Historic Philadelphia

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Above: Peggy Shippen.
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, DEPARTMENT
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.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
HISTORIC PHILADELPHIA
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.