USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the olden time; being a collection of the memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 19
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"In memory of Peter Swanson, who died December 18, 1737, aged 61 years.
Reader, stop and self behold ! Thou'rt made of ye same mould, And shortly must dissolved be : Make sure of blest Eternity !"
In the same ground is the inscription of Swan Johnson, who died in 1733, aged 48 years, who probably derived his baptismal name from the Sven race.
The extinction of these names of the primitive lords of the soil, reminds one of the equally lost names of the primitive lords at the other end of the city, to wit: the Hartsfelders and Peggs-all sunk in the abyss of time! "By whom begotten or by whom forgot." equally is all their lot!
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The Swedes' Church, and House of Sven Sener.
One street has preserved their Swanson name; and the City Di. rectory did once show the names of one or two persons in lowly cir cumstances; if, indeed, their names was any proof of their connexion with Sven Schute.
The late Anthony Cuthbert, of Penn Street, when aged 77, told me he remembered an aged Mr. Swanson in his youth, who was a large landholder of property near this Sven house; that he gave all his deeds or leases, " with the privilege of using his wharf or land- ing near the buttonwoods." The single great tree still standing there, as a pointer to the spot, is nearly as thick at its base as the Treaty Elm, and like it diverges into two great branches near the ground. Long may it remain the last relic of the home of Sven Sener!
They who see the region of Swedes' Church now, can have little conception of the hills and undulations primarily there. The first story of the Swedes' Church, now on Swanson Street, made of stone, was originally so much under ground. The site there was on a small hill now cut down eight feet. At the east end of Christian Street, where it is crossed by Swanson Street, the river Delaware used to flow in, so that Swanson Street in that place, say from the north side of Swedes' Church lot up to near Queen Street, was originally a raised cause-way. Therefore, the oldest houses now standing on the western side of that street do not conform to the line of the street, but range in a line nearly south-west, and also stand back from the present street on what was (before the street was laid out) the mar- gin of the high ground bordering on the River Delaware. Those houses too have their yards one story higher than their front pave- ments, and what was once their cellars under ground is now the first story of the same buildings.
From the Swedes' Church down to the Navy yard, the high hill formerly there has been cut down five or six feet, and by filling up the wharves below the former steep banks, the bank itself, as once remembered, even 30 years ago, seems strangely diminished.
At some distance from Swedes' Church, westward, is a remarkably low ground, between hills, having a pebbly bed like the river shore, which shows it once had a communication with the Delaware River at the foot of Christian Street; where Mr. Joseph Marsh, an aged gentleman, told me he had himself filled up his lot on the south-west corner as much as three feet. On that same lot he tells me there was formerly, before his time, a grain mill worked by two horses, which did considerable grinding.
The same Mr. Marsh, then aged 86, showed me that all the ground northward of Christian Street, and in the rear of his own house, No. 13, descended suddenly ; thus showing there must have been there a vale or water channel leading out to the river. His own house formerly went up four steps at his door, and now the ground in the street is so raised as to remove them all.
Near him, at No. 7, on the north side of Christian street, is a very ancient-looking boarded house of but one very low story, having its
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The Swedes' Church, and House of Sven Sener.
roof projecting beyond the wall of the house in front and rear, so as to form pent-houses. It is a log-house, in truth, concealed by boards and painted, and certainly the only Log-House in Philadelphia ! What is curious respecting it, is, that it was actually framed and floated to its present spot by "old Joseph Wharton," from Chester county. Of this fact Mr. Marsh assured me, and told me it was an old building in his early days, and was always then called " Noah's ark." He remembered it when the cellar part of it (which is of stone and seven feet deep) was all above ground, and the cellar floor was even with the former street! I observed a hearth and chimney still in the cellar, and water was also in it. This water the tenants told me they supposed came in even now from the river, although at 100 feet distance. I think it not improbable that it stands on spring ground, which, as long as the street was lower than the cellar, found its way off, but now it is dammed. The floor of the once second story is now one foot lower than the street.
On the whole, there are signs of great changes in that neighbour- hood,-of depressing hills or of filling vales; which, if my conjectures be just, would have made the Swedes' Church, in times of water invasions from high tides, a kind of peninsula, and itself and par sonage on the extreme point of projection.
