Walnut street to Mr. Wilson's house, with drums beating and two pieces of cannon. They immediately commenced firing on the house, which was warmly returned by the garrison. Finding they could make no impression, the mob proceeded to force the door; at the moment it was yielding, the horse made their appearance.

After the troop had retired at dinner time, a few of the members, hearing that the mob were marching into town, hastened to the rendezvous: these members were Majors Lennox and the two Nichols, Samuel Morris, Alexander Nesbitt, Isaac Coxe and Thomas Leiper. On their route to Wilson's they were joined by two troopers from Bristol, and turning suddenly round the corner of Chesnut street, they charged the mob, who, ignorant of their number, at the cry of "the horse, the horse," dispersed in every direction, but not before two other detachments of the first troop had reached the scene. Many of them were arrested, and committed to prison; and as the sword was very freely used, a considerable number was severely wounded. A man and a boy were killed in the streets; in the house, Captain Campbell was killed, and Mr. Mifflin and Mr. S. C. Morris wounded. The troop patroled the streets the greater part of the night. The citizens turned out, and placed a guard at the powder magazine and the arsenal. It was some days before order was restored. Major Lennox was particularly marked out for destruction. He retired to his house at Germantown: the mob followed and surrounded it during the night, and prepared to force an entrance. Anxious to gain time, he pledged his honour, that he would open the door as soon as day-light appeared. In the mean time, he contrived to despatch an intrepid woman, who lived in his family, to the city for assistance; and a party of the first troop arrived in season to protect their comrade; but he was compelled to return to town for safety. He was, for a number of years, saluted in the market, by the title of "brother butcher," owing in part, to his having been without a coat on the day of the riot; having on a long coat, he was obliged to cast it aside, to prevent being dragged from his horse.

The gentlemen who had comprised the garrison were advised to leave the city, where their lives were endangered. General Mifflin and about thirty others, accordingly met at Mr. Gray's house below Gray's Ferry, where it was resolved to return to town without any appearance of intimidation. But it was deemed expedient that Mr. Wilson should absent himself for a time: the others continued to walk as usual in public, and attended the funeral of the unfortunate Captain Campbell.

Allen McLane and Colonel Grayson got into the house after the fray began. The mob called themselves Constitutionalists. Benezet's fire in the entry from the cellar passage was very deadly.

* A Colonel Campbell, who came to the door and opened it, was seized and bayoneted with a dozen wounds, and survived them.

FRIENDS' ALMSHOUSE.

THIS ancient and antiquated looking building, fronting on Walnut street, near Third street, was founded more than a century ago, for the benevolent purpose of providing for the maintenance of the poor of that Society. The ground plot, and a large one too, was given to Friends by John Martin, on condition that they should support him for life.

The front edifice was built in 1729; and those wings in the garden were built about sixteen years earlier, they being then sufficient for the wants of the Society. The neat and comfortable manner in which the inmates have always lived is very creditable to their benefactors.

The present elevation of the garden, as much as ten feet above the streets in front, proves the former higher ground along Walnut street. The aged Mrs. Shoemaker, who died four years ago at the age of 95 years, told me that she remembered when the whole neighbourhood looked to the eye like a high hill from the line of Dock creek. The road, for many years, in her time, from Third street up Walnut street, and from Walnut street along Third street, going southward, were narrow cartways ascending deep defiles, and causing the foot passengers to walk high above them on the sides of the shelving banks.

WHITPAIN'S GREAT HOUSE.

*THIS was the name given to a stately house built on the bank side of Front street below Walnut street, for an owner of that name in England. Having been built of shell lime, it fell into premature decay, and "great was the fall thereof."

In 1687, William Penn by his letter to T. Lloyd, R. Turner, &c. says: "Taking into consideration the great expenses of Richard Whitpain to the advancement of the province, and the share he taketh here (in England) on all occasions for its honour, I can do no less than recommend to you for public service his great house in Philadelphia, which, being too big for a private man, would provide you a conveniency above what my cottage affords. It were reputable to take at least a moiety of it, which might serve for all the offices of State."

In 1707, Samuel Preston, writing to Jonathan Dickinson then in Jamaica, says "his house is endangered; for, that Whitpain's great

house, then decaying, threatened to fall upon and crush his house." In February, 1708-9, Isaac Norris, writing to Jonathan Dickinson, says: "It is not prudent to repair thy house next to Whitpain's ugly great house; we have applied to authority to get power to pull it down. In the mean time the front of that part next to thine, being all tumbled down, lies open."

In after-years a great fire occurred near there, and burnt down all the property belonging to Dickinson, so that the place long bore the name of "the burnt buildings." Ross' stores now occupy, I think, the same premises.

WIGGLESWORTH'S HOUSE.

