RARE OLD HOUSES. THE only house of size now in Philadelphia with gable end front on the street, is to be seen at the south east corner of Front street and Norris' alley. It formerly had a balcony and door at its second story, and its windows in leaden frames; one of which still remains on the alley side of the house. It is a very ancient house. It was, in the year 1725, the property and home of Samuel Mickle, the same unnamed gentleman who talked so discouragingly to Benjamin Franklin when he first proposed to set up a second Printing Office in the city. The house on west side of Front street, second door north of Walnut street, pulled down a few years ago, was remarkable for having in its foundation a large brick on which was scratched before burning-"This is the sixth house built in Philadelphia." A house of Dutch style of construction, with double hipp'd roof, used to stand, with gable end to Second street, on the south side of the Christ church wall. It was but one and a half story high, built of brick. In the year 1806 it was pulled down, to build up the present three story house there. In the ancient house they found a big brick inscribed "I. G. S. founded 1695." This is now conspicuously preserved in the chimney of the new house, and visible from the street. In the rear of the same new house is preserved a small section of the primitive old wall. A very ancient house of two stories and double front used to be occupied, in Front street below Chesnut street, on the bank side, by Dorsey, as an auction and dwelling. An ancient lady pointed it out to Mrs. Logan, as a place in which the Assembly of the colony had held their session. The north east corner of Front and Walnut street, till a few years ago, had a curiously formed one and a half story brick house, having a double hipp'd roof. The houses on the west side of water street, north of Carpenter's stairs, vis a vis Norris' alley, present the oldest appearance of any now remaining of the original bank houses. There were two ancient and singular looking houses on the north side of Chesnut street, back from the street, where Girard has now built a new range of three houses, near to Fifth street. They were marked 1703, and at an early period was the residence of Mr. Duché, who had a pottery connected with it. At the north east corner of Vine and Second streets there stood, about 35 years ago, a large old fashioned house; it originally stood on a hill ten feet higher than the street-had a monstrous buttonwood tree before it, and a long and high garden down Vine street. Many years ago there was a range of low wooden houses on the west side of Front street, extending from Combes' alley nearly up to Arch street, on much higher ground than the present; they were often called "Sailor's town," being boarding houses and places of carousal for sailors. Mr. Pearson the late City Surveyor, and John Brown, remembered them in their early days. Something like a similar collection of one story houses occupied the western side of Third street, and extended southward from Race street. They got the name of Hell Town, for the bad behaviour of their inmates. Two of them still remain, one of brick, and one of wood, and present a strange contrast in their mean appearance to other houses near there. In 1744, the Grand Jury presented them as disorderly, and as having acquired such a name for their notoriety; an orchard lay between them and Cherry street. "Jones Row," so called in early times, was originally a range of one large double house and one single one, forming an appearance of three good two story brick houses on the west side of Front street, adjoining to the south side of Combes' alley-now the premises of Mr. Gerhard, and greatly altered from its original appearance, by having what was formerly its cellar under ground now one story out of ground, and converting what was once a two story range of houses into three story houses. It once had a long balcony over Front street, and the windows were framed in leaden lattice work, only one of which now remains in the rear of the house. The present elevation of the yard ground proves the fact of having cut down Front street and Combes' alley eight or ten feet. This row was built in 1699 for John Jones, merchant, he having a lot of 102 feet width, and extending quite through to Second street. The best specimens of the ordinary houses of decent livers of the primitive days, now remaining in any collection, are those, to wit: On the north or sun side of Walnut street, from Front up to Dock street, generally low two story buildings. Another collection extends from Front to Second street, on the north or sun side of Chesnut street. They appear to have avoided building on the south or shaded side of those streets. In both those collections there is now here and there a modern house inserted, of such tall dimensions as to humble and scandalize the old ones. CHURCHES. mm THE following facts incidentally connected with sundry churches, may possibly afford some interest in their preservation, to wit: The Presbyterian and Baptist Churches, Began their career about the year 1695, and so far united their interests as to meet for worship in the same small building called "the Barbadoes-lot Store”—the same site were is now the small one story stocking store, on the north west corner of Chesnut and Second streets. The Baptists first assembled there in the winter of 1695, consisting only of nine persons, having occasionally the Rev. John Watts from Pennepeck as their minister; for then, be it known, the church at Pennepeck was both older and more numerous than that of the "great towne" of Philadelphia. At the same place the Presbyterians, also, went to worship, joining together mutually, as often as one or the other could procure either a Baptist or Presbyterian