ANNALS OF Philadelphia, BEING A COLLECTION OF MEMOIRS, ANECDOTES, & INCIDENTS OF THE CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS FROM THE DAYS OF THE PILGRIM FOUNDERS. INTENDED TO PRESERVE THE RECOLLECTIONS OF OLDEN TIME, and AND IMPROVEMENTS. TO WHICH IS ADDED AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING OLDEN TIME RESEARCHES AND REMINISCENCES OF "Oh! dear is a tale of the olden time!" "Where peep'd the hut, the palace towers; BY JOHN F. WATSON, Member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. PHILADELPHIA, E. L. CAREY & A. HART; NEW YORK, G. & C. & H. CARVILL. MIS EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA, To wit: L. S. BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the twenty-fourth day of June, in the fifty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1830, JOHN F. WATSON, of the said District, has deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit: ANNALS OF PHILADELPHIA, being a collection of Memoirs, Anecdotes, and Incidents of the City and its Inhabitants, from the days of the Pilgrim Founders. Intended to preserve the recollections of olden time, and to exhibit society in its changes of manners and customs, and the city in its local changes and improvements. To which is added An Appendix, containing Olden Time Researches and Reminiscences of New York City. By JOHN F. "Oh! dear is a tale of the olden time!" "Where peep'd the hut, the palace towers; And cultur'd thousands throng the solitude." WATSON, Member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.” In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, intituled, "An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies during the Times therein mentioned." And also to the Act, entitled, " An Act supplementary to An Act, entitled " An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies during the Times therein mentioned," and extending the Benefits thereof to the Arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other Prints." D. CALDWELL, Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Billmeyer-Printer. HALL OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. Philadelphia, June 7, 1830. At a stated meeting held this evening, it was Resolved, That the Society being informed that John F. Watson, Esq. one of its members, was about to publish a work entitled "ANNALS OF PHILADELPHIA," which having been examined and found to be authentic, curious, and highly interesting in many respects, it is recommended to the patronage of those who feel an attachment to our city, and take an interest in its primitive char acter. Ordered, that a copy of this resolution be furnished to John F. Watson, Esq. "I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes With the memorials and the things of fame THIS work, dedicated to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania by one of its members, is designed to revive the recollections and the peculiar traits and characteristics of the olden time; to give to the present race of Philadelphians curious and amusing facts from times by-gone, of which few or none have had any proper conception. It is an effort to rescue from the ebbing tide of oblivion, all those fugitive memorials of unpublished facts and observations, or reminiscences and traditions, which could best illustrate the domestic history of our former days. As such a work is without example for its imitation, it may be deemed sui generis in its execution. It has, however, powers to please anot spart from its style am composition, because it is in effect-a museum of whatever is rare, surprising, or agreeable concerning the primitive days of our pilgrim forefathers, or of the subsequent changes by their sons, either 1. and in the alterations and improvements of given localities, or in the modes and forms of "changing men and manners." It is a picture of the doings and characteristics of a "buried age." By the images which their recitals create in the imagination, the ideal presence is generated; and we talk and think with men of other days." 66 Herein, the aged may find ready assistance to travel back in memory to the scenes and gambols of their sportive innocent youth; and the youth of our city may regale their fancies with recitals as novel and as marvellous to their wondering minds as the Arabian tales-even while they have the gratification to commingle in idea with the plays and sports of their own once youthful ancestors. The dull unheeding citizen who writes "nil admirari” on the most of things, may here see cause " to wonder that he never saw before what he shows him, and that he never yet had felt what he impresses!" To Philadelphians settled in distant countries, these particulars concerningSweet Home" would present the most welcome gift their friends here could offer them. It is not too romantic to presume that a day is coming, if not already arrived, when the memorabilia of Philadelphia, and of its primitive inhabitants, so different from the present, will be highly appreciated by all those who can feel intellectual pleasures in travelling back the vale of years, and conferring with the "mighty dead." Such will give their thanks and their gratitude to labours humble as these; for, I have not aimed to give them that "painted form" which might allure by its ornaments of rhetoric:-I have rather repressed the excursive fancy I sometimes could not but feel. My object has not been to say all which could have been adduced on every topic, but to gather up the segregated facts in their several cases, which others had overlooked or disregarded, or to save fugitive scraps, if published, which others had neglected.* In this way I have chiefly aimed to furnish the material by which better or more ambitious writers could elaborate more formal history, and from which as a repository, our future poets, painters, and imaginative authors, could deduce their themes--for their own and their country's glory. Scanty therefore as these crude materials may prove, fiction may some day lend its charms to amplify and consecrate facts; and "Tales of ancient Philadelphia," may be touched by genius and made immortal! *It may be noticed, as a proof of the care with which this work has been restricted to moderate size, that in most cases of recitals from others, a smaller type has been used than the common text; and frequently whole articles have been omitted, and only referred to, as to be seen in the two MS. books, either in the Philadelphia Library, or in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It has been limited also to one volume, of over size, rather than present the name of "two volumes" on so untried a subject. PREFACE. OUR love of antiquities,-the contemplation of days by-gone, is an impress of the Deity.-It is our hold on immortality. The same affection which makes us reach forward and peep into futurity, prompts us to travel back to the hidden events which transpired before we existed. We thus feel our span of existence prolonged even while we have the pleasure to identify ourselves with the scenes or the emotions of our forefathers. For the same cause relics are so earnestly sought and sedulously preserved," they are full of local impressions," and transfer the mind back to 66 scenes before." As Americans, we see in a short life more numerous incidents to excite our observation and move our wonder, than any other people on the globe. The very newness of our history ministers to our moral entertainment and increases our interest in contemplating the passing events. A single life in this rapidly-growing country, witnesses such changes in the progress of society, and in the embellishments of the arts, as would require a term of centuries to witness in full-grown Europe. If we have no ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum to employ our researches; no incomprehensible Stonehenge nor Circle of Dendara to move our wonder; we have · abundant themes of unparalleled surprise in following down the march of civilization and improvement, from the first landing of our pilgrim forefathers to the present eventful day! The wealth and ambition of a potent prince may have accomplished a magnificent city in shorter time upon the banks of the Neva; but in this country we have many equal wonders by the energies and resources of a people, until lately "no people." The wisdom of our free institutions has made our land the desired asylum of the oppressed. Here human life is not wantonly wasted in ambitious broils for sovereignty; we therefore behold our population quadrupled in a term of forty years, and our hardy pioneers subduing the soil, or advancing their settlements, from the Atlantic to the Pacific wave. Canals, rivaling in magnitude the boasted aqueducts of imperial Rome are in successful operation. By these and turnpikes, inaccessible districts are brought nigh; mountains charged with metallic treasures are entered, and their deposits of iron, coal, and lead, &c. lavished over the land. Cities, towns, and villages, arise in the West, as if by enchantment.-Many of their present inhabitants redeemed their soils from a waste howl B |