; he also designed St. Peter’s at Fourth 

and Pine in 1758.) Franklin sailed to England 

in 1757 to negotiate with the proprietors about 

various Pennsylvania concerns. 

Upright citizens who thought they were safe 

from the scourge of play-acting were dismayed 

when Lewis Hallam’s Company, which had 

started in Virginia in 1752, appeared for two 

months at Plumstead’s warehouse, beginning in 

April 1754. Hallam, his wife, and two sons 

got the governor’s permission to perform so 

long as they promised to present nothing 

indecent or immoral. The titles of the first two 

presentations were The Fair Penitent and Miss in 

Her Teens. The best seats sold for six shillings, 

nearly two days’ pay for a working stiff. 

Hallam died, and his widow married David 

Douglass, who brought the troupe back to 

Philadelphia in 1759 and built “The Theatre 

on Society Hill” on the south side of Cedar 

Street (South Street) at Vernon Street 

(Hancock). On July 27, 1759, the Douglass 

company performed America’s first Hamlet. 

TROUBLE WITH TAXES 

Ben Franklin returned to Philadelphia from 

London in 1762. His son, William, had just 

been named royal governor of New Jersey. Ben 

decided to build a new house on his property 

off Market Street between Third and Fourth. 

Robert Smith was the architect. Construction 

started in spring of 1763. 

In 1764 the British government made 

some adjustments on the complicated laws 

governing the sugar trade, which hurt 

American merchants. In coastal cities, 

Committees of Correspondence were formed 

to communicate on the rising issue of taxation 

✧ 

The king appointed Philadelphia’s John 

Bartram in 1765 to be the royal botanist. 

Bartram had been shipping seeds, bulbs, 

and specimens of North American plant 

species, as well as a few bugs, bird’s nests 

and whatnot, to English scholars. It was an 

honor for a colonist to be named His 

Majesty’s Botanist, the honor being 

tempered slightly by the fact that Bartram 

would be paid fifty pounds a year. His 

predecessor’s salary had been three hundred 

pounds. Nevertheless, he kept botanizing, 

and added another wing to his seventeenth 

century house, carving on a stone above the 

door, “It is God Alone Almyty Lord the Holy 

One By Me Adord John Bartram 1770.” 

COURTESY OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, DEPARTMENT 

OF RECORDS, CITY ARCHIVES 


30

without representation. In 1765, the government 

passed the Stamp Act, which required a 

tax stamp on, among other things, legal documents, 

newspapers and pamphlets, playing 

cards and dice, and tea, thus alienating 

lawyers, journalists, publishers, working class 

men, and every class of women. 

William Hughes was appointed tax 

collector in Philadelphia, and a mob besieged 

his house in Franklin Court and threatened 

his wife. He was not at home. Franklin had 

returned to London in 1764, this time as 

agent for Pennsylvania. His letters home to 

Debbie (a homebody who would never travel 

with him) were loaded with questions and 

instructions about the new house, still under 

construction. She moved in by the spring of 

1765, though the work would go on for a year 

or two. When the anti-tax mob surrounded 

the neighboring Hughes house, Debbie had 

her brother bring her a gun, promising that “if 

any one came to disturb me, I should shew 

proper resentment.” 

The bells of the city rang all day on April 7, 

1766, because an express rider arrived during 

the night confirming the repeal of the Stamp 

Act. Citizens illuminated their houses on May 

20 in celebration of the repeal, and next day 

local bigwigs held a dinner at the State House 

and several “great guns” were fired. But even 

after Parliament withdrew all the despised 

taxes except that on tea, there remained festering 

discontent. 

Taxation did not interrupt Philadelphia’s 

“people of the better sort” from enjoying the 

increasing sophistication of their city, which 

was slipping ahead of Boston and New York as 

the most populated in the colonies. Some 

20,000 residents were served in 1767 by 320 

street lamps, 120 town pumps, 54 private 

pumps, and 18 night watchmen. 

The David Douglass acting troupe came 

back to Philadelphia in 1766, after playing in 

✧ 

Above: Benjamin Franklin’s house was torn 

down by his heirs in 1812, and today is 

represented by a stainless steel sketch in the 

air on its Franklin Court site. Nearby are 

surviving buildings Ben owned, a museum 

delineating his life, and other reminders of 

his presence. 


CITY REPRESENTATIVE’S OFFICE. 

Below: The site of a smaller Franklin 

structure. 


CHAPTER II 

31

✧ 

A mob showed up outside the Shippen house 

at Fourth and Locust Streets one day in 

1770 and began heaving rocks through its 

eighteen large windows. They were 

protesting that Dr. William Shippen, Jr., 

used human cadavers when lecturing on 

anatomy to medical students. They accused 

him of obvious indecency and possible grave 

robbery. The doctor insisted that he carved 

only the deserving corpses of suicides and 

criminals, provided by the hospital and 

prison. The house had been built in 1750 by 

his father, Dr. William Shippen, Sr., an 

apothecary who had appointed himself a 

physician as was the early 18th century 

custom. William Shippen, Jr., studied 

medicine in Edinburgh, had a recognized 

degree, and was helping other doctors create 

what would become the University of 

Pennsylvania School of Medicine. 



32 

other cities since 1759, and constructed the 

first permanent theater building in this 

country on Cedar Street (South Street) west of 

Fourth, as usual prudently just outside the 

city limits. “The New Theatre in Southwark” 

was a gaudy red brick and frame building, 

with a stage lighted by oil lamps, and square 

pillars interfering with the view from many 

seats. Letters to newspapers denounced those 

who “give encouragement to a Sett of strolling 

Comedians.” On April 24, 1767, the New 

Theatre presented the first drama by an 

American playwright, The Prince of Parthia by 

Thomas Godfrey, a young poet who died 

before his work was performed. The troupe, 

called “The American Company,” also played 

engagements in New York and other cities, 

but became a Philadelphia institution until 

the Revolution. The leading man was Lewis 

Hallam, son of the Hallam who had pioneered 

theater in the city; the female sensation was 

the “justly celebrated and much admired Miss 

Cheer,” to quote the Gazette. 

Some Philadelphians met at the Coffee 

House on December 13, 1766, and formed a 

club to indulge in the popular new eighteenth 

century British sport, fox hunting. The club 

would ride to the hounds in Gloucester 

County, New Jersey. Samuel Morris, 

“Christian Sam” to his friends, was president. 

The 125 members put together a pack of 

thirty-two hounds, in the charge of Old Natty, 

one of Morris’s slaves. 

Another imported diversion was bathing. 

Baths in Philadelphia were, wrote one local, 

places “where fashion gathers and gossip flows 

with fluidity not surpassed by the waters.” 

One colonial spa was Bath-Town, on the 

north side of the Cohocksink Creek, later 

known as Pegg’s Run. It is now confined to 

pipes under meandering Willow Street, but 

then, between Second and Third, a spring 

flowed. An advertisement in the Pennsylvania 

Gazette in 1765 proclaimed that in the “Town 

of Bath in the Northern Liberties,” John White 

and his wife sold season tickets to bathe, and 

offered the “best of tea, coffee and chocolate, 

with plenty of good cream, &c.” for breakfast, 

and also in the afternoon. They furnished 

brushes and towels. 

A larger almshouse was needed. From 1760 

to 1767, the block bounded by Tenth, 

Eleventh, Spruce, and Pine Streets served as 

the site for an Almshouse, a hospital and a 

House of Employment. Dr. John Morgan 

founded a medical school at the College of 

Philadelphia in 1765, the progenitor of the 

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. 

Franklin’s old Junto reorganized in 1766 

into the American Society Held at Philadelphia 

for Promoting Useful Knowledge. In 1769, the 

group merged with the American Philosophical 

Society, creating the high-level scientific 

organization still functioning today. 

The society attracted a lot of attention during 

the transit of Venus across the face of the sun on 

June 3, 1769. David Rittenhouse got permission 

to erect an observation platform in the 

State House yard, and led the Philosophical 

members in making observations from there, 

Cape Henlopen on the lower Delaware, and 

Rittenhouse’s farm near Norristown. They had 

seven telescopes, both refractors and reflectors, 

among them. In the State House yard, a crowd 

watched silently. Some tried to look at the sun 

through pieces of glass smoked by candle flame. 

The Astronomer Royal at Greenwich, England, 

would later commend the Philadelphians for 

their precise observations. 

A QUIET TEA PARTY 

Before the tea party at the end of 1773, life 

was normal. A Philadelphia gentleman in his

spare time could go to a cock fight at 

Richardson’s, up Germantown Road, or ride 

down to Mud Island to see the fort that the 

royal army had commenced building about 

seventeen months earlier, or visit Baker’s on 

Vine Street to see the electrical fish, where, it 

was said, ten persons on taking hold of hands 

and holding the fish received a shock. Many 

evenings were spent going to drink punch 

with male friends a few days after their wedding; 

women did the same, but with tea. 

Chimney sweeps were now required to 

register, to ensure competency, and wore their 

registration numbers in tin or copper on their 

caps. At the debtors’ prison at Third and 

Market Streets, the prisoners lowered baskets 

out the windows, hoping for contributions of 

food or cash from passersby. In 1772 the city 

levied a one shilling annual tax on one dog, 

two shillings each on additional dogs; five 

shillings per dog if the owner was unmarried. 

The money was used to indemnify the owners 

of sheep bitten by strays. 

The Carpenters’ Company started work on 

its hall in 1770. The company was founded in 

1724. Its members performed the functions 

of what we today call architects, builders, 

and contractors, and it is still an active 

organization. In 1768 the company bought a 

site to build a meeting hall. On April 18 of that 

year, the records of the company show that 

member Robert Smith “exhibited a sketch for 

a building.” 

Rarely cited, Robert Smith was an 

influential architect of the time. In addition to 

the previously mentioned steeple of Christ 

Church, the house for Ben Franklin and 

St. Peter’s Church, he had planned and built 

Nassau Hall at Princeton University in 1756 

and Pine Street Presbyterian Church near 

Fourth Street in 1768. In 1775 and 1776, 

Smith would do the engineering on the 

river obstructions installed off Mud Island at 

Fort Mifflin. 

Smith lived on Second Street in Society Hill. 

He owned the Buck Tavern in Moyamensing, 

and often threw parties there. He was only 

fifty-five when he died in 1777, but he lived to 

see his Carpenters’ Hall used as a meeting place 

for the builders and architects of a new form 

of government. 

The Pennsylvania Assembly received, on 

September 16, 1772, “A petition from the 

diver’s inhabitants of the City of Philadelphia, 

living near the State House, setting forth that 

they are much incommoded and distressed by 

the too frequent Ringing of the great Bell in the 

Steeple of the State House, the inconvenience 

of which has been often felt severely when 

some of the Petitioners’ families have been 

affected with sickness, at which times, from its 

✧ 

Above: The original City Tavern was built in 

1773 by a group of Philadelphia 

businessmen, and quickly became the 

fashionable banquet hall, hangout for 

politicians, and meeting place for such 

organizations as the Masons and the 

Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. Continental 

Congressmen dined there regularly, as did 

delegates to the Constitutional Convention. 

The tavern was replaced by stores in 1854, 

but was rebuilt in its colonial form in 1976 

and is once more the restaurant John Adams 

called “the most genteel in America.” 


Left: Carpenter’s Hall was begun in 1770, 

and was far enough along the next January 

that the members met in the new hall, on a 

bitter cold day with no doors hung and glass 

not yet in the windows. The organization of 

architects and builders, founded in 1724, 

still meets there. In 1774 they loaned the 

hall to the First Continental Congress. 



CHAPTER II 

33

✧ 

COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA. 


34 

uncommon size and unusual sound, it is 

extremely dangerous, and may prove fatal….” 

The Assembly did curtail use of the bell, for 

practical reasons. The wooden steeple, according 

to one report, was “in such a ruinous condition 

that they are afraid to ring the Bell, lest 

by doing so, the steeple should fall down.” 

In 1772 Mary Lawrence Masters deeded 

her ten-year-old house on the south side of 

Market Street just east of Sixth to her 

daughter, as a wedding present. Mrs. Masters 

was a widow whose father and father-in-law 

had both been mayors of Philadelphia. Her 

family was one of the richest in the city, 

owning most of the land between Broad Street 

and Frankford Avenue, roughly from the 

present Girard Avenue to Norris Street. Her 

daughter, Mary, sixteen, married thirty-eightyear-old 

Governor Richard Penn, grandson of 

William Penn, in a ceremony at Christ Church 

in May 1772. Richard’s brother John came 

back from England in August 1773 and 

became governor again; he had held the 

position from 1763 to 1771. 

In 1773 the tax on tea was still an 

emotional issue. Americans drank the stuff by 

the gallon. They had solved the problem by 

smuggling in Dutch tea in large quantities. 

The British then lowered the tax a bit, but 

meant to enforce it. 

News arrived in Philadelphia that the tea 

ship Polly was en route from London. On 

October 18, a crowd demonstrated against the 

ship’s arrival. Printed handbills were 

distributed, addressed to the river pilots who 

would steer the Polly up to the city, threatening 

both the captain of the ship and any pilot who 

aided him. The bills were signed subtly, “The 

Committee for Tarring and Feathering.” The 

ship Polly reached Chester on Christmas day, 

just nine days after a mob in Boston had 

heaved a cargo of tea into the harbor there. 

Thousands of Philadelphians packed the State 

House yard from the tower door to Walnut 

Street on the 27th, and Captain Ayres of the 

Polly, invited by the putative tarrers and 

featherers, was on hand to observe. He got the 

message, rode back to Chester, and headed his 

ship back toward England. The city calmed 

down, the river froze, and there was skating 

and sleighing nightly on the Delaware. 

CALL IT CONGRESS 

At 10 a.m. on Monday, September 5, 1774, 

the world began to change, as 44 men from 

11 of the British colonies in North America 

met at the City Tavern and walked together to 

Carpenters’ Hall, to gather in what they voted, 

later in the day, to call “The Congress.” Some 

people were applying a name coined by a

New York committee that proposed such a 

meeting: a Continental Congress. The delegates 

set about doing what American congressmen 

have done ever since: disagree, form 

committees, and hit the best dining and 

drinking establishments. The favorites were 

William Bradford’s London Coffee House at 

Front and Market and the year-old City 

Tavern at Second and Walnut. 

Dispatches kept arriving for the 

Massachusetts delegation from Boston, usually 

carried by that horse-riding fool, Paul Revere, 

thirty-nine-year-old son of a French-born silversmith 

named Apollos Revoire, who could 

cover the 350 miles from Boston in five days. 

On September 16 all of the prominent 

citizens treated the congressmen (fifty-two 

had arrived by then) to a feast in the 

banqueting room on the second floor of the 

State House. After dinner, thirty-two toasts 

were drunk, each followed by band music and 

cannon salutes outside. The toasts started out 

mildly: to the king, to the queen, to members 

of the royal family. As the toasting (and 

drinking) progressed, the conservative 

Philadelphia Tories began to fidget, hearing: 

“May Great Britain be just, and America free!” 

and “May no man enjoy freedom who has not 

the spirit to defend it!” 

A congressional resolution called on all of 

the colonies to “discountenance and discourage 

every species of extravagance and dissipation, 

especially all horse racing, and all kinds of 

gaming, cock fighting, exhibitions of shows, 

plays, and other expensive diversions and 

entertainments.” Congress “dissolved itself” on 

October 27, shipping off a list of grievances to 

the king and instructions to Ben Franklin and 

the other colonial agents in London. The ship, 

with luck and good winds, would reach 

London before Christmas. 

At Carpenters’ Hall, twenty-eight members 

of the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club met on 

November 17, 1774, to organize the Light 

Horse of the City of Philadelphia, the first 

troop of city cavalry in the city’s ninety-twoyear 

history. Abraham Markoe, a Danish 

subject with cavalry experience in Europe, 

was elected captain. The members voted to 

equip themselves, and volunteer their services 

to the Continental Congress. 

The Philadelphia Contributionship 

announced in December 1774 that it would 

no longer insure property from fire if there 

were trees near the house, because they 

helped fires spread and obstructed firemen. 

(In 1784, the Mutual Assurance Company 

would be formed and accept the arboreal risk. 

Both companies still exist.) 

In 1774, there were 473 new houses 

erected, bringing the total to about five 

thousand. Some streets were paved, with 

stone in the middle for carriages and brick 

sidewalks, patrolled by seventeen watchmen 

in the built-up eastern half of town between 

10 p.m. and 4 a.m. (9 to 6 in winter), crying 

the time and weather every hour and carrying 

a stout staff suitable for walloping the skulls 

of rowdies. 

A messenger from Boston rode up to the 

City Tavern at 5 p.m. on April 24, 1775, with 

the news that British regulars and 

Massachusetts militia had fought two battles, 

at Lexington and Concord. War had begun. 

Nearly eight thousand men gathered outside 

the State House at 3 p.m. the next day. 

Members of a patriot committee led the 

meeting, and nobody seemed to question their 

authority. It was agreed that the city should 

form two troops of light horse, two companies 

of riflemen, and two companies of artillery. 

Benjamin Franklin, seventy, arrived home 

from London on May 5, 1775. On board, he 

had drafted a ninety-seven-page report on 

✧ 

The First City Troop, riding here in modern 

times in front of its armory, was formed to 

escort General Washington to Boston to take 

command of the army. Abraham Markoe 

resigned in 1776 as first captain of the 

Troop; he was a Danish subject, Denmark 

was neutral, and his king gave him the 

choice of forsaking the American revolution 

or forfeiting his plantations in St. Croix. 

Abe went home to his warm, peaceful 

island. Christian Sam Morris became 

captain. The First City Troop is now a 

mechanized U. S. Army cavalry unit, but 

Troopers still put on their dazzling dress 

uniforms and ride handsome horses to 

escort any President who comes to 

Philadelphia on a formal visit. 

COURTESY OF THE URBAN ARCHIVES, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY. 

CHAPTER II 

35

✧ 

The Walnut Street Prison, at Sixth and 

Walnut across from the State House, was 

designed by ubiquitous architect Robert 

Smith. It was opened in January 1776, in 

an unfortunate sense of the word: six 

prisoners escaped the first night. It was 

demolished in 1835. 



36 

his diplomatic activities of the past eleven 

years, which he sent to his illegitimate 

son, William, royal governor of New Jersey, by 

way of William’s illegitimate son, Temple, who 

had arrived with his grandfather. Franklin 

had known since February that his wife, 

Deborah, was dead. He saw his new house for 

the first time. 

The Continental Congress reconvened 

on May 10, 1775, this time not in the neutral 

Carpenters’ Hall, but in the Provincial State 

House itself, essentially a British government 

building. 

Some two thousand troops were drilling 

mornings and evenings in the commons near 

the Bettering House at Eleventh and Spruce 

Streets. Congress started organizing a 

Continental Army in June, and commissioned 

George Washington as a general to take command 

of the troops opposing the British at 

Boston. Washington rode out of Philadelphia 

in heavy rain on June 23, escorted by the City 

Troop of Light Horse. 

A dozen small gunboats were under construction 

on the Delaware, and six hundred 

crewmen were recruited. A merchant ship was 

converted into a twenty-gun warship for river 

defense. Citizens of the city and immediate suburbs 

met at the State House and agreed to elect 

a sixty-man committee to oversee the interests of 

those sympathetic to the doings of the Congress. 

It would effectively replace the city council. 

Congress had put a damper on 

entertainment, but there was nothing to stop 

serious lectures, and Dr. Abraham Chovet’s 

“anatomical and physiological lectures” were 

drawing nice crowds at his Anatomical Museum 

in Vidal’s Alley off Second Street. Respectable 

citizens including Governor Richard Penn and 

even some of the clergy attended the lectures, 

“in which the several parts of the human body 

will be demonstrated,” Dr. Chovet’s advertising 

promised, “with their mechanisms and actions.” 

The Continental Congress adjourned 

August 1. The delegates returned in September 

to find gunpowder and weapons stored in the 

State House and a new gaol being erected 

across Walnut Street. A thirteenth colony, 

Georgia, sent representatives. 

Nearly every Philadelphia carpenter and 

their employees turned out on October 9 to 

install obstructions in the Delaware River ship 

channel opposite the unfinished fortifications 

on Mud Island below the city. They sunk huge 

wooden boxes, weighted with stones, 

bristling with logs whose iron tips protruded 

just above the water’s surface to snag 

incoming ships. 

THE 

DECLARATION 

In wartime Philadelphia, Quakers who 

refused to accept money issued by the 

Continental Congress or who did anything 

construed as not supporting the war saw their 

businesses shut down and their stores 

boarded up by the zealous patriot Committee. 

Anyone accused of making statements 

“inimical to the cause of liberty” (such as 

William Walton, who drank a toast of 

“Damnation to the Congress,” title of a 

popular Tory song) was bullied into issuing a 

statement to the press that he was sorry for his 

wrong-headedness. 

Prices were rising. Lamp oil was up fifty 

percent. The Committee set fixed prices on 

rum, molasses, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, 

pepper, sugar, and salt to prevent profiteering. 

If any merchants were caught overcharging, 

the Committee threatened to “expose such 

persons by name as sordid vultures.” 

Word arrived on March 26, 1776, that a 

British warship, the forty-four-gun H.M.S.

Roebuck, had captured a sloop and a pilot boat 

in Delaware Bay the previous evening. Four 

armed boats of the Pennsylvania Navy started 

down the river, with hopes that Captain John 

Barry, on the sixteen-gun Continental brig 

Lexington recently built in Philadelphia, was 

just off the coast. Delaware troops got into a 

fire fight with British sailors on shore near 

Indian River on April 7, Easter Sunday. The 

war was coming closer to Philadelphia. 

The Roebuck picked off small American ships 

in the bay, while, at sea, Captain Barry’s vessel 

captured the British sloop H.M.S. Edward and 

brought it in to Egg Harbor, New Jersey. Its officers 

were paroled to live in Germantown and its 

twenty-one sailors in Philadelphia, reporting 

daily to an appointed custodian. 

An express, as hard-riding messengers were 

called, arrived in the city at 3 p.m. on April 28 

to report that the Roebuck had run aground 

near the mouth of Brandywine Creek. The 

thirteen armed galleys of the Pennsylvania 

Navy left Philadelphia immediately, and the 

ten-gun provincial warship Montgomery pulled 

away from Plumstead’s Wharf at the foot of 

Pine Street to head downstream. The Roebuck 

avoided engagement. In May, H.M.S. Liverpool, 

a twenty-eight-gun frigate, arrived in the river. 

Raiding parties from the warships, shooting 

cattle for beef, skirmished with American 

troops in Jersey. The Pennsylvania armed boats 

and the Continental Navy schooner Wasp 

battled the Roebuck and Liverpool 

inconclusively near Wilmington from 2 p.m. 

until dark on May 8. Spectators lined both 

shores during the battle. 

Congress appointed a committee on June 

11 to draft a Declaration of Independence. 

Tom Jefferson got busy in his rented rooms at 

Jacob Graff’s new brick house at Seventh and 

✧ 

Left: Major Francois Fleury, a French 

military engineer, mapped the artillery 

action during the siege of Fort Mifflin in 

1777, elegantly labeling the fort’s site, Mud 

Island, as “Isle de Mude,” and adjoining 

Hog Island as “Isle de Hog.” 


Below: Fort Mifflin today is a tourist site. Its 

walls were rebuilt twenty years after they 

were flattened by the British bombardment 

of 1777; they enclose eighteenth and 

nineteenth century buildings. The fort was a 

prison in the Civil War, an anti-aircraft 

emplacement in World War II, and was an 

active military installation from the 

Revolution to the Korean War. 

COURTESY OF BARBARA TORODE. 

CHAPTER II 

37

✧ 

Sometime in early ’76, John Ross, a twentyfour-year-old 

militia private, was killed 

when munitions he was guarding exploded 

in a river front warehouse on Water Street 

near Arch. Ross, an upholsterer by trade, 

was survived by his wife, the former 

Elizabeth Griscom, also age twenty-four, 

familiarly known to her friends as Betsy. 

She had been dismissed from the 

Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends 

after marrying Ross, son of an Episcopal 

cleric, in a civil ceremony in 1773. The 

young widow continued in the sewing 

business, including some flag making. Her 

house became a landmark, seen here in 

1859 (left) and today (right). 



38 

Market. His effort, after some tinkering by 

Ben Franklin and John Adams, was presented 

to Congress on June 28, and the contents 

were debated until July 2. That afternoon, the 

Congressmen dissolved the political bond 

between Great Britain and the colonies. 

On the 8th, while voters were passing ballots 

into the State House windows to elect delegates 

to a convention that would form a new 

government for independent Pennsylvania, 

Colonel John Nixon went outside and climbed 

onto the 20-foot-high, 15-foot-wide platform 

that had been built in 1769 to observe the 

transit of Venus across the sun. To a crowd of 

voters and officials, he read the Declaration of 

Independence. Busy congressmen watched 

briefly out the windows. Afterward, some 

patriot leaders and soldiers of the Philadelphia 

Associators went inside and tore the royal arms 

from the wall, to provide fuel for an evening 

bonfire, and the big bell in the State House was 

rung to proclaim liberty, in spite of the risk to 

the rotten old tower. 

On October 26 Ben Franklin sailed for 

France to negotiate an alliance, taking along on 

the American armed sloop Reprisal his two 

grandsons: Temple, sixteen, son of William 

Franklin, and Benny Bache, seven, his daughter 

Sarah’s boy. 

British military might was looming near 

New York, but the situation looked less bleak 

after Washington crossed the Delaware from 

Bucks County on Christmas night in a 

successful surprise attack on the British 

army’s German mercenaries at Trenton. 

In 1776 a twenty-six-year-old French sea 

captain with a bad eye, after dodging British 

warships, tied up his ship, the Jeune Bébé 

(named for a New Orleans girl who jilted him) 

in the port of Philadelphia, and settled down 

to sell his cargo in a store on Water Street. His 

name was Ettienne Girard, but he Anglicized it 

to Stephen, married a poor shipcaulker’s 

daughter, and after the Revolution, would 

build up a merchant fleet, on his way to 

becoming one of Philadelphia’s best known 

citizens, and its richest. 

There also arrived in the city in 1776 a thirtyfive-year-old 

Marylander with a household 

including several slaves and several children (he 

would ultimately have seventeen). He was 

Charles Wilson Peale, portrait painter, inventor, 

expert on herbs and medicines, and enthusiastic 

patriot. He got himself elected to the Committee 

of Safety and raised a company of militia which 

he led at the battles of Trenton, Princeton, and 

Germantown. He often cooked for his troops, 

made shoes for them (he had apprenticed as a

saddlemaker), and painted miniature portraits 

of his officers between combats; one of his 

soldiers remembered it, “He fit and painted, 

painted and fit.” 

THE BRITISH TAKE OVER 

The war was stalled as 1777 began. John 

Adams strolled in the burying ground (now 

Washington Square) in April, and a caretaker 

told him that “upwards of two thousand 

soldiers have been buried there” and that many 

“died of the smallpox and camp diseases.” 

Finally, information came. General Sir 

William Howe, with 267 ships and 18,000 

soldiers, was sailing up Chesapeake Bay to 

invade Maryland and march on Philadelphia. 

On August 24, George Washington’s raggedy 

troops paraded through Philadelphia on their 

way to battle. They had been camped in rainsoaked 

fields around the Rising Sun Tavern, 

where the York Road merged with the road 

from Germantown. General Washington had 

been staying at Stenton mansion. 

The British arrived on September 11 at the 

Brandywine Creek area, and fought the 

Americans near Chadd’s Ford. Lord Charles 

Cornwallis, a British general, studied the 

American battle lines and told General Howe 

grudgingly, “The damn rebels form well.” But 

the British regulars prevailed. 

The city went on alert. Frightened citizens 

and Congressmen headed for the countryside. 

People carried off their valuables. Church 

bells were hustled out of town to save them 

from being recast into British cannons. The 

2,080-pound State House clunker was hauled 

to Allentown and hidden under the floor of 

Zion Reformed Church. 

Early on September 26, British troops headed 

by Cornwallis moved down Germantown 

Road to Second Street, and entered the city at 

about 10 a.m., led by trotting dragoons and a 

band playing God Save the King. A body of soldiers 

stayed at Germantown, and Howe 

moved into Stenton mansion. 

Washington devised a grand plan to take 

on the British forces camped around 

Germantown. On October 4, about 5 a.m., 

British sentries, shivering in the dawn fog on 

the Germantown Road at the lane to Allen’s 

mansion called Mount Airy, were surprised by 

American cavalrymen. The horsemen were 

harbingers of two divisions that were to strike 

at the heart of Germantown, while other 

forces moved down the Wissahickon Creek, 

the Ridge Road, the Limekiln Road and the 

York Road. 

✧ 

As the war spread to New York and Canada 

late in 1775, captured British soldiers and 

their families were being sent to Lancaster, 

Trenton, and Philadelphia as prisoners. 

David Franks was contracted to provide 

supplies for all British prisoners of war in 

Pennsylvania. He was a ship owner and 

merchant, active in the thirty-five-year-old 

Mikveh Israel Congregation. He lived 

with his wife and four children in Woodford, 

a fine house on the east bank of the 

Schuylkill, just below the Robin Hood 

Tavern and the lovely dell that surrounded 

it. His daughter, Rebecca, was a renowned 

Philadelphia beauty. 


CHAPTER II 

39

✧ 

Samuel Powel was mayor of Philadelphia, 

elected in 1775, but his duties were taken 

over in ’76 by the revolutionary committee. 

For the last dozen days of the occupation, the 

earl of Carlisle was quartered in Powel’s 

mansion, which still stands on Third Street 

below Walnut. Mayor and Mrs. Powel were 

forced to live in the back of the house. The 

earl was twenty-nine, and had been sent to 

the colonies two years after the Declaration 

of Independence, and in the midst of armed 

rebellion, as the head of “His Majesty’s 

Commissioners for Quieting Certain 

Disorders Now Subsisting Within the 

Colonies.” In 1789, after the “disorders” were 

concluded, Powel was re-elected, making him 

the last colonial mayor of Philadelphia and 

the first under the United States. 



40 

But Washington and his staff made the 

doubtful decision to stop and drive a small 

British unit out of the Chew mansion, 

Cliveden, tying up the main body of the army. 

American troops, with one general drunk 

and later court-martialed, began going in 

wrong directions, and in one area fought each 

other mistakenly in the fog. By 10 a.m., the 

rebel army was driven back to Whitemarsh. 

The invaders needed to get their fleet up 

the Delaware. It was held back by Fort Mifflin, 

on Mud Island below the mouth of the 

Schuylkill, and its companion fort, Mercer, on 

the Jersey side. The Jersey fort was attacked 

by 2,000 Hessians on October 22, and the 

450 American defenders won the fight. Two 

British warships that came up river to support 

the assault ran aground, and next day, the 

sixty-four-gun H.M.S. Augusta (named for 

the king’s mother) blew up, with an explosion 

that rattled windows fifty miles away. 

After a month of artillery dueling between 

Fort Mifflin and the British on land and river, 

the occupation army threw everything it had at 

the Americans on November 15. At the peak, 

nearly one cannonball a second was blasted at 

the fort. Mifflin and Mercer were finally 

evacuated. British warships moved to anchor at 

the city. Washington’s eleven thousand 

underclothed, underfed men trudged off to a 

winter of misery at Valley Forge. 

The British army settled down for a 

comfortable winter in Philadelphia. General 

Howe moved into the house at Sixth and 

Market that had been the home of Richard 

Penn and his bride. Officers were quartered in 

private homes. Empty houses and commercial 

buildings were turned into quarters for 

common soldiers. The State House was 

converted into a barracks. 

The arrival of some fifteen thousand men 

began draining the city and countryside of 

food, hay, candles, firewood and other 

necessities. Newspaper advertising of the 

period hints at some of the activities of the 

occupation army. Playing cards were for sale by 

the gross, Dr. Yeldall was selling his “Anti- 

Venereal Essence” for $2 a dose, and two 

British officers placed a help wanted ad offering 

“extravagant wages” for “a young woman to act 

in capacity of housekeeper, and who can 

occasionally put her hand to anything.” 

Officers dined, gambled, drank, played 

cricket, staged horse races and cock fights, 

took German lessons, and attended social 

events. They were welcomed by Tory 

Philadelphians still loyal to His Majesty. A 

group of officers rented public rooms at the 

City Tavern, and entertained nightly except 

Sunday, with a ball every Thursday. The 

beverages offered were tea, coffee, lemonade, 

the ever-popular orgeat and, on ball nights, 

negus. Orgeat was made from barley and 

almonds in orange-flavored water, and negus 

was port wine mixed with sugar and water. 

Rebecca Franks, dark-eyed belle of Tory 

society, wrote to a girlfriend: “You can have no 

idea of the life of continued amusement I live 

in. I can scarce have a moment to myself.” 

Army and navy officers put on a theater 

season, staging thirteen performances 

between January and May in the playhouse 

just across Cedar Street in Southwark. 

Elaborate scenery and costumes were created, 

officers’ wives (and, one soldier reported,

“some kept mistresses”) took female parts, 

and plays ranged from lightweight fare to 

Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I. At the snowy 

Valley Forge encampment, American officers 

performed plays, too. 

General Howe was due to leave for 

England in the spring, and twenty-two of his 

officers chipped in 140 pounds each for a 

lavish farewell party. They called the event the 

Meschianza, which they claimed meant a 

mixture or medley. The men commandeered, 

for the site, the late Joseph Wharton’s 

mansion at about what is now Fifth Street and 

Washington Avenue, with lawns sweeping 

down to the river. At 3:30 p.m. on May 18, 

1778, guests gathered on Knight’s wharf at the 

foot of what is now Green Street. A flotilla of 

barges, decorated with flags and bunting, 

carried the revelers past the waterfront, where 

the docks and buildings were festooned, 

cannons saluted and crowds cheered. Bands 

on ships played God Save the King. The officers 

and their ladies landed on Wharton’s lawn to 

walk under huge decorative arches. The 

women wore specially designed medieval 

costumes. Men and horses dressed King 

Arthur style jousted on the lawn. There was a 

huge buffet, dancing in a mirrored hall, 

twenty different fireworks displays at 10 

o’clock, a midnight supper with twelve 

hundred dishes, and, in all, the most 

ostentatious party thrown in Philadelphia up 

to that time, and maybe since. 

On June 18, British occupation troops 

pulled out of Philadelphia, and American 

soldiers moved in cautiously. They found 

many houses all but demolished, with doors, 

windows, and roofs gone for firewood. 

Buildings that had been converted to barracks 

were filthy and smelled of urine. Trash and 

debris littered the streets. Flies were 

everywhere. Valuables from homes and 

buildings had been carried off, including 

furniture, paintings, Bibles, clothing, the 

pews from several churches, and even one of 

Ben Franklin’s printing presses. Where part of 

the State House had been used as a hospital, a 

great pit had been dug, and into it were tossed 

dead men, dead horses, and assorted filth. 

The fine house at Sixth and Market Streets 

just vacated by General Howe was next 

occupied by General Benedict Arnold, 

recovering from a wound suffered in battle at 

Saratoga, New York, the previous October. 

Congress appointed Arnold military governor 

of the city. He lived pretentiously, and there 

were accusations that he was using his position 

to enrich himself. He was court-martialed, but 

the most serious charge that stuck was use of 

government wagons for private purposes. 

Arnold, thirty-seven, was courting Peggy 

Shippen, nineteen, daughter of Judge Edward 

Shippen, with the same love letters he had 

used unsuccessfully on another girl in Boston 

only six months before. Arnold bought Mount 

Pleasant, the Macpherson mansion on the 

Schuylkill, on March 22, 1779, and married 

Peggy on April 8. Before the honeymoon was 

over, Arnold was exchanging coded messages 

✧ 

Foreign military men, mostly French, were 

showing up in Philadelphia and asking to 

help with the revolution. A nineteen-yearold 

red-haired Frenchman named Gilbert 

Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, arrived in 

1777 and said he would like to be a general. 

It wasn’t as silly as it sounded; he came 

from a line of French military leaders that 

stretched back three hundred years, he had 

already been a soldier six years, he 

had been married three years with one child 

and another due soon, and was not your 

average teenager. Congress made him a 

major general. 


CHAPTER II 

41

✧ 

Above: Peggy Shippen. 


OF RECORDS, CITY ARCHIVES. 

Below: John Penn of Stoke, twenty-three, 

William Penn’s grandson, arrived in 

Philadelphia in 1783 to get a look at 

holdings he had inherited. In 1784, he made 

what he called “a dear purchase of 15 acres, 

costing 600 pounds sterling, and on the 

banks of the Schuylkill. I named it, from the 

Duke of Wurtemberg’s, Solitude….” He 

designed a 26-by-26-foot house; connected 

to his second floor bedroom was a library 

for his six hundred books, most of which 

were books of poetry. John lived there four 

years, then returned to England, where he 

became recognized as a poet and served in 

Parliament. He died in 1834. Solitude 

would have the Philadelphia Zoo built 

around it forty years later. 



42 

with British generals on how he could 

profitably change sides. 

John Penn, exiled to New Jersey in 1777, 

returned in 1778 and took a loyalty oath to the 

new Pennsylvania government. Upon the death 

of William Penn’s last son, Thomas, in 1775, his 

son John of Stoke became owner of three 

quarter interest in Pennsylvania, while John in 

Philadelphia, son of William’s son Richard, got 

a one quarter share. The Penn family would 

own property in Pennsylvania into the 

twentieth century, but their part in governing 

was over as sure as was King George’s. 

THE CONVENTION CITY 

On Tuesday, October 23, 1781, in the middle 

of the night, Colonel Tench Tilghman, one of 

Washington’s aides, galloped into Philadelphia 

with the news that General Cornwallis had 

surrendered his part of the British army at 

Yorktown, and the Revolution was effectively 

over. He banged on the door of Thomas 

McKean, president of Congress, and a watchman 

arrested him. The matter was quickly 

straightened out. The buildings of the city were 

“handsomely illuminated in consequence of 

Lord Cornwallis’ surrender” on the 24th, with 

some nastier patriots celebrating by smashing 

dark windows of Quaker pacifists’ homes. 

At a meeting at the City Tavern on 

November 1, 1781, Thomas Willing and 

Robert Morris organized the Bank of North 

America. Eighteenth century credit, insurance, 

and the like were issued by prominent 

merchants, in transactions usually done at the 

London Coffee House, the City Tavern, or 

other such venues. Banking was a new idea. “It 

was a pathless wilderness,” Willing wrote, 

“ground but little known to this side the 

Atlantic.” While not inventing banking, Robert 

Morris would soon open Philadelphia trade to 

the Far East. His ship Empress of China sailed 

from New York. In 1786, his ship Canton 

began direct Philadelphia to China voyages. 

Word came from Paris early in 1784 that 

the British and American peace commissioners 

had signed an official end to the Revolutionary 

War. Philadelphia decided to celebrate on 

January 22 but the plans didn’t work well. On 

Market Street between Fifth and Sixth, Charles 

Wilson Peale put up an arch, forty feet high, 

with paintings on the sides, at the cost of six 

hundred pounds. At dark, as lamps were being 

lit, the paintings caught fire, the arch burned 

up and the fireworks on top shot off 

indiscriminately. A rocket killed a woman, and 

several bystanders were injured. 

The twenty-two thousand or so country 

residents of upper Philadelphia County had 

been pestering the Assembly since 1782 to let 

them secede. They believed their taxes were too 

high because of the extravagance of city folks. 

On September 10, 1784, the state government 

acceded, and Montgomery County was created.

Cannon roared a salute and crowds turned out 

to greet Ben Franklin when he arrived at Market 

Street wharf on September 14, 1784, home from 

France, and walked up to his house, followed by 

admiring citizens. Settling down, he built an 

addition on his house that included a library for 

his four thousand books and a room for a “tepid 

bath.” It was a tub six feet long, two wide, and 

two deep, seated on a stone base through which 

hot air circulated from a firebox below. Pipes let 

servants admit water from outside. 

The Assembly granted a lot in the State 

House yard, facing Fifth Street, to the 

American Philosophical Society in 1785 to 

erect a headquarters. The first meeting in the 

new building was on November 13, 1789. 

The Pennsylvania Assembly appointed 

eight members to attend the Federal 

Convention to be held in May 1787. Delegates 

from twelve states were expected (Rhode 

Island begged off). In the evening of May 13, 

the First City Troop met General Washington’s 

coach at Gray’s Ferry. 

During the four-month convention, 

Washington was the big celebrity. He attended 

dinners, church services and teas; sat for a 

portrait by Charles Wilson Peale; visited his old 

camp ground at Valley Forge; reviewed the horse, 

light infantry and artillery, and strolled the 

gardens at Gray’s Ferry. For the serious business 

of inventing a new government, the convention 

used the room where independence had been 

declared. By September 19, the gathering had 

produced the Constitution of the United States. 

CHANGING INTO 

THE CAPITAL 

On Fourth of July, 1788, the city staged what 

came to be called the Grand Federal Procession. 

The ninth state, New Hampshire, had ratified 

the Constitution, making that document the law 

of the land. The parade started at 8 a.m. and 

wound through the built up part of the city, then 

out to Bush Hill estate northwest of town. There 

were eighty-eight units, including public 

officials, business groups and members of such 

trades as brickmakers, coach painters, whip 

manufacturers, tailors, potters, bakers, distillers 

and gunsmiths. The major float was billed 

as the Grand Federal Edifice, drawn by ten 

white horses, with a wooden dome thirty-six 

feet high spanning thirteen columns, three 

unfinished to symbolize states that had not yet 

ratified the Constitution. 

Ten of the eleven states that had ratified the 

Constitution chose presidential electors in April 

1789. The electors met in New York and cast 

ballots. George Washington got the most votes 

and was elected president; John Adams came in 

second and was named vice president under the 

terms of the Constitution. The president-elect 

arrived in Philadelphia on April 20, on his way 

to New York, and dined at the City Tavern with 

“the principal gentlemen of the city” and 

members of the Light Horse. At night there were 

fireworks at Ninth and Market. He rode on at 10 

✧ 

Left: From the yard of the Walnut Street 

Prison, Jean Pierre Blanchard of France 

became the first person in North America to 

fly. On January 9, 1793, he lifted off in a 

yellow silk hot air balloon, waving French 

and American flags while a band played 

and cannons boomed. President Washington 

was among the spectators. Blanchard and 

his dog stayed aloft for forty-six minutes. 

His advertising for the spectacle proclaimed, 

in Latin, Sic Itur Ad Astra, “Thus I Rise to 

the Stars.” He didn’t make it to the stars, 

but he did get as far as Woodbury, New 

Jersey. 


Below: John Fitch drew derision from 

Philadelphians when he developed at least 

three different types of boats propelled by 

steam. Even when Fitch began operating 

scheduled steamboat service from 

Philadelphia to Trenton in 1785, people 

laughed just because his boats tended to 

blow up every so often. After years of no 

respect, Fitch started boozing, went broke, 

and killed himself in Kentucky in 1798. 

Next thing you know, Robert Fulton, a 

portrait painter from Lancaster, 

Pennsylvania, would build a steamboat in 

New York in 1807, and become acclaimed 

as the inventor of the steamboat. 


CHAPTER II 

43

over the mansion, adding big bow windows to 

the rear, upstairs and down. He converted the 

bath house into his private study, and 

complained that the stable held only twelve 

horses. Living with the president and Mrs. 

Washington were her two grandchildren; the 

president’s private secretary, Toby Lear, and 

Mrs. Lear; three other male secretaries, and 

twenty servants, fifteen white and five black. 

YELLOW 

FEVER 

✧ 

William Hamilton, grandson of Andrew, 

improved the Woodlands mansion, 

southwest of the city, in 1787, putting a 

grand Grecian facade on what had been a 

modest farmhouse. Today it is the 

centerpiece of a cemetery. 



44 

the next morning. He was inaugurated in New 

York on April 30. The president planned to 

move to Philadelphia, which would be capital 

until the new federal city could be built. 

The Assembly on September 25, 1789, 

passed a bill to divide Chester County, the new 

part to be called Delaware County. In November, 

a Constitutional Convention met again at the 

State House and adopted ten amendments to the 

Federal Constitution, called a Bill of Rights. 

On snowy January 2, 1780, fire had 

destroyed the upper two stories and attic of the 

fine brick house on Market Street east of Sixth, 

former home of Richard Penn, Sir William 

Howe, Benedict Arnold, Pennsylvania Chief 

Executive Joseph Reed, and Monsieur Holker, 

the French consul. The burned-out house 

remained empty until August 1785, when 

Tench Francis conveyed it to Robert Morris. 

Morris rebuilt the house into a showplace. 

He added outbuildings including servants’ 

quarters and a “bathing room,” containing 

marble and wooden bathtubs. An old friend was 

a house guest of Morris in 1787 during the 

Constitutional Convention: George Washington. 

Always with an eye for comfortable lodgings, 

Washington identified the Morris place as “the 

best single house in the city.” 

City officials decided that the Morris house 

was the most suitable residence for the new 

chief executive. Morris and his wife obligingly 

moved next door. President Washington took 

Philadelphia in the 1790s was dominated 

by two things: the new United States government, 

and yellow fever. 

Yellow fever had been minimal in 

Philadelphia before the 1790s, so the 

populace had no immunity. In 1790 a record 

1,354 ships tied up at Philadelphia, compared 

to 750 only twenty years before. About 25 to 

30 percent of ships arriving in the early ’90s 

were from the West Indies, and some 

passengers carried the germ of yellow fever. If 

they were bitten by the common aedes aegypti 

mosquito, and the mosquito bit others, the 

disease would spread. No one knew that. 

The first fatalities of the 1793 yellow fever 

epidemic were near the Delaware between Arch 

and Race Streets. The disease hit hard in August. 

First symptoms were chills, then headache and 

muscle ache and fever, then yellow skin, then 

debilitating retching of black vomit. If treatment 

failed, death came in about a week. 

The Assembly met on August 29, but 

adjourned “owing to the infectious disorder in 

the city,” and particularly because young 

Joseph Fry, doorkeeper of the Assembly, was 

found lying dead in his apartment at the west 

end of the State House. 

Governor Thomas Mifflin and Mayor 

Matthew Clarkson ordered small cannon “hauled 

through the streets and constantly discharged, as 

the flashing of gunpowder is thought will 

prevent the spreading of the disorder.” 

Mayor Clarkson, a native New Yorker, 

remained on the job while other prominent 

citizens fled, fearing contagion. He tried 

everything: clean the streets, mark the houses 

where the fever hit, build bonfires in the streets 

to clear the air. Theories of prevention 

abounded. Citizens wore vinegar-soaked

sponges over their noses, tied bags of camphor 

around their necks, carried bits of tarred rope, 

chewed garlic, smoked cigars (even women and 

children.) The best preventive was to get out of 

town. Anybody who could afford it moved to 

the country. President Washington went home 

to Mount Vernon; when he had to return in the 

fall, he ran the government from the Morris 

house in Germantown. Governor Mifflin was 

sick, but recovered at his country mansion 

overlooking the Falls of Schuylkill. 

Clarkson set up a hospital in the Andrew 

Hamilton mansion at Bush Hill, at about what 

would now be Nineteenth Street below 

Fairmount Avenue. Two citizens who could 

have fled the city risked their lives as volunteers 

to run the hospital: a Moravian barrelmaker 

named Peter Helm, and a forty-three-year-old, 

up-and-coming merchant, Stephen Girard. 

People avoided each other on the street. 

Most businesses closed. Funerals were sparsely 

attended. There are tales of sufferers falling 

dead in the street and thieves stripping the 

corpses of clothes and possessions. 

Most of the moving of victims, dead and 

alive, was done by black Philadelphians. There 

was a rumor that African Americans were 

immune. Richard Allen and Absolom Jones, 

religious leaders, volunteered the services of 

the Free African Society, which they had 

founded in 1787, and Mayor Clarkson 

accepted. In September, as they helped the sick 

and dying, blacks began to be stricken; so 

much for immunity. Allen and his colleagues 

continued to transport victims, build coffins, 

and even administer purges and bleedings to 

victims of both races. 

There was an added nuisance that summer, 

though hardly worth complaint during the 

yellow death: there was an uncommon number 

of mosquitoes. 

The epidemic ended with the November 

frosts. Some five thousand persons had died, 

almost ten percent of the city’s population. 

The yellow fever became an annual summer 

event, to one degree or another, and 

Philadelphians were almost blasé about it. On 

August 30, 1797, a Philadelphian wrote 

detachedly that “the deaths during the last 24 

hours number only eight adults and six 

children. It is surprising that so insignificant a 

number should create so much excitement in 

this city as well as in the country.” 

In August of ’98 the sickness made another 

strong showing. There were 3,637 fatalities, a 

mass exodus of citizens much like ’93, and 

people living in tents on empty lots because 

fresh air was thought to be more healthful. The 

as yet unnamed Washington Square was used 

for yellow fever victim burials in 1793, and 

again in 1798 although City Council had 

closed it to burials in 1795. 

In 1802 Stubbins Firth of the University of 

Pennsylvania Medical School would decide to 

prove that yellow fever was not contagious 

through contact with victims. He put fever 

victims’ vomit in a cut in his arm twenty times. 

He drank vomit several times, and once poured 

some in his eye. He never became sick. It 

would be the year 1900 before science linked 

yellow fever to mosquitoes. 

✧ 

Dr. Benjamin Rush, the city’s most 

prominent physician, entered yellow fever 

sick rooms during the 1793 epidemic with 

optimistic bedside manner, administered 

strong purgatives (“a dose for a horse” 

criticized a competitor doctor) and took 

quantities of blood. Some patients survived 

both the disease and the treatment. Dr. Rush 

himself had the fever, but kept practicing, 

dashing through the streets in his carriage. 

Rival doctors had rival cures, and those 

physicians who hadn’t abandoned any sense 

of duty and left town bickered publicly over 

what treatment was best. 



CHAPTER II 

45


46

THE QUAKER CITY 

CAPITAL OF THE NATION 

In 1790, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton got Congress to establish the Bank of the 

United States, subscribing $2 million to the capital stock of the bank and then immediately borrowing 

it all back. 

The new government passed the Funding Act of 1790 to consolidate the debts incurred by the 

war effort. Bonds were issued with portions earning six percent and portions three percent interest, 

and some interest deferred for a period of years. “Script” was also issued, representing rights to 

purchase shares in the new government bank. Speculators began buying these instruments at 

discounts from people who needed cash, and selling to other speculators. By August 1791 the 

mania was absorbing Philadelphia. Shop keepers, clerks, and even “prentice boys” were playing the 

market. Major Matthew McConnell, recently chosen by brokers who met at the London Coffee 

House to be the first president of the nation’s first Stock Exchange, made nearly $40,000 in one 

month buying and selling script. (For contrast, President Washington’s annual salary was $25,000.) 

A young broker from New York named Seber made $10,000 trading at the City Tavern, and “lost 

his reason,” according to Benjamin Rush, who treated him. Dr. Rush, now often identified as the 

father of American psychiatry, had plenty of opportunity to practice that paternity during the 

frenzy. “The great speculators become talkative and communicative, or dull, sullen, silent and 

peevish,” he noted. Speculators reported sleeplessness, chest pains, quickened pulse and loss of 

appetite. Dr. Rush recorded, after a week ministering to the broker from New York: “Mr. Seber 

constantly refused to take his medicine, ‘till he first asked, ‘On what terms?’ and when he 

swallowed his medicine would cry out ‘A good bargain.’ He died this afternoon.” 

Also died, quietly, at 11 p.m. on Saturday, April 17, 1790, with his grandsons at his bedside, 

the city’s greatest citizen of all time: Benjamin Franklin, age eighty-four. He had been a printer, 

writer, artist, publisher, philosopher, scientist, inventor, soldier, diplomat, abolitionist, founder of 

a half dozen Philadelphia institutions, influencer of the Declaration and the Constitution, and had 

lived to see his illegitimate son’s illegitimate son have an illegitimate son. His was not a life likely 

to be duplicated. His funeral on the 21st, a procession from his house near Fourth and Market 

to Christ Church graveyard at Fifth and Arch, included the entire state and city governments, 

the clergy and lawyers of the city, the physicians of the hospital he founded, the students of 

the university he founded, a company of militia, just about everybody else in Philadelphia, and 

a group that might have pleased Ben the most: the printers of the city, with their journeymen 

and apprentices. 

Charles Wilson Peale, when not turning out portraits of Washington and other paintings, 

collected just about everything. Pictures, stuffed animals, wax figures and other cultural bric-a-brac 

were crowding his house at Third and Lombard. In 1794 the American Philosophical Society 

invited Peale to move his collection into its new building on the Fifth Street edge of the State House 

Yard. Peale did so, adding a small menagerie out back. In 1795 Peale organized the Columbianum, 

the nation’s first artists’ exhibit. 

✧ 

Frederick Graff, superintendent of the 

water works, only wanted to improve the 

water supply, but the intake structures and 

pump house he designed, long disused, 

remain a serenely elegant sight on the banks 

of the Schuylkill. 


RACE, RELIGION 

& POLITICS 

The first U.S. Census, in 1790, listed 301 slaves in Philadelphia and 1,849 free Africans. Free 

African community leaders were Richard Allen and Absolom Jones. Allen was born in Philadelphia 

in 1760, a slave of Benjamin Chew. He drove an ammunition wagon during the Revolutionary War, 

saved enough to buy his freedom and traveled the country preaching. In 1784 the Methodists 

licensed him to preach. Jones had been born a slave in Delaware in 1746. He was sold to a store 

CHAPTER III 

47

✧ 

Above: The six-year-old Bank of the United 

States moved into its impressive new 

headquarters on Third Street near Chestnut 

in 1797. It was the first government 

building and first bank to be styled as a 

pillared neo-classical temple, setting the 

tone for future such American edifices. 


Below: President Washington occupied the 

house on Market Street near Sixth that had 

been luxuriously outfitted by financier 

Robert Morris. Second President John 

Adams also rented the building, before 

the new capital city was built and named 

for Washington. 



48 

in Philadelphia, where he managed to buy 

freedom for his wife and himself and continue 

to work in the store for wages. 

With other free Africans, he and Allen 

attended St. George’s Methodist Church, 

where preaching was accepted from both 

Allen and Harry Hosier, an eloquent black 

orator who assisted the first Methodist 

bishop, Francis Asbury. Yet, in summer of 

1792, some white trustees forced the black 

Methodists to leave St. George’s. 