The primitive Swedes generally located all their residences " near the freshes of the river," always choosing places of a ready water communication,-preferring thus their conveyances in canoes to the labour of opening roads and inland improvements. From this cause their churches, like this at Wiccaco, were visited from considerable dis- tances along the river, and making there, when assembled on Lord's day, quite a squadron of boats along the river side.
A granddaughter of Sven Schute-then bearing the name of Swan- son, married to John Parham of London-lived to be 103 years of age, and died in 1795. She has told the present John Parham of West Chestnut Street, her grandson, that she well remembered having been at the Swedes' Church while it was still a block house-having loop-holes for firing therefrom. She had seen William Penn on his second visit; she described him as a thick-set agreeable-looking man of middle stature, wearing a wig. She had at one time heard through an Indian woman, coming out a doctress with herbs from up Timber Creek, that the Indians in Jersey meditated an attack. The wo men at Sven Schute's house were then making soft soap, which they forthwith took scalding-hot to the block house, with more fuel to keep it hot there-they then sounded their conchs to call in the people- as soon as the women were gathered thereby, the Indians came and began to undermine the building, when they were successfully re- pelled by the scalding soap and delayed until the men began to ap- proach from a distance, and the Indians made off. After this, some of the inhabitants fearing a repetition of the assault moved off to Bucks County.
There are some facts existing, which seem to indicate that the
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The Swedes' Church, and House of Sven Sener.
first Swedish settlement was destroyed by fire. Mrs. Preston, the grandmother of Samuel Preston, an aged gentleman lately alive, often told him of their being driven from thence, by being burnt out, and then going off by invitation to an Indian settlement in Bucks County. In Campanius' work, he speaks of Korsholm fort, (supposed to be the same place) as being abandoned after Governor Printz returned to Sweden, and afterwards burned by the Indians; very probably as a measure of policy, to diminish the strength of their new masters, the Dutch; or perhaps to show their retained affection to the Swedes, and their aversion to the Dutch. So they did when they burned the place which the Dutch had constructed at Gloucester Point. There seems at least some coincidence in the two stories.
The road through Wiccaco to Gloucester Point was petitioned for, and granted by the Council in the year 1720, and called-the road through the marsh.
The ground of the Swedes' Church contains the monument and remains of Wilson the ornithologist, who desired such a then retired place, where birds, amid its trees, might carol over his grave.
For many years, this venerable church-while it stood far from the town, was essentially a Country Church, and in that relation it brings up to the fancy the poetic description of Mrs. Seba Smith-to wit :-
They all are passing from the land Those Churches old and gray, In which our fathers used to stand In years gone by, to pray- There meekly knelt, those stern old men, Who worshipped at our Altars then.
It was a church low built and square, With belfry perched on high, And no unseemly carvings there To shock the pious eye- That belfry was a modest thing, In which a bell was wont to swing.
It stood, like many a country church, Upon a spacious green : Whence stile and by-path go in search Of cot, the hills between, The rudest boor that turf would spare, And turn aside his team with care.
I smile with no sarcastic smile As I each group review, That came by many a long, long mile, In garments fresh and new ; The Sunday dress-the Sunday air, The thorough-greased and Sunday hair.
The straight, stiff walk, with Sunday suit, The squeaking leather shoe,
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TRANS-NACINI -NYA.
PENNY POT-HOUSE AND LANDING .- Page 153.
MUMFORD
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Penny-pot House and Landing.
The solemn air of man and brute, As each the Sabbath knew ; The conscious air as passed the maid, The swains collected in the shade.
The females enter straight the door, And talk with those within- The elders on town matters pore, Nor deem it deadly sin. And now the pastor grave and slow, Along the aisle is seen to go.
Down drop the children from the seat, The groups disperse around- Pew doors are slamm'd and gathering feet Give out a busy sound- The sounding pipe and viol string No longer through the old church ring.
I do remember with what awe That pulpit filled mine eye,
As through the balusters I saw The sounding board on high, Those balusters !- a childish crime-
Alas! I've squeaked in sermon time.
Hard thinkers were they, those old men, And patient too I ween- Long words and knotty questions then But made our fathers keen. I doubt me if their sons would hear Such lengthy sermons year by year.
