Historic Philadelphia

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.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
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.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER II
43