Historic Philadelphia

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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.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
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.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
HISTORIC PHILADELPHIA
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.