Funds were collected from the public, 

black and white, to build an African church 

near Fifth and Locust Streets in 1793. To 

Richard Allen’s mild disappointment, 

Absolom Jones and much of the congregation 

elected to join the Protestant Episcopal 

Church. The building became St. Thomas’, 

and Jones became the first black Episcopal 

priest. Allen acquired a tract at Sixth and 

Lombard, gathered black former Methodists, 

bought an old blacksmith shop and hauled it 

to the site, and established Bethel church, 

foundation of the African Methodist Episcopal 

denomination. The congregation still meets 

there, in a much newer building. 

Hilary Baker (christened Hilarius) was 

born in Germany. He was a hardware 

merchant, and during the Revolution had 

smuggled dispatches for George Washington 

in the false bottom of his hardware wagon. He 

was elected mayor in 1796, and soon found 

himself in a dilemma. Sailors in the port 

struck for higher wages. Mobs of seamen took 

control of the waterfront, preventing ships 

from loading and beating up people who tried 

to interfere. 

Mayor Baker appointed Robert Wharton, a 

fourth-year city councilman, to do something 

about the strike. Wharton came from an old, 

dignified Quaker family, but he had once 

apprenticed himself to a hatmaker, liked to be 

called Bobby, and hung out with common 

folks. He also worked in his brother’s counting 

house, rode to the hounds, and otherwise 

behaved like a proper Philadelphian.

Wharton marched with 60 policemen and 

a posse of 20 local merchants down Dock 

Street to the river, where they were met by 

400 sailors, parading with fifes, drums, and 

flags. Wharton and his men grabbed logs from 

a stack of firewood and began smashing 

heads. The conclusion was one hundred 

strikers dragged to jail and the rest routed. 

In 1798, when yellow fever struck, Hilary 

Baker was still mayor. He bravely stayed in 

town, visiting the poor and helping carry 

victims to Pennsylvania Hospital. In September, 

at age fifty-two, he died of the disease. The 

citizens elected Bobby Wharton mayor. 

Inmates at Walnut Street Prison took control 

of the prison yard, armed with pickaxes 

and crowbars. Mayor Wharton, carrying a 

shotgun, led eight guards with muskets into 

the yard. Wharton calmly ordered his men to 

shoot. Two prisoners were killed. The rest surrendered. 

Wharton demanded a grand jury 

investigation, which found his actions “fully 

justified.” He would be elected again in 1806, 

1810, 1814, and 1820. 

John Adams took the oath of office as second 

President at noon on March 4, 1797, in 

Congress Hall at Sixth and Chestnut. Many 

spectators wept at the departure of the 

beloved Washington, or perhaps, the uncomfortable 

Adams later wrote wryly, “from the 

accession of an unbeloved one.” 

After the ceremony, there was a rush of 

citizens who wanted to see Washington 

leave. Men in the balcony slid down the 

pillars to get to the street fast. Washington’s 

carriage headed for his Market Street dwelling, 

with His Excellency waving his hat and 

displaying an uncharacteristically broad smile. 

✧ 

Left: Benjamin Franklin Bache was the son 

of Ben Franklin’s daughter Sarah. At age 

seven, in 1776, Benny went to Paris with 

his grandfather. Until 1785, he attended 

boarding schools in Paris and Geneva. Back 

in Philadelphia, he worked in Franklin’s 

printing shop while attending the University 

of Pennsylvania, and was Franklin’s 

companion in the old philosopher’s last 

years. After his grandfather died in 1790, 

Benny started his own newspaper, first 

called the General Advertiser but changed 

to the Aurora in 1794. The paper 

denounced President Washington for putting 

on aristocratic airs. An Aurora exposé that 

accused Washington of overdrawing his 

salary had the president complaining about 

attacks by “infamous scribblers.” Congress 

passed a law against criticizing the 

government in 1798, which didn’t last, but 

neither did Benny Bache. He died in the 

yellow fever epidemic. 


Below: The Philadelphia establishment, in a 

futile attempt to keep the capital, built an 

elegant Presidential Residence. Foundations 

were laid in May 1792, for a square 

structure with one-hundred-foot-long sides 

on the west side of Ninth Street between 

Market and Chestnut. There were delays in 

financing and construction, and the mansion 

wasn’t ready for occupancy until 1797. On 

inauguration day, 1797, Governor Thomas 

Mifflin sent a letter to President-elect John 

Adams, offering him use of the Presidential 

Residence. Adams declined, and the mansion 

was boarded up. In 1799 Governor Mifflin 

unloaded the white elephant at public sale, 

for less than half its cost, to the University of 

Pennsylvania, then in crowded quarters at 

Fourth and Arch Streets. The university used 

the mansion until 1829, when it was 

replaced by other buildings. 


CHAPTER III 

49

✧ 

Top, left: The present edifice of Mother 

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church 

was built in 1889, on the site at Sixth and 

Lombard Streets where the Reverend 

Richard Allen established that denomination 

in an old blacksmith shop in 1793. It stands 

on the oldest plot of land owned 

continuously by African Americans. 

Reverend Allen’s tomb is in the church. 


Top, right: The Reverend Richard Allen 



50 

(Forget anything you’ve heard about wooden 

false teeth. The ex-president was flashing a 

denture of second-hand human teeth, inset in 

a base of hippopotamus ivory covered with 

pink sealing wax to resemble gums.) 

LIFE IN THE CAPITAL 

Life in Philadelphia, the capital of the 

United States, was varied and vibrant. An 

unskilled male laborer earned about $6 a 

week, a washerwoman $3; a prostitute 

charged $1 or $2 per ministration. A twostory 

frame house, 12 by 21 feet, cost $500; a 

three story brick, 24 by 34 feet with separate 

kitchen, $4,500. The prosperous had kitchen 

buildings in the rear; small households 

cooked on a fireplace, not pleasant in 

summer. William Bingham, wealthy merchant 

and Thomas Willing’s son-in-law, had a house 

60 by 100 feet near Third and Spruce, with 

formal gardens stretching to Fourth Street, 

and the usual rooms plus a library, study, 

banquet room, ballroom, and card room. 

There were some 6,600 houses in the city, 

415 stores and workshops, and 26 places 

of worship. 

Pigs, dogs and rats roamed the streets, and 

the air reeked from “necessaries,” garbage and 

manure in streets, accompanied by hordes of 

flies and mosquitoes in warm weather, 

especially on Market Street. German farmers 

from the country rolled in near the market 

shambles at night and slept in their wagons. 

The market opened early in the morning. 

Vendors started to close about 2 p.m., when 

bargain hunters scouted for perishing 

perishables. Fruit and vegetables were 

expensive when fresh. Milk to drink and 

curds to eat were cheap nourishment, as was 

small beer made from molasses. 

If shopping got boring, customers could 

stroll to the Courthouse at the Second Street 

end of the markets and watch a criminal being 

flogged or locked in the stocks. 

The Three Jolly Irishmen Tavern at Race 

and Water Streets was a notorious source of 

the common drugs of the day: opium,

✧ 

Left: The New Theatre in Chestnut Street 

presented its first plays on February 17, 

1794, a “double feature,” The Castle of 

Andalusia followed by Who’s the Dupe? 

The 90-by-134-foot building held two 

thousand playgoers, nine hundred of them 

in the boxes. The stage was thirty-six feet 

wide and ran back seventy-one feet from the 

footlights. A New York writer called it 

“incomparably the finest home of the drama 

in America.” 


Spanish flies, and Jesuits bark (an alkaloid 

related to quinine.) A French observer 

reported that servant girls “like to dress up for 

the evening promenade, which lasts from nine 

until eleven and, it’s said, leads them to places 

where they traffic their charms.” 

The Assembly had repealed the law against 

theaters in 1789. On January 6, 1790, the old 

Southwark Theatre reopened, presenting 

Sheridan’s The Rivals. 

President Washington became a regular 

theatergoer. He would be met at the door by 

Thomas Wignell, a comedian and cousin of 

Lewis Hallam the Younger, dressed in black 

and carrying a silver candlestick in each hand, 

to lead His Excellency to his box. 

Wignell built the Chestnut Street Theatre 

on Sixth Street diagonally across from the State 

House. It opened with two concerts in early 

1793, but because of the yellow fever the 

season was postponed at it and the Southwark. 

The first performance at the New Theater, 

as the holders of $8 season boxes first called 

the Chestnut, was February 17, 1794. Early 

presentations were lightweight stuff, but by 

spring, the company would include, among 

the comedies and contemporary plays, 

Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and 

other Shakespearean standards, and some 

Bottom, left: Stephen Girard. 


Bottom, right: Stephen Girard’s farmhouse 

now stands in a South Philadelphia park. 

Girard bought a sixty-seven-acre 

Passayunk Township farm in 1798 from 

Henry Seckel, in the area called the Neck, 

known for growing produce and Mummers. 

It was the farm on which the Seckel pear 

had been developed. Girard named the 

place Gentilhommiere. 


CHAPTER III 

51

✧ 

The Bishop & Sparks Shot Tower was 

erected near Front and Carpenter in 1807. 

Shot for firearms was manufactured by 

dropping molten lead down the shaft of the 

142-foot tower into cold water, which 

hardened the drops of hot metal. Sieves 

sorted the pellets into various sizes, which 

were then filed smooth and round. When the 

War of 1812 proffered lucrative military 

contracts, John Bishop, a pacifist Quaker, 

sold his share of the business to partner 

Thomas Sparks. His nephew , also Thomas 

Sparks, took charge of the business in 1855. 

The latter’s son, another Thomas, took over 

in 1874. By that time, the tower was 

manufacturing modern bullets in a separate 

building, but still turned out five tons of shot 

a day. The business closed in 1909, and the 

city bought the property. It became a 

recreation center, over which the brick tower 

still looms. Old-timers claim that the site 

was a burial ground for Swedish settlers in 

the early seventeenth century, and that a 

spectral Green Lady haunted the tower and 

frequently wailed eerily just before dawn. 

Not much has been heard from the Green 

Lady lately. 


London favorites from the 1770s, The Rivals 

and The School for Scandal. 

John Bill Ricketts built a circus arena on the 

southwest corner of Twelfth and Market in 

1792. It seated eight hundred. The troupe 

included horseback riders, acrobats and clowns. 

In 1795 Ricketts built a more permanent, 

twelve-hundred-person “Art Pantheon” at Sixth 

and Chestnut, across the street from Congress 

Hall. It was a circular building, ninety-seven feet 

in diameter. A chandelier in the domed ceiling 

allowed night performances. There was an 

attached coffee room. Ricketts’ specialty was 

circling the ring standing on two horses, with 

each foot on a one-quart mug set on the saddle. 

His son followed doing a no-hands head stand 

on a pint pot atop a saddle. 

Ricketts staged more than circus acts. 

Ballet and opera were often included, plus 

giant spectacles advertised as “grand historical 

pantomimes” that depicted such occasions as 

The Death of Major Andre, and Arnold’s 

Treachery, or West Point Preserved, The Death of 

Captain Cook, and The Entry of Alexander the 

Great into the City of Babylon. 

On December 17, 1799, Ricketts’ Art 

Pantheon burned down. The scheduled 

extravaganza that evening had been Don Juan, 


52

with the last scene to be “the Infernal Regions 

with a view of the mouth of Hell.” Planned 

special effects may have had something to do 

with the demise of the Pantheon. 

A rival circus, Lailson’s, was built at Fifth 

and Prune (now Locust), next to the prison, 

in April of 1797. Lailson, like Ricketts, presented 

large-cast programs such as French 

comic opera, “splendid historical national 

pantomime,” “grand allegorical pantomimical 

ballet,” and “military pantomime ornamented 

with military evolutions and fights.” In July 

1798, Lailson’s Circus went out of business 

when its ninety-foot dome collapsed. 

A favorite amusement place of the 1790s 

was Gray’s Gardens, near his ferry. There was 

an inn on the river, with a greenhouse that 

grew its own tropical fruit for the guests. 

Visitors could relax in groves, arbors, bowers, 

grottoes, and walks, strolling on little bridges 

over streams and sitting beside a seventy-foot 

waterfall. Refreshments available included tea 

and coffee, meats, fish, cheese, bread and butter. 

There was music for dancing. 

Bath tubs appeared in wealthy homes. 

Joseph Carson, a merchant and ship owner, 

paid four pounds, fifteen shillings for a “shower 

bath” at his house on Water Street just above 

Market in 1790, with an overhead tank that had 

to be filled, and a hole in the floor to drain into 

a container so the water could be reused. 

COMMERCE 

& CULTURE 

As the nineteenth century began, 

Philadelphians were feeling the need for a 

water supply more reliable than wells, cisterns 

and buckets in the creek. The city hired 

Benjamin Latrobe to solve the problem. He 

suggested building a catchment basin on the 

Schuylkill at Chestnut Street, from which 

steam powered pumps would send water 

3,150 feet through a six-foot diameter brick 

tunnel to Centre Square, the site of the 

present City Hall, where another pump would 

lift water thirty feet up to a sixteen thousand 

gallon reservoir. Gravity would flow water 

from the reservoir through wooden pipes 

under the streets to provide it to citizens. 

After the usual opposition and arguments 

precipitated by every municipal project since 

the Tower of Babel, Latrobe built America’s 

first public waterworks, designing a pseudoclassical 

pump house on Centre Square, 

surrounded by gardens, walkways, trees, and 

eventually even fountains and sculpture. 

The water was turned on in January 1801. 

Within a year, sixty-three houses, four breweries, 

and a sugar refinery were using city water, and 

thirty-seven hydrants were in use around the city. 

But there were complaints that pressure was low. 

Latrobe was otherwise occupied, having been 

appointed surveyor of public buildings for the 

✧ 

America’s first waterworks began pumping 

in 1801 in the Centre Square, the site of the 

present City Hall, housed in a pseudoclassical 

pump house surrounded by 

gardens, walkways, trees, fountains and 

sculpture. The site had previously been used 

for such civic activities as fairs 

and hangings. 



CHAPTER III 

53

✧ 

Above: Benjamin Latrobe (left) designed the 

first waterworks with its Centre Square 

pump and small reservoir. Frederick Graff 

(right) became water works superintendent, 

and expanded the intake system on 

the Schuylkill. 



Below: The Yearly Meeting of Friends in 

1811 established an “Asylum for the Relief 

of Persons deprived of the use of their 

Reason.” The Quakers bought fifty-two 

acres of farmland along the Tacony Creek, a 

mile west of the twelve-hundred-person 

town of Frankford, which had become a 

borough of Philadelphia County in 1800. A 

building was erected, and the first patient 

arrived on May 20, 1817. It was the 

nation’s first private mental hospital, 

dedicated to “moral treatment” in an age 

when patients were more often restrained 

and abused. It still exists, modern and 

expanded. Its wooded grounds remain 

steadfastly serene as twelve lanes of 

Roosevelt Boulevard traffic clamor by. 


new capital at Washington by President Thomas 

Jefferson. The city named Frederick Graff 

superintendent of the water works. 

Graff was twenty-five, a third-generation 

Philadelphia builder and carpenter, who had 

been draftsman and assistant engineer on the 

waterworks job. He decided to move the 

water intake up the river to the bottom of 

Fairmount, at the former Robert Morris estate. 

A reservoir atop the mount would solve the 

pressure problem. The intake structures and 

pump house he designed in 1812 became, 

and still are, an elegant sight on the banks of 

the Schuylkill. 

When Congress declared war on England in 

1812, volunteers manned the guns at Fort 

Mifflin, and military units were soon drilling in 

the city, including one African-American 

company. (The Abolition Society estimated in 

1813 that there were in Philadelphia 9,672 

“colored persons,” about four thousand of them 

runaway slaves.) The city never was attacked, 

the British preferring to burn down Washington 

instead. On September 24, 1813, there was a 

general illumination to honor Commodore 

Perry’s victory over the British fleet on Lake 

Erie, with his classic announcement that “We 

have met the enemy and they are ours.” The city 


54

lit up again on October 24 because of word 

from Canada of General William Henry 

Harrison’s defeat of the troops of British General 

Henry Proctor and Shawnee General Tecumseh. 

A forty-foot arch over Eighth and Race Streets 

shone with transparencies depicting the battle. 

Word of Andrew Jackson thrashing the 

British at New Orleans hit Philadelphia on 

February 5, 1814, and the streets filled with 

huzzahing people. Next night, there was an 

illumination of the Schuylkill bridges. Paul 

Beck’s shot tower on the Schuylkill near Arch 

Street had 160 lamps on top. Arches were 

erected over Eighth Street at Callowhill, 

Market and Locust. Both public buildings and 

private residences were aglow. Another general 

illumination was organized on February 15 

because a peace treaty had been signed. 

The capital had moved south to the new 

federal city, but some government activity was 

still in town; a United States arsenal was 

developed on Gray’s Ferry Road near the 

Schuylkill, starting in 1800. Joshua 

Humphreys was hired in 1806 to set up “a 

building yard and dock for seasoning lumber 

for the use of the navy of the United States,” 

the first step toward a Navy Yard. 

Some forty Philadelphia ships traded in the 

East Indies, sailing from Delaware River docks 

between Chestnut and Walnut Streets. Starting 

about 1815, several importers relocated to 

New York, because the salty harbor there was 

open year round, while the Delaware was ice 

clogged in winter. That didn’t upset the 

hundreds of men, women, and children who 

sledded, skated, and sleighed nightly on the 

frozen Delaware. In February, carriages often 

could cross to Jersey on the foot or so of ice. 

Suburban towns were growing. Frankford 

borough was incorporated in 1799, Northern 

Liberties district in 1803, Moyamensing 

district in 1812, Kensington district in 1820. 

Parts of the Woodlands, Powel, and 

Lansdowne estates were sold for development 

as West Philadelphia started to enlarge, even 

though the area between about Twelfth Street 

and the Schuylkill was still largely 

undeveloped. 

Six local doctors, chemists, and 

pharmacists got together in 1812 to exchange 

information. They began meeting regularly in 

such agreeable locations as Mercer’s Cake 

Shop on Market Street, and others joined 

them. Dr. Samuel Jackson suggested the 

organization’s name, the Academy of Natural 

Sciences. The members began accumulating 

the beginnings of the academy’s collection: 

some insect specimens, some shells, and a 

stuffed monkey. After several moves, they 

would erect a brick building in 1840 at the 

northwest corner of Broad and Sansom. 

During the War of 1812, English prisoners 

were housed “on parole” in Philadelphia 

homes, and enemy officers, some as young as 

sixteen, were welcome at the parties in fashionable 

homes. They knew the latest 

European dances, such as the waltz. Many 

men objected to the new dances that allowed 

✧ 

Top, left: Oliver Evans. 


Top, right: Curious Philadelphians gathered 

at Centre Square in July 1805, to watch a 

great clanking machine roll around the 

square under its own power. It was the first 

self-propelled land vehicle in America, and 

perhaps the world. The inventor was Oliver 

Evans, who called it the Orukter 

Amphiboles, more or less Greek for 

Amphibious Digger. He had proposed to 

build, for the city board of health, a steam 

powered dredge that would roll through the 

streets and down the river bank totally 

horseless, flop into the water and then 

proceed by means of a paddle wheel at the 

rear. On the first attempt to run the 

Orukter, the axles broke. Evans was also 

broke, so he took advertisements in the 

newspapers announcing a demonstration. 

Evans and his workmen passed the hat and 

collected twenty-five cents from each 

spectator, the astonishing self-powered 

vehicle circled Centre Square as advertised, 

paid for itself, and then rumbled out Market 

Street and into the Delaware. 


CHAPTER III 

55

✧ 

Above: William Sansom, a wealthy Quaker, 

decided to develop big, fancy row houses on 

the fringe of the built-up part of the city: the 

block from Seventh to Eighth Street between 

Chestnut and Walnut. The lot had been 

empty since the Norris family purchased it 

from William Penn in the seventeenth 

century. They used it to graze cows. In 1795 

Robert Morris had acquired the plot for ten 

thousand pounds sterling to build a mansion 

for himself. But Morris was tossed into 

debtors’ prison, and all his holdings were 

sold by the sheriff. Sansom bought the land 

and planned three-and-a-half story custom 

homes, 22 feet wide on lots 94 feet deep. 

North of Walnut, he laid out a wide 

street named after himself. He engaged 

Benjamin Latrobe to design rows extending 

west on Walnut and Sansom Streets. The 

development fizzled half built. One 

critic blamed it on the “remote and lonely 

location.” Many of the houses are still 

there, afflicted with store fronts and 

other alterations. 


Below: This first permanent bridge, not a 

floating one, went up across the Schuylkill at 

Market Street in 1804. A second bridge was 

built at Fairmount Avenue in 1812, a 340- 

foot single wooden span. It burned in 1838. 



other men virtually to embrace their wives or 

sweethearts, and many women agreed. “I 

think waltzing an odious dance,” wrote a 

Philadelphia woman, “unless with one’s 

brother, or with a lady.” 

STRICKLAND DOES PHILLY 

The Marquis de Lafayette, French aristocrat 

who was a nineteen-year-old general in George 

Washington’s army, made a triumphal return 

visit to Philadelphia in 1824. The city had 

architect William Strickland put up an ornate 

arch over Chestnut Street to welcome the marquis 

as he visited the State House, which was 

then beginning to be called Independence 

Hall. Tradition claims that Lafayette made 

comments to the effect that the old hall was 

looking a bit ratty, and got the city fathers 

thinking about history. Strickland was engaged 

to restore the building. He responded by 

installing interior paneling that had nothing to 


56

✧ 

Above: St. Mary’s Church was built on 

Fourth Street in 1763, the second Roman 

Catholic church in the city. The oldest, St. 

Joseph’s, dates to 1733, but is now in a midnineteenth 

century building. When the 

Diocese of Philadelphia was created in 

1808, St. Mary’s was declared the 

cathedral, and in 1810 it was remodeled. 

Ground was broken in 1846 for the present 

Cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul, which was 

consecrated in 1890. 


Below: The Walnut Street Theatre opened 

on February 2, 1809, and nearly every 

great American actor of the last two 

centuries has trod its stage. It has endured 

vaudeville, Russian films, burlesque, Yiddish 

dramas, and Broadway try-outs, and 

remains the oldest continuously operated 

theater in America, and, some say, in the 

English-speaking world. 


do with colonial days, and erecting the present 

white tower, which has become the image of 

Independence Hall the country venerates but 

would astonish the Founding Fathers. Part of 

the same outburst of interest in the past was 

the founding of the Historical Society of 

Pennsylvania in 1824. 

The old cracked bell stayed in the lower part 

of the tower. John Wilbank, a Philadelphian, 

cast a new 4,275-pound bell for the new tower. 

There is something about State House bells; 

Wilbank’s first bell had a disagreeable tone. He 

recast it, with a new weight of forty-six 

hundred pounds, and the new bell cracked 

when tested. His third try worked, and tolled 

the hours regularly until 1876. The city’s deal 

with Wilbank allowed him to sell the old 

cracked bell with the Liberty inscription for 

scrap, but he didn’t think it was worth the 

effort, and let it hang. 

Charles Wilson Peale still had the State 

House full of stuffed birds and whatnot as the 

CHAPTER III 

57

✧ 

Top, left: From 1822 to 1839, William 

Strickland designed eight major new 

buildings in Philadelphia, and remodeled 

three including Independence Hall, 

influencing the city’s streetscape forever. 

When Strickland gave a lecture on 

architecture on February 12, 1839, a 

disappointed attendee said the architect had 

filled his talk with “coarse and vulgar jests,” 

and complained, “His object appeared to be 

to sneer at and ridicule those monuments 

which have ever been the admiration of 

the world.” 


Top, right: Nicholas Biddle. 


Below: The Second Bank of the United 

States moved into what the bank directors 

pronounced “a chaste imitation of Grecian 

architecture” in 1824. Congress in 1811 had 

refused to renew the charter of the first 

Bank of the United States. Stephen Girard 

bought its building and other assets and 

operated his own bank. Financial confusion 

resulted, and there was demand for Federal 

regulation of the banking system. When the 

government couldn’t find anyone anxious to 

help finance a Second Bank of the United 

States in 1816, Girard subscribed the whole 

$3 million. The new bank’s first president, 

William Jones, “fled in affright” after a 

Congressional investigation in 1818. 

Langdon Cheeves, his successor, instituted 

unsuccessful policies. It was 1822 before a 

thirty-seven-year-old Philadelphia 

aristocrat, Nicholas Biddle, got the 

government bank on track, and later, into 

its pillared temple. 


1820s began. The novelty of his collection 

was wearing thin, and the city had begun 

charging him rent for the first time. Shortly 

before his death at age eighty-six on 

Washington’s birthday, 1827, he and some of 

his sons moved to a new structure near the 

Chestnut Street Theatre. In 1835 the family 

would build its own museum at Ninth and 

Sansom, with the street floor leased to Nathan 

Dunn, a Quaker who had traded with Canton, 

China for many years, for his personal 

collection of Chinese art, clothing, and 

household articles. As the Peale enterprise 

diminished, the building became known as 

the Chinese Museum. 

Prominent Philadelphians organized the 

Musical Fund Society in 1820. The society’s 

charter said its purpose was the “elevation of 

musical taste” by giving concerts and using 

the proceeds to help sick or retired musicians; 

“decayed musicians,” the charter called 

them. In 1824 the group built Musical Fund 

Hall on Locust Street between Eighth and 

Ninth. William Strickland, a member of the 

society, was the architect. Philadelphia’s elite 

turned out to hear works of Rossini and 


58

Haydn, and Italian opera was introduced to 

the city there. 

The Chestnut Street Theatre was destroyed 

by fire early on Sunday, April 2, 1820, during 

a heavy snowfall. William Strickland was 

hired to design a replacement, which opened 

in 1822. The Arch Street Theater, another 

Strickland design, opened at Sixth and Arch 

in 1828. Louisa Lane, age seven, appeared 

in her first play on September 26, 1827, at 

the Walnut. Wait a few decades; she will 

become the forebear of five generations of 

American actors. 

John Haviland was one of Strickland’s 

accomplices in filling Philadelphia with 

pseudo-Greek buildings. He designed the 

Franklin Institute on Seventh Street below 

Market, now the Atwater Kent Museum, and 

in 1824, planned the building at Broad and 

Pine Streets for the Pennsylvania Institution 

for the Deaf and Dumb, which had been 

founded in 1820 by Philadelphian David G. 

Seixas. It was super-modern for its day, with 

play areas and even a swimming pool inside. 

Samuel V. Merrick, builder of fire engines, 

steam boilers and other industrial wonders, 

instigated the founding of the Franklin 

Institute in 1824. It produced exhibitions and 

publications designed to encourage inventors 

and develop technical information. Members 

did experiments and studies of dry docks, 

water power and other current technology. 

The institute received the first ever federal 

grant, to finance its investigation of why 

steam engine boilers exploded. 

The state government in 1828 sanctioned 

construction of one of those new-fangled 

railroads from Philadelphia to Columbia, 

Pennsylvania. Major John Wilson, an 

engineer, was selected to lay out the tracks. 

An important project at the Philadelphia end 

was a bridge over the Schuylkill. The 

Columbia Railroad Bridge opened in May 

1834. Tracks ran from Broad and Vine Streets 

to the river, and crossed to a point downhill 

from Belmont Mansion. There, the rail cars 

were hauled up an inclined plane by cables, to 

continue on tracks at a higher level. A 

Philadelphian could board a rail car at Broad 

and Vine and, using two railroads and two 

canal boats, reach Pittsburgh in only four 

days. Conestoga wagons hauled freight to 

Pittsburgh in twenty days. 

The Legislature in 1828 authorized the 

purchase of 187 acres in Blockley Township 

from the Hamilton estate to become the 

location of a city poorhouse, dispensary and 

other charitable buildings. The facility opened 

with the inevitable Strickland building in 1833, 

replacing the old Tenth and Spruce institution. 

The municipal Guardians of the Poor cared for 

the homeless by appointing some doctors as 

“physicians to the outdoor poor.” 

In 1825 the city councils decided to name the 

five original public squares after Washington, 

✧ 

The old State House was mostly empty after 

the national government left town in 1800. 

In 1802 Charles Wilson Peale applied to 

use the building for his museum. The state 

said yes, providing that he would allow 

elections to be held there and keep the 

grounds open to the public without charge. 

He moved into the second floor of the State 

House with his two hundred stuffed birds, 

animal skeletons, and cases of insects. Peale 

still found time to paint incessantly, 

including sixty portraits of George 

Washington. Peale got a group of citizens 

together at the State House in 1805 and 

founded the Pennsylvania Academy of the 

Fine Arts, the nation’s first art school. When 

the state government moved to Harrisburg 

in 1812, it threatened to auction off the 

State House. The city fathers bought it for 

$70,000, and considered dividing up the 

property into building lots. Peale’s prestige 

deterred them. In 1824, at age eighty-three, 

he painted this self-portrait. 

COURTESY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE 

ARTS, PHILADELPHIA. GIFT OF MRS. SARAH HARRISON 

(THE JOSEPH HARRISON, JR. COLLECTION). 

Below: The floor plan showing how 

government offices and Peale’s museum in 

1824 shared the State House, not yet 

revered as Independence Hall. 



CHAPTER III 

59

✧ 

Right: The United States Navy had been 

taking twenty cents a month from seamen’s 

pay since 1798 for a pension and 

hospitalization fund, and in 1826 acquired 

the old Schuylkill-front estate of James 

Pemberton for a retirement home. William 

Strickland designed a massive 180-room 

Greek temple. Starting in 1839, the Navy 

used the domed, pillared central section, 

Biddle Hall, as its new academy to train 

officers, until the school was moved to 

Annapolis in 1845. The Navy closed the 

retirement facility in 1977. 


Below: William Strickland was engaged to 

restore Independence Hall, and in 1828 

replaced the long-missing steeple with an 

ornate version of the original, including a 

clock for the first time. It created the image 

of the building now familiar to Americans. 



60 

Franklin, Rittenhouse, and Logan. The Centre 

Square they renamed after Penn. 

Cleaner anthracite coal had replaced soft 

coal and reduced the number of chimney 

sweeps, but sweeper crews, a head sweep with 

two to six small African American boys, still 

advertised for business by standing on corners 

and singing, “Sweep-oh, sweep-oh” in harmony, 

the ancestors of modern doo-wop groups. 

RAILROADS 

& RIOTS 

Just before Christmas, 1830, Stephen Girard, 

age eighty, crossing Second Street at Market on 

the way to his bank, was struck by a passing 

Dearborn (a popular style of light, one-horse, 

four-wheel, covered passenger wagon with curtained 

sides.) He spent two months in bed, 

never fully regained his strength, and a year later 

caught influenza during a nationwide epidemic. 

On December 26, 1831, he died, the richest 

man North America had ever produced, worth 

some $7 million (for comparison, the United 

States bought Florida from Spain for $5 million 

a decade earlier.) He left most of his fortune to 

the citizens of Philadelphia, to which his survivors, 

some nieces and nephews, responded 

with dismay and lawsuits. 

The will’s biggest feature was $2 million to 

establish a school for “poor white male 

orphan children.” Girard originally intended 

the location to be on property he owned at 

Eleventh and Market (his estate still owns it), 

but as the city built up, he substituted the 

present site, then nearly a mile outside the 

city on the Ridge Road. The main building, 

based on Girard’s instructions, was designed 

by young Philadelphia architect Thomas 

Ustick Walter, who later designed the wings 

and dome of the Capitol in Washington.

Handlers of Girard’s estate developed houses 

on his old farm in the Neck about 1906. The 

farmhouse stands in a public park at Twenty- 

First and Shunk Streets. 

Only five afternoons after Girard died, 

Mayor Benjamin Richards presided at a 

meeting at the Merchants Coffee House (a new 

name for the old City Tavern at Second and 

✧ 

Left: A village in Roxborough Township 

grew between the Domino Road and Sherr’s 

Lane, because of the mills burgeoning along 

the Schuylkill. The Schuylkill Canal reached 

the area, sometimes called Flat Rock, in 

1819, allowing barges to bring flour, coal, 

and produce down the river. It also made 

water power possible for heavy machinery, 

and the first mill was operating by 1820. 

The town would become a major textile and 

paper producer. (This “modern” photo shows 

the canal in 1901.) In spring of 1824, after 

a couple of meetings and some 

disagreement, the citizens named the town 

Manayunk, an Anglicization of the Lenape 

name for the river; it means “drinking 

place.” Today its Main Street and old mills 

house trendy shops, restaurants and, yes, 

drinking places. 



Below: It took from 1823 to 1829 to 

construct the Eastern State Penitentiary, 

designed by John Haviland, on the 

topographical bump known as Cherry Hill. 

Its grim corridors were lined with the new 

1820s cure for criminal behavior, solitary 

confinement cells. 


CHAPTER III 

61

✧ 

The Columbia Railroad Bridge in 1872, 

looking upstream from the west bank of the 

Schuylkill; buildings across the river are the 

Wirz Beer Saloon (left) and Joseph Amenz 

Beer Saloon. The bridge, opened in 1834, 

was wooden, eight hundred feet long. It 

would eventually be used by the Reading 

Railroad (starting in 1857) and the 

Baltimore & Ohio (starting in the 1880s) as 

the new transportation technology ruined the 

idyllic riverfront setting the Fairmount Park 

planners had worked for decades to create. 

The wooden bridge became wobbly, and 

locomotives and rail cars got heavy, and in 

1886 the Reading would replace the bridge 

with a higher steel one; the present concrete 

structure replaced that, in 1917. Younger 

Philadelphians, who never heard 

of the Columbia Railroad, annoy old-timers 

by calling it the Columbia Avenue Bridge, 

although it doesn’t go near Columbia Avenue. 



62 

Walnut) to ask the Legislature to charter a 

bank to replace Stephen Girard’s, to be called 

The Girard Bank. The Legislature approved 

the charter in April 1832, but other men 

wrested control from Richards and moved into 

Stephen Girard’s establishment, which later 

would become a national bank and merge with 

Philadelphia National Bank in 1926. 

On May 19, 1835, Richards gathered some 

businessmen at Saint’s Hotel, Sixth Street 

just below Market, to organize what, when it 

was chartered on St. Patrick’s Day of 1836, was 

known as the Girard Life Insurance, Annuity 

and Trust Company, with Richards as president. 

It went on to be the Girard Trust Company 

which in 1984 became part of Mellon Bank. 

Rails for the Philadelphia, Germantown, 

and Norristown Railroad Company were laid 

as far as Germantown by June 6, 1832, and 

councilmen from New York came to town to 

observe the grand opening. Crowds cheered 

and a brass band played at the starting point at 

Ninth and Green Streets as the first car 

departed. Nine coaches began regular 

schedules, for a twenty-five-cent one way fare, 

carrying twenty passengers inside and sixteen 

on a bench on the roof. After six months, 

horses were replaced by a steam locomotive 

engine built by Mathias Baldwin, which could 

draw a train of four loaded cars the six miles 

to Germantown in twenty-eight minutes, 

providing there was no “derangement of the 

machinery.” The line was extended to 

Norristown, by way of Manayunk, in 1834, 

and four years later connected to the newly 

chartered Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. 

Other railroads followed by 1840, including 

the Philadelphia and Trenton line that ran 

from Kensington to Morrisville, and the 

Camden and Amboy line that got 

Philadelphians to New York. 

Scheduled urban transit was launched in 

December 1831 by James Boxall, who 

advertised hourly stagecoach service between 

nine and five, Monday through Saturday, on 

Chestnut Street from Second Street to Schuylkill 

Seventh (now Sixteenth Street), for a fare of ten 

cents or twelve tickets for a dollar. “This 

accommodation will be conducted and driven 

solely by the proprietor,” Boxall advertised, and 

the vehicle became known as Boxall’s 

Accommodation. The line was soon imitated on 

other streets by proprietors of omnibuses, a type 

of multi-passenger horse-drawn conveyance 

recently introduced in Paris and London. 

Public schools were at first thought of as a 

charity, and attending them was considered 

déclassé. The 1836 school act signaled a

✧ 

Left: The Merchant’s Exchange, designed by 

Strickland, was erected at Walnut and Dock 

Streets in 1834, a more formal financial 

center than the traditional taverns and 

coffee houses. The balcony of the Exchange 

soon became a popular platform for 

political speeches. One of the first users was 

Congressman Davy Crockett of Tennessee, 

when he visited Philadelphia in April 1834. 


change in attitudes. Education was for all, and 

sufficient professional teachers would be 

employed. When the public school system 

began in 1818, there were six schools, 10 

teachers and 2,845 pupils. In 1838 there were 

167 schools, 257 teachers and 18,794 pupils; 

the annual expense per pupil in 1838 was 

$4.75. The new law allowed Philadelphia “to 

establish one central high school” for the city. 

The marble-fronted brick three story Central 

High School opened in 1838 on Juniper Street 

just south of Market, facing Penn Square, 

between the Pennsylvania State Armory and a 

saloon. The first class had sixty-three members. 

There was a suggestion that a high school for 

girls might be formed as well, and a committee 

was appointed to look into the notion. 

Medicine flourished in the city in the midnineteenth 

century. Jefferson Medical College 

began in 1824 and the Philadelphia College of 

Pharmacy in 1821. Both have expanded into 

universities, and the Wills Hospital for Disease 

of the Eye, founded in 1834, has also broadened 

its activities. The city’s most famous doctor 

of the period was Philip Syng Physick, first 

to occupy the chair of surgery at the 

University’s medical school. He devised many 

surgical procedures, and invented the stomach 

pump in 1812. From 1815 until his death, he 

lived in the house at 321 South Fourth Street 

bought for him by his sister, Abigail. 

In that house in 1831, Dr. Physick, at age 

sixty-three, made medical history by removing 

stones from the gall bladder of Chief Justice 

John Marshall. With all his ingenuity, the doctor 

had not invented anesthetic, but the seventysix-year-old 

jurist survived. Dr. Physick died 

in December 1837. He had, one observer 

noted without elaboration, taken “remarkable 

measures to avoid being buried alive.” 

In 1838 a group of abolitionists raised funds 

to build Pennsylvania Hall, an elaborate 

Below: The first Central High School 

building, on Juniper Street just below 

Market, was immortalized on October 16, 

1839. Joseph Saxton, an employee of the 

United States Mint across the street, had 

just read an account of how a Frenchman 

named Louis Daguerre could cause a picture 

to appear on a metal plate. Saxton thought 

he’d try it. Using a cigar box, plus odds and 

ends around the Mint, he made a picturetaking 

device, poked it out the third floor 

window, and produced the first photograph 

ever taken in America, with Central High 

as its star. 


PENNSYLVANIA. ORIGINAL DAGUERROTYPE BY 

JOSEPH SAXTON (ACCESSION #1839.1). 

CHAPTER III 

63

✧ 

Right: The sale of this house in 1831 made 

history. It stood in the Philadelphia County 

borough of Frankford, carved out of Oxford 

Township in 1800. Samuel Pilling, who 

owned a local calico block printing works, 

and Jeremiah Horrocks, who ran a fabric 

dyeing mill, were immigrants from England, 

and knew about building clubs that enabled 

workers in British cities to save and borrow 

to buy homes. On January 3, 1831, at a 

meeting in Thomas Sidebotham’s tavern, 

they founded the Oxford Provident Building 

Association. Anyone could join by depositing 

an initiation fee of $5 and dues of $3 a 

month. The money purchased dividendpaying 

shares, and members could borrow 

funds to buy or build a home, paying back 

monthly sums with interest. By April 11, the 

association had sold enough shares to offer 

its first loan. Comly Rich, the town 

lamplighter, became the first person in the 

United States to buy a house with a savings 

and loan mortgage. A half century ago, the 

late Samuel A. Green, founder of the 

savings association that is now Firstrust 

Bank, bought the house to preserve it as a 

shrine to American mortgagees. 


Below: John Hare Powel’s estate, Powelton, 

in West Philadelphia, was a showplace. 

When Philadelphians organized a fruitless 

mass meeting in 1833 to protest closing of 

the Second Bank of the United States, sixty 

thousand people turned out at Powelton. 

The bank held federal funds and state bank 

notes, and could manipulate credit in ways 

similar to the modern Federal Reserve. 

President Andrew Jackson loped into the 

White House with a dislike for a central 

bank and for its aristocratic Philadelphia 

boss, Nicholas Biddle. After hefty political 

maneuvering, Jackson yanked federal 

deposits from the bank in 1833, despite the 

Powelton demonstration. 


building on Sixth Street below Race, that 

seated three thousand in its auditorium. Black 

and white persons attended the dedication on 

May 14, and subsequent meetings. On the 

evening of the 16th, at which New England 

abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison was 

a speaker, hecklers infiltrated the audience and 

rocks were thrown at windows from outside. A 

big crowd assembled outside on the 17th, and 

the managers closed the building and gave 

Mayor John Swift the key. The mayor made a 

nice speech, reminding the people that “Our 

city has long held the enviable position of a 

peaceful city, a city of order.” The crowd gave 

three cheers for the mayor. Then they burned 

down the building. 

On the next night, a small group made a 

surprise attack on the Shelter for Colored 

Orphans, a quiet Quaker institution on 

Thirteenth Street above Callowhill. This time, 

Magistrate Morton McMichael and police were 

able to resist the attackers, and firemen of the 

Good Will Fire Company also pitched in to 

beat off the rioters. Newspapers denounced 

the outbursts, and the city calmed down. 

A new Constitution was enacted for 

Pennsylvania in 1838, replacing the 1790 

document. The delegates approved, by a 77 to 

45 vote, a clause that only white men could 

vote. Black Philadelphians held a mass 

meeting on March 14, 1838, and adopted “An 

Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens,” hoping 

to block adoption of the new constitution. 

Free African Americans who had been voting 

for nearly half a century deluged the General 

Assembly with protests, which were ignored. 

They lost their voting franchise until the 

Federal constitution was amended in 1870. 

THE TURBULENT FORTIES 

An 1837 financial “panic” and resulting 

bank failures had made business bad, jobs 

scarce and wages low. Blacks and immigrants 


64

were perceived as taking jobs away from working 

class residents of growing industrial neighborhoods 

in Kensington, Richmond, Frankford, 

Bridesburg, Germantown, Manayunk, and parts 

of West Philadelphia. 

The Moyamensing Temperance Society 

held a parade on August 1, 1842. White 

onlookers attacked some black marchers, and 

“a terrible fight, riot and bloodshed ensued,” 

the Public Ledger reported. A mob formed and 

looted black homes on Lombard Street 

between Fifth and Eighth. Beneficial Hall, 

owned by black clergyman Stephen Smith, 

was burned, as was the African Presbyterian 

Church. There was fighting between Irish and 

black workers in Moyamensing coal yards the 

next day. 

On Friday, May 3, 1844, a meeting of the 

American Republican Association, rabid anti- 

Catholics, convened in a schoolyard in 

Kensington, carefully choosing the heart of an 

Irish neighborhood to make bigoted jingoistic 

speeches. They were driven away by rockthrowing 

residents. The meeting reconvened 

on May 6, provocatively near the Hibernian 

Hose Company firehouse. Within gunshot 

range, in fact: shots blamed on the Irish 

firemen killed George Shiffler, eighteen, later 

described as murdered while heroically 

defending the American flag. Sheriff Morton 

McMichael and the militia broke up the 

crowd, but at 10 p.m. a rabble assembled 

outside the Female Seminary, a Catholic 

convent at Fourth and Phoenix (now 

Thompson). The troublemakers ran off when 

McMichael and the troops arrived and fired a 

musket volley over their heads. 

On the 7th, a “Native American” rally in 

Independence Square ended with a mob 

marching north to raise a flag on the spot 

where George Shiffler was killed. Shots were 

fired from a house. The mob fired back, then 

burned the house. Before the afternoon 

ended, thirty houses were ashes. The Hibernia 

and Caroll fire engines were wrecked when 

the firemen tried to save the buildings. Troops 

arrived near midnight and routed the rioters. 

Soldiers guarded all eleven Catholic 

churches in the county overnight, but withdrew 

in the morning. The rioters reassembled. They 

set fire to St. Michael’s Church at Second and 

Jefferson and the seminary, which had been 

evacuated. Part of the mob then marched south 

to St. Augustine’s on Fourth below Vine. Mayor 

John Morin Scott left his daughter’s birthday 

party and went to the church to reason with the 

crowd. He was hit in the head with a thrown 

rock, and the church was torched. 

Tradition has it that some rioters planned 

to attack century-old St. Joseph’s near Fourth 

and Walnut, but a ringleader ruled against it, 

saying of the Jesuit pastor, Father Felix Barbelin, 

“That little Frenchman won’t hurt anybody.” It 

was the Irish the hatemongers were after. 

✧ 

Top, left: Dr. Philip Syng Physick. 


Top, right: The thirty-two-room residence of 

Dr. Philip Syng Physick from 1815 to 1837 

was built by Henry Hill, a very popular 

Philadelphian in the eighteenth century 

because he was the major importer of the 

upper class’s favorite alcoholic beverage, 

madeira. Hill died in the 1793 yellow 

fever outbreak. 


CHAPTER III 

65

✧ 

Rioters and militia battled in the streets of 

Moyamensing District near St. Philip Neri 

Church at Second and Queen Streets on 

July 5, 6, and 7 during the long, hot 

summer of 1844. 


PENNSYLVANIA. COLOR LITHOGRAPH BY J. BAILLIE AND J. 

SOWLE AFTER H. BUCHOLTZER [ACCESSION #BB 892 B921). 

Governor David Rittenhouse Porter arrived 

with several companies of militia, who bedded 

down in Girard’s Bank on Third Street, and 

patrolled the streets, joined by armed sailors 

from the U.S.S. Princeton. Things quieted 

down. A grand jury later blamed the 

authorities of the city and Kensington District 

for lax law enforcement. 

Independence Day brought the Native 

Americans and their rhetoric back to life. On 

Friday evening, July 5, a crowd milled outside 

St. Philip Neri Church at Second and Queen 

Streets in Moyamensing District, south of the 

city. Agitators told the sheriff they saw men 

carrying muskets into the church. A search 

found weapons inside, and 150 men who had 

been training to protect the church after the 

May burnings. The crowd dispersed, but 

gathered again the next day and became 

threatening. City troops went to the scene, 

and there was war in the streets of 

Moyamensing, with muskets and cannons, for 

two days. Reports vary, but there were deaths 

and injuries. Militia called in from other 

counties patrolled the city for weeks. 

On October 23, 1844, the tumultuous year 

saw followers of religious leader William 

Miller, clad in robes, waiting in a field in 

Darby because he prophesied that the world 

would end that night. It didn’t. 

The legislature, annoyed at having to pay 

troops for riot duty in Philadelphia, passed 

a law in 1845 requiring the city and most of 

the contiguous municipalities to establish 

police forces, with the requirement that they 

cooperate across boundaries as needed. 

The forty-eight fire companies of the city 

had problems with their triennial parade in 

1848. Many couldn’t carry their usual banners 

or decorate their equipment with tinsel and 

artificial flowers because it snowed heavily on 

March 27. Worse, a band from New York 

refused to take part because the Frank 

Johnson Band and other African-American 


66

ands were in the line of march, as they 

always were in Philadelphia parades (the 

firemen repeated the parade successfully on 

May 1). Trumpeter Frank Johnson led the 

most popular band in the city, and Johnson’s 

Collections of Cotillions, published in 1818, 

was followed by dozens of other of his 

compositions. His band played for the ball 

given for Lafayette in 1825, and made a 

European tour in 1837. 

On a Sunday in June 1849, the Killers 

No. 1 set four buildings on fire. It was fashionable 

at that time for hooligan gangs to 

append “No. 1” to their names; there were the 

Buffers No. 1, and the Rats No. 1, for 

instance. No gangs labeled No. 2 seemed to 

be in operation. Killers No. 1 were allied with 

the Moyamensing Hose Company. The purpose 

of their arson was to lure out the rival 

Shiffler Hose Company, named for the “martyr” 

of the 1844 riots. The Killers attacked 

when the Shiffler firemen showed up, and an 

all-day battle resulted, with bricks, rocks and 

musket balls flying from Eighth to Eleventh 

Street, from Christian to Fitzwater. Over the 

next few weeks, assorted arson and mayhem 

took place, involving rival fire companies but 

with varied ethnic undertones. 

On the night of the general election, 

October 9, some raucous men were seen 

towing a burning wagon up Seventh Street in 

lower Moyamensing. They may just have been 

staging a fiery celebration of the election of 

Joel Jones as mayor. Their arrival upset African 

American residents of the area, because there 

had been rumors of possible violence against 

the California House, a tavern at Sixth and St. 

Mary’s Streets, just below Federal Street. It had 

a black clientele, and its black proprietor had 

a white wife. Some worried black men threw 

rocks at the white men with the burning 

wagon. When word of this spread, whites set 

the California House on fire. Black neighbors 

fought back. Police arrived, but were driven 

back as far as Lombard Street, where they 

came upon a crowd of African Americans 

coming down to join the fray. Two fire 

companies arrived: Hope and Good Will. The 

engine was taken away from the Hope 

Company, and two Good Will men were fatally 

shot. The fire spread to some houses. 

The State House bell was clanging to call 

the military. The rioters scattered. Soldiers 

came marching down at 2:30 a.m. on the 

10th. All was calm, so they tramped back up 

Fifth Street to Chestnut and were dismissed 

outside the mayor’s office. A few hours 

later, incendiaries were torching African- 

American residences in Moyamensing. Three 

fire companies had men injured and equipment 

damaged. Black resistance was 

organized to protect the white firemen, and a 

battle with the rioters commenced about 8 

a.m. in Eighth Street. The militia finally 

returned at about 10, chased the rioters, and 

posted guards at intersections as far up as 

Pine Street. The day ended with four dead and 

twenty-five taken to the hospital. It is on 

record how many were of which race, but 

what’s the difference? 

THE QUAKER CITY 

The nickname “The Quaker City” became 

popular in the 1840s, in a way that didn’t 

contribute much to civic pride. George 

Lippard, twenty-one, a flamboyant newspaper 

reporter, covered the trial of Singleton Mercer, 

accused of shooting Mahlon Hutchinson 

Heberton, a wealthy Philadelphia playboy. 

Trial testimony revealed that Heberton had 

picked up Mercer’s sister, Sarah, sixteen, on 

the street, took her to a house of ill repute on 

Elizabeth Street (now Panama Street), 

detained her at pistol point and seduced her. 

Her brother went looking for Heberton, 

✧ 

George Lippard. 


CHAPTER III 

67

✧ 

The Academy of Music as it appears today. 

An early description said that “The style of 

architecture is a florid renaissance, rich and 

effective, without being overloaded with 

ornaments.” The cornerstone was laid on 

July 26, 1855. There was a shower during 

the ceremony, but a rainbow appeared over 

Mayor Robert T. Conrad, a well-known 

poet, as he made his speech. 



68 

trapped the scoundrel in his carriage on the 

ferry to Camden, and shot him dead. The jury 

acquitted Mercer. 

Lippard wrote a florid novel in 1844, 

chock full of sex and violence, exposing 

how depraved sons of the upper class preyed 

on poor working girls in the city founded 

by God-fearing Quakers. It was plain that 

the novel was based on the Heberton case, 

and lurid subplots exposed other vice behind 

the virtuous facade of the city. Young socialites 

nervously thought they recognized themselves 

in the descriptions of rakes and ne’er-dowells. 

A mystical dream sequence near the 

end, called “The Last Day of the Quaker 

City,” depicted a voice from the sky over 

Philadelphia crying, “Wo Unto Sodom.” 

The title of the book was The Quaker City, 

or The Monks of Monk Hall. It eventually sold 

sixty thousand copies, and held the record for 

American novel sales until Uncle Tom’s Cabin 

was produced. Time has diluted the sarcastic 

origin of the nickname, but it was George 

Lippard who made Americans think of 

Philadelphia as the Quaker City. 

The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair was 

held in Boston in 1839. A little booklet was 

issued at the fair, and editions of it were 

printed through the 1840s. It was called 

“The Liberty Bell.” The booklet featured a 

stylized drawing of the old State House bell 

in Philadelphia. Six words from the 

inscription were on the bottom rim of the 

bell in the drawing: “Proclaim Liberty to ALL 

the Inhabitants.” The cracked bell that had 

not been worth junking a decade before 

suddenly became the Liberty Bell, symbol 

of the unachieved ideal of freedom for

all Americans. The bell was lowered from 

the steeple in 1848. It would be put on 

display in 1852, on its way to becoming the 

nation’s trademark. 

John Swift became the first mayor elected 

directly by the people in 1840. The law 

allowing a popular election began in 1839, 

but none of the three candidates had a 

majority then, so Council named Swift the 

winner. He got a clear majority in 1840. He 

was mayor again in 1845. 

The Musical Fund Hall at Ninth and 

Locust was still a center for concerts. In 1847 

it was enlarged. The work was planned by two 

Musical Fund Society members, artist 

Franklin Peale and architect Napoleon 

LeBrun. At the same time, LeBrun was 

working on the beginnings of the Cathedral of 

Ss. Peter and Paul. 

In the enlarged hall, international sensation 

Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” sang 

eight concerts in 1850 and 1851. A fee of 

$1,000 per concert was negotiated by her 

agent, P. T. Barnum, whose merchandising 

skill had Philadelphians buying official Jenny 

Lind gloves, bonnets, riding hats, shawls, 

robes, chairs, sofas, and even pianos. Music 

fans were whistling Jenny’s big hit encore, 

“Birdling, why sing in the forest wide? Say 

why? Say why?” 

American troops were winning the war in 

Mexico, and city councils called for a 

celebration on April 19, 1847. The State 

House and adjoining buildings had candles in 

every pane, and colored lanterns festooned 

the steeple. Large flaming stars adorned the 

Custom House steps, formed by gas pipes. 

The theaters, fire houses, stores, factories and 

newspaper offices were decorated with lights. 

Every pane was lighted on Baldwin’s 

locomotive factory at Broad Street. House 

blinds were drawn up to reveal fully lit 

chandeliers. Finely painted transparencies of 

war scenes were illuminated. Spectators 

roamed the streets until midnight. 

