THIS house, still standing at the south east corner of Norris' alley and Second street, and now reduced to a lowly appearance, derives its chief interest from having been the residence of William Penn. The peculiarity of its original construction, and the character of several of its successive inmates, will enhance its interest to the modern reader. The facts concerning the premises, so far as may now be known, are generally these, to wit:

The house was originally built, in the early origin of the city, for Samuel Carpenter-certainly one of the earliest and greatest improvers of the primitive city. It was probably designed for his own residence, although he had other houses on the same square, nearer to the river.

It was occupied as the city residence of William Penn and family, while in Philadelphia on his second visit in 1700; in which house was born, in one month after their arrival, John Penn, "the American," the only one of the race ever born in the country. To that house therefore, humble, degenerated, and altered in aspect as it now is, we are to appropriate all our conceptions of Penn's employments, meditations, hopes, fears, &c. while acting as Governor and proprietary among us. In those doors he went in and out-up and down those stairs he passed-in those chambers he reposed-in those parlours he dined or regaled his friends-through those garden grounds they sauntered. His wife, his daughter Lætitia, his family, and his servants, were there. In short, to those who can think and feel, the place "is filled with local impressions." Such a house should be rescued from its present forlorn neglect;* it ought to be bought and consecrated to some lasting memorial of its former character, by restoring its bastions and salient angles, &c. It would be to the character of such Societies as the Historical and Penn Association, &c. to club their means to preserve it for their chambers, &c. as long as themselves and the city may endure! There is a moral influence in these mea

*The same remark is applicable to Penn's cottage in Lætitia court.

sures that implies and effects much more in its influence on national action and feeling, than can reach the apprehension of superficial thinkers; who can only estimate its value by their conception of so much brick and mortar! It was feelings, such as I wish to see appreciated here that aroused the ardour of Petrarch's townsmen, jealous of every thing consecrated by his name, whereby they run together en masse, to prevent the proprietor of his house from altering it! Foreigners, we know, have honoured England by their eagerness to go to Bread street, and there visit the house and chambers, once Milton's! 'Tis in vain to deride the passion as futile; the charm is in the ideal presence, which the association has power to create in the imagination; and they who can command the grateful visions will be sure to indulge them. It is poetry of feeling-scoffs cannot repress it. It equally possessed the mind of Tully when he visited Athens; he could not forbear to visit the walks and houses which the old philosophers had frequented or inhabited. In this matter, says Dr. Johnson, "I am afraid to declare against the general voice of mankind." "The heart is stone that feels not at it; or, it feels at none!" Shear insensibility, absorbed in its own selfishness, alone escapes the spell-like influence! Every nation, when sufficiently intellectual, has its golden and heroic ages; and the due contemplation of these relics of our antiquities presents the proper occasion for forming ours. These thoughts, elicited by the occasion, form the proper apology for whatever else we may offer to public notice in this way. There is a generation to come who will be grateful for all such notices.

After William Penn had left this house, on his intended return with his family to England, he, while aboard his return ship, the Messenger, (an appropriate name for the message and business he was purposing!) writes on the 3d of September, 1701, to James Logan, saying, "Thou may continue in the house I lived in till the year is up."

James Logan, in reply, in 1702, says, "I am forced to keep this house still, there being no accommodation to be had elsewhere for public business." In fact, he retained it as a government house till 1704, when he and his coadjutors moved to Clarks Hall in Chesnut street, afterwards Pemberton's great house.

James Logan, in a letter to William Penn of 5th December, 1703, says Samuel Carpenter has sold the house thou lived in to William Trent (the founder of Trenton in 1719,) for 850£. *

At this house Lord Cornbury, then Governor of New York and New Jersey, (son of Lord Clarenden, cousin of queen Anne, &c.) was banqueted in great style in 1702, on the occasion of his being invited by James Logan, from Burlington, where he had gone to proclaim the queen. Logan's letter, speaking of the event, says he was dined" equal, as he said, to any thing he had seen in *William Trent began his settlement at Trenton in 1719, by erecting mills there. He died there in 1724, in the office of Chief Justice of New Jersey.