But all are passing fast away- Those abstruse thinkers too -- Old churches with their walls of gray Must yield to something new- Be-Gothic'd things, all neat and white, Greet everywhere the traveller's sight.
PENNY-POT HOUSE AND LANDING.
IT was long after I first saw the above title that I met with any certain means of establishing its location at Vine Street. Proud spoke of it as " near to Race Street," and none of the aged whom I interrogated knew any thing about it. Of course it would be still less known to any modern Philadelphian, although it had been be- stowed as a gift to the city by Penn, and was made memorable as the birth-place of " the first born." Some of the following facts will fully certify its location at Vine Street.
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Penny-Pot House and Landing.
In the year 1701, William Penn sets forth and ordains " that the land ing places now and heretofore used at the Penny Pot-House and Blue Anchor, shall be left open and common for the use of the city," &c.
The landing appears to have derived its name from the Inn built there, which was early famed for its beer at a penny a pot .* The house itself was standing in my time as the Jolly Tar Inn, kept by one Tage. It was a two story brick house of good dimensions, having for its front a southern exposure. At first it had no inter- vening houses between it and the area of Vine Street; but when I last saw it, as many as three houses had filled up that space. The aged Joseph Norris of that neighbourhood, who died a few years ago in his ninetieth year, told me he remembered in his youth to have seen a sign affixed to the house, and having thereon the words, " Penny-Pot Free Landing."
At the time when the city was first formed, the general high bluff- land of the river bank made it extremely difficult to receive wood, lumber or goods into the city, except by the "low sandy beach" at the Blue Anchor, (i. e. at Dock Creek,) and at Vine Street, which lay along " a vale," and therefore first caused that street to be called " Valley Street." As a landing of more width than usual to other streets, it still belongs to the city at the present day.
On the same area, and on the first water lot above it, was for many years the active ship-yards of Charles West, who came out with Penn, and began his career by building him a vessel, for which in part pay he received the lot on which the present William West, Esqr., his grandson, has his salt stores and wharf. The vessels once built on that site extended their bowsprits up to Penny-Pot House, and those built upon the area of Vine Street extended the jib-boom across Front Street to the eaves of West's House-then a two story building on the north-west corner of Vine and Front Streets. Ship building was for many years a very active and profitable concern,-building many ships and brigs for orders in England and Ireland, and pro- ducing in this neighbourhood a busy scene in that line.
The aged John Brown and some others told me there were origi- nally rope-walks along the line of Cable Lane; from which circum- stance it received its title; and much ship timber and many saw-pits were thereabout. Mrs. Steward, an old lady of 93, told me she re- membered when the neighbourhood of Cable Lane was all in whortle- berry bushes; and, as late as 1754, it may be seen in the Gazette, that William Rakestraw then advertises himself as living "in the uppermost house in Water Street, near Vine Street," and there keep- ing his board yard.
The occasional state of Penny-Pot may be learned from the se- veral presentments of the Grand Jury at successive periods, to wit:
* The "Duke of York's law," still preserved in MS. on Long Island, shows that the price of beer was fixed in his colony at a penny a pint; and Penn, in 1683, speaks of abundance of malt beer in use them at the Inns.
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Penny-Pot House and Landing.
In the year 1706, they present the " Free Landing of Vine Street' as necessary to be secured with the banks of the same, whereby the Front Street may not become, as it threatens to be, unfit to be passed with carts.
In 1713, they present as a nuisance the east end of Vine Street, where Front Street crosses it.
In 1718, they present a gully running down Vine Street and crossing Front Street, for that the same is not passable by coaches, wagons or carts, to the endangering of lives.
In 1719, they present several dangerous breaches, and among them that near the Penny-Pot House as almost unpassable.
In 1720, they again present a breach in the upper end of Front Street, near the Penny-Pot House, as unpassable for carts, and the cross-way of Vine Street and the Front Street, by Sassafras Street, almost unpassable.
In 1724, they present the bank at the end of Vine Street, being worn away to the middle of Front Street, and very dangerous. We thus perceive that the breach was the tumbling down of the river side bank, which, by successive rains rushing down Vine Street, had worn away the Front Street road half across that street.