minister. This fellowship continued for about the space of three years, when the Presbyterians having received a Rev. Jedediah Andrews from New England, they began, in the opinion of the Baptist brethren, to manifest wishes for engrossing the place to themselves, by showing an unwillingness to the services of the Baptist preachers. This occasioned a secession of the latter from the premises, (although they had been the first occupants,) and they afterwards used to hold their worship at Anthony Morris' brewhouse-a kind of “Mariner's church" location, on the east side of Water street a little above the Drawbridge, by the river side. There they continued to meet until the spring of 1707, lowly and without means for greater things; when, being invited by the Keithians, (seceders from the Quakers, under their follower, George Keith,) they took possession of their small wooden building on the site of the present first Baptist church in Second street below Mulberry street. In that house they continued their worship, several of the Keithians uniting with them, until the year 1731, when they pulled it down, and erected in its stead a neat brick building of 42 by 30 feet. That was also displaced by another of larger dimensions in 1762, and since then it has been much altered and enlarged. Long letters of remonstrance on the one hand and of justification on the other, passed between the Baptists and Presbyterians, headed by John Watts for the Baptists, and by Jedediah Andrews for the Presbyterians; these are of the winter of 1698, and are preserved in the Rev. Morgan Edwards' History of the Baptists in Pennsylvania. They ended in the withdrawing of the Baptists, who said Mr. Andrews wrote to his friend thereupon, saying, "Though we have got the Anabaptists out of the house, yet our continuance there is uncertain; wherefore we must think of building, notwithstanding our poverty and the smallness of our number." The house which they did eventually build, was that "First Presbyterian church" in High street, long called the "Old Buttonwood" because of such trees of large dimensions about it. It was built in 1704; after standing about a century it was rebuilt in Grecian style, and, finally, all was taken down in 1820, and the ground converted to uses of trade and commerce, The din and crowd of business had previously made it an ill-adapted place. Friends' Meeting in Arch Street. This house, built about 22 years ago, is placed near the area where they had buried their dead from the foundation of the city. The wall now around the whole enclosure has replaced one of much less height. When the first wall stood, it was easy to see the ground and graves over the tops of the wall, in walking along the northern side of Arch street. The first person ever interred in their ground was Governor Lloyd's wife; she was a very pious woman. William Penn himself spoke at her grave-much commending her character. Because of his high estimation of her and her excellent family, he offered, after her burial there, to give the whole lot to that family. The descendants of that family, including the Norris', have ever since occupied that south west corner where Mrs. Lloyd was buried, as their exclusive ground. The aged Samuel Coates told me that Indians, blacks and strangers were at first buried freely in Friends' ground; and he gave it as his opinion that they were at first not very particular to keep out of the range of Arch street-a circumstance which was afterwards verified; for, in September, 1824, when laying the iron pipes along Arch street, off the eastern end of the meetinghouse, they dug upon several coffins in corresponding rows. They were left there unmolested. The tradition of this encroachment of the street on the former ground was known to some of the ancients. This was told to Mrs. Logan by her aged aunt; and a lady of the name of Moore would never ride along that street, saying it was painful to ride over the dead. There was lately dug up in Friends' ground a head-stone, of soapstone, having an inscription of some peculiarity, to wit: "Here lies a plant and 4th month of his age." A letter of Mr. Norris' of the year 1700, explains the circumstance, saying that "Jack, a black man belonging to Philip James, was wording it with Joseph, half jest and half earnest, when his gun went off and killed him on the spot. The negro was put to his trial." The stone is now in possession of Joseph Rakestraw, the printer. There was also formerly another ancient grave-stone there for Peter Deal, called in Gabriel Thomas' book, of 1698, a famous and ingenious workman in water-mills." The stone was inscribed, to wit: "Here lies the body of one Peter Deal Whose life was useful to the common weal Presbyterian Churches. The ancient first church in High street, built in 1704, continued its peace and increase until the time of the Rev. George Whitfield, when he and his coadjutors, Tennent, Davenport, Rowland, &c. produced such a religious excitement as gave umbrage to many : The consequence was, that a party drew off, under the name of New Lights, to Whitfield's separate church, erected in 1744, and in 1750 made into "the Academy." The same year the New Lights, concentred under the pastoral charge of the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, laid the foundation of the Presbyterian church at the north west corner of Third and Arch street, then bearing the name of the "New Meetinghouse." It was at first without a steeple; but an effort to raise one was attempted among the Society, "and it falling much short," they, in the year 1753, succeeded to draw a lottery, to have it finished. That steeple was taken down twenty-five or thirty years ago, from an apprehension it might be blown over. It was a very neat and ornamental structure. In the period of its |