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 44
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SHIPPEN'S HOUSE.
THIS venerable edifice long bore the name of " the Governor's House." It was built in the early rise of the city-received then the name of " Shippey's Great House," while Shippen himself was proverbially distinguished for three great things-" the biggest per- son, the biggest house, and the biggest coach."
It was for many years after its construction beautifully situated, and surrounded with rural beauty, being originally on a small emi- nence, with a row of tall yellow pines in its rear, a full orchard of best fruit trees close by, overlooking the rising city beyond the Dock creek, and having on its front view a beautiful green lawn, gently sloping to the then pleasant Dock creek and Drawbridge, and the whole prospect unobstructed to the Delaware and the Jersey shore. It was indeed a princely place for that day, and caused the honest heart of Gabriel Thomas to overflow at its recollection, as he spoke of it in the year 1698, saying of it, that "Edward Shippey, who
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lives near the capital city, has an orchard and gardens adjoining to his great house that equals any I have ever seen, being a very famous and pleasant summer house, erected in the middle of his garden, and abounding with tulips, carnations, roses, lilies, &c., with many wild plants of the country besides."
Such was the place enjoyed by Edward Shippen, the first Mayor, under the regular charter of the year 1700. Shippen was a Friend, from England, who had suffered " for truth's and Friends' sake" at Boston, by a public punishment from the misguided rulers there. Possessing such a mansion and the means to be hospitable, he made it the temporary residence of William Penn and his family, for about a month, when they arrived in 1699. About the year 1720 it was held by Governor Keith, and in 1756 it became the residence of Governor Denny. As it usually bore the name of "the Governor's house" in aftertimes, it was probably occupied by other rulers.
The Shippen family came out from York in England to Boston. One of the family, Joseph Shippen, married there Abigail Gross, in 1702, and when she visited her relations in Philadelphia, some time after, she came all the way from Boston on horseback,-nor is this all, she brought a baby with her safely, resting it all the way on her lap. Think of that, ye ladies of the present day ! We know, from Madame Knight's horseback journey to New York, the long and arduous concerns of such an enterprise. The postman was the guide on such occasions.
A minute of the City Council of the year 1720, while it shows the then residence of Sir William Keith on the premises, shows also the fact of keeping open and beautifying the prospect to the river, to wit : " The Governor having requested the Mayor to propose to the board the grant of the piece of ground on the south-west side of the dock, over against the house he now lives in, for such term as the corporation shall think fit, and proposes to drain and ditch the same, this board agree the Governor may enjoy the same for the space of seven years, should he so long continue in the said house." It was probably during his term of use that the green lawn had a few tame deer, spoken of as seen by Owen Jones, the Colonial Treasurer.
Thomas Storey, once Master of the Rolls, who married Shippen's daughter Anne, must have derived a good portion of the rear grounds extending out to Third street, as the late aged Colonel A. J. Morris tells me that in his time "Storey's grounds," sold to Samuel Powel, were unbuilt, and enclosed with a brick wall from St. Paul's church down to Spruce street, and thence eastward to Laurel Court.
The lofty pine trees were long conspicuous from many points of the city. Aged men have seen them sheltering flocks of blackbirds ; and the late aged Samuel R. Fisher remembers very well to have seen crows occupying their nests on those very trees. The fact impresses upon the mind the beautiful lines made by his son on
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that bird of omen and long life. Some of them are so very descrip. tive of the probable state of scenes gone-by, that I will not resist the wish I feel to connect them with the present page, to wit:
" The pine tree of my Eyry stood A patriarch mid the younger wood, A forest race that now are not, Other than with the world forgot; And countless herds of tranquil deer, When I was fledged, were sporting here.
And now, if o'er the scene I fly, "Tis only in the upper sky : Yet well I know, mid spires and smoke, The spot where stood my pine and oak Yes ! I can e'en replace agen The forests as I knew them then,-
The primal scene, and herds of deer, That used to browse so calmly here !
Such musings in the "bird of black and glossy coat," so re- nowned for its long endurance of years, may readily be imagined in an animal visiting in numerous return of years " its accustomed perch." It saw all our city rise from its sylvan shades-
" It could develope, if his babbling tongue Would tell us, what those peering eyes had seen, And how the place looked when 'twas fresh and green !"