The Athenaeum of Philadelphia had John 

Notman design its new building on Washington 

Square in 1847. The Athenaeum was founded as 

a subscription library in 1814 to encourage 

reading, and is still used by shareholders, many 

who have inherited shares that were in the 

family for generations. Non-member students 

and scholars are admitted these days, to use the 

collection of nineteenth century books. 

The national Whig Convention met in 

Philadelphia in 1848, at the Chinese Museum, 

and nominated General Zachary Taylor, hero of 

the war with Mexico, for president. One of the 

delegates was a young Illinois legislator named 

Abraham Lincoln, who made no impression 

whatsoever on Philadelphia. During the 

convention, according to cautious newspaper 

reports, the authorities arrested several people 

in a raid on an “indecent tableau.” It may have 

been similar to the “tableau vivante” that 

Philadelphian Edward Vernon Childe saw in 

Paris, and described to friends here. Naked 

men and women posed in stationary imitation 

of scenes from antiquity and “celebrated 

pictures.” Only men attended. Women were 

permitted to view similar tableaux, but with 

the figures dressed in “tight, flesh colored silk 

‘stockinet,’” said Childe. 

✧ 

James Forten died in 1842, and left an 

estate of $50,000. He was the city’s most 

prominent African American at the time, a 

sailmaker who had built his own business 

and hired workers of both races. Though 

entitled to vote because he was a taxpayer, 

he never did, but politicians courted his 

favor because he would march his fifteen 

white employees to the polls to vote. In 1814 

he was instrumental in answering the call 

for volunteers when British forces had 

attacked Baltimore and Washington. Threequarters 

of Philadelphia’s adult male 

African-American population, some twentyfive 

hundred, turned out to build 

fortifications at Gray’s Ferry. A battalion of 

black soldiers was ready to fight, but the 

war ended before they got into action. 



CHAPTER III 

69


70

THE CENTENNIAL CITY 

CONSOLIDATION 

A state Act of Assembly in 1850 created an overall police force for the city and county of 

Philadelphia, with men assigned specifically to the more populated districts. The 180 officers at 

first rebelled at having to wear uniforms, blue coat and gray trousers, instead of a badge pinned to 

their normal clothing. They gave in after four years. The day force consisted of four high constables 

and 34 policemen. At night, there were four captains, four lieutenants, four turnkeys, and 200 

policemen, plus the 57 lamplighters with four superintendents. 

In 1852 some culture-minded Philadelphians decided to build an opera house. It took them 

three years to raise the immense sum of $250,000. (As a yardstick, that was ten times President 

Millard Fillmore’s annual salary.) The directors of the project hired architects Napoleon LeBrun and 

Gustav Runge. LeBrun told the directors that for a quarter of a million, they couldn’t afford an 

opera house that was beautiful both inside and out. He thought more attention should be paid to 

the interior; it should be artistically pretty and acoustically perfect. The exterior, he proposed, 

should be “perfectly plain, like a market house.” If they raised more money later, the outside could 

be faced with marble. For the acoustics, LeBrun went to Milan and studied La Scala, planning to 

duplicate it. 

The cornerstone for the pressed brick and brownstone building at Broad and Locust Streets, to 

be called the Academy of Music, was laid on July 26, 1855. The opening was scheduled for January 

20, 1857. On January 18, a blizzard struck, and the opening was canceled. On the 26th, with 

mostly sleighs getting through, the gas was lit on the crystal chandelier, and the Academy of Music 

opened its doors for the first time, with a “grand ball and promenade concert.” 

At mid-century, prominent Philadelphians began proposing unification of city and county. 

Philadelphia was wincing at metropolitan growing pains. In the 1850 census, the two square mile 

city had roughly 121,000 inhabitants, the suburbs in the county about 287,000. The city had fallen 

to second in wealth and fourth in population among American cities. New York, then consisting 

only of Manhattan Island, covered thirty-one square miles and had passed a half million in 

population. Baltimore and Boston’s populations had pulled ahead of Philadelphia. 

There were nineteen separate governments in the county, with often conflicting laws. Criminals 

could commit a crime in Philadelphia and flee into Spring Garden or Moyamensing to avoid arrest. 

There were separate school districts, and twelve different public debts. It was estimated that merely 

dispensing with the 168 active tax collectors in the county would save $100,000 a year. 

A city-county consolidation bill passed the Legislature on January 31, 1854. Philadelphia leadership 

feared that suburban municipalities might contract last-minute debts for local improvements, 

knowing that the obligation would fall on the new, enlarged city. Governor William Bigler 

was in Erie. A Philadelphia delegation hopped a train in Harrisburg and roused the governor out 

of bed in Erie just before midnight to get his signature. 

The city charter set up twenty-four wards, each having one member of the Select Council of a 

two-chamber City Council, and each having one Common Councilman per twelve hundred inhabitants. 

The mayor would be elected for two years. The men among Philadelphia’s twenty thousand 

black citizens would be permitted to vote in municipal elections. 

Philadelphia saw itself as ready once more to give New York some competition, and that called 

for a celebration. On March 10, 1854, the governor, legislators, and city councilmen joined local 

big shots for a banquet at Sansom Street Hall, Sixth and Sansom, and after dark there was an 

illumination of Independence Hall and the adjacent public buildings, hotels, and other central 

buildings, with exhibitions of transparencies. But the big doings were at the Chinese Museum, 

Ninth and Sansom Streets, site of the official Consolidation Ball. It was a disaster. Rain poured 

✧ 

The Main Exhibition Building at the 

1876 Centennial Exhibition was 1,880 feet 

long, 464 feet wide, and covered 20 acres. 

Wrought iron columns, and walls clad 

with brick up to seven feet high and the 

rest glass, supported what poet Walt 

Whitman described as “the grand high 

roof with its graceful and multitudinous 

work of iron rods….” 


CHAPTER IV 

71

✧ 

Right: Philadelphia County’s nineteen 

municipalities united into one large city in 

1854, but many have retained their identity 

as urban neighborhoods. 


Below: The first ever Republican National 

Convention assembled in Musical Fund Hall 

on June 17, 1856. The grand new party 

nominated John C. Fremont, forty-three, an 

anti-slavery Georgia native famous for 

exploring the Rocky Mountains. Senator 

William L. Dayton of New Jersey was 

nominated for vice president, beating out 

the head of the Illinois delegation, Abraham 

Lincoln. Note that the poster (bottom, right) 

misspells “president,” perhaps beginning the 

GOP misspelling tradition carried on by 

Dan Quayle. The two-year-old party lost, 

but would win the next six presidential 

elections. (In the twentieth century, the 

Musical Fund Society took its musical 

activities elsewhere; the hall was used for 

boxing matches, then for years as a tobacco 

warehouse. In the late 1970s it was 

converted to apartments.) 

HALL PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR. POSTER 

COURTESY OF THE ATWATER KENT MUSEUM. 

down on the arriving dignitaries, dousing the 

elaborate gowns of some of the country folk 

from remote areas like Byberry and Passyunk. 

The upper saloon was set apart for the 

popular mazy dance (part rhythm, part spasm) 

and decorated with crimson and gold muslin, 

laurel wreaths and mirrors. But it was 

overcrowded, and the band didn’t play 

continuously. Tickets for uninvited citizens were 

$5. Newspaper reporters were annoyed because 

they had to buy tickets and had been told they 

could not bring ladies. 

The governor and members of the legislature 

arrived at 10 p.m. Supper was served downstairs 

at 11:45. The tables were decorated with plaster 

busts of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Franklin 

Pierce, and other notable Americans. The food 

included oysters, ham, turkey, chicken salad, ice 

cream, wine and liquor, bread and butter; 

“Everything,” reported someone who attended, 

“that a man having any regard for his health 

ought not to eat.” There were forty-six items on 

the menu, which, to the bafflement of many, was 

printed in French. The food ran out quickly, the 

liquor quicker. 

“The Committee of Arrangements,” said 

one newspaper account, “had lubricated their 

spinal marrows to a considerable extent long 

before the opening, and at an early hour many 

were wholly unfit to attend to the duties 

devolved upon them.” 

At 1:10 a.m., people who bought tickets 

but didn’t get food, or were otherwise dissatisfied, 

confronted the committee. Police intervened. 

Some attendees began taking the floral 

decorations. The police tried to stop them. 

The crowd cried, “Shame! Shame!” Punches 

were thrown. There were one or two arrests. 

At 3 a.m., the lights were turned out. 

People groped toward the exits. “As a whole,” 

a Mercury reporter opined, “the ball was the 

meanest and most contemptible affair ever 

witnessed in this city.” 


72

Richard Vaux, a lawyer, beat the Whigs, the 

New Republicans and the Native Americans 

in the 1856 mayoralty election with his 

Democratic reform platform calculated to take 

all the fun out of being a politician: “No 

increase of taxes. No excursions of Councils. 

No free dinners. No free rum at expense of 

Councils. No free cigars. No free hack hire.” 

A thirty-six-year-old Princeton-educated 

lawyer, Alexander Henry, was elected mayor 

in 1858, the first Whig candidate to identify 

himself with the new Republican Party. 

Railroads of varied lengths had 

proliferated, but had been forced by public 

pressure to terminate their lines before 

reaching the built up part of the city. Short 

trips inside the city were made in carriages or 

horse-drawn omnibuses. In 1858 a new 

service opened. Multi-passenger vehicles 

pulled by two horses traveled on rails in the 

street, making frequent stops, over Fifth and 

Sixth Streets between Frankford and 

Southwark. Each had a driver and a 

conductor to collect the five cent fares. 

Many Philadelphians opposed street 

railways, citing noise, danger to pedestrians, 

traffic congestion, interference with carriages, 

and potential lowering of property values on 

streets with tracks. While the dispute 

continued (“much vigorous Anglo-Saxon was 

used on both sides,” wrote an observer), the 

success of the enterprise touched off a frenzy of 

rail-laying, and by the end of 1859 there were 

thirteen street car lines, carrying nearly fifty 

thousand passengers daily. “Private carriages 

will soon be unnecessary,” wrote one booster. 

The seven departments at the Central High 

School were English belles lettres, mathematics, 

French and Spanish, Latin and Greek, natural 

philosophy and chemistry, natural history, and 

drawing and writing. The Female Medical 

College began training women physicians, the 

School of Design (now Moore College of Art) 

started teaching women commercial art, and 

the Philadelphia High School for Girls 

graduated its first class in 1859. 

The year 1859 ended with a portent of the 

national division soon to come. On December 

22, after a meeting to discuss the problem, 

three hundred medical students from the 

South, disgusted with abolitionist sentiments 

in Philadelphia, resolved to leave Jefferson 

Medical College and the University of 

Pennsylvania, and went in a body to resign. 

WAR 

YEARS 

The 1860 census found a city population of 

565,000, second to New York. Philadelphia’s 

twenty-two thousand African Americans were 

the largest black population of any Northern 

city. The city was twenty percent Irish. 

Life was becoming easier for those who 

could afford the latest technology. There were 

sewing machines that could do “a day’s sewing 

in an hour,” according to one report. Lamps 

that burned the new coal oil (the favorite 

brand was called Kerosene) were cleaner and 

brighter at half the cost of fat-based “common 

oil” and a tenth the cost of candles. 

Ice skating was popular in winter, 

described by a Philadelphia aristocrat as a 

“fashionable amusement for ladies as well as 

gentlemen.” Croquet was also in vogue. Base 

Ball (it was two words then) was becoming 

organized. The Minerva Base Ball Club was 

formed in 1857, the Keystone in 1859, and in 

1860, the Mercantile and the Athletics, a 

name that would be identified with the city 

for nearly a century. 

The Continental Hotel opened on February 

16, 1860, at Ninth and Chestnut Streets. The 

architect was John M. McArthur, Jr., who would 

soon begin work on a new City Hall. There were 

✧ 

Prominent Republicans founded the Union 

League in 1862 to support the Federal 

cause. The organization recruited and 

equipped nine infantry regiments, helped 

form five cavalry companies and other units, 

and erected its dignified brown headquarters 

on Broad Street at Sansom. The club house 

officially opened on May 11, 1865, a month 

after Robert E. Lee surrendered. The League 

spent $33,000 equipping Philadelphia’s 

African-American troops. 


CHAPTER IV 

73

✧ 

Right: On a 650-by-1,500-foot tract of flat 

West Philadelphia farmland, the Union 

army erected a two-story, cupola-topped 

administration building surrounded by 

thirty-four one-story hospital wards, 

designed to hold a total of 2,860 beds. In 

July 1863, when the hospital was a year old, 

five thousand seriously wounded soldiers 

arrived from the battle of Gettysburg, and 

the total reached 3,124 beds with another 

900 casualties in 150 tents on the parade 

ground that sloped to Mill Creek. The 

hospital was named Satterlee U. S. General 

Hospital, for the army’s medical purveyor, 

Brigadier General Richard S. Satterlee. More 

than sixty thousand men were cared for at 

Satterlee before it closed on August 3, 1865. 

The map shows the hospital boundaries in 

relation to modern streets. 


Below: At Chestnut Hill, Mower U. S. 

General Hospital was developed on twentyseven 

acres straddling the present Willow 

Grove Avenue from the railroad to the 

present Stenton Avenue. It opened in 

January 1863, with 2,820 beds, but 

expanded to 4,000 beds. Wounded soldiers 

arriving from the south were carried by fire 

company ambulance wagons to the 

Philadelphia and Reading Railroad terminal 

at Ninth and Green Streets for trains to 

the hospital. 



74 

one hundred suites with baths on the third and 

fourth floors, and bathless lodging rooms above. 

The building had gas lights and steam heat. A 

miraculous “vertical railway, extending from the 

ground floor to the top of the house,” lifted 

people to the upper floors. “You enter a nicely 

furnished little room ten feet square. A man 

pulls a string and the room ascends with an easy 

motion,” a Philadelphian marveled. “You can 

stop and get out at any story.” 

The Belmont Oil Works began refining 

petroleum at Fiftieth Street and Lancaster 

Avenue in March 1862, less than three years 

after the world’s first successful oil well was 

drilled in northwestern Pennsylvania. Belmont 

made various grades of oil, paraffin, kerosene 

for lamps, and a fluid called gasoline, though 

the stuff was too volatile to be very useful and 

was often just dumped. The Atlantic Petroleum 

Storage Company was operating on the 

Schuylkill at Point Breeze by 1866. 

When Civil War erupted in the South in 

April 1861, Philadelphians began signing up 

for military service. The city immediately 

supplied eight regiments, mostly enlisted for 

three months (the Seventeenth through 

Twenty-fourth Regiments), and independent 

companies. Seven more regiments were 

enlisted by the end of summer, 1861. By the 

close of the war in 1865, another fifty-eight 

regiments (including eleven black regiments) 

plus other odd units would be formed. 

Companies and regiments were organized by 

banks, fire companies, ethnic groups, 

neighborhoods and factories. Regiments 

typically comprised 800 to 1,000 men. Nearly 

ninety thousand Philadelphians were in the 

services during the conflict. 

Philadelphia manufacturers and their 

workers produced firearms and ammunition, 

swords, cannons, wagons, uniforms and other 

war material. More than ten thousand women 

were employed by the Schuylkill Arsenal, on 

Gray’s Ferry Road near Federal Street, making 

uniforms. The city’s shipbuilding industry 

pitched in. The Navy Yard, on the Delaware at 

Federal Street, built eleven warships, and 

private shipbuilders turned out eight others.

✧ 

Above: Logan Square was turned into a 

giant building for two weeks starting June 7, 

1864, when the U.S. Sanitary Commission 

staged the Great Central Fair, more 

popularly called the Sanitary Fair. The 

commission was founded in New York in 

1861, to supply the troops with medical and 

personal necessities and to send relief 

clothing and medicine to prisoners held in 

the South. The local chapter, headquartered 

at 1307 Chestnut Street, raised more than 

$1.5 million in cash and goods during the 

war. The Sanitary Fair was the major fundraising 

event. A temporary 40-by-60-foot 

Gothic architectured main building, erected 

in forty days, was connected by corridors to 

long structures on the four sides of the 

square. There was a major exhibit of 

borrowed art, a restaurant, a horticultural 

display, entertainment, and a smoking 

parlor for the gentlemen. President and 

Mrs. Lincoln attended on June 16. 


War wounded were treated at Philadelphia 

hospitals, notably Pennsylvania, Episcopal 

and St. Joseph’s. At the peak, twenty-four 

other buildings were used as hospitals, 

including factories, lodge headquarters, and 

the Germantown town hall. 

Virtually every able-bodied adult white male 

was gone when Lee’s army invaded Pennsylvania 

in June, 1863. Small boys, wounded veterans 

and two hundred clergymen turned out to dig 

defensive positions. On June 17, a group of 

African Americans went to the City Arsenal at 

Broad and Race Streets and applied for uniforms 

and weapons. They were outfitted without 

question and sent to Harrisburg. On June 26, 

they were mustered into the U. S. Army, the first 

company of black troops from Philadelphia, 

although some fifteen hundred black troops had 

already gone off to serve in the famous Fiftyfourth 

and Fifty-fifth “Massachusetts Volunteer 

Infantry, Colored,” which had been recruiting 

since February. A call went out for eight hundred 

men to join the U. S. Colored Troops. Camp 

William Penn was established as a training post 

just across the city limits in Cheltenham 

Township, at the estate of Lucretia Mott, the antislavery 

and women’s rights activist. The still 

existing African American settlement called 

LaMott grew alongside the camp. 

PEACE 

& PROGRESS 

The bell in Independence Hall tower rang at 

noon on April 3, 1865, as the announcement 

Below: Philadelphia formed some peculiar 

gaps in east coast railroading. Troops 

heading south from New England and New 

York usually had to disembark at Tacony 

and march to Washington Avenue to the 

Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore 

Railroad station. Committees set up 

buildings on Washington Avenue near the 

river, adjacent to the Navy Yard, to provide 

troops passing through with food, beverages, 

wash-up facilities, toilets and stationery for 

writing home. The Union Refreshment 

Saloon, at Swanson Street, and the Cooper 

Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon (in a 

former cooperage run by William Cooper) 

on Otsego Street a block west, depended on 

donations and volunteers, and could feed 

whole regiments on short notice. In the 

four years of the war, the Union Saloon 

served 900,000 meals to soldiers, and the 

Cooper 400,000. 


CHAPTER IV 

75

✧ 

Right: Camp William Penn was established 

in Cheltenham Township in June 1863, as a 

training post for U.S. Colored Troops. By 

the war’s end, eleven regiments of local 

African Americans were mustered there, a 

total of 10,940 enlisted men commanded 

by four hundred white officers. Noncommissioned 

officers were selected from 

the ranks. 


Below: The Continental Hotel was the 

largest in the United States when it opened 

on the southeast corner of Ninth and 

Chestnut Streets in 1860. Guests during the 

posh hotel’s first year included the first 

Japanese government delegation ever to visit 

the United States (thousands of 

Philadelphians lined the streets to see them 

arrive), the Prince of Wales (who later 

became King Edward VII) and Presidentelect 

Abraham Lincoln. 



76 

reached City Hall that Richmond, the 

Confederate capital, had been captured. The 

city erupted like a dozen Independence Days. 

Flags appeared everywhere, cheering crowds 

roamed the streets, bells and whistles clamored, 

and some twenty-five hundred employees from 

the Navy Yard marched around the city, 

accompanied by the Marine Band. The staff of 

the Evening Bulletin borrowed a cannon from 

the Moyamensing Hose Company firemen and 

began firing continually on the roof of their 

offices at Fourth and Chestnut, celebrating not 

only the Union victory, but the fact that the 

paper had just sold an “extra” of ninety-three 

thousand copies, about fifteen times the normal 

daily circulation. 

April 9 was Palm Sunday, a quiet day on 

which the new Cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul 

on Logan Square held its first masses. The 

domed edifice was begun by Bishop Francis P. 

Kenrick in 1846, and finished by Bishop James 

F. Wood in 1864. After about 9 p.m. the city was 

quiet no longer; news arrived that Robert E. 

Lee’s army had surrendered. Rumors had raised 

expectations, and when lights began going on in 

newspaper offices around Third and Chestnut, 

the public knew what was up. The Bulletin and 

North American buildings ignited decorative gas 

jets, and the Ledger lit up gas-outlined stars 

designed for celebrations. Independence Hall’s 

bell began to ring. Fire engines and factories 

blew steam whistles. Church bells rang. Firemen 

and the military marched around in disciplined 

aimlessness. Cannons fired. There were bonfires 

and fireworks. 

The revelry in the street continued until 2 

a.m. Outside the Union League house at 1118 

Chestnut Street, a disheveled mob sang until

✧ 

Mrs. John Drew became manager of the 

Arch Street Theatre in 1860. She was the 

Louisa Lane who debuted at age seven when 

her parents, minor actors, brought her to 

Philadelphia in 1827. When she was nine, 

she performed all twelve roles in a play at 

the Chestnut, and a critic described her as 

“this astonishing little creature.” She was a 

star of the Philadelphia stage in the 1830s 

and 1840s. In 1850 she married her second 

husband, John Drew, a native of County 

Clare, Ireland. They performed at the 

Chestnut in 1852 and the Arch in 1853. 

John died in May of 1862, at age thirtyfour. 

Their daughter, Georgianna, would go 

on the stage, and would marry an actor 

who arrived in 1875 from Liverpool, 

adorned with monocle and top hat, named 

Maurice Barrymore. The Barrymores would 

produce three children who would be 

actors—John, Lionel ,and Ethel—and John’s 

children and granddaughter would also 

become actors—five generations, so far. 

Pictured are Georgianna Barrymore and her 

mother, Mrs. John Drew (top, left); John 

Barrymore (top, right); John Drew 

Barrymore (bottom, left); and Drew 

Barrymore (bottom, right). 

COURTESY OF THE THEATRE COLLECTION, 


the wee hours, The Star Spangled Banner, Rally 

Round the Flag, and the John Brown song. 

The mood was totally opposite six days later. 

Telegraphs reported that the President had been 

shot. There was weeping in the streets, and 

black drapery appeared on buildings. On 

Saturday, April 22, Lincoln’s casket arrived by 

train on the way home to Illinois. His body lay 

in Independence Hall all day. By midnight, 

eighty-five thousand citizens had passed 

through, and disappointed thousands were in 

line outside when the casket was closed. 

The development of Fairmount Park picked 

up after the war. The Lemon Hill estate’s fortyfive 

acres had been acquired in 1844, and 

Sedgley’s thirty-four acres in 1857. The 

Fairmount Park Commission was organized in 

1866. Morton McMichael, mayor from 1866 

to 1868, became the first president. The 

commission quickly assumed control of 2,648 

acres, assembled at a cost of $6 million from 

more than four hundred owners. 

A fifteen-year-old Quaker boy from Mount 

Holly, New Jersey, came to Philadelphia in 

CHAPTER IV 

77

✧ 

In 1925, in a speech accepting an honor 

from the Franklin Institute, Elihu Thomson 

(top, right) of General Electric Co. 

mentioned that he had been first to 

demonstrate the principles of radio 

communication, in 1875 at Central High 

School. He transmitted electricity from a 

coil in Professor Edwin J. Houston’s first 

floor laboratory to a brass doorknob in the 

observatory ninety feet above. Both men 

were Central alumni and faculty members. 

The pair founded the Thomson-Houston 

Electric Co. in 1883, which joined Thomas 

A. Edison’s company in 1892 to form 

General Electric. Shown here is Thomson’s 

$47.91 pay voucher (top, left) for a month’s 

teaching at Central in 1873. 

PORTRAIT COURTESY OF THE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN 

PORTRAITS. VOUCHER COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR. 


78 

1853 and got a job in a dry goods store. His 

name was Justus C. Strawbridge. Eight years 

later, he bought a clothing and yard goods 

store on the northeast corner of Eighth and 

Market Streets. He became friends with 

another Mount Holly Quaker whose employer 

supplied merchandise to Strawbridge. The 

friend was Isaac H. Clothier. In 1868, they 

leased a five story building at Eighth and 

Market and went into business together. They 

called the store, naturally, Strawbridge & 

Clothier. They were right down the street from 

a clothing store called Oak Hall, at Sixth and 

Market, started in 1861 by a South 

Philadelphian named John Wanamaker. 

Philadelphia’s department store center was 

beginning to take shape. 

CENTENNIAL 

TIME 

Ground was broken for the new City Hall 

on August 16, 1871. It was a quiet ceremony, 

with no crowds or reporters present, because 

there was so much squabbling over the 

project. The new hall would replace the little 

one built in 1791 at the east end of the 

Independence Hall complex. Since 1860 there 

had been arguments over the design and the 

location. The site, Washington Square versus 

Penn Square, was settled in the 1870 

elections. The people chose Penn Square. The 

next argument was whether there should be 

one great building, blocking the Broad and 

Market intersection forever, or four separate 

buildings. The one building plan was finally 

adopted. The cornerstone was laid with 

Masonic ceremonies on July 4, 1874, and 

work would continue through the rest of the 

1870s. And the 1880s. And the 1890s. 

The Fifteenth Amendment to the U. S. 

Constitution in 1870 barred voting discrimination 

because of race or color. When Daniel 

M. Fox was elected mayor in 1869, he had 

fired most policemen who were Republicans, 

and replaced them with loyal Democrats like 

himself. Fox ran for reelection in 1871, and 

African Americans were expected to vote in 

large numbers for Republican William S. 

Stokley (a candy manufacturer nicknamed 

Sweet William). And if Fox lost his job, so 

would most policemen. 

That’s why, as testimony in a later investigation 

revealed, some policemen were at the 

polls bright and early, dragging black voters 

out of line. There were brawls at a polling 

place at Sixth and Lombard and elsewhere. By 

3 p.m., a black man was dead, hit with an ax; 

five whites and seven blacks were injured. 

At ten minutes to four, the disorder came to 

a shocking conclusion, with the death of 

Octavius V. Catto as he walked toward his 

home at Eighth and South Streets. Catto was, at 

age thirty-two, a prominent Episcopal layman, 

a nationally known educator and a star baseball 

player. He was coming from the Institute for 

Colored Youth, at Ninth and Bainbridge 

Streets, where he was head of the boys’ 

department. The Institute rivaled the Central 

High School; it contained not only classrooms 

but an exercise room, laboratories and a library

of several thousand books which was open to 

the community. The high school grades studied 

Latin, Greek, higher mathematics, history, 

geography, science, composition, literature, 

and such practical subjects as bookkeeping. 

As a major in the Pennsylvania Militia, Catto 

was responding to the governor’s call for troops 

to quell the disturbances at the polls by going 

home to get his uniform. A man with a bandaged 

head and a pistol in his hand suddenly stepped 

in front of Catto, mumbled something, and fired. 

Philadelphia’s most distinguished black citizen 

fell with a bullet in his heart. 

The funeral of Octavius V. Catto was held 

on the Monday after the election. There were 

125 carriages in the procession on North 

Broad Street, and thousands of Philadelphians, 

black and white, walked solemnly along. 

There were police units, military units, state 

legislators, all 75 city councilmen, 200 

African-American students, the vestry of St. 

Thomas Church, and 40 members of the 

Pythian Base Ball Club. Leading the funeral 

was William S. Stokley, who had been elected 

over Fox by ten thousand votes. 

Professional, paid firemen went into service 

on March 15, 1871, replacing the tradition of 

volunteer fire companies that went back to 

1736. There were nearly a hundred volunteer 

fire companies in Philadelphia, with at least 

twenty thousand nominal members. Perhaps 

twenty percent of the men were serious about 

extinguishing fires. Many others, and some 

entire companies, responded to alarms only 

when there was the prospect of fighting 

another fire company. Quarter Sessions Court 

was given control of fire company charters in 

1848, and by 1855 had acted against sixty-nine 

companies for rioting. 

City Council finally voted on December 

15, 1870, to create the paid fire department. The 

✧ 

Above: Delegates to the 1872 Republican 

Convention entered the Academy of Music 

up the steps from Broad Street . (The 

building to the left was the Pennsylvania 

Horticultural Society.) The public entered on 

Locust Street and could watch from the 

heights of the balconies. President Ulysses S. 

Grant was renominated, largely because his 

enemies in the party had broken away to 

form the Liberal Republicans, whose 

candidate, journalist Horace Greeley, was 

also nominated by the Democrats. Grant 

swept 29 of the 35 states in November. 


Left: Tradition says that a man named 

Mo Sing established a food and clothing 

store at Ninth and Race Streets in 1871 

and became the first settler of a new 

ethnic neighborhood. However the start, 

within twenty years the area was known 

as Chinatown, containing industrious 

Chinese family businesses. Today, its 

many restaurants and shops thrive, 

surrounded by Center City development. 


CHAPTER IV 

79

✧ 

Above: Volunteer firemen of the Delaware 

Engine Company, in 1865, showed off their 

two-horse steam-powered pumper. The 

company became Engine Company Four 

when the paid Philadelphia Fire 

Department was formed in 1871. 

COURTESY OF FIREMEN’S HALL, THE NATIONAL FIRE 

HOUSE AND MUSEUM OF PHILADELPHIA. 

Right: The Zoological Society of 

Philadelphia, formed in 1859, the first such 

organization in this country, opened 

America’s first zoo on July 1, 1874. The 

major attraction was three stone bear pits 

inhabited by shamelessly food-begging 

bears. Frank Furness designed some Zoo 

buildings including the entrance gates and 

an elephant house. There was a monkey 

house, a bird house, a beaver dam, and 

herds of deer and buffalo. 



80 

new law provided for 337 firemen in 22 engine 

companies and five hook and ladder companies, 

using horse drawn steam pump equipment. 

Many volunteers were hired to become 

professionals. Base pay was $350 a year. 

The disenfranchised volunteers went out in 

typical style. The night before the changeover, 

they dragged their hose carts and pumpers 

through the streets, ringing bells, cursing, 

shouting, and having races. False alarms 

abounded, and there were several arsons, 

extinguished by some of the better, nonriotous 

companies. When the first alarm came 

in for the new professional force, a barn fire 

on Chelten Avenue, diehard volunteers of the 

Mount Airy Hose Company pulled their hose 

cart to the scene. They were arrested for 

disorderly conduct. 

An epizootic, the four-legged equivalent of 

an epidemic, struck the horses of the area in 

October 1872. Imagine the city today if nearly 

every motor vehicle quit running. With few 

functioning horses, street car lines stopped. 

Workmen and volunteers pitched in to pull 

wagons. It was spring before enough horses 

were back on their feet to have the city 

functioning normally. For the next half century, 

old-timers who heard a friend coughing or 

wheezing would joke, “He’s got the epizooty.” 

The firm of Furness and Hewitt got a 

commission in 1874 to nearly double the size

of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf at 

Broad and Pine Streets. Frank Furness, who, 

associates complained, continually swore 

furiously while working at his drawing board, 

created one of his typically fussy brick designs 

behind the handsome John Haviland Greek 

front on Broad Street. When the Pennsylvania 

Museum of Art was later created from the 

art collection at the 1876 Centennial 

Exhibition, the Museum School of Industrial 

Art came into being; in 1893, the school for the 

deaf would move to a Mount Airy campus and 

sell the Broad and Pine building to the art 

school. It was to evolve into the University of 

the Arts. 

A perusal of a directory of industries in the 

mid-1870s finds Philadelphia producing 

cotton, iron, stoves, hollow ware, buttonhole 

sewing machines, pickles, watches, fire 

bricks, vinegar, nails, safes, perfume, 

locomotives, saws, carriages, beer, sugar, 

corks, carpets, springs, flour, glass, files, soap, 

shovels, shoes, paint, hosiery, dye, guns, 

plows, pottery, pumps, printing type, Bibles, 

✧ 

It was in the 1870s that John B. Stetson 

(top, left) began building a giant hat factory 

at Fifth Street and Montgomery Avenue. By 

the time John B. died in 1906, the Stetson 

operation included twenty-five buildings 

(below), employing some three thousand 

people. Saws were another Philadelphia 

product; Henry Disston (top, right) had set 

up shop on eight acres in the far northeast 

of Philadelphia County, at the old settlement 

called Tacony. The name came from an 

Indian word; Swedish tax records in 1677 

had shown fifty-one taxable persons living 

at Taokanink, and in Disston’s time it was a 

town of mostly fishermen and farmers. By 

the 1870s, Disston had some two thousand 

employees shipping five tons of saws a week 

all over the world. 

PORTRAITS COURTESY OF THE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN 

PORTRAITS. PLANT PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR. 

CHAPTER IV 

81

✧ 

Right: On the eve of the centennial Fourth 

of July, crowds converged on brightly 

illuminated Independence Hall. An 

estimated three hundred thousand people 

packed Chestnut Street and other streets. 

When the tower bell struck midnight, 

signaling the second century of 

independence, one spectator reported that 

“the whole town seemed to have broken out 

in one mighty shout.” 


Below: Memorial Hall, also known as the 

Art Gallery, second smallest of the five 

major Centennial buildings at 365-by-210 

feet, cost $1.5 million and was the only 

building designed to be permanent. It 

still stands. 



82 

lightning rods, scales, furniture, wire, paper, 

felt, yarn, tacks, railroad switches, crackers, 

chemicals: The list could go on. Somebody 

coined the municipal slogan, “Workshop of 

the World.” It didn’t seem an exaggeration. 

The University of Pennsylvania began 

building in West Philadelphia in 1871 and 

would move there from Ninth Street. In 

growing Fairmount Park, the Philadelphia 

Zoo, the nation’s first, opened in 1874, and in 

progress were park drives, landscaping and 

plans for statuary. The Academy of Natural 

Sciences built a $200,000 headquarters at 

Nineteenth and Race in 1876. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad had built a 

freight depot on the south side of Market 

Street between Thirteenth and Juniper in 

1853, and in 1864, passenger service had 

begun from the so-called Grand Depot. In 

1874, with the new City Hall going up 

virtually in the middle of the Pennsy’s tracks, 

the railroad moved its terminal to West 

Philadelphia. John Wanamaker had an option 

to buy the huge building and move his store 

there. But first, he let Dwight L. Moody and 

Ira D. Sankey, the leading Christian 

evangelists of the era, hold revival meetings in 

the depot for two months. “The Lord’s 

business first,” Wanamaker explained. 

Wanamaker opened his store in the former 

depot on March 12, 1877. Between 8 a.m. 

and 8 p.m., 70,106 persons visited it. 

THE GREAT EXHIBITION 

The city designated 450 acres of west 

Fairmount Park in 1873 for a grand observance 

of the nation’s hundredth anniversary. 

By May of 1876, the Centennial Exhibition 

grounds held 249 structures, ranging from the 

1,880 by 464 foot Main Building to six little 

cigar stands, not to mention sixteen fountains, 

a three-mile railroad, 153 acres of flower beds 

and landscaping, and twenty thousand new 

trees and shrubs, surrounded by three miles 

of fencing with thirteen entrances. The cost 

was nearly $7 million. 

There were thirty-seven countries 

exhibiting in the Main Building. Another 

eleven had their own buildings, as did 19 of 

the 37 United States. On the grounds were 

large foreign food restaurants and stands 

selling soda water and popcorn. There was a 

steam monorail, three cents a ride. Daily 

admission was fifty cents, exact change 

required. That was expensive for a working 

man’s family; Philadelphia cops, for example, 

were paid $2.50 a day. (The mayor got $100 

a week.) 

President Grant opened the Exhibition on 

May 10. A panel of international judges 

awarded medals for various categories of art,

science, agriculture, and such. A twenty-nineyear-old 

inventor was honored: Alexander 

Graham Bell, who demonstrated something 

he called an Electric Telephone and Multiple 

Telegraph. The major anecdote about the 

Centennial tells how Emperor Dom Pedro II 

of Brazil made the new invention famous 

by holding it to his ear and then exclaiming, 

“My God! It talks!” Like so many enjoyable 

oft-told tales from Philadelphia’s past, it 

never happened. 

The Centennial guidebook listed 7,620 

rooms in the city’s hotels of fifty rooms or more. 

Two hotels, of 1,000 and 500 rooms, were built 

across from the main entrance to the grounds. 

Highest room rate was $5. Most included four 

meals a day: breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper. 

On the eve of the centennial Fourth of July, 

crowds converged on Independence Hall. In 

front of the Continental Hotel on Chestnut 

Street at Ninth was an arch illuminated by gas 

jets, with the names of the thirteen original 

states in illuminated transparencies and the 

motto, “Welcome to All Nations.” 

The July Fourth celebration started with the 

city’s bells ringing at sunrise. “Exercises” were 

set for 10 o’clock in Independence Square. 

The inevitable long-winded speechmakers 

faced an invited crowd of fifty thousand 

ticket-holders, jammed together in typical 

Philadelphia July heat. A big parade followed, 

led by Governor John F. Hartranft and his 

aides on horseback. In the evening there were 

fireworks displays at Independence Square, in 

Fairmount Park for the Exhibition visitors, 

and in Norris Square. 

More than 9.7 million times, visitors from 

all over the country and the world passed 

through the entrance turnstiles of the 

Exhibition during its 159 days. We don’t know 

how many individuals came through more 

than once. We do know that the Centennial 

security staff handled 504 lost children, provided 

free medical treatment for 6,463 visitors 

(four died), and arrested one attendee for 

fornication. (Shouldn’t there have been two?) 

✧ 

Above: After passage of the federal Civil 

Rights Act of 1875, African Americans 

moved more into the mainstream, and the 

Italian sculpture The Freed Slave drew 

much attention at the Centennial. 

Philadelphia’s response to the new law 

wasn’t all positive. Louisa Drew forced a 

black husband and wife out of the ticket line 

at her Arch Street Theatre. The Bingham 

House hotel, Eleventh and Market Streets, 

refused to provide a room to a black cleric 

from Virginia who came here for a religious 

meeting. The large funeral procession of 

prominent black caterer Henry Jones, led by 

his widow and five children, was turned 

away at the gate of Mount Moriah 

Cemetery when the manager, apparently 

surprised by the race of the mourners, 

mysteriously couldn’t find any record of 

ownership of the burial plot. All three of 

those slighted parties brought legal suits and 

won. And one of the Jones daughters 

married John D. Lewis, the city’s first black 

civil rights lawyer, who represented the 

family in their suit. 


Left: The 1876 Centennial Exhibition 

grounds, looking toward Center City from a 

point above George’s Hill. The Fairmount 

Park site covered 285 acres. 


CHAPTER IV 

83

✧ 

Above: On Elm Avenue, which skirted the 

Centennial grounds, there sprang up 

temporary businesses ranging from the 

thousand-room Globe Hotel at Belmont 

Avenue to cheap restaurants, boarding 

houses and saloons, as well as side shows 

and other entertainment that were 

unauthorized and often in dubious taste. 

COURTESY OF THE PRINT AND PICTURE COLLECTION, 


Right: The view south on Broad Street from 

Chestnut Street in the 1880s. The pointed 

tower on the skyline at right was the old 

Stratford Hotel, not yet merged with its 

neighbor, the Bellevue. 



84 

THE CITY AT 200 

Samuel G. King, a Democrat, squeaked 

into the mayor’s office in 1880 with a 5,787 

vote majority (out of 150,643 votes cast) as a 

reform candidate backed by a committee of 

businessmen. King did something black 

citizens had been demanding for a long time. 

In August 1881, he appointed four African 

Americans to the police force. Curious small 

crowds of both races followed the men on 

their beats for a few days. A few white cops 

quit the force, some white citizens said they 

would not cooperate with a black officer, and 

some black citizens said the same. 

The $4 million Broad Street Station opened 

in 1881 across from the west side of the 

new City Hall. Tracks leading to it thrust in 

from West Philly, bridging the numbered streets 

and looming somberly over the north side of 

Market Street. Philadelphians nicknamed the 

obstructive monstrosity the Chinese Wall. 

An era of immigration was challenging the 

city’s centuries of ethnic English, Scottish, 

Irish, and German dominance. The 1870 

census showed ninety-four Russian-born 

Philadelphians, and by 1890, the number was 

7,879. In 1870 only 516 Italians were listed; 

in 1890 there were 6,799.

✧ 

Left: The fifty-year-old Robert Patterson 

mansion stood solitarily at Thirteenth and 

Locust Streets in 1882, when it was bought 

by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 

whose growing collection had been at 

several locations since its founding in 1824. 

The society’s present ninety-year-old 

building is on the site. 


Below: In 1883 a citizens’ campaign saved 

what was believed to be William Penn’s 

house. The two-and-a-half story brick house 

stood on Letitia Street (between Front and 

Second) just south of Market Street. For the 

bicentennial of Penn’s arrival in the city, the 

house was moved to Fairmount Park, brick 

by brick, and reassembled on a bluff off 

Girard Avenue near Thirty-fourth Street. 

Thousands reverently visited what they 

thought had been William Penn’s abode. 

Then some historians, so often killjoys, 

looked at old records and announced that 

Penn had given the property to his daughter, 

Letitia, in 1701, she had disposed of the 

empty lot in 1703, and the house was built 

about 1714 by Thomas Chalkley. Heavily 

ignored these days, it is still one of the oldest 

houses in the city. 


Citizens who thought Mayor King’s victory 

in ’80 was close had to think again in 1884, 

when a sharp-dressing cabinet maker, 

Republican William B. Smith (Dandy Bill to 

his friends) beat King by a margin of eightytwo 

votes. King would be the last Democrat in 

the mayor’s office for seventy years. Dandy Bill 

began the GOP machine tradition in grand 

style; City Council considered impeaching 

him when he was accused of accepting bribes 

from pawnbrokers. He didn’t run again, and 

got a job selling clothes in a department store. 

In the 1884 balloting, twenty-four-year-old 

Boies Penrose was elected to the Pennsylvania 

House of Representatives. He had volunteered 

to help out in local Republican election 

campaigns, and was invited to lunch by 

Matthew Quay, the GOP czar. Quay was 

CHAPTER IV 

85

✧ 

Above: Alfred J. Reach bought the franchise of 

the Worcester, Massachusetts, Brown Stockings 

in the National Baseball League in 1883, 

moved the team to Philadelphia and renamed 

it the Phillies. The National League had been 

founded in 1876, and the league’s first game 

was played in Philadelphia between the 

Philadelphia Athletics and Boston. But the 

Athletics didn’t complete the ’76 season, and 

languished until they were revived by Connie 

Mack in 1900 to join the new American 

League. This photo of the Phillies was taken in 

1888, the year after they moved into a new 

ball field at Broad and Huntingdon Streets, 

later to be named Baker Bowl. 


Right: Just before Christmas in 1888, a lunch 

counter with fifteen stools opened on the east 

side of Thirteenth Street below Market. 

Behind the counter was Joe Horn, and the 

cook was Frank Hardart. Although Horn, 

twenty-seven, had no restaurant background, 

he took a notion to start an eatery and 

advertised in a newspaper for an experienced 

partner. Hardart, thirty-eight, answered. They 

borrowed $1,000 from Horn’s mother, took in 

an impressive $7.25 their first day in 

business, and soon had a reputation for the 

best cup of coffee in town. In 1898 they 

incorporated as Horn & Hardart Baking Co. 

Eventually there would be dozens of H&H’s 

in Philly and New York. The original H&H at 

Thirteenth and Market closed in 1925. 



86 

impressed, particularly by the amount Penrose 

ate. He was known to order seven different 

lunches from a menu at one sitting. Penrose 

was six foot four, beefy (and would later be 

huge), and an unlikely entry into the gritty 

realm of Philadelphia politics. He was wealthy, 

descended from Quakers of the William Penn 

era, educated at Episcopal Academy at Juniper 

and Locust, and was second in the class of ’81 

at Harvard. His brother, Richard, was first. His 

brothers became a physician, a geologist, and 

a mining engineer; he became a national 

political power. Penrose lived in the house 

where he was born, at 1331 Spruce Street. His 

intellect and his cash slid Penrose slowly 

toward power alongside the Pennsylvania 

Republican bosses, Donald Cameron and 

Matthew Quay. He was elected to the state 

Senate in 1886 and became president pro tem 

in 1889.

More famous manufacturing names 

arose in the “workshop of the world:” Burpee 

Seeds, Hires Root Beer, Fels-Naptha Soap, 

Whitman’s Chocolates, and the National 

Biscuit Company (Nabisco). 

The Philadelphia Tribune was founded in 

1884 and is now the nation’s oldest African- 

American newspaper. The founder and editor, 

Christopher Perry, was an active Republican 

who had a clerk’s job in City Hall. He also did 

job printing and at times, catering. Perry was a 

Baltimore native who came to Philadelphia as a 

child. He graduated from the Institute for 

Colored Youth, and wrote for the Times and 

Mirror (there were eighteen daily papers at the 

time, including four in German) before he 

established the Tribune. 

THE LIGHTS GO ON 

Electricity was all over town. Wanamaker’s 

Grand Depot store and the Continental Hotel 

bought bright carbon arc lights from Charles F. 

Brush of Cleveland. The hotel’s dynamo was 

powered by the steam engine of the elevator, 

energizing two large lamps that replaced 144 gas 

lamps in the dining room. Thomas Dolan’s 

Keystone Knitting Mills at Oxford and Hancock 

Streets were lit by Brush lamps. Dolan wanted to 

put forty-nine electric streetlights on Chestnut 

Street in 1881. City Council was doubtful, so 

Dolan offered to light Chestnut from river to 

river free for one year. It took time for citizens to 

get used to the idea. A Dolan workman erecting 

poles got arrested for making holes in the 

sidewalk. A resident of west Chestnut Street 

wrote to the Public Ledger that no one wanted a 

pole with a bright light on it outside his bedroom 

window: “There is not a city in the world where 

it would be tolerated….” Crowds turned out on 

the night of December 3, 1881, to watch the 

lights turn on for the first time. Citizens and 

councilmen approved the experiment, and other 

entrepreneurs were paid to light other streets. 

There were seventeen separate companies 

operating street car lines in Philadelphia in 

1880. Behind the scenes, a Board of Presidents 

of City Passenger Railway Companies, formed 

in 1859, regulated the fares. In 1883 a 

company was organized that began leasing 

street car lines. The businessmen behind this 

✧ 

The Reverend Russell H. Conwell, pastor of 

the Baptist Temple on North Broad Street, 

chartered the Temple College in 1888 to 

provide education to students who couldn’t 

afford the hefty tuition at Penn, whose 

undergraduates in the 1880s shelled out 

$150 a year. Temple University now spreads 

over a large urban campus. 

COLLEGE PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CITY OF 

PHILADELPHIA, DEPARTMENT OF RECORDS, CITY 

ARCHIVES. CONWELL PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR. 

CHAPTER IV 

87

✧ 

Anthony J. Drexel in 1889 put up a million 

dollars to found the Drexel Institute of Art, 

Science and Industry in West Philadelphia. 

It evolved into Drexel University, and a 

sprawling multi-building urban campus now 

surrounds this original edifice. 



88 

scheme were Peter A. B. Widener and William 

L. Elkins. By 1888, they controlled thirty-six 

percent of the city’s public transportation. 

Widener was fifty-four in 1888. After 

graduation from Central High School, he 

became a butcher and a politician. During the 

Civil War, he acquired meaty contracts to sell 

mutton to the Union army. The money he 

made helped him, with Elkins, buy up street 

car lines in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago 

and New York. He also helped found U.S. 

Steel and the American Tobacco Company. 

Widener built a huge mansion at a suburb 

called Elkins Park; the mansion of George W. 

Elkins was next door, and next to that was the 

mansion of George’s father, William L. Elkins. 

William Elkins was born in West Virginia 

in 1832, of Philadelphia parents. He was 

involved in the oil industry early, and there 

were claims that his “works” produced the 

first gasoline. Like Widener, he seemed 

unable to avoid making money. His daughter 

married Widener’s son, George. William L. 

Elkins died in 1903 and left an estate of $30 

million. In 1912, George Widener and his 

son, Harry Elkins Widener, went down on the 

Titanic. P. A. B. Widener left $100 million 

when he died in 1915. 

The ornate tower of the new City Hall was 

finally reaching toward the clouds in the 

1880s. The seven lower floors were up, 

totaling fourteen acres of floor space on the 

five acre site, and some offices had been 

occupied as early as 1877. Granite walls 

twenty-two feet thick were in place at the 

base of the tower, and steam hoists daily 

carried stone up to what aspired to be the 

world’s tallest structure.

✧ 

Above: On February 28, 1883, Colonel 

Thomas C. Donaldson, Civil War veteran 

and lawyer, leaped off a Market Street 

horsecar at Seventh Street in a rage because 

he saw a workman prying pieces off the roof 

of the old Graff house, where Thomas 

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of 

Independence. The property was bought by 

Penn National Bank, to erect a 

headquarters. Donaldson had started a 

movement to save the house, and the bank 

had promised not to begin demolition 

without telling him. He stormed into the 

president’s office, and the embarrassed 

banker agreed to sell the dismantled house 

to Donaldson. The colonel haunted the site 

during demolition, taking measurements, 

and hauling away architectural elements in 

his carriage. Capstones, hearths, windows, 

the entire second floor interior, and other 

items were carefully labeled and stored in 

Donaldson’s back yard at Thirty-ninth and 

Baring Streets. When Donaldson died in 

1898, his daughter called a junkdealer and 

had the stuff hauled away. The bank at 

Seventh and Market would fold in the 

1930s Depression, and the bank building 

would be torn down and replaced by a 

luncheonette. In 1975, with a half million 

dollar fund raising campaign, a replica of 

the Graff house was erected on the spot. 


Below: In this 1857 painting, Lemon Hill 

mansion was a restaurant. Robert Morris 

had owned the estate at the foot of Fair 

Mount, and called it The Hills. He was $3 

million in debt in 1799, and Henry Pratt, a 

merchant, bought the house and 140 acres 

at sheriff’s sale. He changed the name to 

Lemon Hill because Morris had grown 

lemon trees in his greenhouse, and 

developed a complex of horticultural 

groves and grottoes that visitors bought 

tickets to stroll through until Pratt died in 

1838. The city added Lemon Hill to the 

new Fairmount Park in 1844. 


CHAPTER IV 

89


90

THE CORRUPT & CONTENTED CITY 

THE 

NINETIES 

Architect John McArthur died in 1890 after devoting twenty-one years of his life to erecting what 

some critics called a “ponderous hulk” and “an architectural nightmare,” but others proclaim “perhaps 

the greatest single effort of late nineteenth century American architecture.” Like scrapple, string 

bands, Frank Rizzo, and other Philadelphia institutions, people either love City Hall or hate it. 

Edwin S. Stuart became mayor in 1891. When he was thirteen, Ned Stuart had gone to work 

sweeping floors at the bookstore of W. A. Leary and bought the business in 1876, two years after 

Leary died. The store was nationally famous when it closed in 1969 after 132 years of operation. 

Stuart was the only Philadelphia mayor ever elected governor of Pennsylvania, in 1907. 

City Council overrode Mayor Stuart’s veto in 1892 and allowed the street car lines to replace 

horses with overhead electric wire. There were only four traction companies left, due to mergers, 

and three of them, combined, controlled ninety-four percent of the trackage. It was the right 

moment for Elkins and Widener to move. With state and city permission, they formed the Union 

Traction Company, and bought or leased all of the street car lines. 

Charles F. Warwick was elected mayor in 1895. Boies Penrose wanted to be mayor, and boss 

Matthew Quay and the state Republicans backed him, but the city organization headed by David 

Martin feared his growing power. According to some of Philly’s juicier political lore, the machine 

leaders got their hands on a photograph of Penrose emerging from one of the city’s more popular 

brothels, and threatened to distribute it to the newspapers, so Warwick became the nominee. 

Dave Martin’s success in hustling Warwick into the mayor’s office backfired. Quay and Penrose 

called in every political favor in their ample pockets, and shifted their man, Israel Durham, into 

the city party boss chair. In 1897, Penrose was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he would serve 

for twenty-three years until his death. 

New department stores were appearing. Rachel Lit Wedell established a dress shop on Eighth 

Street above Market in 1890, and in 1893, her brothers, Samuel and Jacob, joined her in building 

a store at Eighth and Market. Rachel was always an active partner, but the store was named Lit 

Brothers. Though the store evolved into a full-service department store, Rachel stuck with her old 

marketing gimmick: if a woman bought feathers, ribbons or other trimmings, Rachel would apply 

them to a hat without charge. The slogan “Hats Trimmed Free of Charge” so caught the fancy of 

Philadelphians that any attempt to remove it from over the store’s main door elicited public cries 

of anguish long after the service was abandoned. The Lit siblings bought three adjoining buildings 

in 1895, expanded eastward store by store, and by 1907 owned the entire block, putting a new 

corner building at Seventh Street to duplicate the original at Eighth. 

Other brothers arrived in 1894, seven guys from Milwaukee: Jacob, Isaac, Daniel, Charles, Ellis, 

Bernard, and Louis—the Gimbel Brothers. Their father, Adam Gimbel, had come from Bavaria and 

set up a store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. Adam married a Philadelphia girl, and the seven sons 

were educated here. The brothers started a store in Milwaukee in 1888 before making it big in 

Philly. In 1910, they opened a New York store. In 1920, Ellis Gimbel would stage the nation’s first 

department store Thanksgiving Day parade on Market Street. Rival merchant Macy’s began parading 

in New York in 1924. 

Another set of brothers on Market Street was Nathan, Samuel, and Joseph Snellenberg. Their 

father, Joseph, had shops at various Philadelphia locations starting in 1838. In the 1890s, the family 

moved to the Girard estate property on the south side of Market between Eleventh and Twelfth, 

and by 1900 employed nearly two thousand persons. 

The nineteenth century ended with Mayor Samuel H. Ashbridge entering City Hall. Nicknamed 

“Star Spangled Sam” for his flamboyant patriotic oratory, the new mayor was alleged to have told a 

✧ 

The first aerial photograph of Philadelphia, 

taken from a balloon above Memorial Hall 

in Fairmount Park on July 4, 1893. The 

white dots on the banks of the Schuylkill are 

picnickers. The poles along the rail of the 

Girard Avenue Bridge are fireworks for the 

evening. Note the unfinished tower of City 

Hall; the reservoir where the Art Museum 

now stands; the observation tower on 

Lemon Hill; excursion steamboats on the 

river, and Thirty-fourth Street under 

construction next to the Zoo. The 

photographer was William Nicholson 

Jennings, riding in the basket of Eagle 

Eyrie, the balloon of Samuel A. King, 

Philadelphia’s foremost “aeronaut.” 


