THE LANDING OF PENN AT THE Blue Anchor Tavern. [ILLUSTRATED BY A PLATE.] Here memory's spell wakes up the throng THE general voice of mankind has ever favoured the consecration of places hallowed by the presence of personages originating great epochs in history, or by events giving renown to nations. The landing place of Columbus in our western world is consecrated and honoured in Havanna; and the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth is commemorated by festivals. We should not be less disposed to emblazon with its just renown the place where Penn, our honoured founder, first set his foot on the soil of our beloved city. The site and all its environs were abundantly picturesque, and facts enough of the primitive scene have descended to us, -e'en to replace agen The features as they knew them then." Facts still live, to revive numerous local impressions, and to connect the heart and the imagination with the past,-to lead out the mind in vivid conceptions of "How the place look'd when 'twas fresh and young.” Penn and his immediate friends came up in an open boat or barge from Chester; and because of the then peculiar fitness, as "a landing place," of the "low and sandy beach," at the debouche of the once beautiful and rural Dock creek, they there came to the shore by the side of Guest's new house, then in a state of building, the same known in the primitive annals as "the Blue Anchor tavern." The whole scene was active, animating and cheering. On the shore were gathered, to cheer his arrival, most of the few inhabitants who had preceded him. The busy builders who had been occupied at the construction of Guest's house, and at the connecting line of "Budd's long row,” all forsook their labours to join in the general greetings. The Indians too, aware by previous signals S of his approach, were seen in the throng, or some, more reservedly apart, waited the salutation of the guest, while others, hastening to the scene, could be seen paddling their canoes down the smooth waters of the creek. Where the houses were erecting, on the line of Front street, was the low sandy beach; directly south of it, on the opposite side of the creek, was the grassy and wet soil, fruitful in whortleberries; beyond it was the "Society Hill," having its summit on Pine street, and rising in graceful grandeur from the precincts of Spruce street,-all then robed in the vesture with which nature most charms. Turning our eyes and looking northward, we see similar rising ground, presenting its summit above Walnut street. Looking across the Dock creek westward, we see all the margin of the creek adorned with every grace of shrubbery and foliage, and beyond it, a gently sloping descent from the line of Second street, whereon were hutted a few of the native's wigwams intermixed among the shadowy trees. A bower near there, and a line of deeper verdure on the ground, marked "the spring," where "the Naiad weeps her emptying urn." Up the stream, meandering through "prolixity of shade," where willows dipt their pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink," we perceive, where it traverses Second street, the lowly shelter of Drinker, the anterior lord of Dock creek; and beyond him, the creek disappears in intervening trees, or in mysterious windings. That scenes like these are not fanciful reveries, indulged without their sufficient warrant, we shall now endeavour to show from sober facts, deduced from various items of information, to wit: Mr. Samuel Richards, a Friend, who died in 1827, at about the age of 59, being himself born and residing all his days next door to the Blue Anchor tavern, was very competent to judge of the verity of the tradition concerning the landing. He fully confided in it; he had often heard of it from the aged, and never heard it opposed by any. His father before him, who had dwelt on the same premises, assured him it was so, and that he had heard it direct through the preceding occupants of the inn. All the earliest keepers of the inn were Friends; such was Guest, who was also in the first Assembly; he was succeeded by Reese Price, Peter Howard, and Benjamin Humphries, severally Friends. All these in succession kept alive the tradition that "when Penn first came to the city he came in a boat from Chester, and landed near their door." It was then, no doubt, the readiest means of transportation, and would have been a highly probable measure, even if we had never heard of the above facts to confirm it. The aged Mrs. Preston, who was present on that occasion, used to say, she admired the affability and condescension of the Governor, especially his manner of entering into the spirit and feeling of the Indians; he walked with them, sat down on the ground with them, ate with them of their roasted acorns and homony. When they got up to exercise and express their joy by hopping and jumping, he finally sprung up, and beat them all. I will not pretend to vouch for this story; we give it as we received it from honest informants, who certainly believed it themselves. It was a measure harmless in the abstract; and as a courtesy to the Indians may have been a fine stroke of policy in winning their regard. He was young enough to have been gay; being then only 38 years of age. And one of the old Journalists has left on record, that he was naturally too prone to cheerfulness for a grave public