The sequel of those trees was, that the stables in the rear of them on Laurel Court took fire not many years ago, and communicating to them, caused their destruction.
The house too, great and respectable as it had been, possessed of garden-grounds fronting on Second street, north and south of it, be- came of too much value as a site for a plurality of houses, to be longer tolerated in lonely grandeur, and was therefore, in the year 1790, pulled down to give place to four or five modern houses called "Waln's Row." The street there as it is now levelled is one story below the present gardens, in the rear.
BENEZET'S HOUSE AND CHESTNUT STREET BRIDGE .- Page 374.
CLARKE'S HALL ON CHESTNUT STREET .- Page 374.
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Benezet's House, and Chestnut Street Bridge.
BENEZET'S HOUSE, AND CHESTNUT STREET BRIDGE.
THE ancient house of Anthony Benezet, lately taken down, stood on the site of the house now No. 115, Chestnut street. It was built in the first settlement of the city for a Friend of the name of David Breintnall. He, deeming it too fine for his plain cloth and pro- fession, hired it for the use of the Governor of Barbadoes, (or of Bermuda, as said by some,) who had come here for the recovery of his health. While he lived there he used to come in a boat by the Dock creek to his own door. David Breintnall in the mean time occupied the house and store at the south-west corner of Hudson's alley, where he died in 1731. The house having been a good spe- cimen of respectable architecture was drafted by Mr. Strickland just before it was taken down in 1818, and an engraving made from it was published in the Port Folio of that year.
The bridge near it was long lost to the memory of the oldest in- habitants, and none of the youths of the present day have any con- ception that a bridge once traversed Dock creek in the line of Chestnut street! In the year 1823, in digging along Chestnut street to lay the iron pipes for the city water, great surprise was excited by finding, at six feet beneath the present surface, the appearance of a regularly framed wharf-the oak logs so sound and entire as to require some labour to remove them, and some of the wood of which was preserved for me in the form of an urn, as a memento. It was in fact the abutment wharf of the eastern end of the original bridge, where it has been preserved one hundred and forty years, by its being constantly saturated with water.
The fact of the original wooden bridge, and of the later one of brick and stone after the year 1699, is set forth in the following copy of an original MS. petition, which I have seen in the records of the Mayor's Court, dated the 7th of 2d mo., 1719, to wit: " We, whose names are hereunto written, livers in Chestnut street, humbly show- that at the laying out of the city, Chestnut street crossed a deep vale, which brought a considerable quantity of water, in wet seasons, from without and through several streets and lots in the town,- [emptying into the Dock creek,] this rendering the street impassable for cart and horse, a bridge of wood was built in the middle way which for many years was commodious ; when that decayed, an arch of brick and stone was built the whole breadth, which with earth cast thereon made the street a good road, except that walls breast high, to keep from falling from the top, were neglected-not being finished, as the money fell short. Now this we think to be
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Benezet's House, and Chestnut Street Bridge.
about twenty years ago; since which, nothing to prevent danger of of repairing has been done, save some small amendments and fencing by the people of the neighbourhood ;* and as there is now a great necessity for those walls, or one wall, and as the arch (i. e. the bridge,) is in very great danger of sudden breach in some parts, whereby horses and people's lives may be endangered, we nigh in- habitants give you this timely notice thereof, and crave the remedy." To show those ancients, I add their names, to wit : Samuel Richard- son, David Breintnall, John Breintnall, Thomas Roberts, Solomon Cresson, William Linyard, Henry Stevens, Daniel Hudson, John Lancaster and William Tidmarsh.
In the same year, 1719, the Grand Jury sustained the above pe- tition by their presentment, saying : "The arch in Chestnut street, between the house of Grace Townsend and the house of Edward Pleadwell, is part broken down,-much of the fence wanting and very unsafe,-Chestnut street itself between the Front and Fourth streets is very deep and irregular."
It would appear that this bridge was continued by repairs for thirty years longer at least, for we find that in the year 1750 the Grand Jury present that " the pavement in Chestnut street, near Fleeson's shop, [north-east corner of Fourth and Chestnut streets,] as exceeding dangerous, occasioned by the arch joining thereto being fallen down and no care taken to repair it."