CHAPTER V 

91

On New Year’s Eve, the Independence Hall 

bell was to be rung at midnight to welcome 

1900. In recent years, it had struck the year at 

midnight. The previous year, it had tolled 1- 

8-9-9. A debate started about how a bell 

could ring 1900. Suggestions varied from “use 

Morse code” to “ring the bell 19 times and 

leave the naughts to the imagination.” The 

official decision: the bell struck twelve at midnight, 

then was rung 125 times “in honor of 

national independence,” then nineteen times, 

each stroke representing a century. 

THE CENTURY TURNS 

✧ 

The Pennsylvania Railroad’s massive Broad 

Street Station, built in 1881, was across 

narrow West Penn Square from City Hall 

when it was made even larger by Frank 

Furness in 1893. Fifteenth Street passed 

under the structure. The visual disruption of 

West Market Street by the austere Chinese 

Wall viaduct was exacerbated seven years 

later by installation of a clunky enclosed 

pedestrian bridge over Market Street, 

connecting the railroad terminal with the 

office building opposite. 



92 

friend after winning the 1899 election, “I shall 

get out of this office all there is in it for Samuel 

H. Ashbridge.” When he left office in 1903, he 

presumably had achieved his goal. Ashbridge 

unabashedly issued city contracts for horsefeed 

to the highest bidder, paid nearly three 

times the going price for road grading, and 

found other ways to enrich his favorite 

contractors as they created such monumental 

public works as the Torresdale Filtration Plant 

and Roosevelt Boulevard. 

The new century was dawning. The 

Mummers were planning for the 1900 pageant. 

There was some pessimism that New Year’s 

shooting was declining. In 1889, according to 

those who tried to keep count, there were 211 

mummers’ clubs; in 1899 there were only 

twenty-nine. Many of the small groups that 

went to neighbors’ homes, performing for 

rewards of food and drink, had disbanded. The 

organizations were a bit bigger and tended to 

be interested in prizes offered by other clubs, 

businesses, and even private citizens. Among 

the outfits that would strut for prizes were the 

clubs from the John B. Stetson Company and 

Cramp’s Shipyard, the Elkton and Peck 

Anderson New Year’s Associations, and such 

clubs as the White Caps, Early Risers, White 

Turnips, Red Onions, Silver Crown, Hardly 

Ables, and the Knights of Suede Social Club. 

The Republican National Convention in 

1900 met at the auditorium near Thirtyfourth 

and Spruce used the previous year for 

the National Import Exposition. There were 

African-American delegates; they were barred, 

of course, from the major hotels. President 

William McKinley was renominated. Vice 

President Garrett Hobart had died; Theodore 

Roosevelt spent four days flashing his monumental 

teeth at delegates, and vendors were 

mysteriously well supplied with “McKinley- 

Roosevelt” buttons before any balloting. 

Working perversely behind the scenes was 

Teddy’s old college classmate, Senator Boies 

Penrose. He and Senator Thomas Platt, New 

York’s GOP boss, conspired to help Roosevelt 

into the traditionally obscure vice presidency 

to “pickle” him and his annoying progressive 

ideas. Roosevelt got the vote of every delegate 

but himself. McKinley and Roosevelt won 

handily in November, and less than a year 

later, the Penrose pickling plot would backfire, 

as an assassin struck down McKinley and 

made Teddy Roosevelt, at forty-two, the 

youngest president ever. 

Other major cities had symphony orchestras 

of their own (even those smoke-smudged 

steelmakers in Pittsburgh had one), while 

Philadelphia had only visiting orchestras and 

local amateurs to present the classics. A group 

of businessmen arranged for Fritz Scheel of 

New York, a third-generation German 

conductor with a handlebar mustache, to put 

on two concerts in 1900. Scheel assembled 

eighty Philadelphia musicians, and produced 

such an impressive sound that a citizen’s

✧ 

The hollow bronze statue of William Penn, 

thirty-seven feet tall and weighing 55,348 

pounds, was hauled five hundred feet to the 

top of the new City Hall tower in fourteen 

sections in 1894, after standing on display 

in the courtyard. Steam winches piled the 

stone for what is still the world’s tallest 

building without a steel framework. Paris 

and Washington had taller towers, but 

Philadelphia had the tallest occupied 

building in the world, and would until New 

York started scraping the sky in 1909. 


committee raised money to establish a 

permanent symphony. On November 16, 1900 

Fritz Scheel waved a baton in the Academy of 

Music and the Philadelphia Orchestra was 

born. The orchestra would hit its musical 

stride in 1912, when it hired its third 

conductor, Leopold Stokowski, a Londonborn, 

Oxford-educated son of a Polish 

cabinetmaker. A slim, handsome fellow of 

thirty with flowing blond hair, he would build 

the orchestra into world class status, beloved 

by fussy Philadelphia audiences. 

H. Bart McHugh, a newspaperman, went to 

see a fellow journalist, J. Hampton Moore, who 

CHAPTER V 

93

✧ 

Above: Jules Junker, who conducted a 

bakery at Thirteenth and Spruce Streets, 

owned the first automobile in the city, a De 

Dion-Boutton Decouville model he imported 

from France in 1894. It had a two-cylinder, 

1.75-horsepower engine. Mrs. Aimee Junker 

was awarded the city’s first summons for 

horseless speeding in 1899. She was caught 

doing eight miles per hour in Fairmount 

Park. Junker bought two small houses in the 

300 block of South Camac Street and had 

them turned into a large building to keep 

automobiles. It was the first garage in 

Philadelphia, although the word garage was 

not yet in use. 


had become Mayor Samuel H. Ashbridge’s 

secretary, with an unusual idea. Why not 

welcome the twentieth century on New Year’s 

Day, 1901, by organizing the Mummers into one 

big parade, on Broad Street? They would leave 

their neighborhoods and usual routes for part of 

the day, McHugh reasoned, if the city put up 

some cash prizes. City Council appropriated 

$5,000 to be spread thinly among the clubs, and 

the upshot was a change in Philadelphia 

tradition. About twenty-five hundred men took 

part, coming up Broad Street from South Philly. 

There were eight of what Mummers call comic 

clubs, and four fancy clubs. 

Many Mummers groups declined the 

invitation to parade on Broad Street and made 

the usual calls on neighborhood homes. One 

was the Trilby String Band, described by the 

Evening Bulletin in 1901 as “famous as the 

only band of its kind in the city.” Its eighteen 

banjo, mandolin, and guitar players had no 

uniforms, but each wore a top hat and 

blackface. Trilby’s leader, William H. Siebrecht, 

said his musicians would stay in the Neck. He 

was afraid they would be sandwiched between 

two of the brass bands that accompanied other 

clubs, and would not be heard. “We are not 

running a pantomime show,” he grumbled. 

On June 30, 1901, Samuel C. Perkins, 

president of the Commission for the Erection 

of Public Buildings, turned over the finally 

completed new City Hall to Mayor Ashbridge. 

The project had taken thirty years, and cost 

$24,344,355.48. 

On Washington’s Birthday, 1901, John R. 

Hathaway, the city’s director of public works, 

climbed out the second floor rear window and 

up a ladder to the roof of a house at 422 North 

Twenty-second Street, followed by assorted 

puffing politicians and reporters. Swinging 

a ceremonial ebony-handled silver pick, 

Hathaway dislodged a brick from the chimney. It 

was the beginning of demolition of houses to 

Right: A Mummers comic brigade, with guns 

in the old time New Year’s Shooter’s 

tradition, posed on a South Philly doorstep 

in 1904. 

COURTESY OF THE MUMMERS MUSEUM. 


94

make way for a beautiful new Parkway, to run 

diagonally from City Hall right through Logan 

Square to the Fairmount Reservoir. Hundreds of 

homes were wiped out, including fine mansions 

around Logan Square, and many factories 

including the Fleer chewing gum works. (Frank 

H. Fleer invented Chiclets in 1900, and one of 

his associates, Walter Diemer, invented bubble 

gum in 1918.) The Parkway wasn’t opened to its 

full length until 1918. It was officially named for 

Benjamin Franklin in 1937. 

✧ 

Above: George Boldt opened the Bellevue 

Stratford Hotel at Broad and Walnut Streets in 

1904. In 1864, Boldt, a thirteen-year-old 

native of Rugen, an island in the Baltic Sea, 

arrived in New York and got a job in a hotel. 

In 1881 he came to Philadelphia as steward of 

the three-story Bellevue Hotel. Boldt and the 

Bellevue became famous for elegant cuisine. 

One of Boldt’s admirers was William Waldorf 

Astor of New York. Astor tore down his 

mansion at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth 

Street in Manhattan in 1893, built the 

Waldorf Hotel, and put Boldt in charge. In 

1898 the Astoria was added. While president 

of the Waldorf-Astoria, Boldt bought the 

Stratford Hotel, across Walnut Street from the 

Bellevue. Boldt built the Bellevue-Stratford on 

the Bellevue site, and tore down the Stratford. 

At the time, the $8-million, 18-story, 1,090- 

room Bellevue-Stratford was the second largest 

hotel in the world. It was a modern marvel, 

with pneumatic tubes to send visitors’ calling 

cards from the lobby to the clerk on each floor, 

and every room had an electric hair curling 

iron. On the right is a menu cover from the 

Bellevue-Stratford’s opening day in 1904. 


Below: John Wanamaker started construction 

of a giant department store in 1902, adding 

the building at left to the rail depot he had 

occupied since 1876. He replaced the depot in 

sections over a period of nine years so business 

would not be interrupted. The world’s largest 

organ, with 10,000 pipes and 143 stops, was 

displayed at the Louisiana Purchase 

Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. Wanamaker 

bought the organ and sent it to Philadelphia in 

thirteen freight cars. He installed it in the 

middle of the store and added 8,000 pipes and 

92 stops (it has since grown to 30,067 pipes 

and 451 stops, and the store has become Lord 

& Taylor’s.) Wanamaker also bought a 

twenty-five hundred-pound bronze eagle, nine 

feet, ten inches long, with five thousand 

individual hand-made feathers. It was placed 

in the center of the first floor in 1911, when 

President William Howard Taft dedicated the 

building before thirty-five thousand guests. 


CHAPTER V 

95

✧ 

Above: Director of Public Works John R. 

Hathaway, on a cold rooftop on Twentysecond 

Street near Callowhill in 1901, 

ceremonially began demolition of houses to 

make way for the planned Parkway. 



Right: Evolution of the Parkway before 

much demolition was done, 1909 (right); 

the same view, 1918 (opposite, top); and 

again, 1929 (opposite, bottom). 



A new organization, Keystone Telephone 

Company, materialized in 1901. Bell Telephone 

Company had set up at Fourth and Chestnut in 

1878, and had 12,500 subscribers who were 

charged $160 a year for the privilege of 

speaking to each other over a wire. Keystone 

would begin positioning its services toward 

businesses, and soon Philadelphians would see 

two phone numbers in most advertising, Bell 

and Keystone. City installations including 


96

CHAPTER V 

97

✧ 

Top, left: Mayor Samuel H. Ashbridge 



Top, right: Senator Boies Penrose. 


Below: Patrons of Horn & Hardart’s 

twentieth century wonder, the coin-operated 

“automatic restaurant” called the Automat, 

deposited a nickel, pulled a handle and saw 

coffee pour into their cup from a nickelsilver 

plated dolphin’s head. 



98 

police stations began using the Keystone for 

official communications. 

Joe Horn and Frank Hardart, whose lunch 

counter had grown into a restaurant chain, 

had an idea to launch Philadelphia into 

the twentieth century with a German invention 

called an Automat, which dispensed 

restaurant food into customers’ hands 

through little windows that opened when 

coins were inserted in a slot. They ordered 

one of the technological wonders. The boat 

bringing it from Europe sank, and its 

replacement didn’t get here until 1902, when 

America’s first Automat opened at Eighth and 

Chestnut Streets. 

CORRUPT 

& CONTENTED 

In 1903 McClure’s Magazine published the 

Philadelphia chapter of writer Lincoln 

Steffens’ series exposing corruption in 

American cities. It was entitled “Corrupt and 

Contented,” a phrase Philadelphians have 

enjoyed quoting ever since. 

Steffens found many juicy examples of voting 

fraud, such as 252 votes cast in one division that 

had fewer than one hundred registered voters. 

Women, the deceased, an occasional dog, and 

other ineligible voters contributed to every 

machine victory. Steffens reported assorted 

misdeeds: contract rigging; payoffs demanded of 

teachers who wanted to be hired; an attempt to 

blackmail John Wanamaker because his son’s 

newspaper was exposing corruption. Steffens’ 

series, which also applied the muck rake to St. 

Louis, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and 

New York, was published as a book, The Shame 

of the Cities, in 1904, and sold well nationally. 

“Corrupt and contented” Philadelphia seemed to 

capture the country’s imagination. “The people 

seem to prefer to be ruled by a known thief than 

an ambitious reformer,” Steffens suggested. 

Senator Boies Penrose had a different view. 

“I don’t believe people want to be reformed,” 

he said. “They want to be left alone.” Penrose 

was reelected to the Senate in 1903, and 

named chairman of the Republican State 

Committee. In 1904 he was elected to the 

Republican National Committee, and 

Matthew Quay died, leaving Penrose his designated 

successor. Penrose was certainly not a 

“known thief.” He raised millions for the GOP, 

but lived on his own inherited wealth. He 

spent a rumored $100,000 a year to maintain 

a presence in Washington (twice the 

President’s annual salary), and gave his entire 

$10,000 senator’s salary to his secretary. 

Political and business bigwigs backed a 

franchise headed by John M. Mack to begin a 

subway-elevated train system. The name 

Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company emerged

from the project, and the Elkins and Widener 

transit interests soon merged the street car 

system with the high speed lines. Excavation 

began for the Market Street Subway in 1903. 

The first girder for the Market Street Elevated 

west of the Schuylkill was put in place in 

1905. The El, as the public nicknamed it, was 

connected to the subway in 1907, and twocar 

trains began running between Upper 

Darby and Fifteenth Street. Service was 

opened as far east as Second Street on August 

3, 1908. A few months later, trains began running 

over the Delaware Avenue elevated to the 

Market-Chestnut station and the South Street 

Ferries station. The base fare for trolleys, El 

and subway was raised in 1908 from five 

cents to two rides for fifteen cents. It wasn’t 

raised again until 1947. 

On Fourth Street below Walnut in 1904, a 

seventeen-year-old immigrant opened a real 

estate office. He had been born in 1887 in a 

Ukrainian village, was brought to this country 

by his parents in 1896, grew up above his 

father’s grocery at Sixth and Spruce, and 

Americanized his name from Avrum Moishe 

Grunfeld to Albert Monroe Greenfield. He 

dropped out of Central High School at fifteen, 

clerked for a real estate lawyer, then borrowed 

$500 from his mother and $500 from his 

brother to go into business for himself. Within 

ten years he would be worth $15 million. 

Greenfield anticipated the growth that the 

Market Street Elevated would bring. He 

bought lots in West Philadelphia. When bigger 

real estate companies woke up, they had 

to deal with Greenfield to assemble parcels for 

development. Greenfield also formed a company 

to develop stores on Fifty-second Street 

between Market and Spruce, and was acquiring 

land in other underbuilt areas like Logan 

and the Northeast. When he was twenty-one, 

he was making $60,000 a year. (Public school 

teachers started at $564 a year.) He was on his 

way to becoming one of the most powerful 

men in twentieth century Philadelphia. 

WAR & HOAGIES 

On Monday, June 13, 1910, a man flew in an 

aeroplane from New York to Philadelphia. He 

had planned to do it on Saturday the 11th, but 

the daring technological achievement had to be 

postponed, because it rained. Flying on the 

Sabbath was out of the question, but on 

Monday, Charles Hamilton, the aviator, made 

the trip, in one hour and forty-eight minutes, 

landing at Front Street and Erie Avenue while a 

crowd of ten thousand cheered. He flew back to 

New York, too, and collected the $10,000 cash 

prize offered for the feat by the Philadelphia 

Public Ledger and the New York Times. In 1911, 

flier Lincoln Beachey not only came by aeroplane 

from New York to Philadelphia, but, 

when he got here, he circled City Hall tower. 

A Philadelphia booster studied Census 

data and reported that of 264 industries 

classified in the 1910 Census, all but 53 were 

represented in Philadelphia. He estimated that 

every two seconds, the city produced, among 

other things, 30 cigars, 20 loaves of bread, 20 

pairs of stockings, 30 bushels of wheat, two 

saws, three yards of carpet, 100 printed 

newspapers, and a new hat. A new trolley car 

was built every hour and a new locomotive 

every two and a half hours. 

There had been brief but nasty transit 

strikes in 1895 and 1909, as the city’s street 

car lines were consolidated and electrified. 

The Carmen’s Union voted to strike in January, 

1910, unless Philadelphia Rapid Transit 

Company reinstated certain fired workers and 

✧ 

The trackbed of the Frankford Elevated, 

under construction in 1919, stretches south 

from the platform of the Church Street 

station. In the distance, the Juniata Park 

neighborhood is still fields. Mayor J. 

Hampton Moore personally took the 

controls of the first train when the 

Frankford El started service on November 

4, 1922. The line ran from Bridge Street 

and Frankford Avenue to Front and Arch 

Streets, where it connected with the Market 

Street Subway and over the Market Street 

El to Upper Darby. A spur marked 

“Ferries” took trains across Delaware 

Avenue and down the waterfront to South 

Street, connecting with four ferry lines to 

Jersey. A subway-digging outburst ensued. 

Trains started rolling in a Broad Street tube 

from City Hall to Olney on September 1, 

1928, and the tunnel was being extended 

southward. 



CHAPTER V 

99

✧ 

On November 11, 1918, an armistice was 

announced ending hostilities in World War 

I. Broad Street below City Hall was wall to 

wall from morning to night with dancing, 

singing celebrators, defying the influenza 

epidemic that had been raging since 

September 18. There were 47,094 flu cases 

reported in the city in nine weeks, and some 

thirteen thousand deaths. Overwhelmed 

cemeteries resorted to digging mass graves. 



100 

refused to recognize a new union that some 

carmen were joining. The company tried to 

soothe the workers by offering to increase 

their wages to twenty-four cents an hour and 

to put pianos in the carbarn lounges. On 

Sunday, February 19, the strike began. Some 

men stayed on the job, and about 700 of the 

2,200 trolley, El and subway cars were 

operated. Strikers and other unionists attacked 

trolleys with bricks and stones. They beat up 

motormen and set fire to trolleys, jammed 

switches, threw sewer gratings on the tracks 

and fought with police. There were two 

hundred arrests in the first two days. 

On the fifth day, the carbarn at Thirty-first 

and Dauphin was blown up by dynamite. 

Cops rushed from riot to riot in the new piece 

of crime-fighting technology the department 

had just acquired: a horseless patrol wagon. 

Before the sixty-three-day strike was settled, 

twenty-nine persons were killed. The 

situation became so bad that the police 

department had to call off its annual 

interdistrict roller skating competition. 

The first section of the great Northeast 

Boulevard, from Broad and Cayuga to 

about Second Street, was in use by 1911. 

The second section, extending all the way 

to rural Rhawn Street, was opened in 1914. 

The highway had a sixty-foot-wide central 

section, with outer drives not yet paved. In 

January, 1919, former President Theodore 

Roosevelt died, and residents of the Logan 

neighborhood started a movement to rename 

the road Roosevelt Boulevard. The name was 

made official on October 27, 1920, when 

Roosevelt’s widow and his son, Kermit, 

attended dedication ceremonies. 

Senator Boies Penrose kept growing in 

political influence, and also in size, reaching 

give or take three hundred pounds. At the 

opposite end of the social scale from Penrose 

were political leaders George, Edwin, and 

William Vare, of South Philadelphia. Sons of a 

pig farmer from the island of Jersey, the Vares 

raised pigs in the Neck, acquired the city 

contract to collect garbage, fed it to the pigs, 

and made money at both ends of the deal. Hurt 

when Penrose referred to them as “the slop-cart 

statesmen,” Ed Vare sniffed that on “many a 

cold morning as a boy,” on garbage collection 

duty, he could be seen “carrying a half-barrel of 

frozen swill on my shoulder. If Penrose and his 

high-toned crowd find anything to laugh or 

sneer about in that, let them laugh.” 

Tradition has it that the Vare gang made a 

distinct contribution to American culture. A 

bunch of South Philly ward heelers was gathering 

on a chartered bus to go to a political 

meeting uptown. One man was missing. He 

showed up at the last second, and as the completed 

delegation rolled up Broad Street, an 

inventive member extemporized words to the 

refrain of The Pirate Chorus from The Pirates of 

Penzance. The carol began, “Hail, hail, the 

gang’s all here! What the hell do we care…” 

The sentiment appealed to politicians everywhere, 

and in 1917, a pair of songwriters had 

the chutzpah to publish and copyright the 

anthem, while Gilbert and Sullivan turned 

over in their respective graves. 

The doings of the Republican politicians 

caused some businessmen to form the 

Keystone Party, intended to battle machine 

politics. Reform attempts seemed futile, but in 

1911, the Penrose faction, headed by George 

H. Earle, Jr., challenged William S. Vare at the 

polls. They canceled each other out, and the 

Keystone candidate slipped into the mayor’s 

office. He was Rudolph Blankenburg, a whitewhiskered 

yarn manufacturer who, because

he had a German accent and vowed to clean 

up City Hall, was dubbed “the Old Dutch 

Cleanser.” Mayor Blankenburg indulged in the 

unheard-of practice of issuing contracts on 

merit without graft, ensuring that he would 

be a goner in the next election. 

A defector from the Penrose machine who 

leaned toward the Vare faction was elected 

mayor on his forty-sixth birthday, November 2, 

1915. He was Thomas B. Smith, the first 

Philadelphia mayor to be arrested twice while 

in office, a record that still stands. The first 

problem arose in the 1917 elections. Vare and 

Penrose candidates were vying for the fifth 

ward council seat. At 10 a.m. on the day of the 

primary, hired thugs attacked the Penrose candidate 

at the polls at Sixth and Delancey. An 

assistant district attorney who went to his aid 

was blackjacked, and a policeman who tried to 

stop the fight was shot and killed. The opposing 

candidate, six policemen, five thugs, and 

the mayor were arrested. Smith was charged 

with conspiracy to commit murder. He was 

tried and acquitted. The others were convicted. 

Late in 1918, Smith was arrested in his 

City Hall office, accused of malfeasance 

because he fired Recreation Board members 

who refused to uphold an appointment he 

made. The grand jury didn’t indict him. 

The Philadelphia Athletics won the World 

Series in 1910, 1911 and 1913. The Phillies 

lost the 1915 Series. 

In 1914 Albert M. Greenfield, twenty-seven, 

married Edna Kraus, daughter of a competitor 

who disliked him. He had built a chain of 

motion picture theaters, which he sold for $2 

million in 1916. He contributed to the 

Republican Party in effort and cash and was 

elected to City Council in 1917. In that year, he 

began handling the real estate business of the 

Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. He was 

buying and selling large downtown buildings 

and was a real estate power all over the city. 

World War I caused coal shortages that led 

to city-declared heatless days, trolleys skipping 

every other stop to save electricity, and 

shivering citizens raiding railroad coal cars. 

Bread was scarce, causing customer fistfights 

in bakeries. Butter was scarcer, and 

Philadelphians learned to like margarine. The 

city’s heavy German-originated population 

worried as anti-German sentiment spread. 

There were even low-level demands that 

Germantown be renamed Libertyville. War 

materials were turned out by Midvale Steel, 

Baldwin Locomotives, Cramp’s Shipyard, the 

Navy Yard, and Frankford and Schuylkill 

Arsenals. Hog Island shipyard was erected in 

947 acres of swamp in six months, big 

enough to build fifty merchant ships at once 

in a row that stretched a mile and a half along 

the river. The yard turned out 122 ships, and 

employed eighty thousand people. Several 

✧ 

Left: James A. Bland died in a rooming 

house on Wood Street near Tenth on May 6, 

1911. He was an African-American 

entertainer whose 1879 composition Oh, 

Dem Golden Slippers has been the theme 

song of Philadelphia’s Mummers for a 

century. Bland graduated from Howard 

University in 1873, and organized a singing 

group that entertained Washington society. 

Next, he starred with two minstrel troupes, 

went to England with one of them in the 

1880s, and became famous there. Some 

accounts say he earned $10,000 a year in 

the ’80s, as much as the vice president of the 

United States. And he wrote hit songs 

including Carry Me Back to Old Virginny 

and In the Evening by the Moonlight. 

The cause of his eventual decline is not 

clear, but he returned to the United States, 

broke and sick, and died alone. 


Right: The Quaker City String Band in the 

early days of the Golden Slipper musical 

tradition on Broad Street. 


CHAPTER V 

101

✧ 

Above: The Art Museum arose at the end of 

the Parkway, over budget and criticized as 

looking like “a greek garage.” Famous local 

artist Joseph Pennell wrote to Mayor J. 

Hampton Moore to admonish that “you will 

be remembered as the mayor who ruined 

the beauty of Fairmount Park.” 

COURTESY OF THE CITY ARCHIVES, PHILADELPHIA. 

Below: The Free Library of Philadelphia’s 

new main building at Nineteenth and the 

Parkway in 1927, with its twin Courthouse 

in the next block, gave architect Horace 

Trumbauer the opportunity to make Logan 

Circle resemble the Place de la Concorde in 

Paris. The Free Library had been 

incorporated in 1891, funded by a quarter 

million dollar bequest from George Pepper. 

It first occupied an old concert hall on 

Chestnut Street west of Twelfth, and 

established branches with funds from 

Pittsburgh steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, 

who financed libraries all over the country. 



thousand women were trained to be welders, 

a skill few had the chance to exercise again 

after the troops returned from Europe. 

The Hog Island ship builders had a colossal 

impact on Philadelphia life. They introduced 

the hoagie. Thousands of Italian Americans 

from South Philly trekked to jobs at Hog 

Island every day. They carried their lunches 

in a convenient form: meat, cheese, and 

vegetables stuffed into a loaf of Italian bread. 

Just a few years earlier, another Philadelphia 

delicacy was devised. In those benighted 

days, bakers baked bulk cakes and cut off 

portions for the customers. Philip Bauer, a 

baker, and Herbert Morris, a salesman, got 

the inspiration in 1914 to bake and wrap small 

individual cakes to be sold in stores other 

than bakeries. They called their products 

Tastykakes, which, through the years, took 

their place beside the big soft pretzel, the 

hoagie, pepperpot, and scrapple as beloved 

Philadelphia edibles. 

Scrapple is an ancient southeast 

Pennsylvania pork product made by cooking 

into mush a bit of corn meal and a lot of 

hearts, livers, tongues and other assorted hog 

parts and attachments left over from 

slaughtering. It is fried in small slabs until the 

outside is crisp. Pepperpot is a soup that was 

sold on the city’s streets in the earliest days. It 

contains tripe, onions, potatoes, and much 

other stuff. To make pepperpot the oldfashioned 

way spans two days and involves 

hours of simmering. In this age of microwaved 

frozen dinners, few bother. 

THE 

TWENTIES 

Federal prohibition of alcoholic beverages 

started in 1919. Bootleggers and gangsters 

became as common as pretzel vendors, and 

speakeasies as accessible as the Automat. 

More new technology emerged on May 14, 

1921, when the Keystone Telephone Company 

introduced dial telephones to the city, beating 

its bigger competitor, Bell Telephone, by a 

year. Instead of lifting the ear piece and talking 

to an operator, users poked their fingers in 

numbered holes on a rotating dial. Keystone 

offered special services, too; to call the police 

or firemen, one merely dialed 119. 

On October 27, 1921, a dynamite blast 

caused a modest avalanche atop Fairmount 

as it assaulted the old reservoir, abandoned 

in 1899. The lever was pushed by Edwin T. 


102

Stotesbury, president of the Fairmount Park 

Commission, to facilitate construction of the 

proposed Philadelphia Museum of Art by 

shaking loose three thousand tons of rock 

from the hillside and, perhaps more difficult, 

shaking loose a $2 million appropriation from 

the councilmen watching the detonation. 

Work had started in 1919 on a design by 

architects C. L. Borie, Jr., C. C. Zantzinger, 

and Horace Trumbauer. Early estimates 

placed the cost at $3 million. The museum’s 

walls rose through 1921, and so did the price. 

There were accusations of graft and favoritism 

in contracts, and the age-old lamentation that 

the money could better be spent on schools, 

housing or health care. By 1925 the price tag 

was nudging $15 million. The Park 

Commission voted to stop spending, abandoning 

many planned embellishments. 

On the last day of 1921, Senator Boies 

Penrose died in his specially reinforced oversize 

bed in his apartment in the swank Wardman 

Park Hotel in Washington. He had been ill since 

1919. In 1920, in his house on Spruce Street, 

he had lain wheezing in his giant bed, with a 

direct phone line and a private bedside 

telegraph line and operator connecting him 

with the Republican Convention in Chicago as 

he maneuvered to nominate Warren G. Harding 

for president. Philadelphia reporters knew of 

Harding’s selection before the press corps at 

the convention. 

Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick looked for a 

tough police commander to crack down on 

Prohibition lawlessness. In 1924 Kendrick convinced 

the Marine Corps to lend him, on a two 

year leave of absence, Major General Smedley 

Darlington Butler, forty-three, a Philadelphia 

fighting Quaker noted for brash speech and 

action. He had won the Medal of Honor twice. 

Most of Philadelphia winked at laws against 

drinking, but Butler would broach neither winking 

nor drinking. He raided speakeasies and 

other social venues with no regard for political 

sensibilities. Arrests for conducting speakeasies 

in September 1923, totaled fifty-seven. In 

September 1925, at the end of Butler’s tenure, 

there were 1,081 such arrests. The fact that the 

thousand arrests resulted in only two convictions 

didn’t bother Butler. He just kept raiding. “I give 

’em hell and make ’em like it,” he chortled. 

Butler remained a popular figure in the city 

after his controversial reign ended. In 1931, in 

a Philadelphia radio interview, he used the 

word “hell” and the station manager cut the 

program off the air. The incident attracted 

amused nationwide attention, and a Baltimore 

radio station invited Butler to do a broadcast 

there in which he would be permitted up to six 

hells and six damns. The affair grew into a 

legend, with people believing that Butler was 

regularly being censored by Philly broadcasters 

for uncontrolled cussing. A few months before 

he died at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital in 

1940, Butler arose to speak at a Salvation Army 

luncheon, pointed suspiciously at the 

microphone, and said, “You’ve got to be careful. 

These things misquote you.” 

THE SOGGY SESQUI 

Soon would be the moment for some civic 

hoopla again: 1926, the 150th anniversary of 

the Declaration of Independence, the Sesqui- 

Centennial. John Wanamaker proposed an 

exposition. The Vares pushed for use of their 

✧ 

Construction crews made adjustments to 

allow a funeral from Camden to ride over 

the unfinished Delaware River Bridge on 

March 3, 1926. Annie T. Barlow, wife of a 

Bridge Commission member, was ill, and 

prayed that she would live to cross the new 

bridge. She died on March 1, but 

posthumously got her wish to cross the 

engineering marvel. President Calvin 

Coolidge officially opened the 1.81 mile 

single span suspension bridge, then the 

longest in the world, on July 4, 1926. For 

Philadelphians heading automobiles “down 

the shore,” the bridge rendered ferry boats 

from necessity into nostalgia. It was 

renamed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge 

in 1956. 


CHAPTER V 

103

✧ 

Above: An aerial view of the Sesqui- 

Centennial. Aviation was a big feature of the 

1926 Exposition, including National Air 

Races. On opening day, forty-two biplanes 

chugged overhead, announced as “the 

largest mass formation of airplanes ever to 

take to the air at one time.” 


Below: Marching through the High Street 

exhibition at the Sesqui-Centennial, a band 

took a stab at looking eighteenth century, 

with tubas and saxophones supplementing 

fifes and drums. 


South Philly land. Albert M. Greenfield raised 

funds. Mayor Kendrick was a prominent 

Shriner, and invited that fraternal order to 

hold its national convention in Philadelphia 

for the grand opening. The Exposition 

buildings were to be placed on former landfilled 

swamp. 

The fairgrounds opened unfinished, a sea 

of mud. The 250,000 disgruntled Shriners 

went home all over America, and their badmouthing 

is often blamed for the low paid 

attendance of 6,408,289 all summer. It was 

more than two months after the May 31, 

1926, opening day before all buildings and 


104

landscaping were complete. It rained on 107 

days of the Exposition’s 184 day run. 

The Sesqui-Centennial Exposition covered 

some thousand acres from Packer Avenue to 

the Navy Yard between Eleventh and 

Twentieth Streets. An eighty-foot-high Liberty 

Bell straddled Broad Street at the entrance, 

covered with twenty-six thousand white 

fifteen-watt light bulbs. There were seven 

major buildings for the serious exhibits, seven 

pavilions of foreign countries (thirty-six other 

countries were in exhibit buildings) and many 

lesser buildings. There was an exhibition of 

“the progress of the Negro race in industry, art 

and science.” 

High Street, a supposed representation of 

downtown Colonial Philadelphia, lined up 

cheesily authentic replicas of twenty historic 

structures, where a town crier and other folks 

wandered about in hit-or-miss attempts at 

colonial garb. 

The Gladway, an amusement area, assembled 

eighteen restaurants, many soft drink and 

hot dog stands, carrousels and amusement 

rides, a spectacular fire-fighting show with 

horse drawn engines and a cast of 150, Tunisian 

and Chinese villages featuring exotic dancing 

girls, and much more, all lined by a series of 

canals that visitors cruised in gondolas piloted 

by singing gondoliers imported from Venice. 

✧ 

Top, left: A map of the main section of 

the Sesqui-Centennial Exposition grounds. 

For reference, the First Union Center 

and Spectrum now stand on the site of 

the stadium. 


Top, right: Promotional stickers from the 

Sesqui-Centennial. 


Below: A Venetian gondolier plied the 

waters of South Philadelphia while 

serenading a visitor to the 1926 Sesqui- 

Centennial Exposition. 


CHAPTER V 

105

✧ 

Above: Atwater Kent’s 1925 radio 

advertising bragged that even a child could 

operate his devices. Kent helped develop 

audiences for radio by sponsoring broadcast 

concerts by famous singers on Sunday 

evenings through the Twenties and Thirties. 


Top, right: A. Atwater Kent. 

COURTESY OF FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA. 


106 

And Sesqui visitors saw two new modern 

marvels: movies that talked, and a device that 

toasted both sides of a slice of bread at once 

by electricity, and automatically shut off the 

current when done. 

THE RADIO CITY 

By 1927 there were thirteen radio stations in 

Philadelphia. Major outlets were operated by 

department stores, busily broadcasting music and 

entertainment to make buying a radio worthwhile 

for customers. Strawbridge & Clothier had WFI 

and Lit Brothers WLIT; they would merge in 

1933 into WFIL. Gimbel Brothers ran WIP, and 

John Wanamaker owned WOO. 

Philadelphia developed into the major 

producer of radio sets. First, along came A. 

Atwater Kent, an engineer from Vermont. 

Kent’s family first noticed his mechanical 

genius, the story goes, in 1878, when, at age 

five, he took apart the family sewing machine. 

There is no information on whether he put it 

back together. After college, he worked for a 

motor manufacturer. On a business trip to 

Philadelphia, he decided to stay, possibly 

because he had encountered the future Mrs. 

Kent. He started making electrical paraphernalia 

here in 1902. 

Kent built his first radio, a five tube set, in 

a shop on North Seventh Street in 1922. By 

1926, he had made a million of them, and 

constructed a giant plant on seventeen acres 

along Wissahickon Avenue below Queen 

Lane, where 4,000 employees turned out 

5,500 radio sets a day, most in elegant 

mahogany cabinets. The company stopped 

making radios in 1936. 

By then, Atwater Kent was worth an 

estimated $42 million. He gave the funds to 

restore the Betsy Ross House in 1936, and in 

1939 donated the money to create the city 

history museum, named after him, in the old 

Franklin Institute building on Seventh Street, 

near the site of his first little shop. Kent spent 

the last dozen years of his life living in Beverly 

Hills, where he spent $200,000 a year

throwing four or five elegant Hollywood 

parties a month. 

Another radio enterprise had started in 

1892 as Helios Electric Company, 

manufacturing carbon arc lamps. It began 

making electric batteries in 1906, and changed 

its name to the Philadelphia Storage Battery 

Company. In 1919 the firm began putting on 

its batteries the trade name Philco. It supplied 

batteries for early radios, and in 1925, hit on 

something new: radios that could be plugged 

into house current. By 1929 Philco grew from 

twenty-sixth to second place in radio 

manufacturing. From its huge plant at C Street 

and Allegheny Avenue, Philco would be for a 

while distributor of about thirty percent of all 

radios produced in the United States. 

Albert M. Greenfield and his father-in-law, 

Sol Kraus, bought control of twenty-seven 

building and loans, and, in 1924, formed 

Bankers Bond & Mortgage Company. When 

seventeen competing building and loans went 

broke and were seized by the state, Greenfield 

was appointed to reorganize them. With that 

much lending power in his control, Greenfield 

acquired a wobbly small bank, named his new 

institution Banker’s Trust Company, and 

bought nine other banks. In 1928 he created 

Bankers Securities Corporation, which became 

an umbrella for all Greenfield operations. 

Bankers Securities bought Lit Brothers department 

store from the Lit family and almost 

immediately sold it to City Stores Company 

for a $2.3 million profit. 

THE DEPRESSION YEARS 

The stock market crashed. The Depression 

started depressing. Banks were closing, unemployment 

was rife, sixty thousand families with 

no income applied to the city for relief in 1931, 

and a city committee helped 80,000 families 

and 30,000 homeless men in 1931 and 1932, 

but, hey: the Athletics won the World Series in 

1929 and 1930, and almost in 1931. 

In December 1929 the United States 

Senate voted to throw out new Senator 

William S. Vare because a dragged-out investigation 

concluded that he had spent too 

much money ($800,000) in the 1926 primary. 

He had been in the House since 1912. The 

rejection was a near fatal blow to Vare power. 

J. Hampton Moore, who had been mayor from 

1920 to 1924, made a come-back in 1931, the 

only mayor to be elected to disconnected 

tenures since one-year terms ended in 1850. 

About fifty banks in Philadelphia went bust 

in the three years after the 1929 stock market 

breakdown. The biggest was Albert M. 

Greenfield’s Banker’s Trust Company. Greenfield 

had taken control of a wobbly older bank, 

believing he had the backing of the banking 

community in making the save. But in 

December, 1930, when Greenfield encountered 

demands on his $50 million in deposits that 

exceeded available cash, a closed-door conclave 

of old Philadelphia WASP bank presidents 

decided to withhold support and let Banker’s 

✧ 

Mummer’s fancy club captains’ capes were 

long, multi-sectioned and carried by “page 

boys” in the early years of the twentieth 

century. This cape in the 1929 parade, 

about 150 feet long, was held by forty-nine 

pages. The captain was in his ornate “suit” 

in the tall center section. 

COURTESY OF MUMMERS MUSEUM. 

CHAPTER V 

107

✧ 

Right: The city had two baseball parks when 

this photo was taken in 1928: Baker Bowl at 

Broad and Huntingdon Streets, in the 

foreground, home of the Phillies from 1887 

to 1938, and Shibe Park, Twenty-first Street 

and Lehigh Avenue, where the Athletics 

played from 1909 to 1954. 


Below: Democrats in the balcony of the fiveyear-old 

Convention Hall in June 1936, 

cheered and tossed programs on behalf on 

the nomination of President Franklin D. 

Roosevelt for a second term. 



108 

Trust die. Greenfield, at age forty-three, took a 

personal $18-million hit before the Depression 

receded, but his oft-expressed philosophy was 

that he never worried about not having money; 

he knew he could always make more. He soon 

repaid $7 million in loans, made good on more 

than half of the deposit money, and began 

rebuilding his fortune. 

The Broad Street Subway tracks stretched 

from Olney to South Street as of April 20, 

1930. They would reach Snyder Avenue in 

1938. The Ridge Avenue spur opened in 

December 1932. 

Bert Bell and Lud Wray purchased the 

Frankford Yellowjacket franchise in the 

National Football League for $2,500 in 1933, 

and renamed the team the Eagles after the 

ubiquitous blue eagle symbol of the National 

Recovery Administration, the Roosevelt 

government’s anti-Depression organization. 

Frankford natives, after a decade of loyalty, 

were furious to see their neighborhood team 

usurped by the city at large. Many were 

secretly pleased when the Eagles lost their 

first game to the Giants, 56 to 0. In their 

first ten years, the Eagles won 23, lost 82, 

and tied four. (The Eagles won their first 

National Football League championship in 

1948, defeating the Chicago Cardinals, 7-0, at 

Shibe Park in a blinding snowstorm. They 

repeated as champs in 1949, beating the Los 

Angeles Rams.) 

S. Davis Wilson, a former Democrat, was 

the successful Republican candidate for 

mayor in 1935, defeating Democrat party 

chairman John B. Kelly, brick baron, 

champion sculler, and father of a future 

princess named Grace. Wilson joined with 

Democrat leaders J. David Stern and Albert M. 

Greenfield in campaigning to bring the 

Democratic National Convention to town in 

1936. Stern was publisher of the Philadelphia 

Record, a liberal voice crying in the city’s 

conservative journalistic wilderness. 

The 1936 Democratic Convention 

nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt for his 

second term in the huge new Convention 

Hall, opened in 1931 near Thirty-fourth 

Street on what was then Vintage Avenue, 

which became Convention Avenue for a time, 

then Curie Avenue, and, when last heard 

from, was using the name Civic Center 

Boulevard. (The old civic center has become a 

sound stage for The Sixth Sense, Beloved, and 

other feature films made in Philly.) 

Roosevelt’s election in 1936 highlighted 

the rising strength of Philadelphia Democrats, 

led by John B. Kelly and Greenfield with fund 

raiser and contractor Matthew McCloskey. No 

GOP leaders with the clout of a Vare or a 

Penrose seemed to exist any longer.

The city began developing the abandoned 

Hog Island shipyard as an airport. Mayor Wilson 

named it the S. Davis Wilson Airport. Upon his 

death in August 1937, it was unnamed by the 

council. George Connell became acting mayor, 

but did little acting, and January 1938 opened 

with Robert E. Lamberton the elected mayor. 

Colonel James Elverson, second generation 

publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer, died five 

months before the newspaper’s hundredth 

birthday, in 1929, in his apartment in the 

gleaming white tower of the building he had 

erected in 1925 at Broad and Spring Garden. 

A newcomer to Philadelphia bought the 

Inquirer from the Elverson heirs in 1936. He 

was Moses L. Annenberg, who had 

newspapered in Chicago, Milwaukee, and 

New York, and was making big money 

publishing Racing Form and other gamblingoriented 

periodicals. He had just sold his 

Miami Tribune to Ohio publisher John S. 

Knight, who had recently bought the Miami 

Herald. Annenberg began livening up the 

formerly stodgy Inquirer. With him to Philly 

came his quiet twenty-eight-year-old son, 

Walter; no one suspected then that the lad 

would become one of America’s richest men. 

A little-noticed phenomenon in 1933 was 

government approval of twenty-eight experimental 

television frequencies around the nation. 

One was assigned to the Philadelphia Storage 

Battery Company, another to RCA Victor 

Corporation in Camden. Some engineers had 

primitive TV sets in their homes to receive test 

broadcasts. In 1936, invited journalists and 

other guests in Philco’s chief engineer’s basement 

in Rydal saw transmissions from the C and 

Allegheny plant, including two stenographers 

singing a duet and two male employees boxing. 

Some University of Pennsylvania home football 

games were telecast. 

✧ 

Left: A bright moment in the gloom of the 

Depression was the invention of the 

Philadelphia steak sandwich. It was either 

1930 or ’31 or ’32; details are lost in the 

greasy mists of time and frying oil. This 

much seems clear: Pat Olivieri, born in 

South Philadelphia in 1907 and originally 

an apprentice blacksmith, was working 

nights as a drop forge operator at the S. L. 

Allen & Co. Flexible Flyer sled works, and 

started a lunch stand in his spare time at 

the confluence of Ninth and Wharton 

Streets and Passayunk Avenue. One day, 

bored with a constant diet of his own hot 

dogs, he sent his brother, Harry, to the 

butcher’s for some steak. As he stirred the 

shredded meat with onions on the grille, a 

customer admired the concoction. Pat sold it 

to the guy on Italian bread for a nickel. This 

launched the word of mouth that made Pat’s 

Steaks famous and copied widely and 

prodigiously. It was after World War II 

when Pat and Harry were hit with the 

genius of applying adhesive-quality cheese, 

the final step in creating a major source of 

Philadelphia pleasure and cholesterol. 


Below: William E. Lescaze and George 

Howe greeted the Depression by designing a 

skyscraper that pulled Philadelphia into the 

future. The PSFS tower at Twelfth and 

Market Streets was second to City Hall in 

height, and elegantly plain where City Hall 

was extravagantly ornate. The south section 

loomed over an old Quaker meeting house, 

and twenty-seven-foot-high letters PSFS 

glowed atop the 492-foot, $10-million 

masterpiece. “It will not conform to 

precedent,” George Howe explained the 

design in 1931, “because it meets specific 

requirements with which our ancestors were 

unfamiliar. It will not be the product of 

fashion or of individual taste, but of 

irresistible social and economic forces.” 

Those forces have struck again. The building 

has become a hotel. 


CHAPTER V 

109


110

THE BICENTENNIAL CITY 

WAR & PARTY CONVENTIONS 

In 1940 the Republican National Convention assembled again at the old Convention Hall. 

Wendell L. Willkie of Indiana, an erstwhile Democrat who became disenchanted with the New 

Deal, was anointed to oppose Roosevelt’s unprecedented third term. 

In the summer of 1941, Mayor Lamberton died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease, two months after 

Gehrig did. He was succeeded by the president of City Council, Bernard Samuel. 

News that the Japanese had bombed Hawaii reached Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon, 

December 7. Mayor Samuel felt that some local response was called for, and ordered the police to 

guard the Schuylkill bridges. No Japanese incursions were reported. 

Young men began hustling off to military service. There were thirteen thousand enlistments in 

the city by December 11. Factories began working around the clock; Baldwin’s plant had already 

shifted from locomotives to sixty-ton tanks, and navy cruisers were under construction at both 

Cramp’s and New York shipyards on the Delaware. Air raid sirens were tested on December 12. The 

first test blackout was conducted on February 3, 1942. The city’s 33,354 street lights went out when 

the air raid sirens sounded at 10:30. Cars pulled over and went dark. Hastily trained volunteer air 

raid wardens patrolled every neighborhood. Homeowners had to have black curtains on windows 

so lights wouldn’t show, and acquired stirrup pumps and buckets of sand in case the Japanese or 

Germans dropped incendiary bombs. Rationing started, of sugar, meat, coffee, gasoline, tires, shoes. 

Before the war’s end, nearly 184,000 Philadelphians had served in the armed forces, plus more 

than 70,000 from the Pennsylvania suburbs and 50,000 from the New Jersey suburbs. The sixcounty 

metropolitan area had more than 5,000 killed, nearly 3,500 from the city itself. In the 

metro area, 12,000 men came home wounded, 2,300 had been prisoners of war, and as of the end 

of 1945, another twenty-three hundred were still unaccounted for. People partied in the streets 

when the Japanese surrender ended the war on August 14. Governor Arthur James declared a twoday 

holiday; many industrial workers had been putting in seven-day weeks. 

The future was changed in 1945 when Philadelphia native J. Presper Eckert, Jr., and Cincinnati 

import John W. Mauchly, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Engineering, led a 

team that put together ENIAC, the granddaddy of all digital electronic computers. That first 

Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator (ENIAC) took up two large rooms, and depended 

on eighteen thousand vacuum tubes which were constantly burning out; a graduate student with 

a basket full of tubes was on endless vigil. Eckert and Mauchly formed their own company in 

March 1946, gathered some young engineers from Penn and Drexel, and started work upstairs over 

a furniture store on Walnut Street near Twelfth to create a Universal Automatic Computer: UNI- 

VAC for short. The little company was sold to Remington Rand in 1950. On March 30, 1951, the 

U. S. Census Bureau became the purchaser of UNIVAC I. One engineer on the project wrote, “On 

that day, the computer industry was born.” 

Republicans, Democrats and the new Progressives all held presidential nominating conventions in 

Philadelphia in 1948. The GOP arrived in June, and nominated Thomas E. Dewey, widely expected 

to be a shoo-in over the Democrat nominee, accidentally incumbent President Harry S Truman. 

Former vice president Henry Wallace and some ultra-liberal leaders had whipped up a third 

party. The Progressive Party also met in Convention Hall, on the evening of July 23, but the next 

night nominated Wallace at Shibe Park before a crowd of twenty-six thousand, with folk singer 

Pete Seegar providing some star quality. There was an admission charge, and the ballpark’s vendors 

patrolled the grandstands hustling hot dogs and sodas. 

Chairman of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, and influential in bringing the 

two major party conventions to town, was Albert M. Greenfield. His influence on the city had 

✧ 

The area around Independence Hall was 

declared a national park in 1951, and 

redevelopment created landscaping and new 

construction. Old industrial buildings were 

demolished to stretch a grassy mall 

northward. The run-down residential blocks 

south and east of Independence Hall were 

restored. The old name, Society Hill, was 

revived, and Mayor Dilworth showed his 

faith that prosperous folks would move there 

by building a house in 1957 on the east side 

of Washington Square, next to the 

Athenaeum. On the top is Independence 

Hall as it appeared in the1950s. 

Independence Hall as it appeared in the 

1970s, after the mall was created, can be 

seen on the bottom. 


CHAPTER VI 

111

✧ 

Albert M. Greenfield died in January 1967, 

at age seventy-nine. His will ran to fortyfive 

pages with an eighty-page inventory. He 

left behind millions of dollars, forty-nine 

valuable paintings, a collection of 

Napoleonic materials, a Gutenberg Bible, 

twenty-one grandchildren, and the kind of 

life that caused obituary writers to call him 

“Mr. Philadelphia.” 



112 

become nearly boundless. His organization 

controlled on and off, but mostly on, the top 

hotels (Bellevue Stratford, Benjamin Franklin, 

John Bartram, Ritz-Carlton, Sylvania, 

Adelphia, Essex) and department stores (Lit 

Brothers, Snellenburgs, Bonwit Teller and 

stores in New York, Boston, New Orleans and 

Chicago). He had a hand in Yellow Cab, the 

Philadelphia Transportation Co., assorted 

financial and realty concerns, and even the 

207 Loft’s Candy stores. His philanthropies 

also seemed endless. 

Basketball went big time in Philly when the 

Warriors team won the championship of the 

new Basketball Association of America in 

1947. The sport was only fifty-five years old, 

but it had caught on early in Philadelphia. 

School, church, and YMCA teams had been 

common since the turn of the century. The 

dominant team started in the early 1920s as 

the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, 

abbreviated SPHA. While in the early days the 

letters on their game shirts were Hebrew 

samech, pey, hey, aleph, and at times the 

shirts said simply “Hebrews,” the team 

became identified as the SPHAs. They gained 

a national reputation, even beating the 

vaunted New York Celtics in Manhattan in 

1926. The modern era of professional 

basketball began in 1946, when owners of 

arenas in large cities got together to form the 

Basketball Association of America. They 

invited the SPHAs maven Eddie Gottlieb 

to enter a team. Gottlieb enlisted four 

SPHA headliners, added four gentile local 

college stars, and founded the Warriors. They 

won the 1947 BAA title, and got hero 

treatment from sports fans, but Philly’s 

professional roundballers didn’t win another 

championship until 1956. 

W3XE, the old Philco television station, 

had been broadcasting commercially since 

1941 and was designated for channel three 

when the government assigned frequencies, 

taking call letters WPTZ. Annenberg’s WFIL- 

TV was given channel six, and the Bulletin’s 

WCAU-TV channel ten. Channel six began 

commercial broadcasts in September 1947, 

and channel ten in May 1948. There were 

some thirty-five thousand television sets in the 

area in the spring of 1948, and viewers had 

their choice of programming daily from 6.30 

p.m. to as late as 11:15. Only Philadelphia, 

New York, and Washington had three 

channels in operation. The three networks 

reached from New York to Richmond, 

Virginia, and were expected to connect with 

stations as far west as Chicago by 1949. 

The Keystone Telephone Company gave up 

the ghost and was absorbed by Bell 

Telephone. Its system of phones in city 

offices, police stations, and fire houses was 

retained by the city and became the 

MUNicipal exchange, later MU6 and then 

686. For years, city workers still called each 

other on “the Keystone.”

CITY HALL SCANDALS 

Republicans, afraid of rising Democrat 

strength in the city, got a bill through 

Harrisburg in 1945 that allowed Bernard 

Samuel to run for a third term. He won the 

1947 election handily against Richardson 

Dilworth. But public perception was growing 

that City Hall was out of control. Clockpunching 

taxpayers snickered when Mayor 

Samuel felt it necessary to issue a public order 

on May 4, 1948, that all city employees must 

work from nine to five daily. 

No one laughed when the head of the 

amusement tax division of the receiver of 

taxes office committed suicide on May 22. 

Oddly enough, the exposé started when a 

man who was refused a permit to sell peanuts 

on the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey 

circus grounds complained to a powerful 

Republican, Sheriff Austin Meehan, portly 

leader of the Thirty-fifth Ward, which then 

encompassed most of booming Northeast 

Philadelphia. Meehan ordered the city 

controller’s office to check on whether the 

circus was up to date on amusement tax 

payments. The amusement tax chief got a call, 

telling him that someone would be stopping 

by to look at his books, without explaining 

why. He hanged himself from a pipe in the 

cellar of his home, leaving a note confessing 

theft and implicating others. An audit showed 

$200,000 was missing. 

Before the year ended, the city’s purchasing 

boss was forced out of office and a former 

employee was indicted for theft; a magistrate 

was indicted on 428 counts of malfeasance in 

office and four other magistrates were in 

trouble (although acquittals and dropped 

charges resulted); a grand jury reported 

“widespread and flagrant extortion” in the fire 

marshall’s office; nineteen Water Bureau 

inspectors were fired for falsifying records, 

and complaints about waste, inefficiency, and 

“drone” city workers abounded. Lincoln 

Steffens would have been fascinated. 