THIS house is entitled to some notice, as well for its ancient and peculiar location as for the rare person, "Billy Wigglesworth," who gave it fame in more modern times. As a house, it is peculiar for its primitive double front, (Nos. 43 and 45, south Second street,) and heavy, squat, dormer windows, and above all, for having been built so early as that they did not find the right line of Second street!-of course presenting the earliest built house in its vicinity, (for it now stands northwest and southeast!) as any one may discern who inspects it. The character of its original finish under the eaves, &c. evince that it was once superior in its day, I perceive it was first recorded in 1685 as the property of Philip Richards, merchant, for whom the house was built. Joseph Richards, the son, possessed it by will in 1697, and sold it to John Brown in 1715. In 1754, the present two houses, then as one house, was occupied by William Plumstead, Esq. Alderman, who was buried, in 1765, in a peculiar manner, having, by will, no pall, nor mourning dresses, &c. On the north end of the house was once "Hall's alley." The premises many years ago was occuIn the rear of the house was pied as the Prince of Wales' Inn. a good garden and a sundial affixed to the wall of the house, and still there.

"Billy Wigglesworth," as he was universally called, long kept a toyshop, the wonder of all the boys in the city; and the effigies of human form which dangled by a string from his ceiling had no rivals, but in his own gaunt and gawky figure. But Billy's outward man was the least of his oddities; his distinguishing characteristic was a fondness for that mode of self-amusement at the expense of others, called manual wit. His exploits in that way have been humorously told by a writer whose sketches have been preserved under the article "Wigglesworthiana," in my MS. Annals, page 534, in the Historical Society.

THE OLD FERRY.

THIS first ferry and its neighbourhood was described to me by the late aged John Brown, Esq. whose father before him, once kept that ferry, and had near there at the same time his ship yard. When John Brown was a small lad, the river then came close up to the rear of the present house on Water street, and when they formed the present existing slip, they filled up the area with chalk imported for ballast. At that time the Front street bank was vacant, and he used with others to sled down the hill from Combes' alley, then called Garden alley and Penny hill, quite down to the ice on the river. The bank of Front street was reddish clay. The shed stables for the old ferry were set into that bank. His father's ship yard was opposite to Combes' alley, and Parrock's ship yard was then at Race street.

The fact of the then open bank of Front street is confirmed by an advertisement of 1761; then Francis Rawle, storekeeper, and attorney for the "Pennsylvania Land Company of Pennsylvania," advertises to sell the lots from his house, by the ferry steps, down to Clifford's steps, in lots of 22 feet front, each then unimproved.

It was in this same year, 1761, the Corporation permitted Samuel Austin, the owner of the river lot on the north side of Arch street, to erect there another ferry house, which, in relation to the other, soon took the name of the "New Ferry."

The original act for establishing a ferry to Daniel Cooper's land was passed, in 1717.

OFFLY'S ANCHOR FORGE.

THIS was established about the year 1755, in a large frame building on the Front street bank, directly opposite to Union street. The owner and director was Daniel Offly, a public Friend, whose voice in speaking, was not unlike the sound of his own iron falling on a brick pavement. The reminiscent has often looked through the Front street low windows down into the smoking cavern, in appearance, below, fronting on Penn street, where, through the thick sulphurous smoke, aided by the glare of forge light, might be seen Daniel Offly directing the strokes of a dozen hammermen, striking with sledges on a welding heat produced on an immense

unfinished anchor, swinging from the forge to the anvil by a ponderous crane, he at the same time keeping his piercing iron voice above the din of the iron sound!

BAPTISTERION.

ON the bank of the Schuylkill, at the end of Spruce street, there was, in the early times of the city, an oak grove, selected by the Baptist Society as a Baptisterion, to lead their initiates into the river to be baptised, as did John in Enon.

Morgan Edwards, their pastor, who describes it as he saw it before the year 1770, (he arrived here in 1758) says of it-"Around said spot are large oaks affording fine shade-under foot is a green, variegated with wild flowers and aromatic herbs, and a tasteful house is near for dressing and undressing the Proseuches." In the midst of the spot was a large stone, upon the dry ground, and elevated above it about three feet-made level on the top by art, with hewn steps to ascend it. Around this rock the candidates knealt to pray, and upon it the preacher stood to preach to the people. "The place was not only convenient for the purposes used, but also most delightful for rural scenery, inducing people to go thither in summer as a place of recreation." To such a place resorted Francis Hopkinson, Esq. with his bards and literati, to sweep their lyres, or to meditate on justice and religion.

A part of one of the hymns sung upon their baptismal occasions reads thus, viz.

“Of our vows this stone's a token

Stone of Witness,* bear record
'Gainst us if our vows be broken,

Or, if we forsake the Lord."

What a shame that all these rural beauties have been long since effaced and forgotten!-none of them left to remind us of those rural appendages, woods, &c. I have since learned that the property there belonged to Mr. Marsh, a Baptist, and that the British army cut it down for fuel. The whole place is now all wharfed out for the coal trade, so that those lately baptised near there, had to clamber over heaps of coal. The Stone of Witness" is buried in the wharf-never to be seen more!

* Joshua 24, 26.