The former state of the " deep vale" along the line of Dock creek is indicated by some modern observations : In the year 1789, when Richard Wistar's house, at the south-east corner of Hudson's alley and Chestnut street, was built, the builder, Mr. Wogle, said he had to dig twenty feet deep to procure a firm foundation. The house, too, rebuilt by Prittchet, on the opposite corner, on the site of " Whalebone house," (once David Breintnall's,) had to be dug down fourteen feet for a foundation on the creek side, and but nine feet on the western side ; the deepest part was the corner on Chest- nut street. Every thing indicated a shelving gravelly shore once there. In the course of their digging they found several large bones of whales and a great tail of a fish, four to five feet under the ground ; some of which are now nailed up on the premises. The original old house had been used for some whale purposes. On the northern side of Chestnut street, in digging for the foundation of the house of Mr. Storey, No. 113, they found themselves in the bed of the same creek, and had to drive piles there. At this place and the adjoining lot was originally a tanyard, next a coachmaker's shop and yard. At twelve feet they came to the top of the old tunnel.
James Mintus, a black man, living with Arthur Howell till he died, in 1822, at the age of 75 years, used to say in that family, that his father, who lived to the age of 80, used to tell him there was a
* In the year 1708 the Grand Jury present, that there is "a deficiency in the arch rridge in Chestnut street, adjoining to the lot of the widow Townsend."
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wharf under Chestnut street before Mr. Howell's house. The dis- covery there in 1823 verified his assertions.
The dangerous state of the bridge, and of the water there while it lasted, was verified by the fact that John Reynalls lost his only daughter " by drowning in Dock creek by Hudson's alley."
The very estimable character of Anthony Benezet confers an in- terest on every thing connected with his name; it therefore attaches to the house which he owned and dwelt in for fifty years of his life, keeping school there for children of both sexes of the most respectable families, for several years, and finally dying there in 1784.
The house had in the rear of it a two-story brick kitchen, and in entering its present proper ground floor you descend from the yard down two steps. This was far from being its original state ; for it was plain to be seen, in looking down into its open area, that it has two brick stories still lower under the ground. My opinion is, that this kitchen was once on the bank of Dock creek, on the shelving edge; that the eastern side of it was never any part of it under ground, and that the area, or western side, (from the creek,) was originally only one story under the ground, and the rest has since been filled up to make the yard agree with the raising of Chestnut street. J am confirmed in this idea from having heard, in a very direct manner, that Anthony Benezet, at an early period of his residence there, was accustomed statedly to feed his rats in his area. An old Friend, who visited him, having found him at that employment, expressed his wonder that he so kindly treated such pernicious vermin, saying they should rather be killed out of the way. Nay, said good Anthony, I will not treat them so; you make them thieves by maltreating and starving them, but I make them honest by feeding them; for, being so fed, they never prey on any goods of mine! This singular fact may be confided in. It was further said, that on the occasion of feeding them he was used to stand in the area, when they would gather round his feet like chickens. One of his family once hung a collar round one of them, which was seen for years after, feeding in the groupe. These facts coincide with the fancy of the London gentleman who has been lately noticed as reconciling and taming the most opposite natures of animals, by causing them to dwell together in peace. Benezet's sympathy was great with every thing capable of feeling pain,-from this cause he abstained for several years from eating any animal food. Being asked one day to partake of some poultry on the table at his brother's house, he exclaimed : " What! would you have me to eat my neighbours ?" 1
Before the house came into the hands of Anthony Benezet, it was known as a public house, having the sign of "the Hen and Chickens."
Anthony Benezet, as I have been told by eye-witnesses, had the largest funeral that had ever been seen in Philadelphia. One-third of the number were blacks, who walked in the rear.
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Clarke's Hall, & c.
Parson Peters, being known to be unfriendly to Friend's doc- trines, was presented by A. Benezet with a copy of Barclay's Apology, for his perusal. It broke down some of his aversions, as may be seen by these lines of poetry, which he sent him in return as his acknowledgment, to wit:
Long had I censured with contemptuous rage, And scorn'd your tenets with the foolish age, Thought nothing could appear in your defence Till Barclay shone with all the rays of sense. His works at least shall make me moderate prove To those who practise what he teaches-love. With the censorious world no more I'll sin, In scouting those who own the light within; If they can see with Barclay's piercing eyes,
The world may deem them fools, but I shall think them wise.