The 1948 scandals convinced Republican 

leaders that the party would have to reform 

itself a bit. A new city charter seemed like a 

nice gesture. The party arranged for a commission 

to create the charter. GOP councilmen 

and ward leaders found it distasteful. It 

provided for a strong mayor empowered to 

appoint all sorts of department heads who 

could not be fired by the politicians. 

Particularly opposed was Sheriff Meehan. 

In 1949, Democrat Joseph Sill Clark was 

elected city controller and Richardson 

Dilworth city treasurer. Sheriff Meehan dismissed 

them as “Silly and Dilly.” Dilworth was 

a Yale educated Pittsburgher, a lawyer, and 

Marine Corps combat veteran. Clark was a 

Chestnut Hill aristocrat out of Harvard and 

Penn Law School. 

✧ 

Left: In the summer of 1944, the city 

witnessed the disturbing sight of helmeted 

soldiers in full battle gear, with fixed 

bayonets on M-1 rifles, riding the trolleys to 

keep them moving and to guard the first 

eight African American motormen ever 

hired. The government had ordered equal 

employment opportunity, but some trolley 

drivers thought their workforce should be 

monochrome and shut down the system. 

Thousands of industrial workers depended 

on the Philadelphia Transportation Co. (the 

PRT had reorganized into the PTC in 1940) 

to get to factories vital to the war effort, so 

the army diverted eight thousand 

infantrymen on their way overseas to keep 

Philly’s trolleys rolling. The walkout started 

on Tuesday, August 1. The army moved in 

on Friday and officially seized control of the 

PTC on the 8th. A handful of strike 

ring leaders stayed out until the 17th. Here, 

a civilian offered lunch to a soldier on a 

Route 40 car at Fortieth Street and 

Parkside Avenue. 


Below: Walter Annenberg in 1944. His 

father, Moses Annenberg, had spent two 

years in prison for tax evasion before his 

death in 1942. Many observers felt that 

young Walter was unready to assume 

control of the publishing empire that 

included film and detective magazines, 

horse racing publications and the 

Philadelphia Inquirer. Walter, thirty-four, 

moved into the old Elverson apartment in 

the Inquirer tower, began running the paper 

with a firm hand, and commenced 

successful expansion of the family 

enterprise. In 1944 he launched Seventeen 

magazine, and in 1946 bought radio station 

WFIL from Lit Brothers and notified the 

Federal Communications Commission, on a 

two cent postal card, that he was going to 

build a television station. He later published 

TV Guide. 


CHAPTER VI 

113

✧ 

Right: Edmund Bacon had just become chief 

of land planning for the five-year-old city 

planning commission when the Better 

Philadelphia Exhibition opened on 

September 8, 1947, in the Gimbels 

department store, with flashy graphics and 

a huge scale model of central Philadelphia; 

sections flipped over to change from the city 

as it was to the way it would be, at least in 

the minds of young planners like Bacon. He 

was born in Philadelphia in 1910. His 

senior thesis at Cornell University, class of 

1932, was “Plans for a Philadelphia City 

Center.” He worked in such exotic cities as 

Shanghai, China, and Flint, Michigan, and 

after naval service in World War II, joined 

his hometown’s planning commission. He 

was named executive director in 1949, the 

beginning of a half century of passionate 

attempts to convince his fellow citizens to 

share his vision of Philadelphia. 


Below: An elephant, indispensable at all 

Republican National Conventions, arrived 

outside the Bellevue Stratford in 1940 to do 

its part in nominating Wendell Wilkie for the 

presidency. The GOP convened in Philly 

again in 1948. 


DEMOCRATS TAKE OVER 

The 1950 census found the population 

of Philadelphia at 2,071,605, its all time peak. 

It was third in the nation, behind New York 

and Chicago. 

The young 1950 Phillies team was in the 

World Series, the first since 1915. That was 

remarkable in itself, but this was the fourth 

Series to be televised, and Philly went TV 

mad. Philco donated sets to parks and 

recreation centers. Bars and appliance stores 

were packed with viewers, and the Army 

engineers set up a 60-by-100 foot tent in the 

grassy triangle at Sixteenth Street and 

Pennsylvania Boulevard, behind Broad Street 

Station. RCA loaned the tent two remarkably 

large, sixteen-inch television sets, and a 

couple of thousand people could sneak away 

from their offices to watch the Phils being 

wiped out at Yankee Stadium. 

The rumblings about municipal corruption 

continued. City Controller Clark complained in 

July that fifty-five Republican committeemen 

had City Hall civil service jobs, in violation of 

law, and Mayor Samuel felt obliged to fire the 

whole bunch. A special Federal Grand Jury 

charged all city plumbing inspectors with extortion. 

When the commander of the police vice 

squad was notified to appear before the jury, he 

shot himself dead. 

The citizens of Philadelphia approved the 

new charter in the 1951 fall balloting, electing 

Clark mayor, Dilworth district attorney, and a 

majority of Democrats to the reorganized City 

Council. In 1955 Clark decided to run for 

Senate, and Dilworth was elected mayor. 

People who grew up in East Falls with 

Grace Kelly, elegant blonde daughter of 

Democrat bigwig and bricklaying tycoon John 

B. Kelly, were not surprised when she won the 

Academy Award in 1954, but no girlhood 

friend could have predicted that, in 1956, she 

would marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco. 

People who grew up in South Philly with 

Alfred Cocozza were not surprised when the 

barrel-chested tenor became an MGM movie 

star, but might not have predicted that his 

name would be Mario Lanza. They remembered 

when he dropped out of South 

Philadelphia High School and could bellow all 

the operatic arias he had learned from his 

father’s Caruso records. Among his eight films 

was his 1951 portrayal of his idol, The Great 

Caruso. He died in Rome of a heart attack in 

1959, at age thirty-eight. 

Also in the Fifties limelight was Eddie 

Fisher, a local teenage celebrity in the 

Forties while in high school, singing on a 

Lit Brothers-sponsored evening radio program 

for carfare from his South Philly home. He 

became a major recording star, and husband 

of Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor 

(not simultaneously). 


114

✧ 

Left: Senator J. Howard McGrath of Rhode 

Island, chairman of the Democratic 

National Committee, posed with an outsized 

donkey statue during the 1948 Democratic 

convention. 


Below: The Progressive Party met in Philly 

in 1948 to nominate Henry A. Wallace, 

former vice president, former U.S. secretary 

of agriculture (as was his father), and an 

expert on hybrid corn. 


CHAPTER VI 

115

✧ 

Right: Mayor Bernard Samuel, an amiable 

old-fashioned politician, unwillingly 

presided over the demise of the once allpowerful 

Republican machine. Dick 

Dilworth, major wielder of the Democratic 

Party’s “new broom,” liked to point out that 

among Barney Samuel’s neighbors, 

coexisting in tranquility, were a brothel, a 

numbers betting parlor, and a police station. 


Below: The Pennsylvania Railroad added to 

the city’s revival by making Thirtieth Street 

Station the major rail terminal, and tearing 

down Broad Street Station and the blocks of 

the Chinese Wall. A crowd of five thousand 

sentimental Philadelphians sang Auld Lang 

Syne at 9:57 p.m. on April 27, 1952, as the 

last train pulled out of Broad Street Station. 

On the train’s rear platform, Eugene 

Ormandy, maestro of the Philadelphia 

Orchestra, waved his right arm high, and 

majestically conducted the farewell chorale. 


Then came rock ’n’ roll, and South Philly 

became a breeding ground for rockers. 

Franklin Avallone, who won a scooter singing 

in an amateur contest at age six, was playing 

trumpet in a band called Rocco and the Saints 

on Steel Pier in Atlantic City at age twelve 

when he was “discovered” by Peter DeAngelis 

and Bob Marcucci of Chancellor Records, a 

local company. They took away his horn, 

wrote some songs for him, and turned him 

into a recording idol of the teenage girls. A 

former Rocco and the Saints drummer, Robert 

L. Ridarelli, signed with Kal Mann’s local 

Cameo Records in 1958, and became Bobby 

Rydell. DeAngelis and Marcucci, in 1959, 

seized another South Philly kid, Fabian Forte, 

who had never sung, chopped off his last 

name and made him a recording star. Perhaps 

most bizarre of all, Henry Colt, proprietor of 

a South Philly poultry store, came to Kal 

Mann and described the singing talent of one 

of his chicken pluckers, Ernest Evans. 

Inspired by New Orleans singer Fats Domino, 

the promoters changed Evans’ name to 

Chubby Checker; the lad introduced a song 

and a dance called The Twist. 

Much of the city’s influence on rock ‘n’ roll 

was disseminated by Bandstand, which started 

as a radio program on WFIL, featuring disc 

jockey Bob Horn. The station’s television 

operation at Forty-sixth and Market created a 

telecast of Bandstand in 1951. In 1956 Horn 

was replaced by Dick Clark. Eventually, 

Bandstand became a network program, and 


116

Clark became nationally influential in the 

music business and broadcasting. 

All original television performances were 

live in the 1950s, and New York was running 

out of venues to produce shows, so 

Philadelphia began providing network programs 

for CBS. The first ever network show not 

originated from New York was The Big Top, a 

weekly live circus performance broadcast from 

Camden Convention Hall starting Saturday, 

July 1, 1950. WCAU-TV built new headquarters 

on City Line Avenue in 1952, and in the 

next year originated a live, half-hour daily 

cowboy soap opera from a replica of an 1890s 

Western town built in the parking lot. 

Albert M. Greenfield was elected chairman 

of the City Planning Commission in 1956. His 

financial empire was grossing some $850 

million. With his third wife, he bought Sugar 

Loaf, a Chestnut Hill mansion of glass-walled 

contemporary architecture. The annual daylong 

New Year’s Day receptions at Sugar Loaf 

would feed champagne, caviar, and the best of 

everything to some seven hundred invited 

guests including city officials, judges, 

academics, congresspersons, the elite, and the 

✧ 

Favorite Philadelphia celebrities of the 

Fifties (clockwise from top left): Mario 

Lanza, Chubby Checker, Grace Kelly, and 

Eddie Fisher. 

KELLY, LANZA, AND FISHER PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE 

URBAN ARCHIVES, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY. CHECKER PHOTO 

COURTESY OF THE THEATRE COLLECTION, FREE LIBRARY 

OF PHILADELPHIA. 

CHAPTER VI 

117

✧ 

In November 1953, a four-year-old 

descendant of William Penn ceremonially 

touched off a blast to begin demolition of the 

Chinese Wall and signal the coming of Penn 

Center. The railroad’s clearance of six blocks 

in the heart of the city presented an 

unprecedented opportunity to create a 

magnificent new central area, but despite 

the abilities of premier city planner Edmund 

Bacon and the input of architect Vincent 

Kling, economics and political pressures 

resulted in Penn Center becoming a clump 

of undistinguished office buildings. The best 

new designs were on the fringes of the 

center, Kling’s Municipal Services Building 

and Girard Plaza. (The Girard skyscraper 

would ultimately become the Meridian 

Tower, to be destroyed by a spectacular fire 

on February 23, 1991; high floors burned 

for nineteen hours on the thirty-eight story 

structure, and three firemen died.) 



118 

wealthy, including relatives of the power 

brokers who had smugly let his Banker’s Trust 

collapse less than thirty years before. 

A police captain began to get some 

publicity. He was Francis Lazarro Rizzo from 

South Philly, son of an Italian immigrant 

police officer. Rizzo was good at busting vice, 

and also heads, in Center City drinking 

establishments. His raids on beatnik era coffee 

houses, where the major vices seemed to be 

chess playing, folk singing and poetry reading, 

amused some citizens and outraged others. 

RESTLESS 

DECADE 

Philadelphia-based corporations were on 

the move: Sun Oil just to the suburbs, but 

pioneer refinery Atlantic Richfield and 

pioneer ad agency N. W. Ayer to New York. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad merged with New 

York Central and soon went bankrupt. Philco 

was bought by Ford Motor Company. Horn & 

Hardart began slipping in 1964; the 

restaurants would decline from forty-four to 

one by 1984, with America’s original Automat 

closing in 1968. 

Mayor Dilworth resigned in 1962, halfway 

through his second term, for an unsuccessful 

shot at the governor’s office. He was succeeded 

by the president of City Council, James H. 

J. Tate. The WASP-led reform Democrats had 

been succeeded by a grass roots Irish- 

American politician who lived in a row house 

and, in his first months as mayor, commuted 

to City Hall by subway. The party boss was 

Congressman William J. Green, an old school 

campaigner. Tate was elected in 1963 and 

again in 1967. 

The state established the Southeast 

Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) in 

1964, and in 1968 SEPTA bought the PTC 

city transit system. It would absorb suburban 

transit services and the Reading and 

Pennsylvania railroad commuter lines. 

Roosevelt Boulevard was extended from 

Broad Street to the Schuylkill Expressway in 

1961, after four years of construction that 

included the engineering legerdemain of 

tunneling under the Broad Street subway. 

The 12.3-mile boulevard, which had been 

rebuilt, relandscaped, and tinkered with for 

decades, was widened from six lanes to twelve 

between 1962 and 1965. Underpasses 

replaced nightmare intersections at Fifth 

Street, Oxford Circle, Cottman Avenue and 

Pennypack Circle. 

A plan for something called the Nautical 

Mile along the waterfront came to light in 

1961. Between the Delaware River and the 

new Delaware Expressway would be an $85- 

million development including a twenty-fivestory 

port office tower at Market Street, a 

pedestrian walkway, museums, restaurants, 

office space, a boat basin with historic ships 

on display, and perhaps a motel. The tower 

and walkway would be in place by 1963. 

Mayor Dilworth presided at the start of 

demolition of three piers in January 1962. 

The project was named Penn’s Landing. Work 

dragged on, piers were demolished, and plans 

kept changing. The tower didn’t happen; the 

waterside walkway materialized in 1969, 

although nobody but workmen could get near 

it. The site was an expanse of tan mud. 

On May 14, 1963, a turbulent decade 

began, as sixteen members of the Congress of 

Racial Equality (CORE) staged a sit-in at the 

mayor’s reception room in City Hall, seeking 

equal opportunities for work on the Municipal 

Services Building, then under construction, 

and other city projects. After twenty-one

hours, Mayor Tate ordered city construction 

work halted until the unions agreed to employ 

black workers. Contractors and unions agreed 

on May 24. Demonstrations and sit-ins 

continued through May and June, before local 

NAACP president, flamboyant attorney Cecil 

B. Moore, got agreements from the contractors 

and unions. 

In 1964 Police Commissioner Howard 

Leary made Frank Rizzo, forty-four, a cop for 

twenty years, deputy commissioner in charge 

of all uniformed police. Some African- 

American groups opposed the appointment, 

accusing Rizzo of racism. Six months later, on 

a hot midsummer Friday night, a minor arrest 

in North Philadelphia erupted into a police 

versus citizens battle on and around 

Columbia Avenue between Broad Street and 

Twenty-third Street. 

Leary had left for a weekend at the 

seashore. Rizzo was in charge. Black leaders 

feared that Rizzo would lead a bloody charge 

against the rioters. But Rizzo believed in obeying 

his superiors. He waited until Leary 

arrived. The commissioner gave orders 

against using force: no drawn pistols, no 

head-whacking. Rizzo argued with Leary on 

the street corner, and later called him “gutless,” 

but he behaved. Windows were 

smashed, stores were looted, more than seven 

hundred people were arrested, and damage 

topped $2 million. 

When Leary became head of the New York 

city police in 1967, Rizzo became 

commissioner. His rough hewn charisma and 

combative stance against racial and political 

activists polarized the city. Disturbances 

plagued schools and street corners in South 

Philadelphia in spring and summer of 1967. 

On November 17, about thirty-five hundred 

African-American high school students rallied 

outside the Board of Education building at 

Twenty-first Street and the Parkway, 

demanding a more relevant curriculum. A 

battle with police ensued. Five officers and 

seventeen civilians were injured, and fiftyseven 

persons arrested. School officials 

blamed Rizzo for the fracas, but he insisted 

police actions were justified. 

There were assorted protests at local 

colleges, dramatizing various complaints, 

through 1969. The 1970s began no better; in 

January, a mob of white protesters trashed the 

WCAU-TV studios because they disliked a 

CBS documentary on the Black Panthers. In 

August, police Sergeant Frank Von Colln was 

assassinated at his desk in the Cobbs Creek 

Parkway guardhouse and another officer was 

shot in his patrol car, leading to police raids 

on three Black Panther headquarters. Mostly 

peaceful college sit-ins continued; anti-war 

and civil rights gatherings were common all 

year. The upheavals subsided in the Seventies. 

John Coltrane died of a sudden heart attack 

on July 17, 1967, at age forty-one. He had led 

a golden decade of Philadelphia jazz 

musicians. In 1960 he teamed up with 

Philadelphia pianist McCoy Tyner, who 

explained Coltrane as a man who saw music as 

a universe. Only some of the stars are visible, 

✧ 

Demonstrators, rallied by Cecil B. Moore 

(shielding his eyes), appeared outside the 

walls of Girard College on May 1, 1965, 

demanding that the student body be racially 

integrated. Stephen Girard’s nineteenth 

century instruction that all the students be 

“poor, white, male orphans” had collided 

with twentieth century reality. It was the 

beginning of a three-year struggle, partly on 

the streets, partly in the courts. The first 

African-American students entered the 

school in fall of 1968. Apologists for Stephen 

Girard’s racial attitudes often point out that 

the first clause of his will granted freedom to 

a slave woman named Hannah. A detail 

they miss is that Hannah had been kept as a 

mistress by Girard’s brother, John. 


CHAPTER VI 

119

✧ 

Right: The Phillies led the National League 

by six and a half games in 1964, with 12 

left to play. The championship was a sure 

thing, so the team printed World Series 

tickets. But the Phils lost ten games in a row, 

and the St. Louis Cardinals won the 

pennant by one game. The tickets are 

collector’s items that make old Phillies 

fans weep. 


Opposite: A local basketball player named 

Wilton N. Chamberlain, shown here in high 

school in 1955, joined the Warriors team in 

1959, after starring at the University of 

Kansas and performing for a couple of 

years with the Harlem Globetrotters. He 

had first drawn attention at Overbrook 

High School, where he once scored ninety 

points in a game. At age twenty-three, the 

new Warrior was seven-foot-one. In the 

1961-62 season, he averaged 50.4 points 

per game. On March 2, 1962, he scored one 

hundred points as the Warriors beat the 

New York Knicks, 169 to 147. The game 

was played in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and 

not televised; only 4,124 fans witnessed the 

masterpiece. Wilt and the Warriors 

wandered off to San Francisco in 1962, and 

the 76ers became the hometown team. 

Chamberlain came home in 1965, and led 

the Sixers to the 1967 championship. 



120 

said Tyner: “He was looking for the stars you 

can’t see.” The death of “Trane” seemed to end 

the era in which the city produced a stream of 

major jazz musicians, including Dizzy 

Gillespie, Stan Getz, Jerry Mulligan, Lee 

Morgan, Philly Joe Jones, the Heath brothers, 

Benny Golson, and Grover Washington. 

Talk about a new stadium had started in 

the Dilworth administration. The Phillies 

played baseball in Connie Mack Stadium, 

built as Shibe Park in 1909. The football 

Eagles were using even older Franklin Field at 

the University of Pennsylvania. In 1961, 

serious disagreement started, always the first 

phase of such a project. A Dilworth plan for a 

South Philly site was replaced by a proposal 

for a Torresdale Water Filtration Plant 

location, which was rejected. An appointed 

panel sifted through five sites, then deferred 

to a scheme to build over the railroad tracks 

at Thirtieth Street Station, which didn’t work 

out. Land on South Broad Street at Pattison 

Avenue was selected in 1964. An architect’s 

plan in late 1966 described a stadium with 

twenty percent more seating than any modern 

stadium in the country, voters approved a $38 

million plan in May of 1967, and, on October 

2, ground was broken. 

Then came a furious commotion about a 

name. Philadelphia Stadium was a public 

favorite; others liked Independence Stadium; 

more whimsical minds proposed Philadium.

Veterans’ groups pushed for a name honoring 

their comrades, with gentle implications that 

the patriotism of those opposed might be 

suspect. On March 12, 1970, city council 

voted for the name Philadelphia Veterans 

Stadium. Before the gates were opened, 

citizens were calling the place The Vet. 

THE 

BICENTENNIAL 

Former Police Commissioner Frank L. 

Rizzo won his first of two terms as mayor in 

1971. His tenure was as stormy as his police 

career. He promised to hold down taxes, but 

after his reelection in ’75, he pushed through 

the largest tax increase in city history to cover 

a huge budget deficit not mentioned before. 

There followed a duel of petitions, as Rizzo’s 

enemies ran an unsuccessful recall campaign, 

and then his supporters unsuccessfully sought 

a City Charter change that would allow Rizzo 

to run for a third term. 

In 1970, Walter Annenberg, then serving 

as U. S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, 

sold the Inquirer and Daily News to John S. 

Knight, the same publisher who had bought 

Annenberg’s father’s Miami paper thirty-three 

years before. 

Philadelphia had a Centennial Exhibition 

and a Sesqui-Centennial Exposition, so it 

seemed logical to expect there to be a 

Bicentennial something-or-other in town in 

1976. Way back in 1957, Mayor Dilworth 

asked the Junior Chamber of Commerce to 

develop a plan for 1976. There followed years 

of a steady rise and fall of Philadelphia 

committees, commissions, and corporations 

introducing a succession of plans that fizzled 

for one reason or another. Proposals for an 

exposition at various locations collapsed, one 

by one. Finally, an organization called 

Philadelphia ’76 put together a series of 

events, officially sanctioned many activities 

that would have happened anyway, and came 

up with a list of sixteen hundred official 

Bicentennial functions. 

The professional baseball, basketball, and 

ice hockey all star games were in Philly, not to 

mention championship badminton, and 

canoeing. The Mummers formally admitted 

they were a cultural phenomenon and opened 

the Mummers Museum at Second Street and 

Washington Avenue. The LaScala Opera 

visited from Italy and the Royal Ballet from 

England. Ten heads of state stopped by, 

CHAPTER VI 

121

impressively including Queen Elizabeth II, 

the first British monarch to visit the site of 

that unfortunate Declaration incident. She 

arrived at Penn’s Landing in her yacht. 

Mayor Frank Rizzo envisioned (or at least 

pretended to envision) a violent horde of 

scruffy hippies descending on the 

Bicentennial celebration, chanting rude things 

about the government. He called for fifteen 

thousand federal troops to be assigned to 

protect the city. Washington was politely 

uninterested, the few protesters who did show 

up tended to be a small and docile group as 

demonstrators go, but Rizzo’s dramatics got 

more national headlines than some of the 

more positive events of ’76. 

If he had only known, Rizzo might have 

called for fifteen thousand doctors. The 

American Legion convened in the city in 1976, 

and a rare and mysterious form of pneumonia 

struck the veterans staying in the Bellevue 

Stratford Hotel, killing twenty-nine of them. 

The malady was christened “Legionnaire’s 

Disease” by the news media. 

Nearly eight million visitors came to 

Philadelphia in 1976, more than any year 

since 1876, not the forty million some planners 

had predicted, but not a total flop, either. 

The 1976 film Rocky won the Academy 

Award as best picture. Cab drivers and hotel 

doormen got used to early morning sweatsuited 

out-of-towners asking directions to 

duplicate the run out the Parkway and up the 

Art Museum steps that Sylvester Stallone did 

in the movie. 

A new plan for the thirty barren acres of 

Penn’s Landing was announced in 1970. It 

sounded quite a bit like the old plan. 

Arguments blossomed over the impact of the 

Delaware Expressway, with demands that a lid 

be put on the depressed highway as it passed 

the proposed waterfront wonderland. Piles of 

dirt were still the major feature. Occasional 

sightseers enjoyed the riverfront on the 

✧ 

The city went hockey mad in the 1970s. Big 

league ice hockey had come to town in 

1967, when the Flyers played their first 

game on October 11 in their new arena, the 

Spectrum. On February 17, 1968, the roof 

blew off the Spectrum, and the team played 

a few “home” matches in Quebec. They were 

in or near the playoffs from the beginning, 

and in 1974, won their first Stanley Cup, 

carried here by Bernie Parent (left) and 

Bobby Clarke. An incredible two million 

people saw the victory parade next day. 

The Flyers won the cup again the next 

year; the public response was only slightly 

more subdued. 

COURTESY OF THE FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA. 


122

walkway, distressing contractors who weren’t 

insured against citizens falling overboard. By 

the end of 1972, officials announced that 

they were looking for a developer. One was 

chosen in 1973. In 1974, the developer had 

trouble getting financing and couldn’t begin 

anything because of work on the expressway, 

which Philadelphians were now calling by 

its prosaic interstate designation, I-95. By 

the Bicentennial year, there was actually something 

there: a sculpture garden, not yet 

completed; a state Ports of History Museum, 

unfinished and not open; Admiral Dewey’s 

1898 flagship, U.S.S. Olympia, and a World 

War II midget submarine, Becuna, both open 

to visitors; two sailing ships, Moshulu and 

Gazela Primeiro, and the riverside walkway 

lined with poles of fluttering banners. In 1978 

the state boarded up its never opened museum 

and told the city it could have the building. As 

the 1970s ended, Penn’s Landing hosted some 

waterfront festivals, small boats started using 

the marina, there were concerts in the 

sculpture garden, and officials were looking 

for a new developer. 

City Stores Company closed Lit Brothers 

department store in 1977, the same year the 

building was put on the National Register of 

Historic Places. City Stores declared bankruptcy 

in 1979, and offered the building for 

sale. Also in 1977, the first section of the 

Gallery, a shopping mall in the heart of the 

city, with department stores and the usual 

mall shops and food court, opened on Market 

Street virtually across the street from the 

empty Lits store. 

✧ 

Mayor Frank L. Rizzo welcomed Her 

Majesty Queen Elizabeth II when she 

arrived at Penn’s Landing on the royal 

yacht during the 1976 Bicentennial 

Celebration, the two-hundredth anniversary 

of the Declaration of Independence that was 

aimed at her great-great-great-great 

grandfather. In the background, 

Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp 

greeted Prince Philip. 

COURTESY OF THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS. 

CHAPTER VI 

123


124

THE 300-YEAR-OLD CITY 

THE 

EIGHTIES 

A new plan for Penn’s Landing was announced in 1980. It, as usual, sounded quite a bit like the 

old plan, but scaled down by the new Bill Green administration. William J. Green III, while still in 

law school, had assumed his late father’s Congressional seat, hobnobbed with Kennedys, and 

blended with the Washington establishment. He ran for mayor in 1980 and was elected, at fortyone. 

During his term, the city had a year of special events celebrating the city’s three-hundredth 

anniversary, and a flotilla of “tall ships” from all over the world sailed into the Delaware, masts far 

taller than any the 1682 founders might have imagined. 

For managing director, Green enlisted a North Carolina farm boy who had been educated at 

Penn’s Wharton School: W. Wilson Goode. A hard working public servant, Goode earned a 

reputation as a skilled manager. When Green chose not to run in 1983, Goode was elected the city’s 

first black mayor. 

Wilson Goode’s opponent in the Democrat primary had been Frank Rizzo, trying to make a comeback. 

Rizzo had been retired since leaving office in 1980. After the ’83 defeat, he went on the payroll 

of the Philadelphia Gas Works as a security consultant. In 1987, he switched his registration to 

Republican and got GOP organization backing to run for mayor again, but Goode was reelected. 

Rizzo then became a radio talk show host. 

In the business world, foreigners moved in: pharmaceutical old-timer SmithKline Beckman 

merged with Beecham Group of England, and Pennwalt Company, a chemical firm, was acquired 

by Elf Aquitaine of France. The old Smith, Kline & French laboratories traced their origin to a twoman 

apothecary shop established in 1830; Pennwalt had started in 1850 as the Pennsylvania Salt 

Manufacturing Company, producing lye for soap making. 

Venerable names disappeared. Insurance Company of North America merged with Connecticut 

General to form Cigna. The army closed the Frankford Arsenal, which had been making armaments 

since 1816. Jack Frost Sugar, Proctor-Silex, Keebler, and American Can departed the local 

scene one way or another. The Evening Bulletin’s presses went silent after 134 years. Hanscom’s, 

which had fed Philadelphians prepared foods and baked goods for 101 years, closed 12 of its 13 

outlets in 1984, on its way to extinction. The government forced megalithic AT&T to break up in 

1983, and former Bell of Pennsylvania emerged as Bell Atlantic. 

Banking laws changed, encouraging two Pittsburgh banks to reach across the state and grab local 

institutions. Mellon National bought Girard Bank. Pittsburgh National acquired Provident National, 

which had been founded by Quakers as the Provident Life and Trust Company in 1865. First Fidelity 

of Newark, New Jersey, absorbed Fidelity Bank of Philadelphia, which dated to 1866. Locally, 

Philadelphia National Bank, founded in 1803, bought Hamilton Bank of Lancaster and changed the 

combined institution’s name to CoreStates Financial, while PSFS acquired Western Savings Fund and 

renamed itself Meritor. In 1989, Meritor was in trouble, and sold fifty-four branches to Mellon, which 

then dubbed its Philadelphia operation Mellon PSFS. 

The old Reading Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad commuter lines each dead-ended in Center 

City. At a cost of some $328 million, the city burrowed a 1.7-mile tunnel that connected the lines, 

allowing SEPTA trains to roll through efficiently. The massive construction job took more than five 

years, opening in the fall of 1984. 

The loss of industrial jobs promoted decay of old neighborhoods. The temptation of cheap addictive 

drugs was introduced in such former blue collar neighborhoods as North and West Philadelphia and 

Kensington, followed by crime and prostitution that drove out many residents and left those who 

stayed to endure a decline in quality of life, amid crumbling blocks of empty, abandoned houses. The 

city budget doubled from $1 billion in 1975 to $2 billion in 1990, and deficits grew. 

✧ 

William Penn’s town at the start of the 

new millennium. 



CHAPTER VII 

125

✧ 

Right: Through the years, Philadelphians 

had a near-religious belief in a “gentleman's 

agreement” that no building would ever be 

taller than William Penn’s bronze hat atop 

City Hall, 548 feet up. Architecturally 

sacrilegious discussions on the subject began 

early in the Goode administration. Willard 

Rouse III, a developer noted for getting 

difficult projects done, proposed twin 

skybuster towers at Seventeenth and Market 

Streets. After inevitable controversy, Rouse 

broke ground in May 1985, completing One 

Liberty Place, 61 stories and 945 feet high, 

in 1987. Two Liberty Place, 848 feet and 58 

stories, followed in 1990. Once the sky, not 

the hat, was the limit, five more structures 

impiously poked higher than the Penn 

statue by 1992: Mellon Bank Center (792 

feet), Bell Atlantic Tower (739), Blue Cross 

Tower (700) and twin Commerce Square 

buildings (572). 


Below: Frank L. Rizzo was striding toward 

another term in the mayor’s office when a 

heart attack felled him in his campaign 

headquarters in 1991. 

COURTESY OF URBAN ARCHIVES, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY. 


126 

Yet the Eighties were curiously upbeat. The 

Phillies won the World Series in 1980, the 76ers 

won the National Basketball Association 

championship in 1983, and in 1985 the city 

became host to the nation’s first professional 

bicycle racing championship. Part of the six 

hour, 156-mile race struggles annually up the 

steep hills of Manayunk, that former gritty mill 

neighborhood. Manayunk’s Main Street 

coincidentally transformed into a toney area of 

shops and restaurants, part of an ongoing 

restaurant renaissance that turned Philadelphia 

into a city where a major chef’s resignation 

makes front page news. 

And during the bicentennial year of the 

framing of the Constitution, 1987, Congress and 

the Supreme Court came from Washington for 

ceremonial sessions at Independence Hall, there 

was a twentieth century version of the Grand 

Federal Procession of 1788, and commemorative 

events materialized all over town. 

THE CENTURY ENDS 

Philadelphians in the 1990s blandly accepted 

the idea that their city is the fifth largest, behind 

New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. 

It ranked third until the 1960 census, when Los 

Angeles overtook it, and was narrowly nudged 

out by Houston in 1970. The judgment is based 

on population. But Philadelphia comprises only 

135 square miles, while New York covers 309 

square miles, Los Angeles 469, Chicago 227, 

and Houston 539. If Montgomery County were 

part of Philadelphia (as it was from 1682 to 

1784), the city’s population would beat 

Houston’s. In 1950, the city’s population was 

just over two million and the immediate 

suburbs’ was about 1.6 million. At century’s end, 

the city had about 1.4 million residents, and the 

suburbs 3.4 million. 

In January 1991 Frank Rizzo, age seventy, 

announced a third comeback try for mayor. To a 

cheering crowd of supporters assembled in a 

Northeast Philadelphia skating rink, he 

bellowed: “From this moment on, tell your 

neighborhoods, tell your friends, tell your 

children, Frank Rizzo is back!” He won the 

primary election against GOP endorsed 

candidate Ron Castille and finance expert Sam 

Katz by 1,429 votes out of 130,000 cast, and 

prepared to take on Democrat Edward G. 

Rendell, a former district attorney. But a massive 

heart attack killed Rizzo in his campaign 

headquarters on July 16, at 2:12 P. M. For days, 

212 was the most played bet with numbers 

writers in Rizzo’s native South Philly. 

The Republicans picked Joseph Egan to 

replace Rizzo as candidate. Ebullient, effusive 

Democrat Ed Rendell won in a landslide, 

unraveled many of the city’s tangled fiscal 

problems, and was reelected four years later 

to serve until the end of the century.

Consolidation of banking continued. In 1990 

CoreStates took over First Pennsylvania, 

descendant of the nation’s first bank, Bank of 

North America. Federal regulators put Meritor 

out of its misery in 1992, and what was left of 

PSFS was folded into Mellon PSFS. Next, PNC 

announced that the Provident National name 

would convert to PNC Bank. Fidelity Bank in 

1993 took the name of its adoptive parent, First 

Fidelity. First Union moved up from North 

Carolina in 1995 and bought First Fidelity. In 

1996, CoreStates bought Meridian. Then, First 

Union absorbed CoreStates in 1998, and, for the 

first time in more than two centuries, there was 

no longer a major bank headquartered in the city. 

Former office buildings were recycled as 

hotels: the old Girard Trust buildings, the PSFS 

tower, buildings on east Penn Square, and the 

Reading Railroad offices at the former 

Terminal, whose train shed was transformed 

into a fifty-five-thousand-square-foot great hall 

and entrance to the Pennsylvania Convention 

Center. Plans for the convention center had 

been discussed for years, with work begun 

during Wilson Goode’s tenure. It went into use 

in 1993, offering a 1.3 million square foot 

facility spanning more than two city blocks. 

As the year 2000 began Philadelphia was 

alive with plans and promises. A clean-up was 

promised of City Hall’s grimy marble, granite, 

and cast iron exterior, and on the inside was a 

new mayor, former City Council President 

John F. Street, who defeated Sam Katz by only 

2.15 percent of the vote. 

Participants in the Republican 

National Convention assembled in the 

city in summer, 2000, and found time 

to nominate George W. Bush while 

enjoying the twenty-first century 

version of Penn’s green country town. 

THE 

FUTURE 

The calendar flipped over to 2001. 

Penn’s Landing was still awaiting 

that dreamed-of big development, 

with the Port Authority proposing an 

aerial tramway across the river 

between the Philadelphia and 

Camden entertainment areas, and the 

latest new developer announcing 

plans including a four-thousand-seat 

amphitheater, a multimedia historical 

attraction, a new home for the Please Touch 

Museum, a twenty-screen movie theater, and 

assorted shops and restaurants. While 

awaiting the progress, the site had evolved 

into a pleasant waterfront venue for concerts 

and events, with the former state museum 

now the Maritime Museum, the sculpture 

garden and historic ships still there, an ice 

skating rink active in winter and a riverbus 

ferrying people to the aquarium and 

entertainment complex on the Camden 

shore. Meanwhile, the waterfront above and 

below the officially designated Penn’s 

✧ 

Left: Bill Green (left), a former U. S. 

congressman, was elected mayor in 1980. In 

this photograph he chats with his successor, 

Wilson Goode, the city’s first African- 

American mayor. 

COURTESY OF THE CITY REPRESENTATIVE’S OFFICE, 

PHILADELPHIA. 

Below: An African American named 

Vincent Leaphart changed his name to John 

Africa and created a rambling manifesto 

about the human relationship to nature. His 

followers lived communally without 

plumbing or electricity. In 1978 residents of 

Powelton complained that members living 

in a neighborhood house carried guns, 

made noise, including speeches over 

loudspeakers, and were disruptive. Mayor 

Frank Rizzo ordered police to evict the 

group, which called itself MOVE. A gun 

battle ensued in which a police officer was 

killed. In 1985 MOVE surfaced in a house 

on Osage Avenue at Sixty-second Street, 

and caused complaints similar to those in 

1978. The Goode administration launched 

an attack which culminated in a police 

helicopter dropping a bomb on a rooftop 

bunker. The resulting fire killed eleven 

MOVE members, six of them children, and 

was allowed to spread, destroying sixty-two 

neighboring houses. A special commission 

and a grand jury investigation found that 

Goode and his subordinates had badly 

mismanaged the confrontation, but were 

not criminally responsible. 

COURTESY OF DELCINA WILSON. 

CHAPTER VII 

127

✧ 

Center City West’s dramatic half century of 

change: the old rail station and Chinese 

Wall in the 1950s (top, left); Penn Center 

grows, 1960s (top, right); more new 

buildings, 1980s (bottom, left); finally, the 

century’s end, with the boxy mid-century 

structures dwarfed by One Liberty Place, 

the nation’s seventeenth tallest building at 

945 feet (bottom, right). 

1950S, ’60S, AND ’80S PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CITY 

REPRESENTATIVE'S OFFICE, PHILADELPHIA. 2000 PHOTO 



128 

Landing had blossomed with restaurants, 

night clubs, a hotel, and attractions that 

made the riverfront a lively location. 

Recovering from a disastrous 1995 fire that 

killed twenty-three primates, the zoo had a 

new population of gorillas, orangutans, and 

other anthropoids settled in new quarters, 

and looked forward to a total makeover by 

2020. New sidewalks, lights, and plantings 

revitalized Chestnut Street. On South Broad 

Street, the Kimmel Center, a long-anticipated 

regional performing arts center, began rising. 

It is the centerpiece of the Rendell 

administration’s thrust to designate Broad 

Street as Avenue of the Arts. It wasn’t a 

new idea; the former Western Savings Fund 

office building at Broad and Chestnut had 

been renamed the Avenue of the Arts Building

✧ 

Left: The National Constitution Center at 

Sixth and Race Streets, at the north end of 

Independence Mall, is designed to inform 

and inspire visitors about the role of the 

U.S. Constitution plays in the lives of 

individual Americans. Its message is 

delivered through permanent exhibits and 

events in its theater. 

COURTESY OF ERIC SCHILLER, PEI COBB FREED & 

PARTNERS, ARCHITECTS. 

as early as 1981. The Rendell impetus 

resulted in such existing institutions as the 

University of the Arts, Academy of Music and 

Merriam Theater acquiring new neighbors 

such as the Prince Theatre, Philadelphia Arts 

Bank, Wilma Theater, Clef Club, and High 

School of the Performing Arts. 

Impressive alterations were under way on 

Independence Mall, with a new pavilion for 

the Liberty Bell, a new visitors’ center, and 

construction of a National Constitution 

Center to study and interpret the nation’s 

fundamental document. 

Proposed city-wide innovations included 

new stadiums for the Phillies and Eagles, 

reconstructing the Parkway to be more 

pedestrian friendly and expanding the 

Pennsylvania Convention Center. 

The 2000 U. S. Census was expected to 

show the city’s population declining, but 

unemployment was low and sports, arts, 

culture, and recreation were flourishing for a 

diverse population. 

“Here is enough for both poor & rich, not 

only for necessity but pleasure,” William Penn 

wrote of his city three centuries ago. For there 

to be enough, there must always be more. 

Penn’s vision goes on. 

Below: Unable to find a buyer for the 

deteriorating Lit Brothers building (shown 

here about 1890), owners applied for a 

demolition permit. Outraged citizens rallied 

around the “Hats Trimmed Free of Charge” 

sign, and demonstrations were held by 

preservationists, historians, former Lits 

employees and customers, and the just plain 

nostalgic. The “Let Lits Live Coalition” 

prevailed. After four years of plans, rumors, 

ownership changes, and uncertainties, the 

wedding-cake architectured building was 

saved in 1985 as Mellon Bank agreed to 

lease some sixty percent of the space in a 

restored Lits complex, renamed Mellon 

Independence Center. 


CHAPTER VII 

129

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

It is impossible to express strong enough gratitude for the help, large and small, since this project began, from dozens of people who 

guided me at research institutions, uncovered obscure material and answered small questions. They include Dr. Cynthia Little, Dr. Dan 

Rolph, Bruce Scherer and other staff of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Margaret Jerriddo, George Brightbill, Brenda Galloway- 

Wright, Cheryl Johnson and others at the Urban Archives at Temple University; at the Free Library of Philadelphia, Joseph Banford of 

Prints and Pictures Department, William Lang and Connie King of the Rare Book Department and Geri Duclow of the Theatre Collection; 

Kathleen Sullivan and Richard McMullin, City Representative’s Office; Ward Childs and staff, Philadelphia City Archives; Erica Piola, 

Library Company of Philadelphia; Barbara Katus, Academy of the Fine Arts; Susan Drinan, Atwater Kent Museum; Harry Magee, Fireman’s 

Hall Fire House and Museum; Palma Lucas and Jack Cohen, Mummers Museum; and Sandra Horrocks and Molly Clark of the Kimmel 

Center for the Performing Arts. 

Also, Margaret E. Atkinson, Grand Army of the Republic Civil War Museum and Library; Dale E. Biever, Civil War Library and Museum; 

Shirley Bonnem, Children’s Hospital; Robert Brothers; Dr. Stephen J. Cantor; Don Harrison, Philadelphia Daily News; John Larkin of the 

Carpenter’s Company; Philomena C. Porto, University of Pennsylvania; Brian A. Sullivan, Harvard University Archives, and Richard Tyler, 

Philadelphia Historical Commission. 

And this is an opportunity to acknowledge others, some deceased, who contributed much insight into Philadelphia lore, long before 

this book was begun: my mother and grandparents; Frank Brookhouser; Joe Brooks; Darthe Hauck; Milton Kenin; Isadore Lichtstein; John 

Maass; Charlie Martyn; Joe Molmer; Ed Schaffer. 

Thanks to my daughter, Leslie Zavodnick, for applying an editorial eye to the manuscript. And, finally, thanks to my wife, Barbara 

Torode, for her professional expertise in helping assemble illustrations for this book, and for enduring without protest my dinner table 

dissertations on research discoveries of the day, such as the bathing habits of antebellum Philadelphians or the origin of the Seckel pear. 

If I’ve omitted anyone, it is from lack of memory, not of appreciation. 

Illustration Credits: 

For illustrations credited to Philadelphia City Archives, the full citation is “City of Philadelphia, Department of Records, City Archives, RG 

78, Photographic Collection.” 

Portraits credited to the Dictionary of American Portraits are reproduced from that volume, published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 1967. 

Illustrations credited to the author include photographs taken by him, plus post cards and old pictures collected through the years, as well 

as drawings from such old books as Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia, Scharf & Westcott’s History of Philadelphia, and other nineteenth 

century publications. 

A brief list of further reading about Philadelphia: 

Some standard histories: 

Russell F. Weigley, editor. Philadelphia, A 300-Year History. W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1982. 

J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott. History of Philadelphia. 1609-1884. 3 vols. L. H. Everts & Co., Phila., 1884 

John F. Watson. Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the Olden Time. (Enlarged by Willis P. Hazard, 3 vols.) Edwin S. Stuart, Phila., 1905 

Other works the author recommends: 

Struthers Burt. Philadelphia, Holy Experiment. Doubleday, Doran & Company Inc., 1945. 

Nathaniel Burt (son of Struthers). The Perennial Philadelphians. Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1963. 

Francis Morrone. An Architectural Guidebook to Philadelphia. Gibbs Smith, Publisher, Layton, Utah, 1999. 

Carl Van Doren. Benjamin Franklin. The Viking Press, New York, 1938. 

Dr. Harry Emerson Wildes. William Penn, a Biography. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974. 

Christopher Morley. Kitty Foyle. (fiction) J. B. Lippincott Co., 1939. 


130

✧ 

New Mayor John Street (left) and former mayor Ed Rendell marched at the head of the string band division of the Mummers Parade on New Year’s Day 2000. 

COURTESY OF THE CITY REPRESENTATIVE’S OFFICE, PHILADELPHIA. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

131

✧ 

William Penn’s city turned three hundred 

with his statue atop City Hall still higher 

than any other building in town. 

COURTESY OF TERRY BURNS. 


132

SHARING THE HERITAGE 

historic profiles of businesses and 

organizations that have contributed 

to the development and 

economic base of Philadelphia 

QUALITY OF LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 

THE MARKETPLACE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 

INDUSTRY & MANUFACTURING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 

SHARING THE HERITAGE 

133


134

QUALITY OF LIFE 

healthcare companies,educational institutions, 

churches, historical, and civic organizations 

contribute to the quality of life in Philadelphia 

The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania .........136 

Philadelphia Phillies ...................................................................140 

Fox Chase Cancer Center.............................................................144 

The Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)................146 

Philadelphia OIC ........................................................................148 

The Wistar Institute....................................................................150 

Temple University.......................................................................152 

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine ..................................154 

Overbrook School for the Blind .....................................................156 

Bala Presbyterian Home ...............................................................157 

Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith ......................158 

Community College of Philadelphia................................................159 

✧ 

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 

at Broad and Cherry Streets, completed in 

1875, is the principal work still standing by 

architect Frank Furness. Alone or with 

various partners, Furness designed more 

than 300 buildings in the Philadelphia area 

between about 1866 and 1905. Most of 

them were grandiose and doo-daddy 

Victorian caprices, and most are gone. 

Several Furness banks, churches, railroad 

stations and residences can be found here 

and there around the city. 


Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau.....................................160 

Historic Philadelphia, Inc. ...........................................................161 

Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation .......................162 

Center City District ....................................................................163 

Harry J. Lawall & Son, Inc. .........................................................163 


135

✧ 

Above: Freemason’s Lodge, long gone, once 

stood north of Second and Walnut Streets. It 

was the first Masonic building erected in the 

western world. Pennsylvania Masons met 

there from 1755 to 1768 and from 1778 

to 1785. 

Below: William Allen, first grand master of 

the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. 

Bottom, right: Tun Tavern, which stood near 

Front and Walnut Streets, was the site of the 

first meeting of the Grand Lodge of 

Pennsylvania, January 24, 1732. The 

United States Marine Corps also was 

founded there in 1775. 

THE GRAND LODGE OF FREE AND 

ACCEPTED MASONS OF PENNSYLVANIA 

The building is stately and ornate, in the heart 

of Philadelphia, on Broad Street across from the 

north side of City Hall: the Masonic Temple, 

home of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted 

Masons of Pennsylvania. As architecture, it is a 

masterpiece. Historically, it is the first Grand 

Lodge of freemasonry in America. 

Craft Masonry has existed since antiquity. 

The earliest known Masonic document, dated 

about 1390, describes a royal charter for an 

assembly of Masons in 926 A.D. Guilds of 

stonemasons in the Middle Ages are believed 

to be the roots from which the modern 

Masonic brotherhood evolved. In the course 

of time, craft Masons, or “operative Masons” 

welcomed non-craftsmen, or “speculative 

Masons,” into their ranks. 

The City of Philadelphia was thirty-five years 

old in the year 1717 when, in London, a 

number of Masonic lodges joined to establish a 

central governing body, the first Grand Lodge in 

the world. 

Masons were in Philadelphia even before 

there was a Grand Lodge there. In a letter in 

1715, the royal tax collector of the Port of 

Philadelphia mentioned that he had “spent a few 

evenings of festivity with my Masonic brethren.” 

In 1730 the duke of Norfolk, as the grand 

master of the Grand Lodge of England, 

deputized Colonel Daniel Coxe of New Jersey 

to be grand master of the Provinces of New 

York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Benjamin 

Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette reported on 

December 8, 1730, that “there are several 

Lodges of FREE-MASONS erected in this 

province…” meaning Pennsylvania. 

The oldest lodge records from 1731 show 

that the grand master in Pennsylvania was 

William Allen, then twenty-seven years old. He 

was a merchant and lawyer who, at about the 

same time, was helping to buy up Welsh-owned 

lots at Fifth and Chestnut Streets to be the site of 

the new State House, later to be called Independence 

Hall. Allen was mayor of Philadelphia in 

1735 and royal chief justice of the Province of 

Pennsylvania from 1750 to 1771. 

In 1765 Allen developed Allentown, 

Pennsylvania. He gave major financial support 

to the Pennsylvania Hospital, America’s first. In 

Allen’s warehouse at Second and Arch Streets 

were held the first classes of the Academy of 

Philadelphia, which became the University of 

Pennsylvania. Allen’s estate in northwest 

Philadelphia, called Mount Airy, gave its name to 

a city neighborhood, where the first shots of the 

Battle of Germantown were fired. Allen became 

the Grand Master of Masons in Pennsylvania 

again in 1749 and served until 1761. 

In 1732, Benjamin Franklin was appointed 

to a leadership role, that of Junior Warden in 

the Grand Lodge. Franklin’s career was 

unparalleled: publisher, statesman, philosopher, 

scientist, inventor, diplomat, and signer of the 

Declaration of Independence and the 

Constitution of the United States. He became 

grand master in 1734 and in that year produced 

Anderson’s Constitutions, the first Masonic book 

printed in America. Forty-five years later, 

Franklin served as master of the Masonic Lodge 

of the Seven Sisters in Paris, France. 


136

After several changes took place in English 

and American Masonry, the Provincial Grand 

Lodge of Pennsylvania was chartered on July 

15, 1761, uniting lodges in Pennsylvania and 

granting warrants that recognized lodges 

being established elsewhere. As the result of a 

“Grand Convention” of those lodges in 1786, 

the Provincial Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania 

declared its independence of the Grand Lodge 

of England and became “The Grand Lodge of 

Pennsylvania and Masonic Jurisdiction 

Thereunto Belonging.” The latter part of the 

title recognized that between 1761 and 1832, 

the Philadelphia-based Grand Lodge warranted 

lodges in six states, two territories, and six 

foreign countries, including Mexico, Argentina, 

Uruguay, and Cuba. 

The change in 1786 signified the formal break 

with British Masonry after the American 

Revolution. At least nine signers of the Declaration 

of Independence and thirteen signers of 

the Constitution were Masons. In 1786 the 

independent Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania had 

465 Masons in thirty-five lodges. At the start of 

the twenty-first century, there are nearly 150,000 

Pennsylvania Masons in more than 450 lodges. 

There now is a Grand Lodge in each of the 

United States. Worldwide, there are approximately 

two hundred Grand Lodges in amity 

with one another and a membership of some 

four million Masons. The Grand Lodge of 

Pennsylvania, the third oldest Grand Lodge 

in the world, holds a unique status as the 

foundation of American Masonry. 

Early Masonic membership rolls contain the 

names of dozens of Philadelphia’s mayors, 

businessmen and civic leaders. They include 

Stephen Girard, America’s first multimillionaire, 

a businessman, banker, and philanthropist 

whose bequests still benefit the city; George 

Mifflin Dallas, eleventh vice president of the 

United States for whom Dallas, Texas, was 

named; George Meade, victorious commanding 

general at the Battle of Gettysburg, and John 

Wanamaker, department store founder and U.S. 

postmaster general. 

There were many Masonic brothers closely 

identified with the fraternity in Pennsylvania. 

Among them were George Washington, the 

Marquis de Lafayette, and James Buchanan, 

the only Pennsylvanian among the fourteen 

Master Masons who served as president of the 

United States. President and General George 

Washington served as master of his lodge 

in Alexandria, Virginia, originally warranted by 

the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and part of 

the “jurisdiction thereunto belonging.” Prized 

among the collections of The Masonic Library 

and Museum of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is 

the unique Masonic apron that the wife of 

Lafayette embroidered and the Marquis presented 

to Brother Washington as a gift. 

In the early years, the Grand Lodge met in 

various Philadelphia taverns, the typical 

meeting place for organizations. In 1755, three 

Philadelphia lodges erected the first building 

dedicated to Freemasonry in the western 

hemisphere, a plain brick structure along a side 

street near Second and Walnut Streets. The 

Grand Lodge met in other locations through 

the years, including the second floor of 

✧ 

Left: Masonic Hall was built in 1855 on 

the north side of the 700 block of Chestnut 

Street and was the Grand Lodge of 

Pennsylvania’s meeting place until the 

present Masonic Temple was opened 

in 1873. 

Bottom, left: The Dedication Procession of 

Masonic Temple, September 26, 1873, as 

depicted in the New York Daily Graphic. 

More than twenty thousand Masons from 

nineteen of the thirty-eight states, plus 

Ireland and Canada, took part in the fourhour 

march on Broad Street. 

Below: The Masonic Temple, built in 1873 

at Broad and Filbert Streets in Philadelphia, 

the mother city of freemasonry in America, 

is the home of The Grand Lodge of Free and 

Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania and 

Masonic Jurisdiction Thereunto Belonging. 


137

✧ 

Above: The Museum in the Masonic Temple 

displays such treasures as George 

Washington’s Masonic apron embroidered by 

Madame Lafayette in 1784; handwritten 

letters from Washington to Pennsylvania 

Masons; Benjamin Franklin’s Masonic sash 

worn when he was master of a lodge in 

Paris; ancient books and priceless art objects. 

Below: George Washington’s Masonic apron 

embroidered by Madame Lafayette and 

presented to Washington by the Marquis de 

Lafayette at Mount Vernon in August 1784. 

Independence Hall. In 1811 an elaborate 

Masonic Hall was built on Chestnut Street west 

of Seventh. It was destroyed by fire and rebuilt. 

After meeting in another building between 

1835 and 1855, the Masons completed a 

magnificent Gothic headquarters on their 

Chestnut Street lot. Philadelphians were 

dazzled by its architecture. But, they hadn’t 

seen anything yet! 

