in the rear were formed of boards of more modern construction. Over the Dock creek to the western side of Dock street was a narrow foot bridge, over which single horses sometimes went. A lofty mast was erected at the western end of the bridge surmounted with a pump and a triangular frame, on each of which angles projected 3 wooden guns-the whole bearing the popular name of Vannost's "nine gun battery." It was all intended as his sign, as a mastmaker, pumpmaker, &c.

Those houses, called "the row," although originally so elevated above the common surface of the surrounding earth as to have steps up to their first floors, became in time, by the raising of the Front street, fully 3 feet lower than the street at its southern end.

The streets verging to Dock street had formerly a very considerable descent-thus down Walnut street, from Third street, was once a hill, and the same could be said of its going downhill from Walnut street towards Girard's Bank. Where Little Dock street joins to Second street some of the houses, still there, show that the street has been raised above them fully 4 feet; there was originally a hollow there.

Mr. Samuel Richards told me he saw the laying of the first tunnel (in 1784) along the line of Dock creek-it is laid on logs framed together and then planked, and thus the semicircular arch rests upon that base. He thinks nothing remarkable was seen or dug out, as they did not go deeper than the loose mire required. He said boys were often drowned there before it was filled up. Much of the earth used in filling it up was drawn from Pear street hill, and from Society Hill-from that part of it which lay on the west side of Front street, between Lombard and South streets. It was there 10 feet higher than the present street. While digging there the bank fell in and smothered four boys in their play!

THE

OLD COURT HOUSE

AND

FRIENDS' MEETING.

(ILLUSTRATED BY A PLATE.]

THIS once venerable building, long divested of its original honours by being appropriated during the years of the present generation to the humble purposes of offices and lumber rooms for city watchmen and clerks of the markets, &c. had long been regarded by many as a rude and undistinguished edifice,

But this structure, diminutive and ignoble as it may now appear to our modern conceptions, was the chef d'ouvre and largest endeavour of our pilgrim fathers. Assessments, gifts, and fines, were all combined to give it the amplitude of the "Great Town House," or "Guild Hall," as it was occasionally at first called. In the then general surrounding waste, (having a duck pond on its northern aspect,) it was deemed no ill-graced intrusion to place it in the middle of the intended unencumbered and wide street;-an exception, however, to which it became in early days exposed, by pamphlets, pasquinades, &c. eliciting on one occasion "the second (angry) address of Andrew Marvell," &c.

Before its erection, in 1707, its place was the honoured site of the great town bell, erected upon a mast, whence royal and provincial proclamations, &c. were announced. That bell, now the centenary incumbent of the cupola, could it rehearse its former doings, might, to our ears, "a tale unfold" of times and incidents by-gone, which might wonder-strike our citizens!—

T'would tell of things so old, "that history's pages
Contain no records of its early ages!"

Among the relics which I have preserved of this building, is a picturesque view, as it stood in primitive times, having a pillory, prison cage, &c. on its eastern side, and the "Great Meetinghouse" of Friends on the south, secluded within its brick wall-enclosure, on ground bestowed by the Founder "for truth's and Friends' sake." I have, too, an original MS. paper, giving in de

tail the whole expenses of the structure, and the payments, "by the penny tax," received for the same, and showing, in that day, a loss of "old currency" of 3, to reduce it to new,-and withal, presenting a curious exhibit of the prices of materials and labour in that early day-such as bricks at 29s. 6d. per m. and bricklaying at 14s. per m. making, in all, an expense of 616£. Samuel Powell, who acquired so much wealth by city property, was the carpenter. The window casements were originally constructed with little panes set in leaden frames-and the basement story, set on arches, had one corner for an auction room, and the remainder was occupied by the millers and their meal, and by the linen and stocking makers from Germantown. Without the walls on the western side stood some moveable shambles, until superseded, in 1720, by a short brick market house.

We have long since transferred our affections and notices to its successor, (the now celebrated "Hall of Independence," i. e. our present State-house,) now about to revive its fame under very cheering auspices,-but, this Town House was once the National Hall of legislation and legal learning. In its chambers sat our Colonial Assemblies; there they strove nobly and often for the public weal; opposing themselves against the royal prerogatives of the Governors; and though often defeated in their enactments by royal vetos or the Board of Trade, returning to their efforts under new forms and titles of enactments, till they worried kingly or proprietary power into acquiescence or acknowledgement.—Within those walls were early cherished those principles of civil liberty, which, when matured, manifested themselves in the full spirit of our national Independence. Here David Lloyd and Sir William Keith agitated the Assemblies as leaders of the opposition, combining and plotting with their colleagues, and forming cabals that were not for the good of the people nor of the proprietaries. Here Isaac Norris was almost perpetually President, being, for his popularity and excellence, as necessary an appendage of colonial enactments as was the celebrated Abram Newland to the paper currency of England. Here came the Governors in state to make their "speeches." On some occasions they prepared here great feasts to perpetuate and honour such rulers, making the tables, on which they sometimes placed their squibs and plans of discord, become the festive board of jocund glee and happy union. From the balcony in front, the newly arrived or installed Governors made their addresses to the cheering populace below.-On the steps, depending formerly from the balcony on either side, tustled and worried the fretted Electors; ascending by one side to give in their votes at the door at the balcony, and thence descending southward on the opposite side. On the adjacent ground occurred the bloody Election" of 1742-a time, when the sailors, coopers, &c. combined to carry their candidates by exercise of oaken clubs, to the great terror and scandal of the good citizens-when some said