CLARKE'S HALL, &C.
CLARKE's Hall was originally constructed for William Clarke, Esq., at an early period of the city. He was by profession a law- yer, and at one time held the revenue of the customs at Lewistown. The house was deemed among the grandest in its day; and even in modern times was deemed a large and venerable structure-it was at all times notable for its display and extent of garden culti- vation. It occupied the area from Chestnut street to the Dock creek, where is now Girard's Bank, and from Third street up to Hudson's alley; the Hall itself, of double front, faced on Chestnut street-was formed of brick, and two stories high. Its rear or south exposure into the garden, descending to Dock creek, was always deemed beautiful. At that early day Dock creek was crossed in Third street over a wooden bridge *- thence the creek went up to the line of present Hudson's alley, and by it, across Chestnut street -- passing under the bridge there close by Breintnall's house-the same afterwards the residence of Anthony Benezet. All this neigh- bourhood was long deemed rural and out of town; only two other houses and families of note were near it, say-that of Thomas Lloyd, once the Governor, on the north-east corner of Chestnut and Third streets, and that of William Hudson, once the Mayor, near the south-east corner of the same streets, having its front and court yard
* I see this bridge referred to as still standing as late as the year 1769, and lately some remains of it were found in digging in Third street, although none of the lookers-or cowid conjecture what it meant.
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Clarke's Hall, &c.
upon Third street, wherein were growing two very large buttonwood trees.
In the year 1704, in consequence of the arrival of William Penn, Jun., and his love of display and expense, James Logan rented and occupied these Clarke Hall premises-saying, as his reasons for the measure, (to the father,) that as no house in the town suited the enlarged views of his son, he had taken Clarke's great house, into which himself, William Penn, Jun., Governor Evans, and Judge Mompesson, had all joined en famille as young bachelors.
In 1718 an act was passed, (but repealed in a few months,) vesting this house and grounds, as " the property of the late Wil- liam Clarke of Lewes town," in trustees for the payment of his debts, &c.
For some years the premises were occupied by some of the earliest Governors. It next came into the hands of Andrew Hamil- ton, the Attorney General, who derived it from the Clarke family ; an aged daughter of whom long remained in the Hamilton family, and afterwards in John Pemberton's, as an heir-loom upon the premises. Thence the estate went into the hands of Israel Pem- berton, a wealthy Friend, in whose name the place acquired all its fame, in more modern ears, as " Pemberton's house and gardens." It once filled the eyes and the mouths of all passing citizens and strangers, as the nonpareil of the city-say at the period of the Revolution. The low fence along the garden on the line of Third street, gave a full expose of the garden walks and shrubbery, and never failed to arrest the attention of those who passed that way. The garden itself being upon an inclined plane, had three or four falls or platforms. Captain Graydon, in his Memoirs, speaks in lively emotions of his boyish wonders there, and saying of them, "they were laid out in the old style of uniformity, with walks and alleys nodding to their brothers-decorated with a number of ever- greens, carefully clipped into pyramidal and conical forms. The amenity of this view usually detained him a few minutes to con- template the scene." The building itself, of large dimensions, had many parlours and chambers ; it stood on the south side of Chestnut street, a little westward of Third street. After the decease of Mr. Pemberton, it was engaged by Secretary Hamilton for the offices of the Treasury of the United States, and was so occupied until the year 1800. Soon afterwards it was sold and taken down, to cut it up into smaller lots, and to make more modern buildings.
To a modern Philadelphian it must seem strange to contemplate the garden as having its southern termination in a beautiful creek, with a pleasure boat joined to its bank, and the tides flowing there- in-but the fact was so. Patty Powell, when aged 77, told me that her aged mother often told her of her having spoken with aged persons who had seen a schooner above Third street ; and Israel Pemberton used to say he had been told of sloops having been seen as high as his lot in early years.
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Carpenter's Mansion.
CARPENTER'S MANSION.