Finally, in 1740, they present again "the Penny-Pot Landing and the east end of Vine Street," as encumbered with timber and plank, &c., by Samuel Hastings and Charles West.
In the original foundation of the city, it having been of easier access as a landing, it was chosen, as the best location for a cave, for the parents of John Key, from which cause he came to have his birth there as the first born of Philadelphia. The founder, in con- sideration of that distinction in his colony, presented a patent in his name for a large lot in Race Street-the same which he sold at his majority, in 1715, to Clement Plumstead, for only £12.
'The lot adjoining Penny-Pot on the north was once distinguished by a row of threble stone houses of two stories, having a front and court yard on Front Street, shaded by great buttonwood trees, and the front on Water Street of three stories, projecting quite into the present street .* Its original appearance was striking from the river, and its own river prospect unrivalled. This then notable building, now down, received the name of " the College;" and, in 1770, the principal and owner, Mr. Griscom, advertised it as his beautiful private academy, far out of town, " free from the noise of the city, at the north end." It afterwards fell into decay and neglect, but still retained the name of "the College," but (as was said in my boyish days) because every chamber held separate families after the manner of a college,-the original use of it having been forgotten, and many pour families thus filling it up.
" I've street there, as Water Street continued, was not recorded till about 48 years ago
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Poole's Bridge.
POOLE'S BRIDGE.
THIS bridge, crossing Pegg's Run at Front Street, was named as well as the neighbourhood, after one l'oole, a Friend, who had his ship yard and dwelling on the hill there, called " Poole's Hill" in early days. It was then an establishment quite separate from the city population, and even from Front Street itself; for neither Front Street nor Water Street, which not long since united there, were then extended so far. "Poole's Hill" was therefore the name before the bridge was constructed there, and designated a high bluff, abruptly terminating the high table land of the city at its approach to Pegg's Run, and the overflowing marsh ground beyond it northward as high as Noble Lane and Duke Street. Poole's dwelling house was pic- turesque, and pleasantly situated on the west side of present Front Street, on a descending hill sloping westward, and giving a prospect up the Creek and into the adjacent country. A fine peach orchard lay along the line of the present Front Street as far south as Marga- retta Street, and extended eastward, down the sloping green bank into the river. To this add his ship yard close to the margin of the creek, and the whole scene is grateful. The well of water, for which the place was famous, stood in the middle of the present Front Street. These facts were confirmed to me in general by Mr. Tallman, the butcher, and Mr. Norris the ship carpenter, near there, and by Mr. John Brown ; all of whom, if now alive, would be severally about 100 years of age. They all concurred in saying that Front Street, when it reached near to present Margaretta Street, went off (down the hill) westward, so as to pass over Pegg's marsh meadow, 150 feet further westward than the present Front Street, which was itself a cause-way of late years.
It may serve in corroboration of some of the preceding facts to state, that by the Minutes of Friends, it appears that one Nathaniel Poole passed Meeting with Ann Till in the year 1714. In the year 1701, his name appeared on a jury list in my possession, and in 1708-9, William Poole appears as part owner of a vessel and sea- adventure. In the year 1754, a Mr. Carpenter advertises in the Gazette, that he has then "for sale, boards and staves on Poole's Hill, at the upper end of Front Street." This intimates, I pre- sume, that before the building of Poole's Bridge, and making the causeway from it, northward, "the hill" ended the then town ; and as the ship yard was probably then discontinued, the place was converted into a northern landing place for lumber, &c.
In the year 1713, the Grand Jury recommend a tax of one penny
SLOOP OF WAR WINTERING IN PEGG'S RUN .- Page 156.
VAN-INGEN- SNYDER
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Poole's Bridge.
per pound to be assessed, to pay for repair of road at Poole's Hill, and at the new bridge at Governor's Mill-Cohocksinc.
Mr. John Brown informed me that when Poole's Bridge was built, the Philadelphia masons would not undertake it, and Israel Roberts, from Maryland, was sent for to construct it. This was done about 85 years ago. The same year a northeast September gale beat it down. It was soon rebuilt again-say in 1755. The time is probably more accurately fixed by Secretary Peters ; he, writing to Penn in 1747, says, "A new bridge made on the present line of Front Street over Pegg's Run, whereby the street now makes a fine view by a north entry of the town." The former low wooden bridge was further west.