On June 24, 1868, on the corner of Broad 

and Filbert Streets, Grand Master Richard 

Vaux, a former mayor of Philadelphia, presided 

over the cornerstone-laying ceremony for 

the present Masonic Temple. In laying the 

nine-ton cornerstone, he wielded the gavel 

used by George Washington in laying the 

cornerstone for the nation’s Capitol building in 

Washington D.C. 

The architect was James H. Windrim, a 

twenty-seven-year-old Mason. The dominating 

tower of the Norman structure rises 250 feet. 

When the Temple was dedicated on September 

26, 1873, it had cost $1.6 million. 

Some forty local Masonic lodges and 

organizations meet regularly in the grandeur 

of the Masonic Temple’s seven elegant 

meeting halls, each done in a different 

classical style: Corinthian, Ionic, Italian 

Renaissance, Norman, Gothic, Oriental, and 

Egyptian. Architect George Herzog, a Mason, 

was largely respon-sible for the majestic 

interior. The 51-by-43-foot Egyptian Hall, 

with a twenty-two-foot high ceiling, was the 

first room finished in 1889. Its motifs and 

hieroglyphics are so authentic that students 

of Egyptology visit the hall to study its walls 

and columns. 

Five guided tours on weekdays, plus two on 

Saturday mornings, allow the public to marvel 

at the magnificence of the Masonic Temple and 

its lodge halls. Also in the building, which is 

open to the public, is The Masonic Library and 

Museum of Pennsylvania. The Library, dating 

to 1817, houses more than seventy thousand 

volumes related to Masons and Masonry. The 

related Archives contain manuscripts, prints 

and photographs, and biographical files. The 

Museum, dedicated in 1908 by John 

Wanamaker, contains one of the world’s finest 

collections of Masonic treasures: approximately 

thirty thousand items, including Masonic 

regalia and furniture, portraits, sculpture, 

antique glass, porcelain, textiles, and silver. 

Masons of North America contribute an 

astonishing $2 million each day toward 

charitable works to help others. The Grand 

Lodge of Pennsylvania contributes about ten 

percent of that sum, ranking first in charities 

among the Grand Lodges of the continent. 

Most notable among Masonic benevolent 

efforts in Pennsylvania are the Masonic 

Homes situated across the state that care for 

Masons and their wives, widows of Masons 

and others in need. The bountiful fourteen 

hundred-acre main campus of the Masonic 

Homes at Elizabethtown in Lancaster County 

has long been known worldwide for the 

quality and full range of state-of-the-art 

lifestyle services including retirement, 

congregate, assisted care, and healthcare 

living. As the twentieth century ended, the 

Masonic Homes combined with the Eastern 

Star Homes, formerly owned and operated by 

the Order of The Eastern Star, a Masonicallyrelated 

ladies’ organization. Since, the 

Masonic Homes has been expanding upon 

those facilities to extend the benevolent 

services to eastern and western Pennsylvania. 

The Masonic Homes campus in Elizabeth- 


138

town also is a hub for youth services, starting 

with the Masonic Children’s Home that 

cares for children from families that can 

no longer manage their needs. The adjoining 

Masonic Conference Center - Patton Campus 

is the headquarters for the Pennsylvania Youth 

Foundation which provides coordination, 

leadership, and citizenship training, scholarships 

and education assistance for Masonic 

youth and members of Masonically-related 

youth groups: DeMolay for young men, and 

Rainbow Girls and Job’s Daughters for 

young ladies. 

There also is the Pennsylvania Masonic 

Foundation for Children, headquartered in the 

Masonic Temple at Philadelphia, which carries 

out important youth-benefiting services 

throughout Pennsylvania. Working with the 

Pennsylvania Department of Education since 

1985, the Foundation has provided funds and 

facilities for training educators in the Student 

Assistance Program. Because of this Masonic 

initiative, every secondary school in the 

Commonwealth has a team of faculty members 

trained to recognize and help students who are 

experiencing problems due to alcohol or drug 

abuse, mental health, or family problems. 

The Foundation also supports the 

Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and 

Delinquency, providing similar funding and 

facilities for the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse 

Resistance Education) program. Nearly one 

thousand law enforcement officers have been 

trained, mostly at the Masonic Conference 

Center - Patton Campus, to present drug and 

alcohol abuse prevention programs in 

schools, and that number continues to grow 

by nearly one hundred each year. 

Individual Masonic lodges throughout the 

Commonwealth support youth sports, senior 

citizen centers, police needs, and a host of 

other community efforts. Pennsylvania lodges 

also support and contribute to the work of 

associate Masonic organizations throughout 

North America, such as the seventeen Shriners 

Hospitals and three Burn Centers for Children, 

the Scottish Rite Masonic Learning Centers for 

Children with learning disabilities, the Knight 

Templar Eye Foundation to finance eye 

surgery and research, and other outreach to 

those who need help. 

There is more to Freemasonry than charity. 

It is the oldest, largest, continuously active 

fraternal organization in the world, offering 

bonds of friendship, fellowship, and mutual 

respect. Membership is limited to men at least 

twenty-one years of age (except by rare 

dispensation granted by the grand master) 

who must meet strict qualifications of good 

character and reputation. Freemasonry is not 

a religious organization, but its members 

must acknowledge monotheism and are 

encouraged to be active in their own faiths. 

The medieval stonemasons and craftsmen, 

to whom modern Masons trace the origins of 

their principles and traditions, kept their 

construction techniques secret and developed 

modes of recognition among workers in their 

craft. Modern Masonry continues the 

tradition of passwords, signs and rituals, but 

it is not a secret society. 

Masons traditionally proclaim their values 

with the stated purpose “to make good men 

better.” Masonic lodges strive to promote 

kindness in the home, honesty in business, 

fairness in work, courtesy in society, concern 

for the unfortunate, reverence for God, and 

love for one another. 

It is fitting that the grand “Temple of 

American Freemasonry” stands at the center 

of William Penn’s City of Brotherly Love. 

✧ 

Above: Corinthian Hall, the Masonic 

Temple’s largest lodge room, is 106 by 53 

feet, with a fifty-two-foot-high ceiling, 

decorated with Grecian architecture and 

artistic motifs. 

Below: Egyptian Hall, one of the seven 

magnificent meeting halls in the Masonic 

Temple, derives its décor from such ancient 

Nile Valley temples as Luxor and Karnak. 


139

PHILADELPHIA 

PHILLIES 

✧ 

Dick Sisler’s home run brought the Phillies 

the 1950 National League Pennant for the 

first time in thirty-five years. The “Whiz 

Kids” of 1950 captured the city’s attention, 

but they lost to the New York Yankees in the 

World Series in four straight games. 

PHOTO © 2000 THE PHILLIES. 


140 

For more than 100 years, the Phillies have 

been a part of the Philadelphia sports scene. 

In that time, there have been many thrills, 

much disappointment, and the comings and 

goings of heroes who, years after they have 

passed, remain a part of the city’s lore. 

The Phillies story goes back a bit further, 

though. In 1869, the Cincinnati Red 

Stockings became the first professional baseball 

team. A year later, a professional team, 

the Athletics, was organized in Philadelphia. 

The National Association was formed in 1871 

with the Athletics as one of the teams. 

By 1876, the National League was formed, 

again with the Philadelphia Athletics as one 

of the teams. The league opened play in 

Philadelphia on April 22, 1876, with the 

Athletics facing the Boston Red Stockings at 

25th and Jefferson Streets. The Red Stockings 

won the game, 6-5; one of forty-five losses in 

fifty-nine games the Athletics played that 

year. By the end of the season, with low 

funds, the Athletics players refused to go on 

the team’s final road trip. The team was 

expelled from the league, and there was no 

professional baseball played in the city until 

the following decade. 

In 1882, the Worcester Brown Stockings 

folded. Alfred J. Reach, a former ballplayer and 

then a sporting goods merchant, bought the 

team, moved it to Philadelphia, and renamed it 

the Phillies. Of the name, Reach said, “It tells 

you who we are and where we’re from.” 

Besides identifying the city in which the 

team plays, the Phillies is the oldest team 

name in the National League. The team 

opened play in its new city inauspiciously. 

The Phillies lost to the Providence Grays, 4-3, 

in a game played at Recreation Park at 24th 

Street and Columbian Avenue before 1,200 

fans on May 1. That was one of eighty-one 

losses against seventeen wins. 

The Phillies finished in second place twice 

before the century ended. By the time the 

1915 season opened, things were about to 

change. Pat Moran, a former Phillies catcher, 

was named manager. With Grover Cleveland 

Alexander winning thirty-one games, including 

the first game of the World Series, the 

Phillies took the league championship. But 

they lost to the Boston Red Sox in the World 

Series, four games to one. 

The Phillies of the teens finished second 

the following two seasons, and then began to

flounder. Between 1918 and 1948, they managed 

just one first division finish, in 1932. In 

1928, the team struggled through the season 

with its worst record up to that time, fortythree 

wins against 109 losses. 

The Phillies of the 1930s featured a potent 

offense, led by outfielder Chuck Klein. He 

drove in 170 runs in 1930s—a feat no Phillies 

player has equaled. In 1932, Klein won the 

Most Valuable Player award in the National 

League, completing a sweep for the city in 

that category. 

In 1900, the American League began play 

with a team in Philadelphia. The team took 

the old Athletics name. Connie Mack, who 

would hold the job for fifty years, managed it. 

The A’s, as they came to be known, won 

championships in the early years of the century. 

In 1929, the A’s began another run, taking 

three more pennants and two World 

Series titles. In 1932, A’s slugger Jimmie Foxx 

won the MVP award in the American League. 

Foxx would later end his career as a Phillie. 

The Phillies, meanwhile, continued to 

flounder. From 1939 through 1942, the 

Phillies lost more than 100 games a season 

each year. The 1941 season was the worst: a 

record forty-three wins and 111 losses, beating 

the 1928 record by two. 

Things were about to turn around, though. 

In 1943, Robert R. M. Carpenter, Sr. bought 

the Phillies and named his son, Bob, Jr., president. 

The family spent the money needed to 

build a solid farm system. By the end of the 

1940s, the investment began to pay off. 

Andy Seminick, Richie Ashburn, Del 

Ennis, Robin Roberts, Willie Jones, Granny 

Hamner, and Curt Simmons all graduated 

from the farm teams and joined the parent 

club. The team named Eddie Sawyer, who 

himself was a Phillies farm system product, as 

manager. In 1949, the team, called the “Whiz 

Kids,” thrilled the fans with a third place finish—the 

highest since 1917. 

The 1950 season opened with promise. But 

the Phillies faced a season-long battle with the 

Brooklyn Dodgers, battling the “Bums” down 

to the final game of the season. That last game 

went into extra innings, and in the tenth 

inning, Dick Sisler’s famous three-run home 

run put the Phillies into the World Series for 

just the second time in the team’s history. 

The team went into the World Series without 

its left-handed ace, Curt Simmons, who 

had been called to active duty with the 

National Guard. They faced the New York 

Yankees, who had become a powerhouse 

under manager Casey Stengel. Still, the young 

Phillies battled the Yankees in each of the 

games, losing by one run in the first three 

games before losing the series in four. 

The Phillies were expected to contend for 

the next few seasons, but managed only a 

third place finish in 1953. They finished in 

the basement for four consecutive years from 

1958 to 1961. 

By 1964, a new batch of young Phillies 

brought a breath of fresh air to the city. Under 

Manager Gene Mauch, the 1964 team featured 

Jim Bunning, Richie Allen, Cookie 

Rojas, Ruben Amaro, Bobby Wine, and 

Johnny Callison. On Fathers Day that year, 

Bunning threw a perfect game against the 

Mets. As the stretch drive began, the Phillies 

were firmly fixed in first place. The team 

printed up World Series tickets. 

On September 21, the Phillies held a six 

and a half game lead over the second-place 

Cardinals. That night, the Phillies lost to the 

Cincinnati Reds, 1-0, when Chico Ruiz stole 

home in the sixth inning. The Phillies came 

unglued. They lost ten straight games. The 

Cardinals, meanwhile, won eight in a row and 

✧ 

Mike Schmidt and the Phillies celebrate the 

team’s first (and only) World Series victory 

over the Kansas City Royals in 1980. 



141

✧ 

Phillies President Bill Giles, General 

Manager Lee Thomas, and Manager Jim 

Fregosi show off the National League 

Championship Trophy after defeating the 

Atlanta Braves in the League Championship 

Series in 1993. The Phillies lost to the 

Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series when 

reliever Mitch Williams gave up a home run 

to Joe Carter. 



142 

took the pennant from the Phils, who struggled 

back from the losing streak to finish second 

by one game. 

By the 1970s, the Phillies were in another 

rebuilding process. Larry Bowa and Greg 

Luzinski joined the team in 1970, and Steve 

Carlton was obtained from the Cardinals in 

1972. That same year, Bob Boone joined the 

team and Mike Schmidt began playing third 

base. In 1975, Garry Maddox joined the team, 

and the following year the Phillies took a division 

title, the first of three straight under 

manager Danny Ozark. But that was as far as 

it went. The Phillies failed to take a pennant 

in that stretch, and it became apparent there 

was a missing ingredient. 

In 1979, Pete Rose joined the team. After 

the season began, Dallas Green replaced 

Ozark as manager. But the team finished 

fourth, its worst finish since 1973. 

The next year, the Phillies won their 

fourth division title in five years. They faced 

the Houston Astros in the National League 

playoffs, and the fans of the city held their 

collective breath. 

The division playoff is still considered the 

best championship series ever played. The 

five-game series went down to the final game, 

with the Phillies edging the pesky Astros, 

three games to two. 

Next they faced the Kansas City Royals in 

the World Series. Philadelphia fans felt they 

owed something to Kansas City. In 1954, the 

Philadelphia A’s moved to Kansas City before 

later moving to Oakland. The Phillies opened 

the series with a pair of wins at home. At 

Kansas City, the Royals squared the series at 

two apiece with a pair of wins. The games had 

been close, one and two-run margins. In the 

fifth game, played at Kansas City, the Phils 

edged the Royals, 4-3. Back at Philadelphia, 

Steve Carlton started for the Phillies. Tug 

McGraw relieved him in the eighth inning 

with the Phillies leading, 4-1. 

At 11:29 p.m. on Tuesday, October 21, 

McGraw struck out Willie Wilson to bring the 

Phillies their first World Championship in 

their 98-year history. The trophy sits in the 

reception area of the Phillies offices at 

Veterans Stadium, still awaiting a companion. 

The Phillies began their second century in 

1983, winning their fifth division title and 

fourth pennant. They won the first game of 

the World Series from the Orioles, but lost the 

next four games and the series. 

In 1993, a team of veterans came out of 

spring training under manager Jim Fregosi 

and opened the season against the Astros. Led 

by catcher Darren Daulton, the 1993 Phillies 

featured John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, Mickey 

Morandini, Curt Schilling, and reliever Mitch 

Williams. About mid-season, shortstop Kevin 

Stocker joined the team. The Phillies won 

seven of their first eight games, their best 

opening record since 1915, when the team 

got off to an 8-0 start. 

They swept to another division title, and 

then faced the Atlanta Braves in the League 

Championship Series. Led by Greg Maddux, 

Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz, the Braves 

were considered the team to beat for the pennant. 

The Phillies battled the Braves, winning 

the series four games to two. 

They faced the Toronto Blue Jays in the 

World Series, splitting the opening two games 

in Toronto. At Veterans Stadium, Toronto took 

the first two games for a commanding 3-1 

lead in the series. The Phillies bounced back 

in the fifth game as Schilling shut out the Blue 

Jays, 2-0. In the sixth game, played in 

Toronto, the Phillies clung to a one-run lead

in the bottom of the ninth when Williams 

gave up a three-run homer to Joe Carter, and 

disappointment reigned again. 

As the century drew to a close, the Phillies 

began another rebuilding campaign. With 

Schilling as the pitching ace, the farm system 

turned out Scott Rolen, Mike Lieberthal, and 

Marlon Anderson. Through trades, the 

Phillies picked up Doug Glanville, Bobby 

Abreu, and Rico Brogna. They obtained Ron 

Gant and Desi Relaford through trades, and 

began to assemble a pitching staff. Paul Byrd 

was picked up from the Braves, and Randy 

Wolf came up through the farm system. At 

the end of the 1999 season, the Phillies traded 

for Andy Ashby, who had achieved success 

with the Padres after beginning his career 

with the Phillies. 

As the 2000 season opened, the Phillies 

again look forward. 

Also at the turn of the century, the Phillies 

look forward to a new ballpark, planned to be 

a state-of-the-art facility with real grass, an 

asymmetrical outfield, and seating for 45,000 

fans close to the action. 

The Phillies began play at Recreation Park 

in 1883. In 1887, they moved to Philadelphia 

Park at Broad and Huntingdon Streets. 

Known as the Baker Bowl after owner William 

F. Baker, who owned the team from 1913 to 

1930, the park was squeezed into a city block. 

The result was a deep left field (341 feet), 

even deeper center field (408 feet), and very 

short right field (280 feet). The right field wall 

and screen originally stood at forty feet, but 

that was raised to sixty feet in 1929. 

In 1938, the Phillies moved into Shibe 

Park as guests of the A’s. When the A’s left 

town in 1954, the Phillies took over the park 

and renamed it Connie Mack Stadium. 

Located at 21st Street and Lehigh Avenue, the 

stadium was the home of the 1950 pennant 

winners and the 1964 collapse. 

In 1971, the Phillies moved to Veterans 

Stadium at Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, 

where they have enjoyed their greatest success. 

One more historical note: in 1978, an overweight, 

oversized green creature with a gawking 

neck joined the team. Since that inauspicious 

beginning, the Phillie Phanatic ® has become 

baseball’s most entertaining mascot. 

The Phillies are proud of their championship 

teams, their Hall of Famers, and their 

more than 100 years of entertaining the fans 

of Philadelphia. They are also proud of what 

they give back to the city in community service. 

The team has raised more than $4.3 million 

for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). More than 

$2 million a year is donated to charitable 

organizations through cash donations, complimentary 

tickets, and merchandise donations. 

The team helps over 7,500 inner-city 

children play baseball in Rookie and RBI 

Leagues. And individual players donate time, 

money, and effort to charities of their choice. 

Children in Philadelphia hospitals are cheered 

by visits from players and the Phillie 

Phanatic ® . As the new millennium dawned in 

Philadelphia, the Phillies were firmly a part of 

the community. 

✧ 

Phillie Phanatic ® joined the team in 1978 

becoming the most entertaining mascot in 

baseball. 



143

FOX CHASE 

CANCER CENTER 

✧ 

Top: A 1904 photo of American Oncologic 

Hospital, located at 45th and Chestnut 

Streets in West Philadelphia, founded to 

“establish the maintenance of a hospital for 

the study of the cause, treatment, and 

prevention of cancer and other tumors, and 

the dissemination of knowledge of these 

subjects; for the treatment and care of 

persons affected with cancer and other 

tumors. The benefits shall be administered 

without regard to race, creed, or color.” 

Below: A general biochemistry laboratory 

on the third floor of the Wanamaker 

Building of the Research Institute located at 

Girard and Corinthian Avenues, 

Philadelphia, 1931. 


144 

Fox Chase Cancer Center brings together 

world-class scientists and physicians who work 

together in state-of-the-art facilities. With clinicians 

and researchers working so closely 

together, patients have the opportunity to participate 

in groundbreaking clinical trials that 

are only available through a comprehensive 

cancer center. Through its many innovative 

programs, the Center maintains its mission to 

reduce the burden of human cancer. 

“Fox Chase Cancer Center was founded on 

a vision,” says Robert C. Young, M.D., president 

of Fox Chase Cancer Center, “that we 

would unravel the stubborn mystery of cancer 

by understanding the intricate workings of a 

cell—a vision of discovery and hope. It is our 

goal to bring the best scientific research and the 

best medical practice together to save lives.” 

Fox Chase was among the first comprehensive 

cancer centers established by the National 

Cancer Act of 1971 to address the nature, 

causes and possible cures of the many diseases 

called cancer. Center activities include basic 

and clinical research; detection, treatment and 

prevention of cancer; and community outreach 

programs. 

The Center was formed in 1974 by the 

union of two longtime Philadelphia institutions, 

American Oncologic Hospital (the 

nation’s first cancer hospital, established in 

1904) and the Institute for Cancer Research 

(founded in 1927). 

Research is conducted in about 80 laboratories, 

which receive over $38 million per 

year in government or agency grants and contracts—one 

of the highest per-capita levels of 

research support in the country. 

The Center’s staff numbers more than 1,800 

people dedicated to research, patient care, 

educational programs, and supportive family 

counseling. Fox Chase physicians and scientists 

are among the world’s leaders in developing 

new anticancer drugs and immunotherapy 

as well as innovative applications for nuclear 

magnetic resonance, photodynamic therapy, 

radiation implants, cancer-preventing agents, 

and other modern techniques.

Fox Chase has a 100-bed inpatient hospital 

devoted entirely to cancer care. The staffto-patient 

ratio is unusually high, giving 

patients more of the dedicated, expert care 

they require. Annual hospital admissions 

average about 3,600 and outpatient visits to 

physicians exceed 44,000 per year. 

Fox Chase is involved in developing trials to 

test new agents that may prevent cancer in 

high-risk individuals and is an active participant 

in the national trials to prevent breast cancer 

and prostate cancer. Combining research in 

many disciplines with patient care enables Fox 

Chase to translate new research findings into 

medical applications that may become models 

for improved comprehensive cancer care. 

Fox Chase is structured around three divisions: 

medical science, basic science, and 

population science. The division of medical 

science is committed to providing excellent 

patient care and conducting a broad-based 

program of clinical research. The division of 

basic science is renowned worldwide for its 

work in understanding both normal and 

abnormal cell growth and development. The 

division of population science identifies people 

at high risk of cancer and develops strategies 

to reduce these risks through programs of 

prevention and early detection. 

Fox Chase’s Research Institute for Cancer 

Prevention, opened in early 2000, is the first 

research program in the nation to concentrate 

on a comprehensive approach to cancer 

prevention. The $38 million initiative added 

high-tech laboratories as well as new research 

programs housed in the five-level, 120,000- 

square-foot Prevention Pavilion on Fox Chase’s 

main campus. 

For women at high risk of breast or ovarian 

cancer, Fox Chase offers the Margaret Dyson 

Family-Risk Assessment Program, providing the 

latest in medical care, cancer genetic counseling, 

and education. The Prostate Cancer Risk- 

Assessment Program helps men cope with their 

most common cancer. The Gastrointestinal 

Tumor-Risk Assessment Program serves people 

at high risk of colon, rectal, and other cancers. 

The Pulmonary Cancer Risk-Assessment and 

Prevention Program targets lung cancer, the 

third most common cancer, to diagnose it earlier 

and prevent it by finding and treating precancerous 

conditions. 

Many Fox Chase scientists have made 

landmark contributions to knowledge about 

cancer causes, treatment and prevention. 

Awards and honors bestowed upon these 

researchers include a Nobel Prize in medicine; 

memberships in the National Academy of 

Sciences; induction into the National 

Inventors Hall of Fame; General Motors 

Cancer Research Foundation prizes; and 

American Cancer Society Medals of Honor. 

To learn more, visit www.fccc.edu. 

✧ 

Top: Institute for Cancer Research, Basic 

Science Lab of Eric G. Moss, Ph.D., 1999. 

Left: The scenic Fox Chase campus in 

Northeast Philadelphia forms a quadrangle 

around a large, landscaped courtyard and 

provides a total workspace of more than a 

half a million square feet. 


145

✧ 

Above: The Board of Pensions president 

shares the Board’s vision with a 

church representative. 

COURTESY OF CRANE PHOTOGRAPHY, INC. 

Below: The Board of Pensions offers 

personalized customer service, with a smile, 

to members. 

THE BOARD OF PENSIONS OF 

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (U.S.A.) 


The Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian 

Church (U.S.A.) traces its beginnings (1717) 

very nearly to the founding of the City of 

Philadelphia (1682). The first predecessor fund 

was organized, in fact, just eleven years after the 

Presbytery of Philadelphia was formed in 1706. 

The Fund for Pious Uses was formed in 

1717, funded with £18 from offerings and 

donations. That fund was intended to support 

frontier missionaries and provide for their 

widows and children. 

From that modest beginning, the plan has 

grown to more than $6.5 billion serving more 

than 54,000 members, pensioners, and their 

dependents in 1999. The church views the 

Board of Pensions as an extension of its ministry, 

providing for clergy, lay people 

employed by the church, and dependents. 

The Board is charged with “the design and 

administration of a comprehensive program 

of retirement, death, disability, medical, and 

optional benefits for church employees, both 

ministers and laity, and their families while 

being guided by the Biblical principles of 

community and stewardship.” 

Further, as an integral part of the community 

of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Board of 

Pensions is committed to fulfilling its mission by 

offering programs, which are responsive to the 

changing needs of the church community and 

flexible in meeting the needs of a diverse community 

of faith; responsible, balancing good 

stewardship of the community resources, both 

financial and human, with personal accountability; 

affordable and accessible to the church community, 

including congregations, church entities, 

and church employees; and valued by its members 

and affirmed by the church community. 

The Board carries out its ministry to the 

church’s servants by administering the benefits 

plan for ministers, missionaries, and lay 

people so that they can accomplish their mission 

of doing God’s work, secure in the 

knowledge that their benefits will be there in 

times of need. The Board fulfills its mandate 

by providing and protecting the members’ 

medical, retirement, disability, and death benefits. 

The Board responsibly and prudently 

manages the financial resources and investments 

that fund members’ benefits. 

The housing programs were initiated in 

1883. Over the years this program has provided 

both physical accommodations and financial 

assistance for church workers’ housing 

needs. The assistance programs address issues 

that are beyond the provisions of the Benefits 

Plan of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). 

These issues include supplements to inadequate 

pensions, grants in times of emergencies, 

and assistance with special care needs. 

After its beginnings in the Fund for Pious 

Uses in 1717, another attempt to organize 

benevolence for ministers and their families was 

the Widows’ Fund, established in 1759 by the 


146

Synods of Philadelphia and New York. 

Although this fund existed as a quasi-official 

church organization, it never officially became 

affiliated with a denominational church. The 

Widows’ Fund became the first life insurance 

company in America and eventually became 

known as “The Presbyterian Ministers’ Fund.” 

Until 1994, it existed as “Covenant Life.” In 

1994, Covenant Life merged with Provident 

Life, taking the latter name. 

The predecessor denominations to the 

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) continued its 

emphasis on a relief approach to caring for the 

servants of the church through the nineteenth 

century. The effort was incorporated as the 

Presbyterian Board of Relief in 1896. However, 

by the end of the nineteenth century it became 

apparent that a fund that would provide benefits 

would be helpful. This view became incorporated 

in 1909 as the Ministerial Sustenation Fund. 

The denomination consolidated these viewpoints 

into a corporation that bore both their 

names in 1918. By the late 1920s, the churches 

were exploring the concept of contributory pension 

plans, much like those in the corporate 

world. Contributory plans were approved by the 

late 1920s, requiring a percentile contribution. 

Separate plans were designed for lay employees. 

The corporation changed its name to the Board 

of Pensions in 1928. 

Another benefit provided by the Board is 

medical care. The program currently provides 

comprehensive protection against catastrophic 

medical expenses by using cost containment 

features and case management. The 

Board is committed to offering the best possible 

medical plan to protect its members. 

The plan was developed to pool resources 

and provide a minimum pension to aid those 

on lower salaries. In 1983, the Presbyterian 

Church (US) and the United Presbyterian 

Church, USA, reunited after more than 100 

years of separation. Each denomination had 

sponsored a benefits plan. The reunited 

church now affirms its responsibility to care 

for the well being of those who have dedicated 

their lives to serving the church through its 

comprehensive benefits and assistance programs 

administered by the Board of Pensions. 

The Board operates from its headquarters at 

2000 Market Street. The Board employs about 

250 people, a workforce made up of a diverse 

population and different religions. The headquarters 

offices are designed to be aesthetically 

pleasing to workers with thematic art gracing 

hallways and a display case in the lobby contains 

many historical artifacts from its various predecessor 

organizations, including a glass slide 

show dating to 1917. The Board purposefully 

chose to locate its office in Center City, underscoring 

its historic relationship with the city. 

Board of Pensions’ employees participate in 

the United Way campaign, Toys for Tots campaign, 

and food pantries. In 1996, the 

Delaware Valley Child Care Council named it 

“Best Employer for Working Parents.” 

Looking ahead to the future, the Board of 

Pensions is constantly reviewing the benefits in 

terms of adequacy and style. Currently the 

Board is searching ways to expand participation 

to church workers who need benefits. President 

of the Board Robert W. Maggs, Jr. is committed 

to “excellent service and excellent benefits.” 

✧ 

Above: The Board serves active and retired 

members using the latest technology. 


Below: The Board of Pensions administers 

benefits nationwide for a diverse 

membership, including Spanish and Koreanspeaking 

members. 



147

✧ 

PHILADELPHIA 

OIC 

Above: Reverend Leon Sullivan, who with 

four hundred black ministers in 

Philadelphia, founded OIC in 1964. 

Right: Philadelphia OIC President and 

CEO Robert C. Nelson. 


148 

The 1960s were tumultuous in United 

States history—the early days of the civil 

rights movement. One manifestation of those 

times was rioting that took place in many 

urban communities. Minorities, particularly 

African Americans, were reacting to “white 

America,” institutional racism, and, notably, 

the lack of opportunities for quality education 

and employment. Blacks seeking jobs at 

banks, insurance companies, corporations, 

and retail stores found those doors closed. The 

Reverend Leon H. Sullivan and four hundred 

black ministers in Philadelphia developed a 

strategy to open those doors. 

Collectively, they launched “selective boycotting.” 

Using their pulpits every Sunday 

morning from 1958 to 1961, the ministers 

urged their congregations not to purchase 

goods and services from local companies that 

rejected overtures to provide jobs to blacks. 

When those companies began to feel the economic 

impact of the boycott, jobs began to 

“appear” as a result of their adaptation of “fair 

employment practices.” 

However, access did not mean success. It 

became very clear to Sullivan and his colleagues 

that many in the community did not have the 

requisite attitude and motivation, or specific 

job skills. 

Out of this realization the Opportunities 

Industrialization Center (OIC) was born as a 

conceptual response. On an operational level, 

OIC invented the Feeder Program, a first 

phase process of relating to the attitude, 

motivation, self-esteem, basic education, and 

interpersonal skills of prospective enrollees. 

The objective was to inspire people on one 

hand while equipping them with the inner 

strength to realize their aspirations. 

The second phase of the program was skills 

training in areas where jobs existed. Sullivan and 

volunteer staff had a concept, but no resources 

to implement. With some lobbying, Sullivan 

convinced City Council to donate an abandoned 

jailhouse in North Central Philadelphia as a 

training site. With equipment donations from 

local businesses, private donations and other 

resources from Zion Baptist and other churches 

and individuals, OIC opened the first training 

center in January 1964. Known as the 

Philadelphia OIC, this prototype was visited by 

President Lyndon Johnson in 1967, who subsequently 

committed federal dollars to replicate 

OIC across the country. 

From a modest beginning in an abandoned 

jailhouse, OIC has evolved into a remarkable 

education, training, and social services model of 

demonstrated effectiveness. At the start of the 

millennium, OIC can boast of 75 affiliates across 

the United States and 46 centers in 18 countries 

globally (the OIC International Movement). 

OIC has served three million people worldwide 

and in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the movement, 

that number is 55,000 and growing. 

The national expansion gave rise to OICs of 

America, the parent corporation that developed

the basic standards and practices for all OICs 

and provides ongoing technical assistance to 

existing and developing OICs. There are OICs 

on Native American reservations and in city and 

rural counties, with each OIC serving the multicultural 

indigenous population within these 

communities. Moreover, OIC has influenced 

major education and job training legislation, 

notably the CETA Act of 1973 and the Carl 

Perkins Vocational Training Act of 1984. 

The international expansion gave rise to OIC 

International (OIC/I) headquartered in 

Philadelphia. OIC International is celebrating 

thirty years of international self-help institution 

building and human resource development. 

OIC/I has provided technical assistance in 

emerging and developed countries including 

Great Britain, South Africa, Poland, Liberia, 

and Sierra Leone. OIC/I can boast of building 

one of the largest international development 

organizations founded by an African American 

and of being instrumental in freeing South 

Africa of apartheid. 

Wherever the OIC, the philosophy and operational 

mandate is “Helping People Help 

Themselves.” Nowhere is this more evident than 

in Philadelphia where Sullivan concurrently 

developed his economic agenda. He believed 

that black people should not only have the 

opportunity and training to work for others, but 

to own businesses and work for themselves and 

their communities. This concept evolved into 

two shopping centers, Progress Plaza and 

Haddington Plaza, the former financed by the 

“10-36 Plan” in which community people 

invested $10 a month for thirty-six months, 

thus owning shares in the enterprise. 

The prototype Philadelphia OIC maintains 

its fidelity to the principles of self-help. It has 

diversified service delivery while maintaining 

its core vocational training programs. One 

notable example is Opportunities Inn: The 

Hospitality Training Institute. Funded by the 

Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority 

through 2010, this program trains two hundred 

people annually who begin their career path in 

culinary arts, front desk operations, 

travel/tourism, and guest services. Its unique 

simulated hotel environment has been featured 

in national publications and replication across 

the country is envisioned. 

Diversification has included services for 

delinquent youth being released from state 

institutions; social and vocational rehabilitation 

for mental health consumers; computer-assisted 

literacy and GED test preparation for adults; 

training for homeless people; management 

of a forty-four-room transitional housing 

complex for newly employed, homeless men; 

job readiness, job placement, and individual 

and group counseling for non-custodial 

parents; and extensive job placement services 

for welfare recipients. 

✧ 

Above: OIC/A President Reverend Dr. 

Staccato Powell. 

Below: Reverend Powell with Dr. C. L. 

Mannings, president of OIC International. 


149

THE WISTAR 

INSTITUTE 

✧ 

Top: Architects’ rendering of 

The Wistar Institute. 

Below: Wistar’s director, Dr. Milton 

Greenman, invited ten of the nation’s top 

anatomists to the Institute for a two-day 

meeting in April 1905. It resulted in 

formation of an advisory board that 

declared “the principle object of the Institute 

to be research.” 

COURTESY OF THE WISTAR INSTITUTE ARCHIVES. 


150 

The Wistar Institute, established in 1892, 

was the first independent medical research 

facility in the United States. The Institute 

today has about 350 staff members, including 

130 doctoral-level scientists. 

Wistar’s medical researchers have been 

distinguished for more than one hundred years 

for helping to save and improve the lives of 

people around the world. One of their earliest 

successes was breeding of the WISTARAT, the 

first standardized laboratory animal. In 

addition to enabling scientists at the turn of the 

century to study the human nervous system, 

the WISTARAT paved the way for today’s 

genetic research. 

The Institute also earned recognition as 

young scientists from around the world 

gained access to training in Wistar laboratories, 

and the Wistar Press published and circulated 

scientific abstracts and journals. 

During World War I, for example, when many 

nations were unable to publish or purchase 

scientific information, Wistar sent them thousands 

of dollars worth of free journals. 

By the middle of the twentieth century, 

Wistar scientists Leonard Hayflick, PhD, and 

Paul Moorhead, PhD had developed WI-38, a 

cell line of normal cells that would grow in a 

test tube. WI-38 made it possible for Wistar 

scientists to develop the vaccines still used 

against viral diseases that include rubella 

(German measles) and rabies. 

Over the past twenty years, Wistar’s scientific 

investigators have focused primarily on genetics 

and immunology. Wistar researchers were 

among the first, for example, to develop 

monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), protein 

molecules that detect and destroy foreign 

invaders, including cancer cells. One in 

particular, 17-1A, is used in Germany as a 

standard approach to colon cancer. Wistar 

scientists also demonstrated the alteration 

associated with human lymphomas and, at the 

same time, discovered a gene called bcl-2 that 

has proven to be a key player in programmed cell 

death. More recently, they discovered a molecule 

known as human Interleukin-12 (IL-12), which 

appears to have a profound impact on the body’s 

immune response and may be effective in the 

treatment of various cancers and infectious 

agents such as HIV. 

The Wistar Institute is named for Caspar 

Wistar, a prominent Philadelphia physician and 

chair of the Department of Anatomy 

at the University of Pennsylvania School 

of Medicine in the early 1800s. Wistar was 

widely respected for his professional knowledge,

deep compassion and teaching skills, which 

lured medical students to Philadelphia from 

around the world. His book on anatomy was the 

first standard text in his field. 

In 1816, just before his death, Caspar 

Wistar appointed physician William Edmonds 

Horner caretaker of his teaching aids—dried 

and wax-injected limbs and organs and 

wooden models made by William Rush, 

America’s first professional sculptor. Horner 

enlarged the collection and established the 

Wistar and Horner Museum, the first 

anatomical museum in the United States. 

Nearly eighty years later, Isaac Wistar, 

Caspar Wistar’s great nephew, a general in the 

Civil War and a lawyer and cultural leader in 

Philadelphia, was asked to help with 

restoration of the Museum, located on the 

campus of the University of Pennsylvania. He 

agreed to its repair and, in 1892, using land 

donated by the University, built The Wistar 

Institute around it. Though strongly linked to 

the University, the Institute was independent 

and free to initiate “work for the increase of 

original scientific knowledge.” 

In 1972, in recognition of Wistar’s excellent 

record in cancer research, the National Cancer 

Institute (NCI) chose it as one of the country’s 

first NCI-designated Cancer Centers, making 

Wistar a federally approved basic research cancer 

center. Although Wistar is currently one of five 

NCI-designated cancer centers in Pennsylvania, 

it is the only one that exclusively conducts 

medical research and does not treat patients. 

Wistar’s scientists research diseases that 

include cancer and autoimmune, viral, and 

degenerative diseases. Their work is supported 

by donations from individuals, as well as grants 

and awards from various sources such as the 

NCI, National Institutes of Health, National 

Science Foundation, American Cancer Society, 

National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and many 

local and national private foundations. 

Working in more than forty laboratories, 

Wistar’s investigators are grouped under four 

research programs: molecular genetics, tumor 

biology, tumor immunology, and structural 

biology. Although each lab focuses on specific 

research goals, the programs are flexible and 

encourage the cross-disciplinary interaction 

that innovative research demands. There are 

special resource centers for Brain Tumor 

Research, Structural Biology, and Gene Therapy. 

For more than one hundred years, The 

Wistar Institute has pursued a dual mission of 

scientific research and education. Its motto— 

Developing the Medicine of Tomorrow— 

continues to guide the Institute, leading 

researchers into the next century to combat 

existing and emerging diseases. 

✧ 

An anatomical model of the sphenoid bone 

at the base of the skull, posterior view, c. 

1810. The model was commissioned by Dr. 

Caspar Wistar for his anatomical museum 

and carved by William Rush, America’s first 

professional sculptor, in Philadelphia. 

COURTESY OF THE WISTAR INSTITUTE, 

WISTAR MUSEUM COLLECTION. 


151

TEMPLE 

UNIVERSITY 

✧ 

Above: Erected in 1922 and named after 

Temple founder Russell Conwell, 

Conwell Hall is one of several buildings 

from Temple’s earlier days 

that remains in use. 

Right: Located in the center of the Main 

Campus, the Bell Tower is the tallest 

structure on campus. The plaza at the base 

of the tower is often the site for student 

activities and during the warmer months 

serves as an outdoor lunch spot for many in 

the Temple Community. 


152 

Envisioned in 1884 by its founder Russell 

Conwell as a night school for the city’s 

working class, Temple University has grown 

from a class of seven students in 1887 to 

more than twenty-nine thousand students 

throughout the world today. 

In 1887 Russell Conwell, the dynamic leader 

of Grace Baptist Church, at Berks and Mervine 

Streets, was approached by a deacon of the 

church who asked for advice on how to study for 

the ministry. Conwell, who had tutored students 

for several years, offered to tutor Davies, who 

could not afford to attend school since he had to 

work to support himself, his mother and 

younger brothers. Davies was soon joined by six 

other students, whose financial and work 

obligations prevented them from attending other 

area schools, and Temple College was formed. 

Temple College was officially chartered by 

the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on May 

14, 1888, as an “institution primarily for the 

benefit of workingmen.” From this date on, at 

least, the school was completely non-sectarian 

and, in fact, from a very early date included 

students, faculty and administrators of many 

denominations. While the charter specified 

the education of “workingmen” as the school’s 

purpose, women students have been an 

important part of the student body at Temple 

throughout its history. 

Temple became coeducational in just its 

second semester and in 1891 the trustees 

petitioned for an amendment to the charter, 

changing the purpose to include women. At 

the same time they requested and were 

granted the right to confer degrees. 

That year also saw the completion of the 

Baptist Temple on Broad Street which was 

built to accommodate the large crowds that 

would flock to hear Conwell’s Sunday sermons 

and housed many of the early classes taught at 

Temple. While it hasn’t been occupied for 

several years, the Temple still stands and is 

among the city’s most recognizable landmarks. 

In 1892, four women and fourteen men 

received the first collegiate degrees conferred 

by Temple. In the same year Samaritan 

Hospital, which would later become Temple 

University Hospital, was dedicated at Broad 

and Ontario Streets. 

The next several years would see the 

creation of the Law School of Temple College 

and the state’s first coeducational medical 

school. In keeping with Temple’s charter, both 

schools offered classes at night to 

accommodate working-class students striving 

to better themselves.

Temple University was officially created in 

1907 when Philadelphia Dental College and the 

related Garretson Hospital merged with Temple 

and together with Samaritan Hospital formed 

the newly-named university. 

Throughout the twentieth century Temple 

continued to grow. By 1922 the University 

consisted of twelve schools and colleges, 

staffed by a faculty of approximately four 

hundred. Students that year totalled over 

eight thousand. 

The University’s growing academic offerings 

were accompanied by the physical growth of 

the campus. The early part of the century saw 

the construction of such Temple landmarks 

as Conwell Hall, Carnell Hall, the ornate 

neo-Gothic Mitten Hall, and Sullivan Hall, the 

dedication of which was attended by then U.S. 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

Temple’s Main Campus remained mostly 

confined to one block of Broad Street between 

Montgomery Avenue and Norris Street until the 

1960s and ’70s when, fueled by its designation 

in 1965 as a state-related university and the 

growing need for a college-educated workforce, 

the University underwent a period of dramatic 

growth. This time saw the construction of 

nearly half the buildings that make up Temple’s 

present ninety-four-acre Main Campus. 

In addition to the expansion of the Main 

Campus, Temple has over the years added the 

Tyler School of Art, located in Elkins Park, 

and campuses in Center City, the Philadelphia 

suburbs of Ambler and Fort Washington, as 

well as Harrisburg. 

Internationally, Temple has campuses in 

Rome, London, and Tokyo and programs of 

study in numerous countries, including 

Spain, France, Israel, China, and Ghana. 

Temple University Hospital has also seen 

amazing growth throughout the years. The 

hospital’s doctors now treat more than 20,000 

inpatients, 150,000 outpatients, and 37,000 

emergency room patients annually. 

It has been ranked one of the nation’s top 

hospitals for specialties including cardiology, 

respiratory disorders and cancer care by U.S. 

News and World Report. New facilities include 

the Children’s Medical Center and the 

affiliated Shriners Hospital for Children. 

Today, Temple is one of only eighty-nine 

Carnegie-Research I institutions in the nation, 

offering a full range of degree programs, from 

baccalaureate to doctoral. The University 

employs twenty-six hundred full-time and 

part-time faculty and has sixteen schools and 

colleges, offering bachelor’s degrees in 125 

fields, master’s degrees in 94, and doctoral 

degrees in 49. There are four professional 

schools: law, medicine, dentistry, and 

podiatric medicine. 

Temple has also contributed greatly to 

Philadelphia’s sports history. The football 

team played in the first Sugar Bowl in 1935. 

The men’s basketball team captured the 

National Invitational Tournament crown in 

1969 and has made twelve straight trips to the 

NCAA Tournament under legendary coach 

John Chaney. 

With nearly one hundred thousand alumni 

living and working in the Philadelphia region, 

Temple will continue to be as much a part 

of the city’s future as it has been a part of 

its past. 

✧ 

The new Liacouras Center is a multipurpose 

recreation and convocation complex that 

is home to the renowned Temple 

basketball teams. 


153

PHILADELPHIA 

COLLEGE OF 

OSTEOPATHIC 

MEDICINE 

✧ 

Right: PCOM students share a strong belief 

in the osteopathic philosophy and a common 

concern for the people and communities 

around them. 


154 

“…Philadelphia College of Osteopathic 

Medicine has earned its position among those 

institutions that have assured the preeminence 

of American medicine,” said C. Everett 

Koop, M.D., former U.S. Surgeon General, on 

the occasion of the College’s Centennial. 

As Philadelphia College of Osteopathic 

Medicine (PCOM) celebrated its 100th 

anniversary in 1999, it called upon its experiences 

of the last century to set the standard for 

medical education in the future. The nation’s 

largest osteopathic medical college and fifth 

largest medical school, PCOM is uniquely prepared 

to train physicians to practice medicine 

in the twenty-first century. 

PCOM entered the well-established medical 

culture of Philadelphia in 1899. To date, 

the College has trained more than 9,000 community-responsive, 

caring physicians who 

have the credentials and the compassion people 

want from their doctors today, and are certain 

to expect from their doctors in the future. 

What is osteopathic medicine? Osteopathic 

medicine is a unique approach to medical 

care, focusing on treating a patient’s body, 

lifestyle, and behavior as a whole. Simply put, 

osteopathic medicine is not symptom-based, 

but patient-based. 

Doctors of Osteopathy (DO) are trained to 

recognize that all of the body’s systems, 

including the musculoskeletal system, are 

interdependent, and a disturbance in one 

causes altered function in other systems of the 

body. With osteopathic manipulative medicine 

(OMM), DOs use their hands to help 

diagnose injury and illness and to encourage 

the body’s natural healing tendency. 

Osteopathic medical students receive the 

same education as traditional MDs, with the 

addition of up to 300 hours of training in OMM. 

Osteopathic physicians can write prescriptions, 

deliver babies, perform surgery, and practice 

subspecialties. In 2001 the country will have 

48,000 osteopathic physicians, according to the 

American Osteopathic Association. 

The primary care focus has been part of the 

culture of PCOM, and osteopathic medicine, 

for more than a century. It is central to the 

College’s patient-based approach. In today’s 

changing healthcare environment, PCOM is 

ahead of its time. 

PCOM trains more primary care physicians 

than any other medical college in the country— 

nearly seventy percent of its graduates choose 

careers in primary care fields: family practice, 

general internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, 

and pediatrics. Many DOs serve in medically 

underserved areas of the country. 

A thriving, innovative college, PCOM was 

founded in 1899 by osteopathic physicians 

O. J. Snyder and Mason Pressly as the 

Philadelphia College of Infirmary and 

Osteopathy. Re-named Philadelphia College of 

Osteopathy in 1921, the College added the 

Training School for Nurses and Department of 

Free Clinics. The clinics, which provided treatment 

to those who could not afford medical 

care, would became a critical component of 

practical instruction for generations of students.

In the 1930s renowned radiologist Paul T. 

Lloyd, DO, a PCOM graduate, pioneered 

breast cancer prevention programs, initiating 

routine X-rays for breast cancer screenings. 

His “Well Breast Clinic” included a post-treatment 

follow-up program. Also during the 

1930s, the College formed the country’s first 

Department of Osteopathic Research. 

When the College acquired Women’s 

Homeopathic Hospital in 1951, PCOM became 

the largest osteopathic facility in the nation. The 

next few decades saw more expansion, with the 

College recruiting more Ph.D. faculty members, 

instituting new programs in osteopathic education, 

expanding residency programs, and establishing 

a School of Allied Health. 

In keeping with the College’s mission to train 

primary care physicians, PCOM opened a 

healthcare center to serve rural Sullivan County, 

Pennsylvania and several other healthcare centers 

in Philadelphia neighborhoods. These centers 

provide not only essential student training, 

but also a vital community service. 

Through the years, the College has been at 

eight different locations in Philadelphia, from 

the heart of the city to its current location 

(since 1973) on the seventeen-acre former 

Moss Estate on City Avenue. 

In 1995 PCOM began an ambitious campus 

overhaul, adding a modern osteopathic 

manipulative medicine lab and renovating 

classrooms, amphitheaters, offices, and more. 

Landscaping, trees, and benches were added 

to give the College a true campus feeling. 

In 1997 a larger, modern Cambria Street 

Healthcare Center opened in North 

Philadelphia, and, in 1999, a new, expanded 

Roxborough Healthcare Center opened on 

Henry Avenue in Philadelphia. The Student 

Activity Center, completed in 1999, provides 

a dynamic focus for campus student life, with 

extensive fitness facilities, a game room, 

multi-media room, and lounge. Through a 

unique partnership, the Philadelphia 76ers 

use the Center for in-season practice sessions. 

In addition to the Doctor of Osteopathic 

Medicine degree, PCOM offers the following 

degree programs: Doctor of Clinical 

Psychology, Master of Science in Clinical 

Health Psychology, and Master of Science in 

Biomedical Sciences. Also, PCOM has teamed 

up with University of the Sciences in 

Philadelphia to train physician assistants and 

offer a Master of Science degree. 

PCOM students can also pursue an MBA 

degree while completing their DO degree in 

conjunction with St. Joseph’s University, or 

pursue a Master of Public Health degree in 

affiliation with Temple University. 

✧ 

Top, right and left: For 100 years, PCOM 

has focused on training well-rounded 

doctors of osteopathic medicine. 

Bottom: PCOM students learn osteopathic 

manipulative medicine (OMM), the 

hallmark of osteopathic physicians. With 

OMM techniques, DOs manipulate the 

musculoskeletal system to diagnose and 

treat injury and illness, encouraging the 

body’s natural healing tendency. 


155

✧ 

Top: The Spanish Renaissance buildings and 

landscaped cloister of the Overbrook School 

for the Blind, along with a number of 

students, as they appeared in 1900. The 

school currently serves 200 visually 

impaired students. 

OVERBROOK SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND 

Above: The Spanish Renaissance buildings 

and landscaped cloister of the Overbrook 

School for the Blind, along with a number of 

students, taken in 1999. The school has 

served visually impaired students since 1833. 

Since 1833, Overbrook School for the 

Blind has helped students who are visually 

impaired achieve their highest potential. 

Housed at 6333 Malvern Avenue in a beautiful 

campus featuring Spanish Renaissance 

buildings with landscaped cloisters, the 

school is reminiscent of California missions. 

The buildings won a gold medal for design at 

the Paris Exposition of 1903. The facilities 

have kept pace with the times ever since, 

being updated to accommodate new needs 

and new teaching methods. The school 

houses classrooms, offices, and dormitories. 

The school’s goal is to provide students 

with the skills they will need to experience 

active and fulfilling lives. Students from 

birth to age twenty-one are enrolled in programs 

ranging from early intervention to 

high school. All of Overbrook’s students are 

legally blind and some may have additional 

physical or cognitive disabilities. The staff 

considers the individual first, tailoring educational 

programs to the specific needs of 

the student. 

Typical class size is five to eight students 

with at least one teacher and one aide per 

class. Technology is present in every classroom 

every day—from simple switch-activated 

devices to computers with adapted 

software for people who are blind. 

Along with a regular school curriculum, 

Overbrook’s educational programs offer 

instruction in orientation and mobility, 

career education and work experience, communication, 

social interaction, use of assistive 

technology, leisure skills and other skills 

for daily living. There is a great emphasis on 

literacy, whether a student uses Braille or 

large print. Overbrook strives to provide 

focused, individualized, creative instruction 

every day. 

Julius Friedlander, a young teacher of children 

who were blind or had serious visual 

impairments, founded the school as the 

Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of 

the Blind in 1832. Friedlander came to 

Philadelphia from Germany. In 1833, the 

school’s constitution was written, a board of 

managers selected, a building rented. 

By the time Friedlander died in 1838, 

enrollment had reached fifty-nine students 

who studied academic subjects and music, 

and made articles to sell in a workshop. The 

present buildings were built in 1898-99, 

designed by the architectural firm of Cope 

and Stewardson. The name of the school was 

changed to Overbrook School for the Blind in 

1946 to legally comply with the name by 

which it was commonly known since its relocation 

to the Overbrook section of the city. 

The school is currently serving 200 students 

from southeastern Pennsylvania and New 

Jersey. The Overbrook School for the Blind’s 

web site address is www.obs.org. 


156

BALA 

PRESBYTERIAN 

HOME 

The Presbyterian Home for Aged Couples 

and Aged Persons, more commonly known as 

Bala Presbyterian Home, was founded as a 

non-profit corporation in 1885. Initially 

established to provide a setting for men and 

couples, the first building the Home occupied 

was situated at 65th and Vine Streets and was 

the first Presbyterian Home in the United 

States for couples. The Home was designed to 

serve the needs of elderly Presbyterians of 

modest financial resources. Volunteer representatives 

of the various Presbyterian churches 

in the Philadelphia Presbytery served on 

the Board of Managers. The groundbreaking 

for the present facility was held in May 1893. 

The facility has been operated as a retirement 

community with a continuum of care since 

June 1895. 

Since 1996, an elected board of directors 

functions as the governing body and is responsible 

for overall direction of the Home in meeting 

its goals. 

The Bala Presbyterian Home is dedicated to 

providing high quality retirement living and 

healthcare with enriching social, spiritual 

and physical activities for all residents. The 

Home’s mission is to provide the best quality 

of continuing care for the elderly, with special 

concern for those of limited assets. This care is 

provided in a Christian setting with a loving, 

homelike environment. It includes programs 

and services to assist adults sixty-five years or 

older from the Greater Philadelphia area to live 

as independently as possible. Bala Presbyterian 

Home affirms the dignity of every person. 

It provides attractive and comfortable single 

rooms, double rooms for couples and respite 

care. The community dining room serves three 

nutritious meals daily, with supervision by a 

licensed dietitian. A full calendar of activities is 

offered, including music, films, arts and crafts, 

exercise, dining out, shopping, and many field 

trips to interesting places in the Philadelphia 

area. Sunday worship services are held in the 

chapel, and some residents meet daily for 

morning devotions and weekly for Bible study. 

