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 46
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It may possibly please some of the present day, who do not like the introduction of some modern music of orchestra taste and caste, to learn, that in 1785 it was gravely determined by the vestry, " that the clerks be required to sing such tunes only as are plain and fami- liar to the congregation ; and that the singing of other tunes, and the frequent changing of tunes, are deemed disagreeable and incon- venient."
It appears from the church records, that the six feet alley along the south wall of the yard was opened in 1756, in consequence of a gift of £100 from Hugh Roberts and A. Shute, as a Second street opening to Church alley. Some interments had been made there before the change.
In June, 1777, the steeple was struck with lightning, by which the conductor and lightning rod were so ruined as to require new ones. It also melted down the Crown before there-ominous.
The burial ground on Arch and Fifth streets was purchased of James Steel in 1719, and surrounded by a board fence, and in 1770 it was taken down, and the present brick wall erected-finished by the year 1772.
The street before the church was first paved by the church and the near inhabitants in 1757.
When the additions were made, bodies which had been interred were removed, to prepare the place of the new foundations.
The bells of this church are said to be the oldest on this side of the Atlantic, and the only ones which are rung in peals in the United States ; if so, this is going ahead of the New Yorkers, notwithstand
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Christ Church.
ing their greater attachment to bells and spires. They were so rung at the Declaration of Independence, and it might be, that the expect- ed offence of the British at that act, might have caused their expen- sive and laborious removal from the steeple to Allentown, for their preservation.
When the mitre was put up, after the war, it was in place of the crown, before there.
Bishop White, when a little boy, (in High street between Fourth and Fifth streets,) dwelling next door to a Quaker family of the name of Pascal, used, as a child, to play with their little daughter. She, when grown up, used to say, in her own style of speech, that Billy White was born a bishop, for she never could persuade him to play any thing but church. He would tie her apron round his neck for a gown, and stand behind a chair for his pulpit, whilst she, seated before him on a low bench, was to be the congregation.
" The history of this church (says the Protestant Episcopalian of March, 1838,) is in a measure identified with the first organization and establishment of the church in the United States ;- for here it was, that the first general convention of clerical and lay deputies, from seven of the thirteen states, met to frame an Ecclesiastical Constitu- tion in 1785, and again in 1786.
The minutes of the vestry (now extant, the earlier ones being gone by fire, it is said,) begin in 1717, but a cash book goes back to 1708. In that book is a charge in April, 1709, " for 2250 bricks for the belfry ;" and in May, 1711, (when the first alteration was made,) there is a charge " for 3700 bricks for an addition to the church," __ and at same time another charge " for pulling down the gable end and cleaning the bricks." This naming of " bricks" is supposed to indicate a brick church, contrary to the saying of " Alice, the black woman," who said she remembered the first church as of wood, as herein before explained.
The same cash book intimates a belfry, contrary to her intimation of "the bell in the crotch of a tree," to wit: in November, 1708, is a charge "for four cedar posts to support the belfry ;" and in April, 1709, is a charge "for 2250 bricks for the belfry," as before mentioned. In 1712 there is a mention in the minutes of the vestry of " the little - bell," and " the great bell."# The minutes of December, 1723, make mention of their address to the Bishop of London, wherein it says, "it is now about 28 years since the foundation of this church was laid (in 1695,) by a very few of her communion, since which the congregation has so increased, that two additions have been made thereto."
The enlargement to the west end, of thirty-three feet, so as to hold sixty-seven pews, was not finished till March, 1731 ; and the enlarge- ment at the east end began seemingly, in 1740, is spoken of as
* The bell in the crotch of the tree was confirmed to me by Bishop White himself, who added, it was the same, afterwards the best tenor bell at St. Peter's.
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finished in August, 1744, and votes of thanks are passed to Doctor Kearsley for his aid therein ; and in 1747, he is voted a present of plate of £40 for his services in superintending the architectural em- bellishments, &c. The city and the country seem to have been indebted to " Mr. Harrison for a plan of the tower and spire, as agreed upon, to be erected for a ring of bells." [Henry Harrison was one of the vestry.]
