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. II > Part 49
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I know several persons, now of about sixty years of age, (in 1836,) sons of men in the best circumstances of life, who used to drive their cows out of town, daily, to pasture. [I know several of our city great ones, who would not thank me for my recollection of their names and actions.] They drove cows from as far as High street by Second and Third streets, out to the neighbourhood of Bush-hill and Girard college. I lately met one of the persons in this neighbour- hood, and he inquired of me if I could recollect when he had charge of three such cows daily. He is now independent, and a bank di- rector.
Tar and Feathers at Philadelphia .- In October, 1769, a man who had informed against some run wines, from an Egg Harbour shallop, was seized by some tars, and tarred and feathered from head to foot, then paraded through the street, and before every custom- house officer's door, and at the collector's. They then set him in the pillory, and afterwards ducked him in the mud of the dock, and then let him go in peace, to sin no more. [Similar measures were performed upon informers at New York and Boston in those days.]
A Grave Stone to James Porteus, dated July, 1736, now actually heads his grave in a city yard, say in Fox's lot in North Third street.
A grave-stone to M. Leader, lettered 1715, aged sixty-four years, with an hour-glass device, was dug up in 1832, in digging for a cel lar, in the yard of No. 70, west side of Second street, below Chest- nut street. The place was made ground, and may have been a family burial place.
Two grave-stones, of John and Rhoda Church, were dug from a cellar in Arch street, between Seventh and Eighth streets, in 1842 It had been Dr Church's family ground.
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Curiosities and Discoveries.
CURIOSITIES AND DISCOVERIES.
" I say the tale, as it was said to me."
THE following facts, for want of a better designation, are arranged under the present head, although their value, as discoveries or curiosi- ties, may have but little claim to future renown, to wit :
Kalm, the Swedish traveller, when here, in the year 1748, speaks of numerous instances of finding fragments of trees deeply embedded in the earth at Philadelphia and elsewhere. He had himself got a piece of petrified hickory, on the north-west side of the town, in the clay pits, then filled with water from a brook, where were many muscle shells-Mytili anatini. Boys gathered them and brought them to town for sale, where they were considered a dainty. Pieces of trees, roots, and leaves of oak, were often dug up from the well pits, dug in Philadelphia at the depth of eighteen feet. They also found in some places a slime like that which the sea throws on the shore. This slime was often full of trees, branches, reed, charcoal, &c. He relates similar facts from several of the Swedes at Swedes- boro'-then called Rackoon, to wit: One King, a man of fifty years of age, had got a well dug on a hill near a rivulet, and at the depth of forty feet, found a quantity of shells of oysters and muscles, be- sides much reed and pieces of broken branches. Peter Rambo, about sixty years of age, said that in several places at Rackoon, where they had dug deep in the ground, they had found quantities of muscle shells and other marine animals. Sometimes, at twenty feet depth, they discovered logs of wood petrified, and others were charred, probably by some mineral vapour. On making a dike seve- ral years before this relation, along the creek on which the Swedish church at Rackoon stood, they found, in cutting through a bank, that it was filled with oyster shells, although it was one hundred and twenty miles from the nearest sea shore. Often in digging wells they found clams. Similar relations were confirmed by special declarations of Mauns Keen, Iven Lock, William Cobb, Aoke Helm, &c. They related that on one occasion they found, at a depth of twenty to thirty feet, a whole bundle of flax in good condi- tion. It excited great surprise how it could get there. Mr. Kalm imagines it may have been the wild Virginia flax-Linum vir. ginianum. Or it may have been what the Swedes themselves called Indian hemp-Apocynum cannabinum-a plant which formerly grew plentifully in old corn ground, in woods and on hills. From this, the Indians made their ropes and fishing tackle, &c. I have been thus particular in this detail, because I have myself a specimen of a "hank of hemp," as the discoverers called it, dug up from a
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Curiosities and Discoveries.
well in the new prison, western yard, near Centre square, from the bottom of a pit or privy, at twelve feet deep.
Old Mauns Keen, a respectable Swede, told Mr. Kalm, in 1748, that on their making a first settlement at Helsinburg, on the Dela- ware below Salem, they found in digging to the depth of twenty feet, some wells enclosed with brick walls. The wells were at that time on the land, but in such places as are sometimes under water and sometimes dry. But since that time, the ground has been co washed away (of course old Helsinburg also!) that the wells are en- tirely covered by the river, and the water is seldom low enough to show the wells, As the Swedes afterwards made new wells at some distance from the former, they discovered in the ground some broken earthen vessels and some entire good bricks, and they often got them out of the ground by ploughing. These facts Mr. Kalm said, he often heard repeated by the aged Swedes. Their own belief was that the land, before their settlement there, had been possessed by some other race of Europeans, even possibly as the Wincland to which the old Norwegians went. The Indians, too, spoke of those wells, as being a tradition, that they had been made by another race of people some centuries before. We shall, however, see in these pages, that the Indians themselves had some rude construction of pot- tery, but never like the idea of real bricks. The whole suggestion and facts are curious, and may afford some speculation.