Since residents come to the Presbyterian 

Home with varying needs, three different levels 

of care are provided: Independent Living, 

Assisted Living, and Health Care with professional 

nursing and medical care. 

For well over a century, our Christian commitment 

to the well being of our residents has 

made Bala Presbyterian Home a haven of comfort 

and security. We look forward to providing 

the same signature care in the new century. 

✧ 

Top: Bala Presbyterian Home, 4700 City 

Avenue, opened as a retirement community 

in June 1895. 

Bottom: Pleasant surroundings complement 

the continuum of care offered by Bala 

Presbyterian Home. 


157

CHURCH OF 

THE LORD 

JESUS CHRIST 

OF THE 

APOSTOLIC 

FAITH 

✧ 

Above: Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of 

the Apostolic Faith. 

Right: Bishop Omega Shelton. 


158 

The founding pioneer of the Church of the 

Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith 

organization, Bishop Sherrod C. Johnson, was 

ordained to a ministerial level in 1921, under 

the leadership of Bishop Robert Lawson. 

In 1933, Bishop Johnson left Bishop 

Lawson’s organization, differing in opinions 

on the issues of observance to Christmas and 

Easter, as well as modest apparel for women. 

He then formed the existing organization, 

headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Membership grew from less than fifty to more 

than 2,000 in the twenty-eight years, under 

his leadership. 

A devastating fire at the church headquarters 

in 1958 destroyed the church building. 

Bishop Johnson led members in erecting an 

ultra-modern facility without any government 

or other exterior funding. This construction 

was completed in less than one year, despite a 

lengthy steel strike in the area and active 

opposition from local union leaders, trying to 

control the ebb and flow for union workers at 

a new construction site. The result of this 

labor of love presently stands at 701 South 

22nd Street, subsequently named by the City 

of Philadelphia, “Apostolic Square,” which 

includes an adjoining thirty-two-unit apartment 

complex for senior citizens. The headquarters 

church, seating 5,000, is the second 

largest church auditorium in Philadelphia. 

Following Bishop Johnson’s death in 1961, 

Bishop Samuel McDowell Shelton assumed 

leadership as the general overseer. Among the 

many highlights of Bishop Shelton’s administration 

were his worldwide pilgrimages to 

spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was 

granted an audience with many heads of state. 

These included His Majesty, King Hussien of 

Jordan; His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor 

Haille Selassie of Ethiopia; His Eminence, 

Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in Rome; His 

Majesty, King Gustaf VI Adlof of Sweden; and 

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India. 

Leaving behind an indelible legacy upon his 

death in 1991, after thirty years of leadership, 

Bishop Shelton was succeeded by his youngest 

son, and current general overseer of the 

Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, Bishop 

Omega Shelton. While working to enhance the 

spiritual development of his congregation, 

Bishop Omega also began spreading the gospel 

internationally. He was the first clergyman to 

present a humanitarian award to Dr. Nelson 

Mandela of South Africa for his heroic struggles 

against injustices and persecution. He has also 

been granted audiences with Prime Minister 

Yitzhak Rabin of Israel, King Hussein of 

Jordan, and Pope John Paul II. 

In addition, Bishop Omega received the 

Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters for his 

outstanding accomplishments, and was the 

keynote speaker for the 1995 graduation at the 

American College of Switzerland. He continues 

to spread God’s gospel throughout the world, 

and to live a life that counts for Christ.

Community College of Philadelphia, providing 

“Education for a Changing World,” is 

the third largest degree-granting institution and 

the only public institution of higher education 

in the City of Philadelphia. An associate degree 

granting institution with open admissions, its 

mission is to provide access to higher education 

to all who may benefit. 

In 1965, the College opened its doors to its 

first students. In the intervening years, over 

400,000 students have attended classes at the 

College’s main campus at 1700 Spring Garden 

Street, as well as three Regional Centers, and 

more than twenty neighborhood locations. 

Student success is an important part of the 

College’s history, as are the unique linkages 

that the College’s main campus has to the 

history of Philadelphia and the nation. 

The area of the College’s main campus served 

as one of William Penn’s Manors in the late 

1600s. In 1734, the land was given to Andrew 

Hamilton who built his home, Bush Hill, here. 

The estate passed to his son James Hamilton, 

Mayor of Philadelphia, where it housed 

Philadelphia’s first fine art collection. Years later, 

Vice President John Adams lived here. 

In 1793, Bush Hill was involved in one of 

the most dramatic events in Philadelphia 

history when it was a quarantine hospital for 

yellow-fever victims. In this capacity, the 

mansion was under the direction of a compassionate 

merchant, Stephen Girard, who went 

on to become Philadelphia’s first millionaire. 

Working with Girard to nurse and bury yellowfever 

victims were two legendary black clergymen, 

Absalom Jones and Richard Allen. 

In the nineteenth century, the land served 

manufacturing and industrial needs as site to a 

carpet factory, iron works, and eventually home 

to the largest railroad-manufacturing center in 

America, the Baldwin Locomotive Works. 

Prior to its college role, the site was home 

for the third U.S. Mint where the nation’s 

coinage was produced. In 1972, the United 

States Government gave the Mint building to 

the College. 

Today, at this historic site, the College provides 

seamless transfer to four-year institutions, 

workforce development, and career training. 

Students can choose from over seventy career 

and transfer programs leading to associate 

degrees or certificates. Those pursuing fouryear 

degrees benefit from the College’s transfer 

articulation agreements with colleges and 

universities throughout the nation. 

The College also provides direct educational 

services to hundreds of area employers through 

its Business and Industry programs to address 

a variety of educational, training, and service 

needs. Additionally, the College offers numerous 

meeting accommodations, video conferencing, 

and satellite up/down link capabilities. 

For more information, visit Community 

College of Philadelphia on the web at 

www.ccp.cc.pa.us. or call 215-751-8000. 

COMMUNITY 

COLLEGE OF 

PHILADELPHIA 


159

PHILADELPHIA 

CONVENTION & 

VISITORS BUREAU 

✧ 

Above: Swann Fountain. 

COURTESY OF JIM MCWILLIAMS. 

Below: City Hall. 

COURTESY OF JIM MCWILLIAMS. 


160 

The Philadelphia Convention & Visitors 

Bureau (PCVB) is the official sales arm for the 

City of Philadelphia, including marketing 

Philadelphia nationally and internationally as a 

first-tier destination for conventions, meetings 

and tourism. 

The PCVB, a 1,300-member, non-profit 

organization, assists meeting planners, tour 

operators and visitors with all aspects of meeting 

and touring in Philadelphia, and serves as the 

main liaison to the city’s hospitality community. 

The PCVB has a board of directors representing 

the travel industry made up of hospitality, 

business, civic and government leaders. 

Since 1993, more than 600 groups have 

met or plan to meet at the Pennsylvania 

Convention Center in Philadelphia, resulting 

in more than five million definite room nights 

and another 1.4 million tentative room 

bookings, generating an average of $300 

million in delegate spending per year. Many 

meeting planners have recognized the PCVB’s 

Convention Sales and Services team as one of 

the top in the nation. 

Due to the wide range of healthcare 

institutions and research centers in Philadelphia, 

healthcare-related conventions account for more 

than one-third of all conventions held in 

Philadelphia. The Greater Philadelphia Health 

Care Congress, a PCVB-pioneered division 

made up of healthcare professionals from the 

Philadelphia region, has played an integral role 

in bringing more than 1.5 million room nights 

valued at $406 million in delegate spending to 

the city. Another 400,000 healthcare-related 

visitors are scheduled to meet in Philadelphia 

through 2008. 

Another division created by the PCVB, the 

Multicultural Affairs Congress (MAC) is 

composed of ethnically diverse members 

representing a cross-section of Philadelphia’s 

business, government, cultural, hospitality and 

civic communities. MAC works to increase 

Philadelphia’s share of national multicultural 

meetings and conventions, including support 

and promotion of multicultural institutions and 

attractions, and increased educational and 

business opportunities for people of color. Since 

its inception, MAC has generated more than 

$400 million in delegate spending for the city. 

Building on the past successes of significant 

events including Major League Baseball’s All-Star 

Game and the NCAA Women’s Final Four, the 

Philadelphia Sports Congress sells Philadelphia 

and the region as a sport destination. This 

division of the PCVB is responsible for 

attracting, developing and promoting sportsrelated 

events and conventions to the city. 

The Tourism Sales and Services department’s 

mission is to develop and implement sales 

programs domestically and internationally in 

order to promote Philadelphia as a destination 

for leisure travel. The department sells 

Philadelphia as a destination domestically to 

tour operators, group leaders, automobile clubs 

(AAA), wholesalers, and travel agents. The 

department’s sales efforts, along with major 

tourism developments in the city, have led to 

the return of many operators for overnight 

stays. International sales efforts have led to an 

explosion of new product in the two primary 

markets—the United Kingdom and Germany— 

as well as France, Italy, The Netherlands, 

Argentina, and Brazil. 

Through a concerted effort by the PCVB, 

its board, and members, Philadelphia continues 

to rise as a prime destination for meetings, 

conventions, and tourism.

Stroll through Philadelphia’s historic district 

any day during the summer and you’re liable to 

bump into a cordwainer. A tinker. Or perhaps a 

colonial soldier, a boarding house mistress, or a 

Tory who espouses loyalty to the king. 

Since 1994 Historic Philadelphia, Inc. (HPI) 

has been a key ingredient in the growth of the 

city’s tourism market. Combining live historic 

reenactments with a solid promotion and 

marketing effort, HPI has helped make 

Philadelphia’s historic district not only “America’s 

most historic square mile” but also one of its most 

interesting and entertaining. The goal is to create 

activities and programs that entice visitors to 

venture beyond the Liberty Bell and 

Independence Hall, extending the length of their 

visit and generating increased revenues to the city. 

At its start, HPI sought professional actors 

to greet visitors and stage short scenes 

detailing life in the colonies. As the programs 

evolved and visitors delighted in meeting and 

chatting with colonial citizens, HPI gradually 

added more and more activities to the 

schedule. Each season, actors are put through 

several weeks of rigorous training in American 

history, script rehearsals and instruction on 

how to make modern-day tourists feel at 

home in the eighteenth century. 

Today, HPI’s programs do more than just 

entertain and inform. They invite visitors to 

participate in America’s history. Standing 

shoulder to shoulder with eighteenth century 

Philadelphians, they can join in a protest against 

King George’s taxes, voice their concerns about 

declaring their independence, learn how to 

defend themselves against an attack by the 

redcoats or proudly carry the flag of one of the 

original thirteen colonies. 

As visitors wander Philadelphia’s historic 

streets, twenty-first century city life is whisked 

away as they encounter the people who 

populated one of the eighteenth century’s most 

important cities. Staying in colonial character, 

the historic re-enactors relate the story of lives 

that, while not recorded in the history books, 

helped forge America’s freedom. 

But the famous names also have their stories 

to tell and HPI brings to life many of the 

familiar “heroes of history” including Benjamin 

Franklin, George Washington, James Forten, 

Abigail Adams, Betsy Ross, and others. 

HPI also partners with area museums, 

staging performances that tell the stories of the 

people whose lives are reflected in the Atwater 

Kent Museum, African American Museum, 

Carpenter’s Hall, Christ Church and the 

National Museum of American Jewish History. 

As the city’s tourism industry continues to 

grow and expand, HPI will also continue to 

provide millions of visitors with a glimpse 

into America’s most dramatic and important 

period in history. 

✧ 

HISTORIC 

PHILADELPHIA, 

INC. 

Above: The rousing sounds of Historic 

Philadelphia, Inc.’s fife & drum corps have 

visitors marching to the beat. 

COURTESY OF OFFICE OF THE CITY REPRESENTATIVE. 

Below: Historic Philadelphia, Inc.’s colonial 

re-enactors perform one of their trademark 

“playlets,” short street theatre performances 

that tell tales of life in eighteenth century 

Philadelphia. 

COURTESY OF GEORGE FEDER. 


161

GREATER 

PHILADELPHIA 

TOURISM 

MARKETING 

CORPORATION 

✧ 

Right: Fireworks blazing over the 

Philadelphia Museum of Art are a Fourth of 

July tradition. Timed perfectly with 

exhilarating live music, the fireworks paint 

the skies over Benjamin Franklin Parkway. 

Thousands of residents and visitors come 

out for the most patriotic party in America. 

COURTESY OF GEORGE WIDMAN. 

Below: Arguably the most popular sculpture 

in Philadelphia, LOVE, by artist Robert 

Indiana, debuted in John F. Kennedy Plaza 

during the 1976 Bicentennial celebration. 

Today it sits in the Plaza at Fifteenth and 

Kennedy Boulevard and is the symbol for 

the city’s tourism marketing effort, inspiring 

the tagline “Philadelphia the place that 

LOVES YOU BACK.” 

COURTESY OF BOB KRIST. 

Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing 

Corporation promotes image and tourism for 

“Philadelphia, The Place that Loves You Back.” 

GPTMC is a public/private partnership founded 

and funded in 1996 by the City of Philadelphia, 

the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Pew 

Charitable Trusts. In 1996 GPTMC launched the 

first centralized effort to promote to potential 

tourists the diverse historical and cultural aspects 

of the region’s five counties—Bucks, Chester, 

Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia. A one 

percentage point increase in the hotel sales tax, 

effective July 1, 1999, produced additional 

funding for GPTMC. 

The mission of the corporation, which is 

led by President and CEO Meryl Levitz, is to 

develop and implement effective marketing 

programs to promote a positive regional 

image and boost overnight leisure visitation. 

This is accomplished through the fulfillment 

of several key responsibilities: 

• Leisure advertising in print, television, 

radio, and out-of-home 

• Promotion of tourism-related attractions, 

hotels, and events 

• Fulfillment materials and database marketing 

• Ongoing pro-active media relations campaign 

• Media news bureau with slide, video, and 

information library 

• Media relations support for regional initiatives 

• Direct response marketing 

• Destination packaging with regional partners 

• Image, visitor, and advertising effectiveness 

tracking research 

• Cultural Cooperative Grant Program to 

support regional partnerships 

• Marketing assistance for events and area 

attractions 

• Tourism Internet site at www.gophila.com, 

serving 120,000 unique visitors last year 

• Publications promoting the five-county region 

The advertising campaign from GPTMC 

promotes “Philadelphia, The Place that Loves 

You Back.” The current campaign features 

celebrities describing “their Philadelphia,” with 

powerful images of the city and its countryside. 

Participating celebrities include Oprah Winfrey, 

Bob Dole, Nicole Miller, Kevin Bacon, Ken 

Burns, and Bill Cosby. The 1998 campaign 

generated over a million trips to the region and 

$114 million in incremental expenditures, with 

a media budget of less than $1.8 million. 

In 1999, 10.7 million overnight trips 

were made to Philadelphia, with the greatest 

interest largely coming from the Northeast 

corridor markets, including Manhattan, 

Brooklyn, Queens, Southern Connecticut, 

Northern New Jersey, Wilkes Barre-Scranton, 

and Harrisburg/Lancaster/York. The most visited 

attractions were Independence Park, the 

Betsy Ross House, the Franklin Institute, the 

U.S. Mint, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 

King of Prussia Mall, Valley Forge National 

Park, Sesame Place, Peddler’s Village, and the 

Franklin Mint Museum. 

For more information about regional tourist 

attractions and events, consumers can call 

1-888-GO-PHILA, or visit www.gophila.com. 


162

CENTER CITY 

DISTRICT 

Philadelphia’s Center City District (CCD) is 

proof of what’s possible when business and civic 

leaders share a vision and invest in the future of 

a dynamic and historic city. The vibrant twentyfour-hour 

hub of Greater Philadelphia, Center 

City is the largest concentrated center of 

employment in the region; the premier 

destination for conventions and tourism; and 

home to world-renowned museums, cultural 

institutions, restaurants, and historic sites. 

In 1990, over two thousand property 

owners, commercial tenants, and employers in 

the eighty-block district established this privatesector 

organization committed to making the 

downtown of America’s fifth largest city clean, 

safe, and attractive. CCD supplements 

municipal services by providing maintenance, 

public safety, and hospitality programs 365 days 

per year. It also promotes the many cultural, 

retail, entertainment and dining opportunities in 

Center City through multimedia advertising 

campaigns, the sponsorship and production of 

special events, and through directional signs to 

orient visitors. 

✧ 

CSRs and sidewalk sweepers. 

Harry J. Lawall & Son, Inc., is the Tri-State 

area’s largest privately held provider of 

Orthotic and Prosthetic Services. Established 

in 1977 as a small family business, the 

company has grown to over 150 employees 

operating from 13 patient-care centers. Its 

comprehensive staff of certified practitioners 

provide the highest quality prosthetic and 

orthotic services, with the goal of improving 

patients’ lives and helping them achieve their 

full potential. 

The company’s experienced practitioners 

understand age-specific needs and the importance 

of tailoring each device to its user’s 

needs. They recognize that older patients may 

require longer recovery time following 

injuries, illnesses or surgery, and prolonged 

adjustment time for using a new artificial limb 

or brace. Factors addressed with children 

include rapid growth and the extra stress they 

may place on orthoses and prostheses. 

Service is available at Lawall’s thirteen 

patient care centers, patients’ homes, 

acute care and rehabilitation hospitals, and 

nursing facilities. 

Harry J. Lawall & Son is proud of its 

Philadelphia heritage and the flagship from 

which unparalleled success has been achieved. 

✧ 

HARRY J. 

LAWALL & 

SON, INC. 

Harry J. Lawall & Son, Inc.’s corporate 

office in northeast Philadelphia. 


163


164

THE MARKETPLACE 

Philadelphia’s retail and commercial 

establishments offer an impressive variety of 

choices to the people of Philadelphia 

Dietz & Watson ..........................................................................166 

Hunt Corporation .......................................................................169 

City Tavern ...............................................................................170 

Wolf, Block, Schorr, Solis-Cohen, LLP ............................................172 

Drinker, Biddle & Reath LLP ........................................................174 

Jacobs Music ..............................................................................176 

Korman Communities ..................................................................177 

✧ 

At the annual re-enactment of the battle of 

Germantown, redcoated portrayers of His 

Majesty’s foot soldiers muster in front of 

Cliveden, the Benjamin Chew mansion 

which became the focal point of the fighting. 

Six generations of Chew descendants lived 

in the house before the family donated it to 

the National Trust for Historic Preservation 

in 1969. 

COURTESY OF JOE NETTIS. REINACTMENT AT CLIVEDEN 

MANSION © 2001 JOE NETTIS, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 


165

DIETZ & 

WATSON 


166 

Throughout its more than sixty-year history, 

Dietz & Watson has prepared and marketed 

the most flavorful, highest quality delicatessen 

products available. Using Old World recipes 

and only the finest quality of meats, spices, and 

natural seasonings, it continues today to maintain 

the philosophy and standards set by its 

founder, Gottlieb Dietz, far exceeding government 

quality standards. 

Dietz, a young German sausage maker, 

founded the company in 1939, beginning the 

tradition that is still carried on in the family 

tradition by the company’s five second- and 

third-generation owners. 

Dietz & Watson has become recognized by 

loyal consumers throughout the country for 

its production of over 400 premium quality 

products with superior flavor—including not 

only a full line of deli meats, cheeses, German, 

and Italian specialties, but also food service, 

salads and condiments. 

Using only top-quality, natural ingredients, 

including the leanest and freshest ham, pork, 

beef, turkey, and chicken and the best spices, 

the company prepares products without artificial 

flavors, colors, fillers, cereals, or extenders. 

Flavor enhancement products, such as 

MSG, are never used in Dietz & Watson products, 

which depend for their flavor on their 

natural, quality ingredients. All facets of the 

company’s production plant are monitored 

constantly, to ensure the highest standards are 

followed at every step of the process. 

Since its modest beginnings in Philadelphia 

in 1939, Dietz & Watson has become nationally 

known for its highly recognizable, branded 

products, which today are professionally 

displayed in the finest supermarkets, convenience 

stores and neighborhood delis in 

thirty-five states. 

The third generation descendants of 

Gottlieb Dietz utilize the same “equal voices” 

concept established when their father, 

Louis Eni, Sr., their mother, Ruth, and their 

aunt, Lore, took over ownership and operation 

of the business. This “equal voices” 

concept enables the owners to debate varying 

viewpoints in private, but to stand 

together once consensus is reached. This 

practice has engendered strong respect and 

teamwork among the owners, themselves, 

and with employees. 

Despite its consistent growth and everincreasing 

presence in the marketplace, Dietz 

& Watson is still very much a family business. 

Louis J. Eni, Jr., his brother, Chris Eni, and 

sister, Cindy Yingling, manage the company. 

Their mother remains a vibrant and active 

owner. Realizing that quality is the driving 

force in the marketplace, they continue to 

demand the highest standards of quality for 

raw materials and production, and to cultivate 

long-term relationships with dealers. 

Each of the three grandchildren brings a 

particular skill to the company. Louis, Jr. 

oversees product development and sales; 

Chris utilizes his mechanical engineering

degree to impact design of the equipment and 

plant facilities; and Cindy, whose degree is in 

business, uses her expertise to guide Dietz & 

Watson into a professional, computerized 

world of accounting and finance. 

Just completing a five-year expansion plan 

that increased plant size from 250,000 to 

325,000 square feet, Dietz & Watson has also 

purchased a new, 180,000-square-foot facility 

in Baltimore, Maryland. A state-of-the-art 

quality control and research lab ensures the 

availability of a wide range of premium products 

for the retailer’s deli case, meat case, and 

food service areas. These products include 

Dietz & Watson’s award-winning frankfurters, 

bolognas, and hams, the only “Philadelphia 

Scrapple Made in Philadelphia,” and a quality 

line-up of pork, beef, turkey, chicken, and 

home meal replacement products. 

The Dietz & Watson marketing concept 

emphasizes tremendous support and follow-up 

for retailers, from advertising to marketing, 

and from point-of-sale materials to 

deli case sell-tags containing the nutritional 

information so important to today’s consumers. 

Through the company’s network of 

direct account managers, set-up people, driver/salesmen 

and brokers, it is able to provide 

a full-service line of products for the delicatessen 

of any fine retail outlet. 

Coordinated efforts by company personnel 

in all divisions, working toward a common 

goal, have led to a degree of dedication and 

teamwork surprising in today’s world. 

Nurtured by the open, honest communication 

between management and employees, the 

company continues to retain its characteristics 

of mutual trust and dedication. 

Dietz & Watson continues to seek enthusiastic 

personnel who are interested in 

becoming a part of the opportunities offered 

by this solid, growing company. The large 

number of workers who have been a part of 

the company’s growth and development over 

a period of many years underlines the Dietz 

& Watson concept of offering good employees 

“a job for life,” with an emphasis on continuing 

education, training and orientation. 

All this is further augmented by a family 

atmosphere that extends from the owners to 

the newest workers, and in turn to a recognition 

by those in the production side of the 

business that quality and sales go 

hand-in-hand, and that both are essential to 

the continued success of the business. 


167

At the forefront of technology in their 

industry, Dietz & Watson relies heavily on a 

sophisticated information systems department, 

as well as a new, computerized, total shipping 

locator system. Working in conjunction with 

the company’s shipping program that has been 

in effect for the past twelve years, and sortation 

that has been used for more than a year, the 

system utilizes hand-held units for locators, 

allowing personnel to key in a product to 

determine how much is on hand, where it is 

located, and the date by which it is to be sold. 

A new order-entry system, which debuted in 

mid-1999, adds user-friendly, flexible, 

state-of-the-art automation to that facet of the 

process. Employees who deliver the products 

also utilize hand-held units. Those at the 

garage, vehicle maintenance, and purchasing 

areas are also computerized, and still other 

equipment maintains an update for those 

responsible for dry goods and non-essential raw 

material purchases. The six-day-a-week shipping 

operation works on a twenty-four-hour 

basis to ship products to thirty-five states, with 

timely delivery and absolute adherence to honest 

and straight-forward customer relationships. 

During the past five years the Dietz & 

Watson engineering department has 

redesigned the production plant’s physical 

expansion to make the product the star. This 

division oversees all plant maintenance, new 

equipment layout, plant layout, facilities and 

construction, as well as redesigning production 

equipment, always aimed at further 

enhancing quality of the company’s products. 

A key factor in the design department’s 

effectiveness is its close involvement in 

detail, leading to such things as redesigning 

injectors for performance and durability 

improvement beyond original factory specs. 

Poultry processing equipment has been 

designed to provide unique shapes for various 

home-style turkey breasts and chicken 

breasts. A unitized mold system and unitized 

rack was designed for ham processing. 

Close attention to retailers’ and consumers’ 

suggestions has helped the company keep 

abreast of marketing trends and provide the 

kinds of products the public wants—from 

recognizing children’s importance in the marketplace 

to seasonal items—hams at 

Christmas and Easter, turkey at Thanksgiving, 

and hot dogs for summer cookouts. 

Constant inventory and marketing evaluations 

lead to new product development as 

tastes and desires change. Health concerns 

that began in the late 1980s, changing consumer 

tastes and desires, have resulted in a 

greater diversity of products, especially the 

demand for those featuring turkey and chicken 

breasts, as well as for healthier cuts of 

meats in traditional products. 

Dietz & Watson’s response to customers’ 

needs, its consistent focus on quality control, 

food safety, sanitation, environmental concerns, 

communications and marketing concepts have 

propelled the company to a leadership role in 

the deli business, nationwide. 


168

The Hunt Corporation provides office, 

presentation and display products and solutions 

to global markets. Founded by C. 

Howard Hunt to make pens in 1899, and 

incorporated in 1901, Hunt acquired Boston 

Specialty Company, makers of the Boston 

Pencil Sharpener, in 1925, then expanded 

significantly into the office products industry. 

With the 1940s advent of ballpoint pens, 

Hunt shifted its pen-making technology into 

calligraphy materials for school and art products 

and materials, including paints, Biefang 

paper and X-ACTO knives. The company 

acquired metal office accessories (Lit-Ning 

Products), computer accessories (Data 

Products), and office furniture (Bevis Custom 

Furniture) in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Hunt expanded into the emerging digital 

image industry in the 1990s, acquiring laminating 

machines, films and related consumable 

products in the U.S., the United Kingdom, and 

Holland (Ademco-Seal, Sallmetal, Centafoam, 

Image Technologies, Axiom). Partnership relationships 

with other digital imaging companies 

extend the reach of these products. 

Hunt went public in 1971, and its stock 

began trading on the New York Stock Exchange 

in 1983. 

Restructuring in 1996 focused on the 

digital image market and on those products 

in which Hunt had the potential to be a #1 

or #2 player in the market. Furniture, metal 

office and computer accessories businesses 

and much of the art product category were 

sold, and in 1998-99, operations and supply 

chain activities in the graphic products 

business were consolidated. Through 

restructuring Hunt strengthened its management, 

developed company values, 

adopted measures to gauge shareholder 

value, expanded marketing and development 

resources, and added digital imaging 

experts to its Board. 

“I believe the digital imaging revolution 

is a reality, and that it offers significant 

opportunities for both the short and long 

term growth of the company in both commercial 

and consumer markets,” says Don 

Thompson, CEO. 

Hunt’s second century begins with the 

same excitement and promise as at its 

beginnings in 1899. With skillful implementation 

of strategy—and a little luck—Hunt 

promises to be even more successful in its 

second century. 

Its 12 sites, including corporate offices 

in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, employ 

1,300 and generate $260 million in sales to 

customers in graphics, framing, school and 

office markets. 

The Hunt Foundation has provided scholarships 

to employees’ children since 1956, 

and also benefits charities in communities 

where Hunt’s sites are located. In 

Philadelphia, current beneficiaries include 

City Year, the Learning to Grow Program at 

Andrew Jackson School, Children’s Hospital, 

Free Philadelphia Library, and Hunt Futures 

Program at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

HUNT 

CORPORATION 

✧ 

Left: Hunt Corporation’s products 

during the past century have become 

household words. 

Below: George E. Bartol, George E. Bartol, 

Jr., and George E. Bartol, III, led Hunt 

Corporation from 1903-1983. Founded by 

C. Howard Hunt in 1899, the company’s 

other top officials have included Dennis 

Howarth, president (1902-1903); Ronald J. 

Naples, CEO (1982) and chairman (1987- 

1996); and Donald L. Thompson, CEO and 

chairman (1996 to present). 


169

CITY TAVERN 

✧ 

Above: The impressive front vestibule at 

City Tavern. 

Top, right: A frontal view of City Tavern. 

Below: City Tavern’s Long Room, where the 

first Fourth of July celebration was held. 

Perhaps no other eating establishment in 

Philadelphia captures the sights and sounds 

of the glorious days of the Revolution like 

City Tavern. This remarkable recreation of 

one of Old City’s most important and historic 

taverns has captured the imagination of thousands 

of guests from all over the world. 

Here, in this authentically detailed establishment, 

they are transported to the time of 

the American Revolution and the founding of 

the New Republic, when weighty matters 

were debated and resolved in great meeting 

places such as City Tavern. With its charming 

and elegant eighteenth century interior—precise 

to the pewter and china service, the 

Colonial era furnishings and accessories, and 

waitstaff costumed in eighteenth century 

dress, guests will feel that they are meeting 

and dining in the midst of those great days. 

One can almost imagine Benjamin Franklin, 

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James 

Madison, or George Washington among the 

many guests, dining, conversing, and deciding 

the course that history would follow. 

This spectacular City Tavern is the culmination 

of the efforts of many who love history and 

Philadelphia. It was in this precise spot that the 

original City Tavern, first built in 1773, stood 

and served its guests for decades before being 

felled by fire in 1854. Shortly after its inception 

in 1948, the National Park Service gathered a 

group of artisans to research the eighteenth century 

and later painstakingly reconstruct City 

Tavern, brick by handmade brick, with the help 

of surviving architectural plans and insurance 

documents. City Tavern was finally rebuilt on the 

same spot in 1975, its construction completed 

just in time for the Bicentennial Fourth of July 

celebration. The timing could not have been 

more appropriate, as the very first Fourth of July 

celebration was held in City Tavern’s Long Room. 

It took until 1994, when restaurateur extraordinaire 

Walter Staib brought the precise 

balance of history and modern service to make 

City Tavern the renowned establishment it is 

today. Praised in The New York Times, The 

Washington Post, The Times of London, USA 

Today, The Chicago Tribune, Travel & Leisure, 

The Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Philadelphia 

Inquirer, City Tavern is one of Philadelphia’s 

most admired and celebrated restaurants. 

Staib’s attention to detail at City Tavern has 

earned him and City Tavern many awards, 

including Esquire’s Best New Restaurant in 

America, Restaurants & Institutions’ 1999 

Restaurateur of Distinction Ivy Award, the 

Restaurant Hospitality 2000 Best Kids Menu in 

America Grand Award and the Philadelphia 

Delaware Valley Restaurant Association’s 1999 

Restaurateur of the Year Award. 

One of the main reasons City Tavern has 

continuously won award after award is the 

delightful cuisine and attentive service. Walter 

Staib has fashioned a fabulous selection of dishes 

that are inspired by the cooking of the eighteenth 

century, but that reflect today’s freshest 

and finest ingredients. The menu is a pleasantly 

surprising testimony to the culinary prowess 

and sophistication of eighteenth century chefs. 

The Dinner Menu offers the kind of dishes 

that one might enjoy in the late eighteenth century 

with the modern advantages of storage, 


170

✧ 

Above: A sampling of the eighteenth century 

delights, including (clockwise from top left) 

crabcakes, stuffed shrimp, porkloin oatmeal 

stout, turkey pot pie, beef and pork pie with 

Thomas Jefferson Merlot, and Thomas 

Jefferson’s Sweet Potato Biscuits. 

transportation and preparation. For example, 

red meat was hard to come by and enjoy, 

whereas fish and seafood were so abundant 

that lobster was used for bait and salmon was 

used for fertilizer. Fowl and other game were 

very popular, especially turkey and rabbit. The 

entree offering at City Tavern now features red 

meat, fish, and fowl. 

So creative and intriguing are all the City 

Tavern menu choices, both lunch and dinner, 

that many guests have asked for the recipes so 

that they can recreate this unique cuisine at 

home. Now, Proprietor and Master Chef, 

Walter Staib has endeavored to produce a 

delightful new cookbook, the City Tavern 

Cookbook, 200 Years of Classic Recipes From 

America’s First Gourmet Restaurant, which has 

become an instant bestseller. 

City Tavern continues its long tradition as 

a meeting place by offering ten charming and 

historic rooms, as well as the City Tavern 

Gardens, the largest outdoor dining space in 

the city, for any kind of occasion or function. 

City Tavern’s ability to offer full-service to 

large groups has earned it a reputation as one 

of the most renowned places in Philadelphia 

for the most important occasions. 

The unique experience that is City Tavern 

has beckoned visitors from all over the world. 

As we celebrate the new millennium, the special 

feeling and sense of history that City 

Tavern creates is even more important. As 

time goes by, it becomes harder and harder to 

connect with the past and those who shaped 

our world. City Tavern bridges the gulf of 

time to transport guests with style and 

panache to one of the world’s most dynamic 

moments. No visit to Philadelphia would be 

complete without experiencing the living culinary 

museum that is City Tavern. 

Left: Proprietor Walter Staib (center) 

and staff. 

Below: A table in City Tavern’s Long 

Room set with an array of custom 

reproduction china, pewter, and crystal. 

Visit www.citytavern.com for more 

information. 


171

✧ 

Philadelphia City Hall (foreground) turns one 

hundred in 2001. Wolf, Block came into 

existence two years after the building was 

finished. Liberty Place (background) is part of 

the revitalization of center city Philadelphia. 

COURTESY OF TOP KAT PHOTOGRAPHY, INC. 

WOLF, BLOCK, SCHORR AND 

SOLIS-COHEN LLP 

In October 1903 University of 

Pennsylvania Professor Horace Stern teamed 

with young attorney Morris Wolf and formed 

a partnership, which, with various name 

changes, has evolved into Wolf, Block, Schorr 

and Solis-Cohen LLP. 

The partnership between Stern and Wolf 

was based upon the idea that opposites 

attract. Wolf was the outgoing, charismatic 

rainmaker who made deals and tried cases. 

Stern, on the other hand, was a shy, modest 

man who was more comfortable with books 

than people. It was Stern’s academic expertise 

(he later became Chief Justice of the 

Pennsylvania Supreme Court) that helped the 

firm build its reputation, and it was Wolf’s 

personal style and courtroom savvy that 

attracted new clients. 

Horace Stern and Morris Wolf set out to 

start a small law practice and ended up 

fulfilling a previously unmet need, providing 

legal counsel to both small and large Jewish 

businesses. As the size and influence of these 

businesses grew throughout the twentieth 

century, so did Wolf, Block. Soon the firm’s 

practice expanded far from its ethnic roots 

and throughout the area. It represented then, 

and does today, the entire spectrum of the 

business community. 

As Wolf, Block’s reputation grew, so did the 

firm. Through the first half of the century, the 

firm had no formal departments. It was 

assumed that a good attorney would be able 

to take care of his client’s needs whether it was 

a tax matter, corporate need or a personal 

estate. Every lawyer was a generalist whose 

purpose was to serve his clients. Wolf, Block’s 

original departments were formalized in the 

late 1960s as a result of the increasing 

complexity of the practice of law, and the 

resulting client needs. For example, the firm’s 

reputation in real estate was a result of 

representing almost all of Philadelphia’s top 

real estate firms in the 1920s; and the firm 

developed for them innovative lease 

contracts, financing arrangements, and tax 

structures that ultimately attracted clients 

throughout the nation. 

Wolf, Block now has 265 lawyers. The 

headquarters are still located in Philadelphia, 

with a large branch office in New York, and 

other branch offices in Cherry Hill and 

Newark, New Jersey; Harrisburg and 

Norristown, Pennsylvania; and Wilmington, 

Delaware. Attorneys practice in one or more 

of the firm’s eighteen practice groups: 

• Business: Corporate/Securities, Real Estate, 

Intellectual Property and Information 

Technology, Communications, Financial 


172

Services, Health Law, Government Assisted 

and Affordable Housing, Securitization, 

Mortgage Conduit Lending, and Tax; 

• Litigation: Business Litigation, Complex 

Liability/Surety/Fidelity, Bankruptcy and 

Reorganization, Family Law, Utility 

Regulation, and Environmental Law; 

• Personal Planning: Estates and Trusts; 

• Employment: Employment Services and 

Employee Benefits. 

The spirit of teamwork created by its 

founders pervades the firm today as attorneys 

draw upon the accumulated knowledge and 

tradition of innovation of their partners. Wolf, 

Block represents a wide variety of businesses 

and individuals—from medium-sized 

entrepreneurial organizations to large publicly 

held businesses and state and local 

governments and their agencies. 

The firm takes pride in the fact that clients 

realize and appreciate that Wolf, Block 

attorneys act decisively and intelligently, 

while remaining aware of the need to control 

costs and to focus on the goals of clients. 

Wolf, Block’s reputation for successfully 

combining legal skills with business 

experience and acumen is national and 

international in scope. A significant number 

of partners are named annually in the “Best 

Lawyers in America.” 

Members of the firm have served in many 

prestigious government, bar association and 

academic positions, including Judge in the 

U. S. Court of Appeals, Commissioner of the 

U. S. Internal Revenue Service, Mayor of 

Philadelphia, Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania 

Supreme Court, Professor at Harvard Law 

School, President of the Pennsylvania Bar 

Association, Chancellor of the Philadelphia 

Bar Association, and most recently, President 

of the American Bar Association. 

With a history of pro bono work, Wolf, Block 

renewed its commitment to public service in 

1998 by establishing The Shestack Public 

Interest Fellowship to address the shortage of 

attorneys working on behalf of underserved 

populations in the Philadelphia area. Named in 

honor of Jerry Shestack, a member of the firm 

and past president of the American Bar 

Association, the Fellowship provides fifty 

percent of the time of a Wolf, Block attorney to 

the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia 

each year. This is only part of Wolf, Block’s 

public interest initiatives, which are committed 

to developing Wolf, Block lawyers into 

responsible civic leaders in the Philadelphia 

legal community. In 2000 the firm formalized its 

pro bono program with the addition of a 

Director of Litigation Training and Pro Bono, 

who will provide attorneys with training and 

education with a focus on pro bono service. 

The firm’s reputation of excellence began 

nearly a century ago and continues to populate 

its offices with the best and the brightest. Wolf, 

Block remains committed to maintaining its 

position at the forefront of the legal profession. 

✧ 

The reception area at Wolf, Block’s 

Philadelphia headquarters. The conference 

center, with ten conference rooms of various 

sizes and support areas, is adjacent to the 

reception area. 

COURTESY OF JEFFREY TOTARO PHOTOGRAPHY. 


173

✧ 

Top: John C. Bullitt (1824-1902). 

COURTESY OF THE PRINT & PICTURE COLLECTION, THE 

FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA (FLP). 

Right: South Third Street, looking north 

from Chestnut Street, circa 1869. John C. 

Bullitt’s office at No. 32 is the house 

with the dormer window in the center of 

the block. 

DRINKER 

BIDDLE & 

REATH LLP 

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY COMPANY OF 

PHILADELPHIA (LCP). 


174 

Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP has been a 

leading law firm for 150 years, representing 

clients ranging from the Union Oil Company, 

the University of Pennsylvania, and Western 

Union Telegraph in the late 1800s, to Delphi 

Automotive Systems Corporation, WorldGate 

Communications, Inc., and Merck & Co. in the 

1990s. Its growth parallels that of the city, state, 

and nation as the firm moved from an industrial 

age to that of advanced technology. Drinker 

has built a deserved reputation through its 

history of successfully handling unusually 

difficult cases and transactions, along with its 

commitment to understanding the firm’s 

clients, their industries, and businesses. 

Established by a young Kentucky attorney 

in 1849, Drinker has grown to be one of the 

largest firms headquartered in Philadelphia 

with more than 350 attorneys. In November 

1999, Drinker combined law practices with 

the New Jersey-based firm, Shanley & Fisher. 

In the late 1840s, Philadelphia was a prime 

location for industry and textile production. 

With the city poised for an era of accelerated 

progress, John C. Bullitt, an attorney from 

Louisville, Kentucky, relocated to Philadelphia 

to set up his law practice. 

Among Bullitt’s early clients were several 

local transportation companies, including the 

Camden Ferry Company, the Philadelphia & 

Reading Railroad, and the William Cramp & 

Sons Ship & Engine Building Company. By 

the turn of the century, Bullitt’s law office represented 

one-fifth of the region’s fifty largest 

industrial companies. 

But John Bullitt also recognized that 

Philadelphia was more than just an industrial 

power. He formed a close relationship with 

his business neighbor Drexel & Co., an 

investment banking company whose association 

with the firm would last nearly a century. 

By the late 1800s, the practice of business 

law was becoming increasingly specialized 

and centered on the organization and reorganization 

of corporations and preparing public 

issues of securities. The Bullitt law office had 

acquired a reputation as one of the first to 

specialize in these areas of business law 

through the firm’s representation of the 

Tidewater Pipe Company, and the railroad 

reorganizations of the Reading Railroad and 

the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. 

In the first decade of the twentieth century, 

Philadelphia grew to a city of 1.3 million people, 

the third largest in the United States. After 

the death of John Bullitt in 1902, several significant 

events reshaped the firm, most notably 

the addition of lawyers Henry S. Drinker, Jr., 

Charles J. Biddle and Thomas Reath. 

The two largest clients that Charles Biddle 

brought to the firm were among Philadelphia’s 

oldest companies—the Philadelphia Saving 

Fund Society, the first savings bank in the 

U.S.; and the Philadelphia Contributionship 

for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, 

the nation’s first successful mutual fire insurance 

company that became a property and 

casualty company. 

President Roosevelt’s New Deal created a 

greatly expanded administrative law practice at

the firm. With the creation of the Securities 

and Exchange Commission, the National Labor 

Relations Board, and the passage of the Glass- 

Steagall Act, the firm was dealing with the 

advent of registration statements and the 

increased regulation of the securities industry, 

as well as new procedures shaping the relations 

of labor and management. The firm represented 

management in Philadelphia’s first sit-down 

strike by the Electric Storage Battery plant in 

1937, and continued to collaborate in the 

struggles with unions throughout the 1930s 

and 1940s. 

World War II brought continued prosperity 

to Drinker Biddle & Reath. The business 

acumen of partner Thomas Reath and W. 

Averell Harriman of Brown Brothers Harriman 

& Co. helped the effort by reviving the Cramp 

shipyard, building and launching vessels for 

the war. 

After the end of the war, the firm became 

involved in domestic issues and pro bono 

work, an integral part of the firm’s practice 

today. In the 1950s and mid 1960s, attorney 

Henry W. Sawyer, III, represented, on behalf of 

the American Civil Liberties Union, alleged 

communists who were called before the House 

Committee on Un-American Activities and the 

Senate Internal Security Committee, and 

assisted African Americans in Mississippi who 

had been arrested for protesting segregation. 

In more recent times, Drinker Biddle & 

Reath attorneys have continued to counsel 

individuals and organizations on a pro bono 

basis, successfully representing abused and 

neglected children, local officials challenging 

the quality of services provided by the 

Department of Welfare, and a client challenging 

substandard conditions in public housing. 

From the 1960s to the 1990s, Drinker continued 

its growth. The firm’s strategic business 

plan emphasizes its commitment to expanding 

its regional hold and supplementing its 

corporate practice. As a result, the firm doubled 

in size from 1970 to 1980, and then doubled 

again before the ’80s were over. 

Along with the firm’s growth, new opportunities 

in its practice groups developed. The 

firm’s business grew as clients faced increased 

competition and risks along with intensified 

regulatory pressures. Several of Drinker’s 

practice groups benefited from decades of 

economic prosperity in the region including 

the firm’s Corporate and Securities, 

Investment Management, Banking, Real 

Estate, Labor and Employment, Personal Law, 

and Tax Groups. 

As Drinker looks to the next 150 years and 

beyond, its commitment to deliver value, to 

be responsive, and to use technology to 

enhance its capabilities and level of service 

are the firm’s top priorities. The firm will 

continue to provide the highest standards of 

professional performance, and service to the 

community. These are commitments the firm 

considers its heritage and for what it has 

established a legacy. 

✧ 

An aerial view of the city, showing the 

Drinker’s former offices in the PNB Building 

at 1345 Chestnut in the distance (to the 

right of City Hall) and the firm’s new offices 

for the twenty-first century at One Logan 

Square. The granite-faced, thirty-story office 

tower (at the right midground) was 

completed in 1983 and is separated by a 

courtyard from the seven-story Four Season 

Hotel which fronts on the south side of 

Logan Square. 

COURTESY OF THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/ 

MICHAEL PEREZ. 

INFORMATION FOR THIS FEATURE WAS COMPILED FROM 

DRINKER BIDDLE & REATH LLP’S FIRM HISTORY, BUILDING 

A LAW FIRM 1849-1999, AND FROM VARIOUS OTHER 

FIRM MATERIALS. 


175

JACOBS MUSIC 

✧ 

Above: Jacobs’ Steinway Crown Jewel 

Selection Room, featuring art case piano 

designs and exotic woods from around 

the globe. 

Below: Jacobs’ flagship location at 1718 

Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. 

For more than one hundred years, 

Jacobs Music Company has been an 

integral part of the Philadelphia music 

scene, standing in the company of such 

landmarks as the Academy of Music, The 

Curtis Institute of Music, the Philadelphia 

Orchestra, and the Philly Pops, many of 

whom are among its clients. 

It is not unusual to visit Jacobs’ historic 

building with its art-deco facade at 1718 

Chestnut Street and find a renowned 

concert pianist or an aspiring artist 

practicing on a Steinway that will then be 

delivered to his or her performance. Van 

Cliburn, Alicia de Larrocha, Billy Joel, and 

Peter Nero are among the acclaimed 

pianists who have benefited from Jacobs’ 

instruments and technical services. But Jacobs 

Music, with six locations in the Delaware Valley 

and two in Northern Virginia, does more than 

provide concert services to individuals, 

institutions, and performing arts venues. 

Jacobs Music Company is the largest retailer 

of fine pianos in the Delaware Valley and is the 

exclusive dealer representative for Steinway 

pianos in Southeastern Pennsylvania, New 

Jersey, and Delaware. The company has a huge 

inventory of new and restored Steinways and 

Steinway’s Boston pianos, and its Philadelphia 

location houses the Steinway Crown Jewel 

Collection displaying pianos with exotic 

veneers and intricate, hand-carved cabinetry. 

Other local Jacobs Music locations include 

Wilmington, Delaware; Cherry Hill and 

Lawrenceville, New Jersey; and Willow Grove 

and Allentown, Pennsylvania. 

Jacobs is also one of the largest Yamaha piano 

dealers in the country and represents other 

respected manufacturers of new and used 

keyboard instruments from around the world, 

including the latest Roland and Yamaha digital 

pianos and the Yamaha Disklavier and 

PianoDisc computer player piano systems. Piano 

lessons are available at all Jacobs locations, 

several of which house recital venues, which are 

made available to local artists and teachers. 

Service to its customers, from the initial sale 

through after-sale technical support and piano 

restoration, is the hallmark of Jacobs Music. 

The company regularly sends members of its 

technical staff to the Steinway factory for ongoing 

training in “the Steinway way,” as well as to 

training programs of its other manufacturers. 

Concert and customer care technicians receive 

similar manufacturer training. This staff services 

over 250 concert events each year, in addition 

to caring for thousands of institutional and 

private customers. 

The Rinaldi family, owners of Jacobs Music 

since 1976, considers support of the arts and 

music education to be inherent to the Jacobs 

philosophy. As well as offering financial 

support to numerous arts organizations, Al C. 

Rinaldi, president/CEO, and Gabrielle Kazze 

Rinaldi have served on the boards of such 

institutions as The Curtis Institute of Music 

and Settlement Music School. They present 

annual financial awards to outstanding 

graduating pianists at several area universities. 

Jacobs sponsors “master classes” taught by 

such accomplished artists as Misha Dichter, 

Gary Graffman, and Susan Starr, and presents 

workshops for teachers and piano technicians. 

The company also sponsors young artist 

competitions and concerts. Among the events 

to celebrate its centennial in the year 2000 

were two Philadelphia Orchestra chamber 

music concerts featuring Maestro Wolfgang 

Sawallisch at the piano. 

Jacobs Music has entered the new century 

with its new generation, Chris and Bob Rinaldi, 

pledging to carry on their father’s legacy by 

continuing to support the region’s institutions 

and the individuals involved in musical 

performance and education, and providing 

them and their students with the finest pianos. 


176

Focusing on its residents, as it has for 

almost a century, Korman Communities 

continues to refine the art of providing luxury 

accommodations. From its origins as one of 

Pennsylvania’s largest home builders to the 

creation of KormanSuites, the nation’s first 

short-term furnished apartments, this 

company has ensured that every Korman 

community reflects its decades of experience 

and offers a new level in apartment living. 

Now in its fourth generation of family 

ownership, the company began in 1919; when 

Hyman Korman started building homes with 

hardwood floors, slate roofs, and brick-onblock 

construction in northeast Philadelphia. 

His son, Samuel Korman, developed planned 

communities, including lease properties, then a 

novel conception. In the 1960s Samuel’s son, 

Steve Korman, took the company to a new 

level—a hybrid of rental apartments and 

hotel/hospitality properties named Korman 

Communities. This concept provides a shortterm, 

furnished suite as a hotel alternative, 

offering twice the space and half the cost of a 

standard hotel. The furnished suites, rented on 

a monthly basis, are fitted with accessories for 

business clients. Amenities include weekly 

maid service, morning coffee service, and 

resort-like services to residents of both 

furnished suites and apartments. 

Larry and Brad Korman, the family’s fourth 

generation, have built on this strong base, 

extending the company’s market reach through 

nationwide property acquisitions. They acquire 

the most luxurious apartment communities in 

the most desirable regions, to expand Korman 

Communities’ short-term, furnished-suite 

program. The company’s portfolio contains over 

twenty apartment communities in Philadelphia, 

northeast Philadelphia, Bucks County, 

Montgomery County, Chester County, and 

Harrisburg. Recent additions include eleven 

luxury apartment communities, entering 

markets in Delaware, North Carolina and 

Georgia, with prospective purchases in 

Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

Quality customer service, first-rate 

communities, and constant attention to detail are 

key ingredients to the Korman Communities’ 

business approach today, as they have been from 

the beginning. With core values identical to 

those of their ancestors, the fourth generation 

members have adopted the acronym QUEST— 

quality, uniqueness, excellence, service, and 

teamwork—to symbolize those principles. 

“We are on a quest not only to manage the 

best apartment communities in Pennsylvania 

and on the East Coast, but also to make Korman 

Communities part of the new American dream,” 

says Larry Korman, company president. “Our 

family and our company have always adopted 

basic, solid values, realizing that the way we got 

where we are is just as important as where we 

are going. The word ‘quest’ symbolizes both the 

values of our ancestors and the vision of our 

current generation.” 

KORMAN 

COMMUNITIES 

✧ 

Rittenhouse 222 Corporate Suites. 


177


178

INDUSTRY & MANUFACTURING 

Philadelphia’s manufacturing and 

technology industries shape tomorrow’s skyline, 

providing working and living space for the 

people of Philadelphia and fuel for the state 

L-3 Communications 

SPD Electrical Systems..............................................................180 

Arbill Glove & Safety Products .....................................................182 

Ehmke Manufacturing Co., Inc. .....................................................183 

Tasty Baking Company.................................................................184 

Caledonian Dye Works .................................................................185 

Bogatin International, Inc. ...........................................................185 

✧ 

The $522-million Pennsylvania Convention 

Center opened in 1993, covering four city 

blocks, with an adjoining 1,103-room 

Marriot Hotel that opened in 1995. 


INDUSTRY & 

MANUFACTURING 

179

✧ 

Above: L-3 Communications, SPD Electrical 

Systems’ 165,000-square-foot facility in 

northeast Philadelphia. 

Below: President and General Manager of 

SPD Electrical Systems Jay Wilcox. 

L-3 COMMUNICATIONS 

SPD ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS 

L-3 Communications, SPD Electrical 

Systems, which is the nation’s largest designer 

and manufacturer of military specification 

circuit breakers and switchgear for the U.S. 

Navy, is also a leader in the development of 

advanced shipboard monitoring systems. This 

Philadelphia-based company also applies 

proven, American-made technologies to power 

challenges in transportation, utilities, and other 

non-military applications. 

Jay Wilcox, named president of this centuryold 

company in 2000, joined SPD following a 

twenty-seven-year career with defense 

contracting giant Lockheed Martin and its 

predecessor companies. 

Viewing SPD as it is today, it is difficult to 

believe that at one point, after over one hundred 

years in business, the company was just one 

week away from closing its doors. One of 

Philadelphia’s largest manufacturing firms and 

one of the top five hundred corporations in the 

country by the mid-1950s, the company was 

heavily dependent on defense contracts. When 

the defense market evaporated with the thaw in 

Cold War tensions in the late 1980s and early 

1990s, sales figures plummeted. The core 

business was down by more than seventy 

percent by 1991, revenues were less than half the 

total liabilities, and long-standing labor disputes 

added to the almost overwhelming problems. 

In 1992, SPD implemented a growth 

strategy, reinstituted efforts for developing new 

products, reached long-term labor agreements, 

increased competitiveness, and established an 

effective acquisition/consolidation program, to 

lead one of Philadelphia’s most historic 

businesses back to financial health. 

SPD Electrical Systems, a subsidiary of 

Anaheim, California-based SPD Technologies, 

Inc., specializes in circuit breaker design, 

engineering, manufacturing, and testing for the 

world’s most demanding applications; SPD 

Switchgear, also headquartered in Philadelphia, 

builds the most reliable line of electrical power 

control and distribution products for commercial, 

industrial, and military applications; and 

Electronic Design (EDI), located in Jefferson, 

Louisiana, manufactures control and monitoring 

systems, training and simulation systems, and 

related products for oceangoing ships and landbased 

installations. 