The subscription paper put forth by the vestry in May, 1739, states that "it was resolved by two vestries, in 1727, that a sum should be raised by subscription, for erecting a new, larger, and more conve- nient building, which has been since carried, and a steeple laid, and the body of the new church outside almost finished ; wherefore, to finish the inside with additional pews, &c., a new subscription is now to be instituted."
The minutes of 1744 make an entry " for building the outside of the church, which was done at two several times-there was paid then by Dr. Kearsley £2197." In the preceding year (1743) it reads, that Dr. John Kearsley has served since the year 1727, " as trustee and overseer in carrying on and rebuilding the church, and for five years of the time had given daily attendance." [Possibly old Alice vaguely spoke of " outside walls after 1727, as above, and the low- ness of the ceiling may have meant some part of the church, such as the gallery for blacks, which " she could reach." On the whole, she must not be allowed to invalidate the better authority of Gabriel Thomas, who said it was " a very fine church," possibly such as he considered the then new Swedes' church to be; and Keith, who preached in it in 1702, said it then held five hundred persons.]
"Tis a gratification to consider that this ancient church, though it has been lately reformed, in the modern passion for innovation and thange, yet there has been a steadfast desire in some of the vestry to retain, as far as practicable, the preservation of the former appear- ances of things once there. The " long drawn aisles," formerly of brick, have been superseded by floors and carpets, and the stone me- morials once there under the passing foot-tread, now no longer seen, have been memorized on the side walls ;- the once high and straight backs in the pews, have been replaced by ones of lower size, and inclined backwards for more reposing comfort. The whole reminds one of Mrs. Seba Smith's poetry, to wit :
There might be seen
Oak timbers large and strong, And those who reared them must have been Stout men when they were young- For oft I've heard my grandsire speak, How men were growing thin and weak. Alas! that he should see the day That rent those oaken planks away. His heart was twined, I do believe, Round every timber there ---
-
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For memory loved a web to weave Of all the young and fair Who gathered there, with him to pray,
For many a long-long Sabbath day. Old churches, with their walls of gray,
Must yield to something new : Be-gothic'd things, all neat and white,
Greet every where the traveller's sight;
And stern old men, with hearts of oak,
Their bed-room pews must quit,
And like degenerate comn.on folk,
In cushioned slip must sit.
Then pull them down, and rear on high
New-fangled, painted things,
For these but mock the modern eye,
The past around them brings,
Ay, pull them down, as well ye may, Those altars stern and old-
They speak of those long pass'd away, Whose ashes now are cold.
We thank the sparing hand that has still preserved one vestige of the past, the elaborate sounding board-one now rare and curious specimen of a thing once deemed so indispensable in audible prayer and supplication :
"That sounding board, to me it seemed A cherub poised on high- A mystery I almost deemed Quite hid from vulgar eye. And that old pastor, wrapt in prayer, Looked doubly awful 'neath it there."
We are glad to add that it was always the fond wish of Bishop White, that as much as possible of the original church, and its olden form and appurtenances, should remain unchanged.
It is the architectural style and arrangements of the interior of Christ church, which give it a peculiar claim to public regard, as an elegant relic of the olden time. There is a hallowed and holy feel- ing in worshipping in such an edifice, because the place is full of associations connected with our domestic history and forefathers :
." For memory loves a web to weave Of all who gathered there."
'There went all the Colonial Governors and other officers of state, with their families-there went Washington and Franklin and their families. In such a place we may contemplate our forefathers as being once engaged in the same duties, confiding in the same faith, hearing the same service and the same doctrines,-and even occupy- ing the same seats. Such reflections must generate grateful family remembrances-must solemnize us, as in their ideal presence; and, finally, must admonish us that we are also in a state of transit, and " know not what a day may bring forth." Christ church is a place to think.
33*
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Friends' Bank Meeting.
FRIENDS' BANK MEETING ON FRONT STREET.
THE Friends' Meeting, in Front above Mulberry street, built in 1685, was originally intended as an "Evening Meeting," while the one at the Centre Square (south-west corner) was then erected as a Day Meeting. Part of the surplus materials used at the latter were removed to aid in building the evening meeting. It was called, in that day, " the Evening Meeting." In after years, when they con- structed, in 1753, " the Hill Meeting," on Pine street, they called this house, in relation to its position, the " North Meeting." After they cut down the Front street before the house, so as to leave the meeting on a high table land, they then called it, " the Bank Meet- ing." It was sold and taken down in 1789, at the time it became useless by their building " the new meeting-house" in Keys' alley, which soon afterwards took the name of "the Up-town Meeting."