THIS ancient structure was originally built as the residence of Joshua Carpenter, the brother of Samuel. It was, in truth, in its early days, a proper country seat, remote from the primitive town. Its respectable and peculiar style of architecture has been a motive for preserving this brief memorial ; it has, besides, been sometimes remarkable for its occasional inmates. The present marble Arcade now occupies a part of its former site, and while the beholder is standing to gaze on the present expensive pile, he may remember the former with all its inmates gone down to the dust. It was taken down in April, 1826.
Here once lived Doctor Græme, who died in 1772, a distinguished physician, long holding an office in the customs. His wife was the daughter of Sir William Keith, by his first wife. Græme's house, besides his own hospitable manner of living, was long made attrac- tive and celebrated by the mind and manners of their daughter, the celebrated Mrs. Ferguson,-the same whose alleged overtures to Governor Reed produced the noble and patriotic repulse-" go tell your employers, poor as I am, the wealth of the King cannot buy me !" A mind like hers, embued with elegant literature, and herself a poetess, readily formed frequent literary coteries at her father's mansion, so much so, as to make it the town talk of her day .**
While Governor Thomas occupied those premises, from 1738 to 1747, the fruit trees and garden shrubbery had the effect to allure many of the townfolk to take their walk out Chestnut street to be- come its spectators. The youth of that day long remembered the kindness of the Governor's lady, who, seeing their longing eyes set upon their long range of fine cherry trees, (fronting the premises on Chestnut street,) used to invite them to help themselves from the trees ; and oft as May-day came, the pretty misses were indulged with bouquets and nosegays; to such purposes the grounds were ample, extending from Sixth to Seventh streets, and from Chestnut street back to the next street, the mansion resting in the centre.
A letter from John Ross, Esq., attorney at law, of the year 1761, then owner of the premises, agrees to sell them for the sum of £3000 to John Smith, Esq., who afterwards became the occupant. The
* She died at Græme Park, in Horsham, about twenty-five years ago, beloved in her neighborhood for her religion, and her goodness to the poor. Her literary remains are said to be in possession of Dr. Smith, of the house of Lehman and Smith. Colonel A. M'Lane assured me she was always the friend of our country, although she may have had the confidence of the British because of her known integrity.
T.H.M.
CARPENTER'S MANSION .- Page 376.
CHRIST CHURCH .- Page 378.
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dimensions of the lot then given, were two hundred and thirty-seven feet on Chestnut street, and then back one hundred and fifty feet to " the lane." It may surprise us, in our present enlarged conceptions of city precincts, to learn by the said letter of J. Ross, that " he sells it because his wife deems it too. remote for his family to live in !" And he adds, if he sells it, " he must then look out another airy place to build on ; and how to succeed therein, he knows not !" We know, however, that he afterwards found it on the site where is now United States Hotel, vis-a-vis the Bank of the United States -- then a kind of out-town situation!
It afterwards became the property of Colonel John Dickinson, who, in 1774, made to it a new front of modern construction, facing on Chestnut street-such as we saw the premises when taken down in April, 1826. It was next owned by General Philomon Dickin- son. It being empty in the time of the war of Independence, it was taken possession of for our sick soldiery, when it became an actual hospital for the sick infantry of the Virginia and Pennsylvania line, who died there rapidly, in hundreds, of the camp fever! On that occasion our ladies were very assiduous in supplying the poor sufferers with soups and nourishments. General Washington him- self joined in those succours, sending them a cask of Madeira, which he had himself received as a present from Robert Morris. At that place Mrs. Logan's mother witnessed an affecting spectacle-the mother of a youth from the country, in the Pennsylvania line, came to seek her son among the dead-whilst wailing over him as lost, but rubbing him earnestly at the same time, he came again to life to her great joy and surprise !
After this it was fitted up as the splendid mansion of the Cheva- lier de Luzerne, who, while there as the Ambassador of France, gave a splendid night entertainment of fire-works, rockets, &c., in honour of the birth of the Dauphin of France. The whole gardens were gorgeously illuminated, and the guests were seen by the crowd from the street under an illuminated arcade of fanciful construction and scenery.
About the year 1779, Monsieur Gerard, the French Ambassador, being then the occupant, gave an elegant dinner there to about one hundred French and American officers. Colonel M'Lane, who was among the guests, told me that while they were dining the house was thunder-struck, and the lightning melted all the silver spoons and other plate upon the table, stunning all the company, and killing one of the French officers! What a scene-and what associations !
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