In digging a well for the house of the late David Rittenhouse, at the north-west corner of Seventh and Arch streets, they found the remains of a pine tree, at a depth of eighteen feet below ground. On the ground of Mr. Powell, within the same square, another like remains was also found; one of them was laying horizontal from the other, which seemed to be standing; they were obliged to cut off a limb to proceed with their work
In digging a well for a pump, at Bingham's stable, back of the Mansion house, the well-digger found, at the depth of twenty-one feet, the appearance of a former surface, and several hickory nuts thereon.
In some part of Spruce street, some distance below the surface, the street commissioner, who told of it to Thomas Bradford, found there a pile of cord wood standing on its end.
The trunk of a buttonwood was found near Arch and Seventh streets, at a great depth beneath its present surface. It was em- bedded in black mud, and had many leaves and acorns about it.
Mr. John Moore, a brick-mason of the city, told me a fact which strongly illustrates the rapid rise of Philadelphia-to wit: that al- though he was but sixty years of age, he had built five hundred buildings. He gave me the following facts, viz .: About forty years ago, in digging a well thirty feet at the south-west corner of Eighth and Cherry streets for P. Waglam, they came to a pine tree, laying horizontal, which they cut through, of great dimensions Mr. Moore has seven houses in Cherry street, on the south side, between
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Curiosities and Discoveries.
Eighth and Ninth streets. In digging his front well in Cherry street, at thirty feet, they came to marsh mud, and found acorns and oak leaves in abundance, and a little below them they came to fine polished coarse gravel, from the size of peas to filberts. Afterwards he dug two wells back, one hundred and forty feet southward on said ground, and at same depth came to precisely the same discove- ries of acorns, leaves, and gravel. All the earth, save the first four to four and a half feet of made ground, appeared to be the natural strata of loam and sand. When he was building Mr. Girard's stores in north Water street, about thirty-five years ago, they dug out of the cellar ground, wine and beer, about one dozen bottles each, which still retained strength, supposed to have been buried there one hundred years.
Mr. Graff, the city agent for the water pipes, informed me of his having found, in digging to lay them, " near the Bank of Pennsyl- vania," in Second street, as I understood him, at twelve feet below the present surface, a regular pebble pavement. I should expect this to be the case in Walnut street, westward of Second street.
The late aged Timothy Matlack, Esq., told me of his having seen spatterdocks, fresh and green, dug up at eighteen feet depth, at the place called Clarke & Moore's brewhouse, on Sixth street a little below Arch street. This occurred in the year 1760, and the speci- mens were used by Dr. Kinnersly, in the College before his class.
; At the corner of Fourth and Greenleaf alley he saw, at four feet beneath the present surface, the top of a white oak rail post, and they had to dig ten feet more for a fast foundation for a house.
: : Colonel James Morris, when ninety years of age, told me of his seeing turf dug up at the time of sinking the foundation of Second street bridge over Dock creek. It was a congeries of black fibrous roots. 'T'urf also was seen in digging seventeen feet for a gravel foundation to Francis West's store in Dock street. The turf was found at twelve feet depth.
The late Jacob Shoemaker said he saw coal taken from a vein found in digging a well at a place in Turner's lane, about a quarter of a mile eastward of the Ridge road. It was, however, more pro- bable it was such charred wood as is now found in the river bank at Bordentown.
Kensington has its foundation on quick sand, so that none of their wells will hold any depth of water.
Governor Dennie's daughter was buried in the Friend's burying ground near the corner of Third and Arch streets. What is curious is, that after she had been buried thirty years, she was dug up and found entire, but perished when exposed to the air. Her hair had grown as long as the grave-digger could extend his hands. Her broad riband was entire and was worn afterwards by the digger's daughter! Her nails were grown too. This relation is well esta- blished, and fully agrees with some other facts of the enduring quality of silk-for instance, on disinterring the leaden coffins of
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Curiosities and Discoveries.