The Bank Meeting, as aforesaid, had its front on the Front street. The pediment at the front door was supported by columns-at that door the men entered. On the southern side was a double door, covered by a shed, by one of which the women entered. At those doors was the entrance for men and women to the gallery-the men going to the east, and the women to the west. Originally the meet- ing had no board partition, but a curtain was used when they held the preparative meeting. The preachers' gallery was on the north- ern side. The house was fifty feet front by thirty-eight feet wide, and the green yard in front, within the brick enclosure or wall, was fourteen feet wide. Originally, the street and house were on the same level. The present James C. Fisher, Esq., has preserved the oak column which supported the gallery, and which had been brought from the Centre Square Meeting.
Such minute detail may seem too circumstantial to some who never gave the place, when standing, their regard or inspection ; but those who were accustomed to assemble there in their youth, con- ducted and controlled by parents now no more, will be thankful for every revived impression, and every means of recreating the former images of things by-gone.
" Ilk place we scan seems still to speak Of some dear former day- - We think where ilka ane had sat, Or fixt our hearts to pray, Till soft remembrance drew a veil Across these een o' mine !"
Thus-" when we remembered Zion, then we sat down and wept."
Richard Townsend, the primitive settler and a public Friend, says
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Friends' Meeting at Centre Square.
the Friends set up, in 1682, a boarded meeting-house near to the Delaware. We presume it was on this premises ; it meant a tempo- rary building. "The meeting on Front street was opened first for worship in the afternoon, and began on the 1st day of the 20th of 7mo., 1685."
Robert Turner, in writing to William Penn, in 1685, says, besides the brick meeting-house at the Centre, we have a large meeting- house, fifty by thirty-eight, going on, the front of the river, for an Evening Meeting.
The meeting-house, elevated as it was, as much as ten or twelve feet above the street from which you beheld it, gave it a peculiar and striking appearance, and the abundance of green sod, seen from the street when the two gates were opened, contrasted with the whitish stone steps of ascent, gave the whole a very attractive aspect.
Its original advantages for prospect and river scenery must have been delightful ; it had no obstruction between it and the river, so that all who assembled there could look over to the Jerseys and up and down the river, from a commanding eminence. The houses answering to Nos. 83 and 85, opposite to it, were built with flat roofs, caulked and pitched, and did not rise higher above Front street than to serve as a breast-high wall.
The meeting-house, when taken down, was superseded by a uni- form row of three-story houses now flushing with the line of Front street. It may be still seen near there that the old houses have marks of having once had their present first stories under ground, and their street doors formerly in what is now their second story.
FRIENDS' MEETING AT CENTRE SQUARE, &C.
THIS building was originally constructed in the year 1685, at the south-west corner of the Centre Square, then in a natural forest of oaks and hickories. It might surprise some, now, to account for a choice so far from the inhabitants dwelling on the Delaware side of the city. The truth was, that expectations were originally enter- tained that the city would expand from the centre towards both rivers ; but it was soon found that the commerce of the Delaware engrossed all, and Centre Square Meeting came, in time, to be de- serted, and the house itself in time disappeared.
Penn's letter, of 1683, to the Free Society of Traders, sufficiently intimates the cause of its location there, showing that Penn expected business to concentre there, he saying, " Delaware is a glorious river ; but the Schuylkill being one hundred miles boatakle above
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Friends' Meeting at Centre Square.
the falls, and its course north-west, towards the fountain of Susque- hanna, (that tends to the heart of the province, and both sides our own,) it is like to be a great part of the settlement of this age." In concurrence with these ideas, Oldmixon's book says, " the Centre Square, as he heard it from Penn, was for a state-house, market- house, and chief meeting-house for the Quakers."