America." At night he was invited to Edward Shippen's, (great house in south Second street) where he was lodged, and dined with all his company, making a retinue of nearly thirty persons. He went back well pleased with his reception, via Burlington, in the Governor's barge, and was again banqueted at Pennsbury by James Logan, who had preceded him for that purpose. Lord Cornbury there had a retinue of about fifty persons, which accompanied him thither in four boats. His wife was once with him in Philadelphia, in 1703. Penn, on one occasion, calls him a man of luxury and poverty. He was at first very popular; and having made many fine promises to Penn, it was probably deemed good policy to cheer his vanity by striking public entertainments. In time, however, his extravagant living, and consequent extortion, divested him of all respect among the people. Only one legendary tale respecting this personage has reached us: An old woman at Chester had told the Parker family she remembered to have seen him at that place, and having heard he was a lord, and a queen's cousin, she had eyed him with great exactness, and had seen no difference in him, from other men, but that he wore leather stockings !*

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In 1709, the slated-roof house of william Trent" is thus commended by James Logan as a suitable residence for him as Governor, saying, "William Trent, designing for England, is about selling his house, (that he bought of Samuel Carpenter) which thou lived in, with the improvement of a beautiful garden," then extending half way to Front street and on Second street nearly down to Walnut street. "I wish it could be made thine, as nothing in this town is so well fitting a Governor. His price is 900£. of our money, which it is hard thou canst not spare. I would give 20 to 30£. out of my own pocket that it were thine-nobody's but thine."

The house was, however, sold to Isaac Norris, who devised it to his son Isaac, through whom it has descended down to the present proprietor, Sarah Norris Dickinson, his grand daughter.

It was occupied at one period, it is said, by Governor Hamilton, and, for many years preceding the war of Independence, it was deemed a superior boarding house. While it held its rank as such, it was honoured with the company, and, finally, with the funeral honours of General Forbes, successor to General Braddock, who died in that house in 1759. The pomp of his funeral from that house surpassed all the simple inhabitants had before seen in their city. His horse was led before the procession, richly caparisoned, -the whole conducted in all "the pomp of war, "with funeral dirges, and a military array with arms reversed, † &c.

In 1764, it was rented to be occupied as a distinguished boarding house by the widow Graydon, mother of captain Graydon of Carlisle, who has left us his amusing" Memoirs of 60 years life

William Penn, in one of his notes, says, "Pray send me my leather stockings." +He had had great honours shown to him two years before for the capture of Fort du Quesne, (Fort Pitt.)

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in Pennsylvania." There his mother, as he informs us, had a great many gentry as lodgers. He describes the old house as very much of a castle in its construction, although built originally for a Friend. "It was a singular old fashioned structure, laid out in the style of a fortification, with abundance of angles both salient and re-entering. Its two wings projected to the street in the manner of bastions, to which the main building, retreating from 16 to 18 feet, served for a curtain."*"It had a spacious yard, half way to Front street, and ornamented with a double row of venerable lofty pines, which afforded a very agreeable rus in urbe.” She continued there till 1768-9, when she removed to Drinker's big house, up Front street near to Race street. Graydon's anecdotes of distinguished persons, especially of British officers and gentry who were inmates, are interesting. John Adams, and other members of the first congress, had their lodgings in the Slate-house."

We may say of this house:"Trade has changed the scene;" for the recess is since filled out to the front with store windows, and the idea of the bastions, though still there, is lost.

RIVER-FRONT BANK.

THE history of the "bank lots" on the river-front is a topic in which all, who can feel an interest in the comfort, beauty, or fame of our city, must have a concern. It was the original design of Penn to have beautified our city, by a most graceful and agreeable promenade on the high bank of the river-front, the whole length of the city. Thus intending Front street to have had an uninterrupted view of the Delaware and river scenery, after the manner of the celebrated Bomb Quai at Rotterdam. How all those desirable purposes were frustrated, and how our admirable natural advantages for an elegant river display, have been superseded by a cramp'd and inconvenient street and houses, shall be communicated to the reader in the following facts, to wit:

We find, from the citizens' memorial of the Sd of 6 mo. 1684, the first open attempt to make some breach in the original plan, but the direct manner in which they were repelled by William Penn, is evidence how much he then had it at heart to preserve "the topbank as a common Exchange or walk." The memorialists claimed "the privilege to build vaults or stores in the bank against their respective lots," on the western side of Front street. His answer is not known at full length; but his endorsement on the petition speaks thus, viz: "The bank is a top common from end to end. The rest next the water belongs to front lot men (i. e. owners on Front street) no more than back lot men. The way bounds them. They may build stairs, and the top of the bank be a common Exchange or walk; and against the streets, (opening to the river) common wharves may be built freely, but into the water and the shore, is no purchasers."

The Assembly too addressed Penn on the 20th September, 1701, "concerning property," and his answer is, "I am willing to grant the ends of streets according to your request;" therein showing that the general bank was deemed out of the question.

A paper of the 26th April, 1690, from Penn's commissioners of property, combined with a confession from William Penn to James Logan, which we shall presently show, presents us the evidence of the time and the motive for the fatal concession of the bank lots to those who would become purchasers. The persons entitled to the discredit of thus marring our intended beautiful city, were Samuel Carpenter, William Markham, Robert Turner, and John Goodson. They state, that "Whereas they have been petitioned by holders of