Friend, especially in the eye of those of them who held "religion harsh, intolerant, austere." Penn was so pleased with the site of "the low sandy beach," as a landing place, (the rest of the river side being high precipitous banks) that he made it a public landing place for ever in his original city charter; and the little haven at the creek's mouth so pleased him, as a fit place for a harbour for vessels in the winter, and a security from the driving ice, that he also appropriated so much of it as lay eastward of the Little Dock creek to be a great dock for ever, to be deepened by digging when needful. The waters there were much deeper at first than after years, as the place got filled up by the negligence of the citizens. Charles Thomson, Esq. told me of his often seeing such vessels as sloops and schooners lading their flour for the West Indies on the sides of the Dock creek near to Second street; and a very aged informant (Mrs. Powell) had seen a schooner once as high as Girard's bank. Charles Thomson also told me of one family of the first settlers whose vessel wintered at the mouth of the creek. This original tavern, from its location, was at first of first-rate consequence as a place of business. It was the proper key of the city, to which all new-comers resorted, and where all small vessels, coming with building-timber from Jersey, &c. or with traffic from New England, made their ready landing. The house was also used as a public ferry, whence people were to cross over Dock creek to Society Hill, before the cause-way and bridge over Front street were formed, and also to convey persons over to Windmill island, where was a windmill for grinding their grain, or to cross persons and horses over to Jersey. It was, in short, the busy mart for a few years of almost all the business the little town required. This landing house, called the Blue Anchor, was the southernmost of ten houses of like dimensions began about the same time, and called "Budd's long row." They had to the eye the appearance of brick houses, although they were actually framed with wood, and filled in with small bricks, bearing the appearance of having been imported. J. P. Norris, Esq. has told me that he always understood from his ancestors and others that parts of the buildings, of most labour and most convenient transportation, were brought out in the first vessels, so as to insure greater despatch in finishing a few houses at least for indispensible purposes. Proud's history informs us, that the house of Guest was the most finished house in the city when Penn arrived; and all tradition has designated the Blue Anchor as the first built house in Philadelphia; from this cause, when it was "pulled down to build greater," I preserved some of its timber as appropriate relic-wood. This little house, although sufficiently large in its day, was but about twelve feet front on Front street, and about twenty-two feet on Dock street, having a ceiling of about eight and a half feet in height. "The spring," in a line due north from this house, on the opposite bank of the creek, was long after a great resort for taking in water for vessels going to sea, and had been seen in actual use by some aged persons still alive in my time, who described it as a place of great rural beauty shaded with shrubbery and surrounded with rude sylvan seats. Little Dock creek, diverging to the south east, had an open passage for canoes and bateaux as high as St. Peter's church, through a region long laying in commons, natural shrubbery, and occasional forest trees, left so standing, long after the city, northward of Dock creek, was in a state of improvement. The cottage of the Drinker family, seen up the main or northwestern Dock creek, located near the south west corner of Walnut and Second street, was the real primitive house of Philadelphia. The father of the celebrated aged Edward Drinker had settled there some years before Penn's colonists came, and Edward himself was born there two years before that time; he lived till after the war of Independence, and used to delight himself often in referring to localities where Swedes and Indians occasionally hutted, and also where Penn and his friends remained at their first landing. It fully accords with my theories, from observations on the case that the creek water once overflowed the whole of Spruce street, from Second street to the river, and that its outlet extended in a south-eastwardly direction along the base of Society Hill, till its southernmost extremity joined the Delaware nearly as far south as Union street. I think these ideas are supported by the fact, which I have ascertained, that all the houses on the southern side of Spruce street have occasionally water in their cellars, and also those on the east side of Front street some distance below Spruce street. Mr. Samuel Richards told me it was the tradition of his father and other aged persons about the Blue Anchor tavern, that the creek water inclined originally much farther southward than Spruce street. There was doubtless much width of watery surface once there, as it gave the idea to Penn of making it a great winter dock for vessels. We know indeed, that captain Loxley, many years ago, was allowed to use the public square, now on the site of the intended dock, in consideration of his filling up the whortleberry swamp, before there. |