Robert Turner's letter, of 1685, to William Penn, says : "We are now laying the foundation of a large plain brick building for a meet- ing-house in the Centre, sixty feet long by forty feet broad, and hope to have it soon up, there being many hearts and hands at work that will do it." "The dimensions were altered afterwards, and the house was not built for more than a year after the above date." The late aged D. Merrot and B. Kite, Friends, have told me they re- membered to have seen brick remains of the foundation, in the days of their youth, on the south-west corner of the square. Whether they meant the present Centre I am not able to say; for, it is to be observed, there was at some period a re-appointment, by which the Broad street is now placed more westward than was originally ap- pointed. At first it was placed, on paper, five hundred and twenty eight feet west from Eleventh street; but now Twelfth and Thir- teenth streets intervene, making one thousand and twenty-four feet now westward of Eleventh street.
'I'he general state of woods in which the meeting-house was origi- ginally located continued much the same till the time of the revolu- tion. It was once so far a wild forest, that the grandmother of the late aged Col. A. J. Morris told him that when they used to go out from the city to the Centre Square Meeting, she had seen deer and wild turkeys cross their path. At that time they had a resting seat under a fine shade at the corner of High and Sixth street, then far out of town, and called " the half-way rest."
These woods were long reserved as the property of Penn, he con- ceding, however, that " they should remain open as commons to the west of Broad street, until he should be prepared to settle it." But as early as the year 1701, Penn complained much of "the great abuse done in his absence by destroying his timber and wood, and suffering it to overrun with brush, to the injury and discredit of the town," being, as he said, " his fourth part of the city, reserved by him for such as were not first purchasers, who might want to build in future time."
At the time the British possessed Philadelphia, in the winter of '77 and '78, the woods were so freely taken for the use of the army, that it was deemed most politic in the agent to cut them down and sell them. This was the business of one Adam Poth, a German of much self-consequence, well known to the city lads as a vigilant frustrater of many of their schemes to cut saplings, shinny-clubs, &c., in his woody domains.
In 1726, the Grand Jury presented two old wells, very deep, which lie open at the Centre Square." And about the same time an order
THE LONDON COFFEE-HOUSE .- Page 393.
STATE HOUSE AND CONGRESS HALL .- Page 396.
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The London Coffee House, g.c.
of the City Council directs a well there to be filled up. Perhaps these may yet be discovered to the surprise of many.
When the writer was a lad the Centre Square was never named but in connexion with military trainings, or as an object of universal terror to boys, as the gallows ground. Wo to the urchin then that should be found there after evening-fall among the spectres who then possessed that region. The woods were all gone, and a green com- mons occupied their place all the way out to Schuylkill. As late as the year 1790 the common road to Gray's ferry ran diagonally across those commons, so few then had fenced in their lots.
On page 507 of my MS. Annals, in the Historical Society, is a long article containing facts on the lines and uses in the grants of the Centre Square, not expedient to insert here.
THE LONDON COFFEE HOUSE, &c.
WHAT was called the old London Coffee House before and after the revolution, now the property of James Stokes, Esq., was origi- nally built about the year 1702, by Charles Reed, who obtained his lot, in the year 1701, from Lætitia Penn-in the same year in which William Penn patented it, with other grounds, to his daughter, to wit : the 29th of 1st mo., 1701. The original lot to Charles Reed contained twenty-five feet upon Front street, and one hundred up High street. This his widow conveyed in 1739 to Israel Pemberton. In December, 1751, he willed it to his son John, and at his death his widow sold it at Orphans' sale to the Pleasant family, who, on the 20th of September, 1796, sold it with but 82 feet of depth of lot for the great sum of £8216 13s. 4d. to James Stokes.
This celebrated house, as a Coffee House, was first introduced to its new employment by William Bradford, the printer, in the year 1754, upon the occasion of the declining of the widow Roberts, who till then had kept a Coffee House in Front street below Black- horse alley .*
The original petition of William Bradford to the Governor, for his license to keep the house, is somewhat strange to our modern con- ceptions of such a place, by showing that coffee was ordinarily drunk as a refreshment then, even as spirituous liquors are now. It is dated July, 1754, and reads verbatim thus, to wit : " Having been advised to keep a Coffee House for the benefit of merchants and traders, and as some people may at times be desirous to be furnished with other
* At the house now Dixon's, the same which became the store of Rhea and Wikoff, LLI 1755.