The causeway from Front Street, which was formed in con- nection with the bridge in 1755, has been described to me by Mr. Thomas Bradford and J. Brown, to the following effect, to wit :
The road was formed with sluices made under it, so that tide- water flowed into the pond then along the eastern end of Pegg's meadow. This pond was probably caused by the former parallel causeway further to the westward making a barrier to the water. On the eastern side of Front Street, opposite to present Noble Street, was a long barrier or wharf, up to which the river came, and in the time of the war, seventeen of the row gallies lay there quite up to the street.
The late aged Timothy Matlack, Esq., told me there was a tradi- tion of a sloop of war having once wintered at the creek at Poole's Bridge, and that when they were digging for a foundation for the bridge, they found articles which must have been dropped from such a vessel. There is in this relation something like an attempt at the story of the sword dug up at Second Street Bridge, on this run. But, as "sloops of war" in old times meant any sized armed vessels, it would be easy enough to conceive that vessels would be found getting out of the ice at Poole's ship yard. Of the once greater depth of the creek there can be no doubt, as Colonel A. J. Morris told me that his grand-parents had gone up it to Spring Garden Spring, in a boat, and made their tea there amid the trees and shrubbery.
The earliest built houses, near Poole's Bridge on the causeway, were Anthony Wilkinson's row on the western side, and Doctor Cliffton's row on the eastern side. They had in that day some attempt at display, having brick columns in relief; but they were deemed an abortive speculation in both.
On the occasion of an extreme great freshet, the river water over- flowed all the mounds and embankments, deluging the whole area of Pegg's meadows, and giving occasion to the Tallman family, who dwelt near there, to get into a boat and sail about to and fro as high up as to Third Street. This fact was told to me by Mrs. Tallman when she was past seventy,-and spoke of it as an event of fifty years before.
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Penn's Cottage in Lætitia Court
PENN'S COTTAGE IN LAETITIA COURT.
IT is matter of inquiry and doubt with some, at this day, to fix which has been the house in Lætitia Court, wherein William Penn, the founder, and Colonel Markham, the Lieutenant Governor, dwelt. The popular opinion now is, that the Inn at the head of the court, occupied as the Leopard Inn, and since Penn Hall, is the identical house alluded to. The cause of this modern confidence is ascribable (even if there were no better ground of assurance) to the fact, that this building, since they built the additional end to the westward, of about eighteen to twenty feet, presents such an imposing front towards High Street, and so entirely closes the court at that end, (formerly open as a cart passage) that from that cause alone, to those not well informed, it looks as the principal house, and may have, therefore, been regarded by transient passengers as Penn's House.
The truth is, that for many years the great mass of the population had dropped or lost the tradition about Penn's House in the court ; and it is only of later years, antiquities beginning to excite some attention, that the more intelligent citizens have revived some of their former hearings about the court. During all the earlier years of my life I never heard of Penn living there at all; but of later years I have. I have been, therefore, diligent to ask old men about it. Several said it never used to be spoken of in their youth. John Warder, an intelligent merchant, born at the corner house of the alley on High Street, told me, when he was about 73 years of age, that he never was told of Penn's living there, when a boy. On the other hand, a few old men have told me, that at every period of their life the tra- dition (though known to but few) was, that it was one of two houses, to wit-either Doyle's Inn, or the Old Rising Sun Inn, on the western side of the alley. Joseph Sansom, Esq., when about 60, told me he heard and believed it was the house at the head of the court, and so also some few others ; but more persons, of more weight in due knowledge of the subject, have told me they had been always satisfied it was the Old Rising Sun Inn, on the western side of the court. Timothy Matlack, when aged 92, who was very inquisitive, and knew it from 14 years of age, said it was then the chief house in that court as to character ; it was a very popular Inn for many years ; (whereas Doyle's House was not an Inn till many years afterwards) that it then had an alley on its northern side for a cartway, running out to Second Street, and thus agreeing with " Penn's gate over agunst Friends' Meeting," &c., at which place his Council, 1685, required King James' proclamation to be read.
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