Historic Philadelphia

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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.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR.
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.
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, DEPARTMENT
OF RECORDS, CITY ARCHIVES.
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
HISTORIC PHILADELPHIA
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