VOL I .- 2Z
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The London Coffee House, S.c.
liquors besides coffee, your petitioner apprehends it is necessary to have the Governor's license."
At this Coffee House, so begun, the Governor and other persons of note ordinarily went at set hours to sip their coffee from the hissing urn, and some of those stated visiters had their known stalls. It was long the focus which attracted all manner of genteel strangers ; the general parade was outside of the house under a shed of but com- mon construction, extending from the house to the gutter-way, both on the Front street and High street sides. It was to this, as the most public place, they brought all vendues of horses, carriages, and gro- ceries, &c., and above all, here Philadelphians once sold negro men, women and children as slaves.
When these premises were rented in 1780, to Gifford Dally, the written terms with John Pemberton, a Friend, the then proprietor, were so unusual and exemplary for a tavern as to deserve a record, to wit: On the 8th of 7mo., 1780, the said Dally "covenants and agrees and promises, that he will exert his endeavours as a Christian to preserve decency and order in said house, and to discourage the profanation of the sacred name of God Almighty by cursing, swear- ing, &c., and that the house on the first day of the week shall always be kept closed from public use, that so regard and reverence may be manifested for retirement and the worship of God ;" he further " covenants, that under a penalty of £100 he will not allow or suffer any person to use, play at, or divert themselves with cards, dice, back-gammon, or any other unlawful game." To secure the fulfilment of these purposes he limits his lease for trial to but one year, and next year he renews a like lease for two years-after this, to my knowledge, he solicited Mr. Stokes to occupy it as a dwelling and store, and finally to purchase it for private use-a thing which Mr. Pemberton said he much preferred.
Such religious scruples in regard to a public city tavern, would look strange enough to Europeans accustomed to the licensed gam- bling and licentiousness practised at the Orleans palace at Paris! The submission to such terms, in such a city as Philadelphia then was, strongly marked the moral feelings of the town.
It might be curious to connect with this article the little history we possess of any anterior coffee houses. The earliest mention we have seen of a coffee house, was that built by Samuel Carpenter on some of his ground at or near to Walnut street. In 1705, he speaks of having sold such a building some time before to Captain Finney, who was also Sheriff .* I am much inclined to think it was on the east side of Water street, adjoining to Samuel Carpenter's own dwelling, being probably the same building which in the time of the colony was called Peg Mullen's celebrated beef-steak and oyster house, and stood then at or near the present Mariner's church. The
* The Common Council proceedings, of 1704, are dated at Herbert Carey's inn, and at other times, at "the Coffee House."
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The London Coffee House, &c.
water side was the first court end of the town, and in that neigh- bourhood Carpenter had erected a bakery, crane, public scales,* &c It is also possible it may have been on the north-west corner of Front and Walnut streets, where was once a frame building, which had once been what was called the first Coffee House, and, at another period, the first Papal chapel. The late owner of that corner, Samuel Coates, Esq., now having a large brick building there, told me he had those facts from his uncle Reynalls, the former owner, who said that at a very early day the coffee house there was kept by a widow, Sarah James, afterwards by her son James James, and lastly by Thomas James, jun. The Gazettes too, of 1744 and 1749, speak of incidents at James' Coffee House .; Mrs. Sarah Shoemaker, who died in 1825, at the age of 95, told me that her father or grand- father spoke of their drinking the first dish of tea, as a rarity, in that coffee house. But I perceive a sale at auction is advertised in the vear 1742, as to take place at Mrs. Roberts' Coffee House," which was in Front street below Blackhorse alley, west side-thus indicat- ing that, while she kept her house there, Mr. James was keeping another coffee house at Walnut street. I notice also, that in 1744, a recruiting lieutenant, raising troops for Jamaica, advertises himself as to be seen at " the widow Roberts' Coffee House." There she certainly continued until the year 1754, when the house was con- verted into a store. I ought to add, that as early as the year 1725, I noticed a case of theft, in which the person escaped from "the Coffee House in Front street by the back gate opening out on Chest- nut street ;" from which fact I am inclined to think it was then the same widow Roberts' house, or some house still nearer to Chestnut street.
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