Henry B. Cutter founded SPD’s ancestor, 

Cutter Electrical Manufacturing Company in 

1888. The company’s first major success came in 

1890 with the flip of a switch—the one used to 

turn on the electric light. Known as the I-T-E 

Circuit Breaker, it was developed by Cutter in 

consultation with Walter E. Harrington, chief 

engineer for Camden Railroad. Manufacture of 

this unique double-push snap switch was 

followed by development of a less expensive, 

more reliable, safer circuit breaker to replace the 

fuse in protecting electrical systems. 

Now the world’s foremost manufacturer of 

military circuit breakers and related electrical 

systems protection equipment, SPD has 

undergone several name changes—I-T-E Circuit 

Breaker Company (1928), I-T-E Imperial 

Corporation (1968), Gould Electronics (1976), 

and SPD Technologies (1987). 


180

Product developments and improvements 

throughout the company’s history have led to its 

current line of information systems, computerintegrated 

industrial automation systems, defense 

systems, instruments systems, semiconductors, 

and other electronic components. 

It is a far cry from Cutter’s double-push wall 

switch and the first circuit breaker. The original 

circuit breaker, which was attached to the wall, 

looked like a black box of iron bars. It operated 

with a shunt fuse for interruption. With a 

principle of inverse time element, it opened the 

circuit fastest when the greatest overload 

occurred. After its development in 1890, most 

air circuit breakers used this principle. 

Acquiring a small factory in downtown 

Philadelphia, Harrington and Cutter, soon joined 

by William M. Scott and A. Edward Nelson, 

began manufacturing the circuit breaker. They 

continued to refine the design, and by 1905, 

extended the principle to the direct acting limit 

inverse time element (Dalite) for low-voltage air 

circuit breakers. In 1908, the company acquired 

a switchboard manufacturer, Walker Electric 

Company, to add switchboards to Cutter’s line. 

Numerous businesses were acquired from 

1940 to the 1960s, and many products were 

added and developed. The company grew to 

become a full-line supplier of electrical power 

distribution equipment ranging from 120 to 

600,000 volts. A 1967 merger with Imperial 

Eastman added fluid power control to the 

I-T-E Imperial Corporation. Nine years later, 

I-T-E Imperial merged with Gould, Inc. After 

divestiture of two of the original I-T-E Imperial 

divisions, Gould formed the Systems Protection 

Division in Philadelphia, the company’s first 

complete and separate business entity 

responsible for its Navy products. 

L-3 Communications, headquartered in New 

York City, merged with SPD and its subsidiaries 

in 1998. L-3 is a leading merchant supplier of 

secure communications systems and products, 

avionics and ocean systems, microwave 

components and telemetry, instrumentation, 

space and wireless products. Its customers 

include the Department of Defense, select U.S. 

government intelligence agencies, foreign 

governments, aerospace and defense prime 

contractors, and commercial telecommunications 

and cellular companies. 

✧ 

Top: SPD’s Actron Air Circuit Breaker ACB- 

1606HRC was developed for Naval 

applications. These air circuit breakers are 

available in ratings from 600 amperes to 

4,000 amperes, and offer state monitoring 

of the electric system, which it protects. 

State monitoring provides information on 

ground faults, type and phase of last trip, 

phase current, current data logging, and 

functions such as bi-directional 

communication and remote opening and 

closing of the circuit breaker. 

Middle: SPD’s Actron Molded Case Circuit 

Breaker AQB-LF252 developed for naval 

applications. These molded case circuit 

breakers are available in ratings from 15 

ampere to 1,600 ampere, and offer state 

monitoring of the electric system which it 

protects. State monitoring provides 

information on ground faults, type and 

phase of last trip, phase current, current 

data logging, and functions such as bidirectional 

communication and remote 

opening and closing of the circuit breaker. 

Bottom: SPD’s High Speed Circuit Breaker 

has been specifically designed for use on a 

variety of mass transit vehicles including 

subway, commuter, and light rail systems. A 

circuit breaker for use on Direct Current 

applications, it is capable of over current 

protection on the full range of system 

voltages now in common use (600-3,000V 

DC) and for currents up to 5,000 amps. 

INDUSTRY & 

MANUFACTURING 

181

✧ 

Above: Robert Bickman, founder of Arbill 

Glove & Safety Products. 

ARBILL 

GLOVE & 

SAFETY 

PRODUCTS 

Below: Industrial washing machines, which 

clean and recondition the work gloves. The 

original facility is still doing a thriving 

business in its North Philadelphia location. 

Arbill Glove & Safety Products is a leading 

provider of safety products and services, protecting 

American workers from head to toe 

against workplace hazards, and bringing them 

home safely at the end of the day. 

The company’s 100,000-square-foot distribution 

center in Northeast Philadelphia ships 

over 4,000 distinct products to about 10,000 

customers nationwide. 

Arbill figured significantly in the industrial 

growth of Philadelphia in the post-WWII era, 

and was a pioneer in industrial recycling as well. 

In 1945 Robert Bickman discovered a 

process that was very effective for cleaning 

nearly impossible things—particularly the 

work gloves of industrial workers, which were 

normally thrown away or incinerated when 

soiled. Years before the “reduce–reuse–recycle” 

mantra gained popularity, Bickman used a 

closed-loop laundry system to recondition 

work clothes and gloves for re-use instead 

of refuse. 

Wanting one-stop shopping, his customers 

then convinced Bickman to also supply them 

with new gloves when needed, so Bickman 

went into the glove business as well. 

Today, with four locations and 160 

employees, Arbill Glove and Safety has 

expanded its line while retaining the 

reconditioning business, and is still owned and 

operated by the Bickman family. Barry Bickman, 

Robert’s son, leads the company, while 

granddaughter Julie Bickman Copeland is vice 

president of sales and marketing, on her way to 

assuming the helm. 

Arbill’s family feel extends to its catalog, 

where customers across the country can see 

the faces of the employees who serve them. 

Every employee is individually pictured in the 

pages of the catalog. Customers often comment 

on how nice it is to see the face of the 

person on the phone. 

All of Arbill, from the CEO to account 

managers and customer service representatives, 

deal with their customers on a one-to-one basis. 

Arbill is a proud recipient of ISO 9002 

certification. Eleven of its sales representatives 

have earned QSSP certification, and the 

company maintains an on-site technical 

support staff to assist customers with OSHA 

issues. Arbill has made a strategic decision to 

focus its energy and expertise entirely on safety. 

Looking ahead, Arbill is fashioning itself into 

the prototypical safety distributor of the future, 

with a heavy emphasis on customer satisfaction, 

service, and the use of technology to increase 

the speed, quality and accuracy of its 

operations. New initiatives include developing 

safety consulting and solutions expertise to 

offer customers facing high injury costs. 

Still, Arbill remains committed to its 

Philadelphia roots, helping the local economy 

of the city while committing resources, time 

and talent to help community programs 

involved in children’s enrichment, breast 

cancer, and homes for families in need. 

It’s motto, adopted in 1999, is “We bring 

you home safely.” The focus is on what its 

products and services can do for people. 


182

EHMKE 

MANUFACTURING 

CO., INC. 

In 1929, the Philadelphia Athletics prepared 

to face the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. On 

a team that included twenty-game winners Lefty 

Grove and George Earnshaw, Manager Connie 

Mack started a veteran bullpen pitcher who was 

at the end of his career, Howard Ehmke. 

Ehmke had gone to his manager and asked 

to start the game. “I know I can get these Cubs 

out,” he told the legendary manager. Ehmke 

beat the Cubs, and the A’s went on to win the 

series, 4-1. Mack later said listening to Ehmke 

was the wisest decision he ever made. Ehmke 

struck out thirteen, breaking the World Series 

record for strikeouts in a game. That record 

stood until Carl Erskine eclipsed it by one in 

1953. Ehmke was listening at the time on his 

car radio. 

A year later, Ehmke had retired from baseball. 

He went to see his old manager with 

another idea. Perhaps remembering the wisdom 

of his earlier decision, Mack once again 

bought Ehmke’s idea—a large canvas tarpaulin 

that could be spread over the infield when it 

rained to keep water off the diamond. Thus 

was born Ehmke Manufacturing Co., Inc. 

Today, Ehmke is in its third generation of 

ownership as a manufacturer of industrial 

products made from fabric for military, aeronautics, 

industrial, and commercial applications 

(including sports field tarpaulins). Its 

products are sold nationwide, amounting to 

$2.5 million in business per year. At the turn of 

the millennium, it is poised to reach into an 

international market. In addition to those 

applications, Ehmke won an award in 1998 for 

manufacturing an oil aquatic recovery system 

to clean up oil spills on the water. 

To extend its reach, the company has invested 

in the latest high-tech industrial machinery. 

It operates from a plant at Belfield and Wister 

Streets in Germantown. The plant dates to the 

Civil War, when it was used to manufacture 

uniforms. The company also has a sales office 

at 2967 Schoolhouse Lane. The company currently 

employs forty-five workers, mostly from 

the neighborhood where it is located. 

In addition to the 1998 Industrial Fabrics 

Association International (IFAI) award for its 

oil spill recovery system, Ehmke won another 

IFAI award for its Oregon Avenue Canopy 

Project and a certificate from the Defense 

Contract Management Command for its support 

in an industrial capability assessment. It 

has received ISO 9000 certification that will 

open up overseas markets. 

When Ehmke died, his widow sold the 

company in 1958 to Louis S. Verna and Walter 

E. Rowe. In 1990, the company was sold to 

Louis F. Verna, Clifford Stokes, and Robert A. 

Rosania. Louis F. Verna serves as president. 

✧ 

Howard Ehmke (right) and a groundskeeper 

inspect the Ehmke Manufacturing Co. tarp 

covering the field at Shibe Park. The field 

was set up for football at the time. At one 

time, the Philadelphia Eagles played their 

home games at Shibe Park. 

INDUSTRY & 

MANUFACTURING 

183

TASTY 

BAKING 

COMPANY 

✧ 

Tasty Baking Company initiated a $22 

million modernization program for its 

Philadelphia mega-baking facility, including 

a complete makeover of its Krimpet and 

Junior production lines. Virtually every step 

from ingredient weighing and mixing to 

baking to product casing is fully automated. 

It’s “The Cake That Made Mother Stop 

Baking.” The idea of small cakes, baked and prewrapped 

fresh at the bakery and conveniently 

available at the local grocer, was uniquely 

appealing to American women in 1914. The 

chief cook of the house could now buy a cake 

she could trust to be as fresh and delicious as 

those she made herself. Tastykakes are more 

popular than ever with today’s busy families and 

are enjoyed by millions of consumers who want 

a wholesome, great-tasting snack. 

Incidentally, for years, Philadelphians who 

had moved away yearned for their favorite 

snacks, asking friends and relatives to send 

them Tastykakes or to bring them a supply 

when they visited. That’s not necessary anymore: 

the longtime local-only company (to 

ensure freshness) has expanded westward, with 

their products now in most major cities in fortyseven 

states—spreading the Philadelphia taste. 

Tastykake is the creation of Pittsburgh 

baker Philip J. Baur and Boston egg salesman 

Herbert T. Morris, who teamed up in 

Philadelphia in 1914, determined to use only 

the finest ingredients, delivered fresh daily to 

the corner mom-and-pop grocery stores. 

Like life itself, the food business has 

changed dramatically over the years. Luscious 

new baked products have been added to the 

line—the company has enjoyed a remarkable 

record of growth and increased popularity of 

its products. 

Tastykakes baked tonight are on the store 

shelves tomorrow, just as they have always been. 

The company passionately upholds its 

revolutionary policy of “controlled 

distribution”—deliver only what will sell 

promptly, and remove cakes from the stores a 

day or two before the code expires in an effort to 

eliminate any possibility of their becoming stale. 

From a single horse-drawn wagon, to electric 

cars, to Model T Fords, to today’s vast fleet of 

blue and white delivery trucks, Tastykake has 

moved with the times to improve deliveries and 

ensure the same standards of freshness and 

service that existed years ago. Packaging 

graphics have a contemporary look; advertising, 

which fifty years ago was confined largely to 

billboards, today includes all major media, as 

well as sports team sponsorships. And, to suit 

today’s health and nutrition concerns, Tastykake 

has eliminated tropical oils, reducing the level of 

saturated fats in its products. 

Tastykake’s one-man sales “force” sold 

$28.32 worth of products on the first day of 

sales in 1914. That’s changed. With more than 

a hundred products, Tastykake is the fastestgrowing 

national snack cake brand in the 

world. Today, annual sales approach $228 

million, with more than 3.5 million individual 

cakes and pies baked each day. The top selling 

item in the entire Tastykake line? Butterscotch 

Krimpets—they bake seven million each week. 

You can send these and other treats to 

wandering Philadelphians by calling 1-800-64- 

TASTY. And really homesick people can visit 

them on the web at www.tastykake.com. 

So remember what every real Philadelphian 

knows: Nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a 

Tastykake! 


184

Caledonian Dye Works, founded in 1911 

by William MacNeill, commenced operations 

as a cotton warp dye house. Before stainless 

steel equipment existed, iron Hussong kettles 

were used to dye yarns for weavers, whose 

yarns were skein dyed for filling purposes. 

The textile weaving trade was centered in 

Philadelphia before World War I, but the city 

now retains only a few such mills. Caledonian 

has adapted with the times to meet the everchanging 

textile market, with customers coast 

to coast. 

Warp dyeing gave way to ultra -modern 

stainless steel package dyeing machines with 

microprocessor controls. Dye-lot maximums 

have increased from 250 pounds to over 

1,000 pounds at a time. Caledonian presently 

dyes rayon, wool, nylon, cotton, silk, and 

polyester yarns, all used for high-end home 

furnishing goods. 

The company is presently managed by 

Richard D. Fitch, third generation, and Kimberly 

F. Livingston, fourth generation, who are looking 

forward to a growing and expanding firm. 

CALEDONIAN 

DYE WORKS 

For fifty years, Bogatin International, Inc. has 

successfully maintained a business of buying 

and selling textile fibers and by-products of 

the textile industry and recyclable polymer 

products such as nylon, and processing some 

of them. With headquarters at 2011 Walnut 

Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the company 

estimates gross sales for 2000 at $10 million. 

During the past thirty years it has done $150- 

$200 million in business. 

Since about 1980 Bogatin has also 

accumulated and developed for sale real 

estate along Philadelphia’s Delaware Avenue. 

Present holdings include high-rise office 

buildings and warehouses, and the company’s 

headquarters building. 

Plans for the company’s future are to 

maintain its present philosophy of nurturing 

quality relationships with clients and 

maintaining excellent connections with present 

sources of business. 

Philip F. Bogatin, the company’s founder 

and sole owner, received a B.S. degree in 

Agronomy from Penn State in 1942. A 

decorated veteran of five years’ World War II 

service throughout the European Theater of 

Operations, he attained the rank of Major. 

Bogatin’s business donates to numerous 

charities. He is a board member for the 

Children’s Village and the Jewish Community 

Center of Philadelphia, and is active in many 

other charitable and civic organizations. 

BOGATIN 

INTERNATIONAL, 

INC. 

✧ 

Bogatin International, Inc. founder 

Philip F. Bogatin. 

INDUSTRY & 

MANUFACTURING 

185

INDEX 

A 

A Dictionary Interpreting Such Hard Words 

of Whatsoever Language as Are Presently 

Used see Glossographia Anglicana Nova 

Academy of Music, 68, 71, 79, 93, 129 

Academy of Natural Sciences, 55, 82 

Academy of Philadelphia, 29 

Adams, John, 38, 39, 43, 48, 49 

Addison, Joseph, 27 

Africa, John see Leaphart, Vincent 

Allen, Richard, 45, 47, 48, 50 

Allen, William, 24, 27 

American League, 86 

American Can Company, 125 

American Philosophical Society, 26, 32, 

43, 47 

American Republican Association, 65 

American Society Held at Philadelphia 

for Promoting Useful Knowledge, 32 

American Tobacco Company, 88 

American Weekly Mercury, 21, 72 

Amity, 13 

Annenberg, Moses L., 109, 113 

Annenberg, Walter, 109, 112, 113, 121 

Arch Street Theater, 59, 83 

Argall, Samuel, 7 

Arnold, Benedict, 41, 44 

Asbury, Francis, 48 

Ashbridge, Samuel H., 91, 92, 94, 98 

Astor, William Waldorf, 95 

Astoria Hotel, 95 

AT&T, 125 

Athenaeum of Philadelphia, 69 

Athletics Base Ball Club see Philadelphia 

Athetics 

Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company, 74 

Atlantic Richfield Oil Company, 118 

Attwood, William, 27 

Atwater Kent Museum, 59 

Aubrey, William, 19 

Aurora, 49 

Avallone, Franklin, 116 

Avenue of the Arts, 128 

Avenue of the Arts Building, 128 

Ayer, N. W., 118 

B 

Bache, Benjamin Franklin, 38, 49 

Bache, Sarah, 38, 49 

Bacon, Edmund, 114, 118 

Baker Bowl, 86, 108 

Baker, Hilary, 48, 49 

Baldwin Locomotives, 101, 111 

Baldwin, Mathias, 62 

Ball, William, 25 

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 62 

Bandstand, 116 

Bank of North America, 42, 127 

Bank of the United States, 47, 48 

Banker’s Trust Company, 107, 118 

Bankers Bond & Mortgage Company, 107 

Bankers Securities Corporation, 107 

Barbelin, Felix, 65 

Barlow, Annie T., 103 

Barnum, P. T., 69 

Barry, John, 30, 37 

Barrymore, Drew, 77 

Barrymore, Ethel, 77 

Barrymore, Georgiana Drew, 77 

Barrymore, John, Jr., 77 

Barrymore, John Drew, 77 

Barrymore, Lionel, 77 

Barrymore, Maurice, 77 

Bartram, Ann, 25 

Bartram, John, 25 

Basketball Association of America, 112 

Bath-Town, 32 

Bauer, Philip, 102 

Beachey, Lincoln, 99 

Beck, Paul, 55 

Becuna, 123 

Beecham Group, 125 

Bell Atlantic, 125 

Bell Atlantic Tower, 126 

Bell of Pennsylvania, 125 

Bell Telephone Company, 96, 102 

Bell, Alexander Graham, 83 

Bell, Bert, 108 

Bellevue Hotel, 84, 95 

Bellevue Stratford, 95, 112, 114, 122 

Belmont Oil Works, 74 

Beneficial Hall, 65 

Benjamin Franklin Bridge, 103 

Benjamin Franklin Hotel, 112 

Better Philadelphia Exhibition, 114 

Bevan, Sylvanus, 12 

Biddle Hall, 60 

Biddle, Nicholas, 58, 64 

Big Top, 117 

Bigler, William, 71 

Bingham House, 83 

Bingham, William, 50 

Bishop & Sparks Shot Tower, 52 

Bishop, John, 52 

Black Panthers, 119 

Blanchard, Jean Pierre, 43 

Bland, James A., 101 

Blankenburg, Rudolph, 100, 101 

Blount, Thomas, 5 

Blue Cross Tower, 126 

Boldt, George, 95 

Bond, Thomas, 29 

Bonwit Teller, 112 

Borie, C. L., Jr., 103 

Boxall, James, 62 

Boxall’s Accommodation, 62 

Bradford, Andrew, 21 

Bradford, William, 21, 29, 35 

Brandywine Creek, 37, 39 

Bridesburg, 65 

Bristol Factor, 13 

Broad Street Station, 84, 92, 114, 116 

Brush, Charles F., 87 

Buck Tavern, 33 

Budd, Thomas, 18 

Buffers No. 1, 67 

Burpee Seeds, 87 

Bush Hill, 43, 45 

Butler, Smedley Darlington, 103 

Byberry, 72 

C 

California House, 67 

Callowhill, Hannah see Penn, Hannah 

Callowhill 

Callowhill, Thomas, 16 

Camden Convention Hall, 117 

Cameo Records, 116 

Cameron, Donald, 86 

Camp William Penn, 75, 76 

Canterbury, 18 

Cape May, 7 

Carnegie, Andrew, 102 

Carpenters’ Hall, 33, 34, 35, 36 

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny, 101 

Carson, Joseph, 53 

Castille, Ron, 126 

Castle of Andalusia, The, 51 

Cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul, 57, 69, 

76 

Cato, 27 

Catto, Octavius V., 78, 79 

CBS, 117 

Cedar Grove, 27 

Centennial Exhibition, 71, 81, 82, 83, 

121 

Central High School, 63, 73, 78, 88, 99 

Chadd’s Ford, 39 

Chalkey, Thomas, 85 

Chamberlain, Wilton N., 120 

Chambers, Benjamin, 14 

Chancellor Records, 116 

Charles I, 11 

Charles II, 9, 11, 12, 16 

Charles, Robert, 28 

Checker, Chubby, 116, 117 

Cheeves, Langdon, 58 

Cheltenham, 76 

Cherry Hill, 61 

Chester, 13, 14, 15, 34 

Chestnut Hill, 27, 74, 113, 117 

Chestnut Street Theatre, 51, 58, 59 

Chew, Benjamin, 47, 164 

Chicago Cardinals, 108 

Chigwell Free Grammar School, 5 

Childe, Edward Vernon, 69 

Chinatown, 79 

Chinese Museum, 58, 69, 71 

Chinese Wall, 92, 116, 118, 128 

Chovet, Abraham, 36 

Christina, 7, 8, 9 

Christ Church, 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 30, 

33, 34, 47 

City Arsenal, 75 

City Stores Company, 107, 123 

City Tavern, 33, 34, 35, 40, 42, 43, 47, 61 

Civil Rights Act of 1875, 83 


186

Civil War, 37, 74, 88, 89 

Clark, Dick, 116, 117 

Clark, Joseph Sill, 113, 114 

Clarke, Bobby, 122 

Clarke, William, 21 

Clarkson, Matthew, 44, 45 

Clay, Henry, 72 

Cliveden, 40, 162 

Clothier, Isaac H., 78 

Cock, Lasse, 12, 13 

Cocozza, Alfred see Lanza, Mario 

Cohocksink Creek, 32 

Collections of Cotillions, 67 

College of Philadelphia, 29, 32 

Colt, Henry, 116 

Coltrane, John, 119 

Columbia Avenue Bridge see Columbia 

Railroad Bridge 

Columbia Railroad, 60 

Columbia Railroad Bridge, 59, 60 

Columbianum, 47 

Commerce Square, 126 

Coolidge, Calvin, 103 

Commission for the Erection of Public 

Buildings, 94 

Compton, 27 

Congress Hall, 49, 52 

Congress of Racial Equality, 118 

Connell, George, 109 

Connie Mack Stadium, 120 

Conrad, Robert T. 68 

Continental Hotel, 73, 76, 83, 87 

Contributionship for the Insuring of 

Houses from Loss by Fire, 30 

Convention Hall, 108, 111 

Conwell, Russell H., 87 

Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment 

Saloon, 75 

Cooper, William, 75 

CoreStates Financial, 125 

Cornell University, 114 

Cornwallis, Charles, 39, 42 

Cramp’s Shipyard, 92, 101, 111 

Cresson, Solomon, 21 

Crispin, William, 13 

Crockett, Davy, 63 

Cromwell, Oliver, 11, 12, 17 

D 

Daguerre, Louis, 63 

Daily News, 121 

Darby, 17, 66 

Darby Creek, 25 

Dayton, William L., 72 

DeAngelis, Peter, 116 

Declaration of Independence, 37, 38, 40, 

89, 103, 123 

Delaware Engine Company see 

Philadelphia Fire Department Engine 

Company Four 

Delaware River Bridge, 103 

Democratic National Committee, 115 

Democratic National Convention, 108 

Dewey, Thomas E., 111 

Diemer, Walter, 95 

Dilworth, Richardson, 111, 113, 114, 

116, 118, 120, 121 

Disston, Henry, 81 

Dock Creek, 13, 15, 18 

Dolan, Thomas, 87 

Dom Pedro II, 83 

Donaldson, Thomas C., 89 

Douglass, David, 30, 31 

Drew, John, 77 

Drew, Louisa Lane, 77, 83 

Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and 

Industry, 88 

Drexel University, 88 

Drexel, Anthony J., 88 

Dunn, Nathan, 58 

E 

Eagle Eyrie, 91 

Earle, George H. Jr., 100 

Early Risers, The, 92 

East Falls, 114 

Eastern State Penitentiary, 61 

Eckert, J. Presper, Jr., 111 

Edison, Thomas Alva, 78 

Edward VII, 76 

Egan, Joseph, 126 

Elf Aquitaine, 125 

Elizabeth II, 14, 122, 123 

Elkins, George W., 88 

Elkins, William L., 88 

Elkton New Year’s Association, 92 

Elverson, James, 109 

ENIAC, 111 

Evans, Ernest see Checker, Chubby 

Evans, John, 21 

Evans, Oliver, 55 

Evening Bulletin, 76, 94, 112, 125 

F 

Fair Mount, 15, 89 

Fair Penitent, The, 30 

Fairman, Thomas, 12, 13, 14, 15, 25 

Fairmount Park, 27, 77, 82, 83, 85, 89, 

102, 103 

Fairmount Park Commission, 77, 103 

Fairmount Reservoir, 95 

Falls of the Schuylkill, 18, 45 

Federal Communications Commission, 

113 

Fels-Naptha Soap, 87 

Female Medical College, 73 

Fidelity Bank of Philadelphia, 125 

Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteer 

Infantry, Colored, 75 

Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer 

Infantry, Colored, 75 

Fillmore, Millard, 71 

First Fidelity Bank, 125 

First Union Center, 105 

First Union Spectrum, 105, 122 

Firstrust Bank, 64 

Firth, Stubbins, 45 

Fishbourne, William, 26 

Fisher, Eddie, 114, 117 

Fishtown, 25 

Fitch, John, 43 

Flat Rock, 61 

Fleer, Frank H., 95 

Fletcher, Benjamin, 18 

Fleury, Francois, 37 

Ford, Phillip, 19 

Fort Mifflin, 33, 37, 40, 54 

Forten, James, 69 

Fox, Daniel M., 78 

Francis, Tench, 44 

Frank Johnson Band, 66 

Frankford, 54, 55, 64, 73, 101 

Frankford Arsenal, 101, 125 

Frankford Company, 15 

Frankford Elevated, 99 

Frankford Yellowjackets, 108 

Franklin Court, 31 

Franklin Field, 120 

Franklin Institute, 59, 78, 106 

Franklin, Benjamin, 12, 23, 25, 26, 

29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 38, 41, 43, 

47, 95 

Franklin, Deborah, 23, 31, 36 

Franklin, James, 23 

Franklin, Sarah, 26 

Franklin, Temple, 36, 38 

Franklin, William, 23, 30, 36, 38 

Franks, David, 28, 39 

Franks, Rebecca, 40 

Free African Society, 45 

Free Library of Philadelphia, 102 

Free Society of Traders, 12, 15, 30 

Freed Slave, The, 83 

Fremont, John C., 72 

Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, 33 

Fry, Joseph, 44 

Furness and Hewitt, 80 

Furness, Frank, 80, 135 

G 

Gallery, The, 123 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 64 

Gazela Primeiro, 123 

Gehrig, Lou, 111 

George I, 20 

George III, 11 

George, Nancy, 27, 28 

George’s Hill, 83 

General Advertiser, 49 

General Electric Co., 78 

Gentilhommiere, 51 

Germantown, 2, 16, 18, 19, 33, 37, 38, 

39, 45, 62, 65, 75, 101, 162 

Gettysburg, 74 

Getz, Stan, 120 

Gillespie, Dizzy, 120 

Gimbel Brothers, 91, 106 

Gimbel, Adam, 91 

Gimbel, Bernard, 91 

Gimbel, Charles, 91 

Gimbel, Daniel, 91 

Gimbel, Ellis, 91 

Gimbel, Isaac, 91 

Gimbel, Jacob, 91 

Gimbel, Louis, 91 

Girard Bank, 62, 125 

Girard College, 119 

Girard Life Insurance, Annuity and Trust 

Company, 62 

Girard Plaza, 118 

Girard Trust Company, 62 

Girard, Etienne see Girard, Stephen 

Girard, John, 119 

Girard, Stephen, 38, 45, 51, 58, 60, 61, 

62, 119 

INDEX 

187

Gladway, The, 105 

Globe Hotel, 84 

Gloria Dei Church, 18, 20 

Glossographica Anglicana Nova, 5 

Gloucester Fox Hunting Club, 35 

Godfrey, Thomas, 32 

Good Will Fire Company, 64, 67 

Goode, W. Wilson, 125, 127 

Gottlieb, Eddie, 112 

Graff, Frederick, 54 

Graff, Jacob, 37 

Grant, Ulysses S., 79, 82 

Gray’s Ferry, 43, 69 

Gray’s Gardens, 53 

Great Caruso, The, 114 

Great Central Fair, 75 

Great Depression, 107, 108 

Greeley, Horace, 79 

Green, Samuel A., 64 

Green, William J. Jr., 118 

Green, William J. III, 125, 127 

Greenaway, Robert, 14 

Greenfield, Albert Monroe, 99, 101, 104, 

107, 108, 111, 112, 117 

Griscom, Elizabeth see Ross, Elizabeth 

(Betsy) 

Grunfeld, Avrum Moishe see Greenfield, 

Albert Monroe 

H 

H.M.S. Augusta, 40 

H.M.S. Edward, 37 

H.M.S. Liverpool, 37 

H.M.S. Roebuck, 36, 37 

Hallam, Lewis, Jr., 32, 51 

Hallam, Lewis, Sr., 30 

Hamilton Bank, 125 

Hamilton, Alexander, 47 

Hamilton, Andrew, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 

44, 45 

Hamilton, Charles, 99 

Hamilton, William, 44 

Hanscom’s, 125 

Hardart, Frank, 86, 98 

Hardly Ables, The, 92 

Harlem Globetrotters, 120 

Harrison, William Henry, 55 

Hartranft, John F., 83 

Harvard, John, 29 

Hathaway, John R., 94, 96 

Haviland, John, 59, 61, 81 

Heberton, Mahlon Hutchinson, 67 

Helios Electric Company, 107 

Helm, Peter, 45 

Henry, Alexander, 73 

Hibernian Hose Company, 65 

Hill, Henry, 65 

Hills, The, 89 

Hires Root Beer, 87 

Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 15, 

57, 85 

Hobart, Garrett, 92 

Hog Island, 37, 101, 102, 109 

Holme, Thomas, 13 

Hope Farm, 25 

Hope Fire Company, 67 

Horn & Hardart Baking Co., 86, 98, 118 

Horn, Bob, 116 

Horn, Joe, 86, 98 

Horrocks, Jeremiah, 64 

Hosier, Harry, 48 

Houston, Edwin J., 78 

Howard University, 101 

Howe, George, 109 

Howe, William, 2, 39, 40, 41, 44 

Hudson, Henry, 7 

Hughes, William, 31 

Humphrey, Joshua, 55 

I 

In the Evening by the Moonlight, 101 

Independence Hall, 24, 25, 56, 57, 59, 

71, 75, 76, 77, 78, 82, 83, 92, 111, 

126 

Independence Mall, 129 

Institute for Colored Youth, 78, 87 

Insurance Company of North America, 

125 

Isabella, 16 

J 

Jack Frost Sugar, 125 

Jackson, Andrew, 55, 64 

Jackson, Samuel, 55 

James II, 16 

James, Arthur, 111 

Jefferson Medical College, 63, 73 

Jefferson, Thomas, 37, 54, 89 

Jennings, William Nicholson, 91 

Jeune Bébé, 38 

John & Sarah, 13 

John B. Stetson Company, 92 

John Bartram Hotel, 112 

Johnson, Frank, 66, 67 

Jones, Absolom, 45, 47, 48 

Jones, Edward, 13 

Jones, Henry, 83 

Jones, Philly Joe, 120 

Jones, William, 58 

Joseph Amenz Beer Saloon, 62 

Junker, Aimee, 94 

Junker, Jules, 94 

K 

Katz, Sam, 126, 127 

Kearsley, John, 24, 26 

Keebler Foods Company, 125 

Keimer, Samuel, 23 

Keith, William, 23 

Kelly, Grace, 108, 114, 117 

Kelly, John B., 108, 114 

Kendrick, W. Freeland, 103, 104 

Kenrick, Francis P., 76 

Kensington, 16, 25, 26, 55, 62, 65, 66, 

125 

Kent, A. Atwater, 106 

Keystone Knitting Mills, 87 

Keystone Party, 100 

Keystone Telephone Company, 96, 102, 

112 

Killers No. 1, 67 

Kimmel Center, 128 

King, Samuel A., 91 

King, Samuel G., 84, 85 

Kinsey, Elizabeth, 13 

Kling, Vincent, 118 

Knight, John S., 109, 121 

Knights of Suede Social Club, 92 

Korean War, 37 

Kraus, Edna, 101 

Kraus, Sol, 107 

L 

Lailson’s Circus, 53 

Lamberton, George, 8 

Lamberton, Robert E., 109, 111 

LaMott, 75 

Lane, Louisa, 59 

Lanza, Mario, 114, 117 

Latrobe, Benjamin, 53, 56 

Leaphart, Vincent, 127 

Lear, Toby, 44 

Leary, Howard, 119 

Leary, W. A., 91 

LeBrun, Napoleon, 69, 71 

Lee, Robert E., 73, 76 

Legionnaire’s Disease, 122 

Lemon Hill, 77, 89, 91 

Lenni Lenape, 7, 13, 14, 15 

Lescaze, William E., 109 

Lester, Thomas, 28, 29 

Levy, Nathan, 28 

Lewis, John D., 83 

Liberty Bell, 4, 68, 105, 129 

Libertyville, 101 

Library Company of Philadelphia, 23, 

26, 28 

Light Horse of the City of Philadelphia, 

35, 36 

Lincoln, Abraham, 69, 72, 75, 76, 77 

Lind, Jenny, 69 

Lindstrom, Peter, 7 

Lippard, George, 67, 68 

Lit Brothers, 91, 106, 107, 112, 113, 

114, 123, 129 

Lit, Jacob, 91 

Lit, Samuel, 91 

Lloyd’s Coffee House, 29 

Lloyd, Thomas, 16, 17, 18 

Loe, Thomas, 11 

Loft’s Candy, 112 

Logan, 100 

Logan Square, 75, 76, 95 

Logan, James, 18, 21, 24 

Logan, William, 28 

London Coffee House, 29, 35, 42, 47 

Los Angeles Rams, 108 

Lou Gehrig’s Disease, 111 

Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 95 

M 

Mack, Connie, 86 

Mack, John M., 98 

Macroom Castle, 12 

Macy’s, 91 

Manayunk, 7, 61, 62, 65, 126 

Manhattan Island, 7 

Mann, Kal, 116 

Marcucci, Bob, 116 

Maritime Museum, 127 

Market Street Elevated, 99 

Market Street Subway, 99 

Markham, William, 5, 12, 15, 17, 18 


188

Markoe, Abraham, 35 

Marquis de Lafayette see Motier, Gilbert 

Marshall, John, 63 

Martin, David, 91 

Mary II, 16 

Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, 68 

Masters, Mary, 34 

Masters, Mary Lawrence, 34 

Masters, Will, 19 

Mauchly, John W., 111 

McArthur, John M., Jr., 73, 91 

McCloskey, Matthew, 108 

McClure’s Magazine, 98 

McConnell, Matthew, 47 

McHugh, H. Bart, 93, 94 

McKean, Thomas, 42 

McKinley, William, 92 

McMichael, Morton, 64, 65, 77 

Meehan, Austin, 113 

Mellon Bank Center, 126 

Mellon Independence Center, 129 

Mellon National Bank, 125 

Mellon PSFS, 125, 127 

Memorial Hall, 82, 91 

Mercantile Base Ball Club, 73 

Mercer, Sarah, 67 

Mercer, Singleton, 67, 68 

Mercer’s Cake Shop, 55 

Merchants Coffee House, 61 

Merchant’s Exchange, 63 

Meridian Tower, 118 

Meritor Savings Bank, 125 

Merriam Theater, 129 

Merrick, Samuel V., 59 

Meschianza, 41 

Mey, Cornelis Jacobsen, 7 

Miami Tribune, 109 

Midvale Steel Company, 101 

Mifflin, Thomas, 44, 45, 49 

Mikveh Israel Synagogue, 39 

Mill Creek, 74 

Miller, William, 66 

Minerva Base Ball Club, 73 

Minuit, Peter, 7 

Miss in Her Teens, 30 

Monks of Monk Hall, The, 68 

Montgomery, 37 

Moody, Dwight L., 82 

Moore College of Art, 73 

Moore School of Engineering, 111 

Moore, Cecil B., 119 

Moore, J. Hampton, 93, 102, 107 

More, Nicholas, 15, 16, 17 

Morgan, John, 32 

Morgan, Lee, 120 

Morrey, Humphrey, 17 

Morris Arboretum, 27 

Morris House, 2 

Morris, Anthony, 20, 27 

Morris, Christian Sam, 35 

Morris, Herbert, 102 

Morris, John, 27 

Morris, Lydia, 27 

Morris, Robert, 42, 44, 48, 54, 56, 89 

Morris, Samuel, 32 

Morrisville, 62 

Moshulu, 123 

Mother Bethel African Methodist 

Episcopal Church, 50 

Motier, Gilbert, 41, 56 

Mott, Lucretia, 75 

Mount Airy Hose Company, 80 

Mount Moriah Cemetery, 83 

Mount Pleasant, 41 

Mount Vernon, 45 

MOVE, 127 

Mower U.S. General Hospital, 74 

Moyamensing, 17, 33, 55, 65, 66, 67, 

71, 76 

Moyamensing Hose Company, 67, 76 

Moyamensing Temperance Society, 65 

Mud Island, 33, 36, 37, 40 

Mulligan, Jerry, 120 

Mummers, 21, 51, 92, 94, 101, 107, 121 

Mummers Museum, 121 

Municipal Services Building, 118 

Murray & Kean’s, 28 

Museum School of Industrial Art, 81 

Musical Fund Hall, 58, 69, 72 

Musical Fund Society, 58, 69, 72 

Mutual Assurance Company, 35 

Myrtilla, 28 

N 

Nannecheschan, 16 

National Baseball League, 86 

National Basketball Association, 126 

National Biscuit Company, 87 

National Constitution Center, 129 

National Football League, 108 

National Import Exposition, 92 

National League, 120 

National Recovery Administration, 108 

National Register of Historic Places, 123 

National Trust for Historic Preservation, 

164 

Nautical Mile, 118 

Neck, The, 51 

New Sweden, 8 

New Theatre, 32 

New York Knicks, 120 

New York Times, 99 

Nixon, John, 38 

Norris, Isaac, 19, 21, 28, 29 

Norristown, 21, 32, 62 

Notman, John, 69 

O 

Oak Hall, 78 

Oh Dem Golden Slippers, 101 

Old Natty, 32 

Olivieri, Harry, 109 

Olivieri, Pat, 109 

One Liberty Place, 126, 128 

Ormandy, Eugene, 116 

Orukter Amphiboles, 55 

Overbrook High School, 120 

Oxford, 64 

Oxford Provident Building Association, 64 

Oxford University, 11 

P 

Palmer, Anthony, 25, 26 

Palmer, Thomasine, 25 

Parent, Bernie, 122 

Pass, John, 28 

Passyunk, 51, 72 

Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 15, 16, 19 

Patterson, Robert, 85 

Peale, Charles Wilson, 38, 42, 43, 47, 

57, 59 

Peale, Franklin, 69 

Peck Anderson New Year’s Association, 

92 

Pegg’s Run, 32 

Pemberton, James, 60 

Penn Center, 118, 128 

Penn National Bank, 89 

Penn, Dennis, 24 

Penn, Granville John, 15 

Penn, Gulielma, 11, 16 

Penn, Hannah Callowhill, 16, 18, 19, 24 

Penn, John, 19, 24, 34, 42 

Penn, Letitia, 16, 18, 19, 24, 85 

Penn, Mary Jones, 16 

Penn, Richard, 24, 34, 36, 40, 42, 44 

Penn, Springett, 16, 24 

Penn, Thomas, 19, 24, 42 

Penn, William, Jr., 16, 18, 19, 21, 24 

Penn, William, Sr. 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 

16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 27, 28, 34, 42, 

56, 85, 86, 93, 118, 125, 126, 129, 

132 

Penn’s Landing, 118, 122, 123, 125, 127 

Pennell, Joseph, 102 

Pennsbury, 15, 19 

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 

59, 135 

Pennsylvania Convention Center, 127, 

129, 178 

Pennsylvania Gazette, 23, 29, 32 

Pennsylvania Hall, 63 

Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, 79 

Pennsylvania Hospital, 29, 49 

Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and 

Dumb, 59, 81 

Pennsylvania Railroad, 82, 92, 118, 125 

Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing 

Company, 125 

Pennwalt Company, 125 

Penrose, Boies, 85, 86, 91, 92, 98, 100, 

103 

Penrose, Richard, 86 

Pepper, George, 102 

Perkins, Samuel C., 94 

Perry, Christopher, 87 

Pewter Platter Alley, 21 

Philadelphia 76ers, 120, 126 

Philadelphia and Reading Railroad 

Company, 75 

Philadelphia Arts Bank, 129 

Philadelphia Athletics, 73, 86, 101, 107, 

108 

Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and the 

Performing Arts, 129 

Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, 63 

Philadelphia Contributionship, 35 

Philadelphia Convention and Visitors 

Bureau, 111 

Philadelphia Eagles, 108, 120, 129 

Philadelphia Fire Department Engine 

Company Four, 80 

INDEX 

189

Philadelphia Flyers, 122 

Philadelphia Gas Works, 125 

Philadelphia High School for Girls, 73 

Philadelphia Inquirer, 109, 113, 121 

Philadelphia Junior Chamber of 

Commerce, 121 

Phildelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends, 

38 

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 15, 102, 

103, 122 

Philadelphia National Bank, 62, 125 

Philadelphia Naval Hospital, 103 

Philadelphia Orchestra, 93, 116 

Philadelphia Phillies, 86, 101, 108, 114, 

120, 126, 129 

Philadelphia Public Ledger, 76, 87, 99 

Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, 98, 

99, 101, 113 

Philadelphia Saving Fund Society, 109, 

125, 127 

Philadelphia Storage Battery Company, 

107, 109, 112, 114, 118 

Philadelphia Transportation Co., 112, 113 

Philadelphia Tribune, 87 

Philadelphia Veterans Stadium, 121 

Philadelphia Warriors, 112, 120 

Philadelphia, Germantown, and 

Norristown Railroad Company, 62 

Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore 

Railroad, 75 

Philco see Philadelphia Storage Battery 

Company 

Physick, Abigail, 63 

Physick, Philip Syng, 63, 65 

Pierce, Franklin, 72 

Pilling, Samuel, 64 

Pine Street Presbyterian Church, 33 

Pittsburgh National Bank, 125 

Platt, Thomas, 92 

Please Touch Museum, 127 

Plumstead, Clement, 27 

Plumstead, William, 27, 30 

Plumstead’s Wharf, 37 

PNC Bank Corporation, 127 

Point Breeze, 74 

Polly, 34 

Poquessing, 7 

Porter, David Rittenhouse, 66 

Ports of History Museum, 123 

Powel, John Hare, 64 

Powel, Samuel, 40 

Powelton, 64, 127 

Pratt, Henry, 89 

Prince of Parthia, The, 32 

Prince Theatre, 129 

Princeton University, 33 

Printz, Johan Bjornsson, 8 

Proctor, Henry, 55 

Proctor-Silex, 125 

Proud, Robert, 12 

Provident Life and Trust Company, 125 

Provident National Bank, 125, 127 

Province Island, 26 

Pythian Base Ball Club, 79 

Q 

Quaker City String Band, 101 

Quay, Matthew, 85, 86, 91, 98 

Quayle, Dan, 72 

Quessinawomink, 13 

R 

Racing Form, 109 

Rainier III, 114 

Rats No. 1, 67 

RCA Victor Corporation, 109, 114 

Reach, Alfred J., 86 

Read, Deborah see Franklin, Deborah 

Read, John, 23 

Reading Railroad, 62, 125, 127 

Red Onions, The, 92 

Reed, Joseph, 44 

Remington Rand, 111 

Rendell, Edward G., 126, 128, 129, 131 

Reprisal, 38 

Republican National Committee, 98 

Republican National Convention, 72, 92, 

111, 114, 127 

Reynolds, Debbie, 114 

Rich, Comly, 64 

Richards, Benjamin, 61 

Richmond, 65 

Ricketts, John Bill, 52 

Ridarelli, Robert L. see Rydell, Bobby 

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey 

Circus, 113 

Rising Sun Tavern, 39 

Rittenhouse Village, 18 

Rittenhouse, David, 32 

Rittenhouse, William, 18 

Ritz-Carlton, 112 

Rivals, The, 51, 52 

Rizzo, Francis Lazarro (Frank), 91, 118, 

119, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126 

Robin Hood Tavern, 39 

Rocco and the Saints, 116 

Rocky, 122 

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 108 

Roosevelt, Kermit, 100 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 92, 100 

Ross, Elizabeth (Betsy), 38 

Ross, John, 38 

Rouse, Willard III, 126 

Roxborough, 61 

Runge, Gustav, 71 

Rush, Benjamin, 45, 47 

Rydell, Bobby, 116 

S 

S. Davis Wilson Airport, 109 

S. L. Allen & Co. Flexible Flyer, 109 

Saint’s Hotel, 62 

Salter, Hannah, 13 

Samuel, Bernard, 111, 113, 114, 116 

Sanitary Fair see Great Central Fair 

Sankey, Ira D., 82 

Sansom Street Hall, 71 

Sansom, William, 56 

Satterlee U.S. General Hospital, 74 

Satterlee, Richard S., 74 

Saxton, Joseph, 63 

Scheel, Fritz, 92, 93 

School for Scandal, The, 52 

School of Design, 73 

Schuylkill, 7, 8, 13, 17, 25, 39, 40, 41, 

45, 49, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 62, 74, 99, 

101, 111, 118 

Schuylkill Arsenal, 74 

Scott, John Morin, 65 

Seckel, Henry, 51 

Seegar, Pete, 111 

Seixas, David G., 59 

Sesqui-Centennial Exposition, 104, 105, 

121 

Seventeen, 113 

Shackamaxon, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 25 

Shame of the Cities, The, 98 

Shapp, Milton, 123 

Shelter for Colored Orphans, 64 

Sheridan, James Brinsley, 51 

Shibe Park, 108, 111, 120 

Shiffler Hose Company, 67 

Shiffler, George, 65 

Shippen, Edward, Jr., 20, 41 

Shippen, Edward, Sr., 18, 19, 20 

Shippen, Peggy, 41, 42 

Shippen, William, Jr., 32 

Shippen, William, Sr., 32 

Sidebotham, Thomas, 64 

Siebrecht, William H., 94 

Silver Crown, The, 92 

Sing, Mo, 79 

Smith, Kline & French Laboratories, 125 

Smith, Robert, 30, 33, 36 

Smith, Steven, 65 

Smith, Thomas B., 101 

Smith, William B., 85 

SmithKline Beckman Corporation, 125 

Snellenberg, Joseph, 91 

Snellenberg, Nathan, 91 

Snellenberg, Samuel, 91 

Snellenburgs, 112 

Society Hill, 12, 13, 24, 33, 111 

Society of Friends, 11, 12, 21 

South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, 

112 

South Philadelphia High School, 114 

Southeast Pennsylvania Transit 

Authority, 118, 125 

Southwark, 32, 73 

Southwark Theatre, 51 

Sparks, Thomas, 52 

Spring Garden, 71, 109 

Springett, Gulielma see Penn, Gulielma 

St. Augustine’s, 65 

St. George’s Methodist Church, 48 

St. Joseph’s, 65 

St. Louis Cardinals, 120 

St. Mary’s Church, 57 

St. Michael’s Church, 65 

St. Peter’s Church, 30, 33 

St. Philip Neri Church, 66 

St. Thomas’s African Episcopal Church, 79 

Stallone, Sylvester, 122 

Stamp Act, 31 

Stanley Cup, 122 

Steffens, Lincoln, 98, 113 

Stenton, 28 

Stern, J. David, 108 

Stetson, John B., 81 

Stokley, William S., 78, 79 

Stokowski, Leopold, 93 

Story, Enoch, 21 


190

Stotesbury, Edwin T., 102, 103 

Stow, Charles, 28 

Stow, John, 28 

Stratford Hotel, 84, 95 

Strawbridge & Clothier, 78, 106 

Strawbridge, Justus C., 78 

Street, John F., 127, 131 

Strickland, William, 26, 56, 58, 59, 

60, 63 

Stuart, Anne, 19, 20 

Stuart, Edwin S., 91 

Stuyvesant, Peter, 9 

Sugar Loaf, 117 

Sun Oil Company, 118 

Super Bowl, 5 

Swift, John, 64, 69 

Sylvania Hotel, 112 

T 

Tacony, 81 

Tacony Creek, 54 

Taft, William Howard, 95 

Tastykakes, 102 

Tate, James H. J., 118 

Taylor, Elizabeth, 114 

Taylor, Zachary, 69 

Tecumseh, 55 

Temple College, 87 

Temple University, 87 

The American Company, 32 

Theatre on Society Hill, 30 

Thirtieth Street Station, 116 

Thomson, Elihu, 78 

Thomson-Houston Electric Co., 78 

Three Jolly Irishmen Tavern, 50 

Tilghman, Tench, 42 

Tinicum Island, 8, 13 

Titanic, 88 

Torresdale Filtration Plant, 92 

Treaty Elm, 16 

Trilby String Band, 94 

Truman, Harry S., 111 

Trumbauer, Horace, 102, 103 

TV Guide, 113 

Twist, The, 116 

Two Liberty Place, 126 

Tyner, McCoy, 119, 120 

U 

U.S. Sanitary Commission, 75 

U.S. Steel, 88 

U.S.S. Olympia, 123 

U.S.S. Princeton, 66 

Union Fire Company, 25 

Union League, 73, 76 

Union Refreshment Saloon, 75 

Union Traction Company, 91 

UNIVAC, 111 

University of Pennsylvania, 29, 32, 45, 

49, 73, 82, 109, 111, 120 

University of the Arts, 81, 129 

V 

Valley Forge, 40, 41, 43 

Vare, Edwin, 100 

Vare, George, 100 

Vare, William S., 100, 107 

Vaux, Richard, 73 

Von Colln, Frank, 119 

W 

W3XE, 112 

Walam Olum, 7 

Waldorf Hotel, 95 

Waldorf-Astoria, 95 

Wallace, Henry A., 111, 115 

Walnut Street Prison, 36, 43 

Walnut Street Theatre, 57 

Walter, Thomas Ustick, 60 

Wanamaker, John W., 78, 82, 95, 98, 

103, 106 

War of 1812, 52, 55 

Wardman Park Hotel, 103 

Warwick, Charles F., 91 

Washington, George, 2, 35, 36, 39, 43, 44, 

48, 56, 59 

Wasp, 37 

WCAU-TV, 112, 117, 119 

Webster, Daniel, 72 

Wedell, Rachel Lit, 91 

Welcome, 14 

West, Benjamin, 11 

West, Thomas, 7 

Western Savings Fund, 125, 128 

WFI, 106 

WFIL 106, 112, 113, 116 

Wharton School, 125 

Wharton, Joseph, 41 

Wharton, Robert, 48, 49 

White Caps, The, 92 

White Turnips, The, 92 

White, John, 32 

Whitebread, William, 25 

Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 28 

Whitefield, George, 29 

Whitman’s Chocolates, 87 

Whitpaine, Zachariah, 14 

Who’s the Dupe?, 51 

Wicaco, 13 

Widener, George, 88 

Widener, Harry Elkins, 88 

Widener, Peter A. B., 88 

Wignell, Thomas, 51 

Wilbank, John, 57 

Wilcox, Joseph, 21 

William III, 16, 18, 19 

William of Orange see William III 

Willing, Thomas, 42, 50 

Willkie, Wendell L., 111, 114 

Wills Hospital for Disease of the Eye, 63 

Wilma Theater, 129 

Wilson, John, 59 

Wilson, S. Davis, 108, 109 

WIP, 106 

Wissahickon Creek, 39 

Wirz Beer Saloon, 61 

WLIT, 106 

WOO, 106 

Wood, James F., 76 

Woodford, 39 

Woodlands, 44, 55 

Wooley, Edmund, 24, 25 

Worcester Brown Stockings, 86 

World Series, 101, 107, 114, 120, 126 

World War I, 27, 101 

World War II, 37, 109, 114, 123 

WPTZ, 112 

Wynne, Thomas, 17 

Wynnefield, 17 

Wynnestay, 17 

Wray, Lud, 108 

Y 

Yellow Cab, 112 

Yocumb, Peter Peterson, 25 

Z 

Zantzinger, C. C., 103 

Zoological Society of Philadelphia, 80 

INDEX 

191

SPONSORS 

Arbill Glove & Safety Products ...............................................................................................................................................182 

The Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)....................................................................................................146 

Bala Presbyterian Home ..........................................................................................................................................................157 

Bogatin International, Inc........................................................................................................................................................185 

Caledonian Dye Works ...........................................................................................................................................................185 

Center City District.................................................................................................................................................................163 

City Tavern .............................................................................................................................................................................170 

Community College of Philadelphia........................................................................................................................................159 

Dietz & Watson ......................................................................................................................................................................166 

Drinker, Biddle & Reath LLP ..................................................................................................................................................174 

Ehmke Manufacturing Co., Inc...............................................................................................................................................183 

Fox Chase Cancer Center........................................................................................................................................................144 

The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania............................................................................................136 

Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation.............................................................................................................162 

Harry J. Lawall & Son, Inc......................................................................................................................................................163 

Historic Philadelphia, Inc........................................................................................................................................................161 

Hunt Corporation ...................................................................................................................................................................169 

Jacobs Music ...........................................................................................................................................................................176 

Korman Communities.............................................................................................................................................................177 

L-3 Communications/SPD Electrical Systems ..........................................................................................................................180 

Overbrook School for the Blind ..............................................................................................................................................156 

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine ........................................................................................................................154 

Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau............................................................................................................................160 

Philadelphia OIC ....................................................................................................................................................................148 

Philadelphia Phillies................................................................................................................................................................140 

Tasty Baking Company............................................................................................................................................................184 

Temple University ...................................................................................................................................................................152 

The Wistar Institute ................................................................................................................................................................150 

Wolf, Block, Schorr, Solis-Cohen, LLP ....................................................................................................................................172 


192

Historic Philadelphia

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?