Lord and Lady Bellemont at New York, in 1787, the lead was found corroded, but the silk velvet on the lid was entire. At Boston, in 1824, they disinterred a British officer; the body and clothes were perished, but the silk military sash was sound in material and colour.
Thomas Dixey, a pump-maker and well-digger, a man of seventy years of age ; intelligent and respectable, a chief undertaker, in his way, for forty years in the city, having been requested to tell me all he had ever met with as curious under ground, told me, that he has often, in several places, at considerable depths, come across acorns, oyster shells, &c. He told me that in the neighbourhood of Carter's alley and Go-Forth alley he dug twenty feet, and came to oyster shells and acorns. He found a great and excellent spring at twenty- eight feet depth, at the corner of Go-Forth alley and Dock creek.
When the house, No. 72, South Fourth street, a little above Wal- nut street, west side, was built, they dug nine feet for their cellar, and there came to an old post and rail fence.
Mr. Dixey, in digging for a well on the north side of South street, near Third street, on the premises of Mr Reed, silk dyer, came, at the depth of twenty-five feet, across a pine limb of three inches in thickness, having its bark on it. It had petrified, and he actually ground it into a good hone, and gave it to the said Mr. Reed.
At No. 13, Dock street, the house of Thomas Shields, was found, in digging his cellar, a regular fire hearth, one a half feet below the present spring-tide mark.
Christian Witmeek, an old digger of wells in the Northern Liber- ties, mentioned some discoveries about Pegg's run. In Lowber's tanyard, at thirteen feet depth, cut across a small fallen tree-dug thirty-eight feet; at thirty-four feet they came to wood; full as much as twenty-four feet was of black mud. In digging a well near there for Thomas Steel, No. 81, St. John street, he came, at twenty-one feet depth, to real turf of ten feet thickness; at twenty- six feet depth they came to a crotch of a pine tree.
The clay in the vicinity of the new prison in Arch street, by Centre square, is the deepest in the city, being twenty-eight feet deep. In digging twenty-eight feet on Singer's lot near there, Mr. Groves came to gravel, and dug up a limb of an oak tree of five inches thickness, and longer than the well across which it lay. Some oak leaves, and the impressions of several were marked on the clay. Mr. Grove found an Indian tomahawk at five feet depth in M'Crea's lot, in Chestnut street, vis-a-vis Dorsey's Gothic mansion.
In digging a well for Thatcher, in Front near to Noble street, they came, at the depth of twenty-eight feet, to an oak log of eighteen inches thickness, quite across the pit. The whole was alluvial de- posit in that neighbourhood. Turf was dug out and burnt-in dig- ging for the drain wells of twenty-eight feet depth under the present Sansom's row, in Second street north of Pegg's run.
In Race street, between Front and Second streets, in digging the VOL. II .- 3 D 36*
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Curiosities and Discoveries.
foundauon on the engine house now there, they dug up an Indian grave, and found the bones.
At the corner of Eighth and Cherry streets, in digging a well, at the depth of forty feet, says Joseph Sansom, they found a fallen log
Other facts of subterrene discoveries will be found in other parts of this work, connected with certain localities spoken of severally.
In 1707-8, there was much expectation, through the suggestions of Governor Evans, of a great discovery of valuable minerals in Pennsylvania. William Penn, on hearing of it, begged an explana- tion, and hoped it might relieve him from his embarrassments! It proved, however, to be a deceit of one Mitchell, who had been a miner in England. He pretended he was led to the discovery by a Shawnese king. Some of the "black sand," &c., was sent to Penn to assay it.
In 1722, mine land is spoken of as having been taken up for Sir William Keith, at a place beyond Susquehanna.
In 1728, James Logan writes of there being then four furnaces in the colony in blast.
About the year 1790, John Nancarro, a Scotchman, had a furnace under ground for converting iron into steel. It stood at the north- west corner of Ninth and Walnut streets. There was also a fur- nace, above ground, at the north-west corner of Eighth and Walnut streets, having a large chimney, and tapering to the top. There a curious fact occurred, which, but for this record, might puzzle the cognoscenti and antiquaries at some future day ;- such as whether the aborigines had not understood the art of fusing iron, &c. The fact was this :- The great mass of five tons of iron bars which were in the furnace, was suddenly converted into a great rock of steel, by reason of a fissure in the furnace which let in the air, and consumed the charcoal, whereby the whole ran into steel, equal to four or five tons. Some houses, of very shallow cellars, have been since erected over the place, and all are quite unconscious of the treasure which rests beneath them. It was an open lot when so used by Nancarro.
There is a curious and unaccountable vault far under ground, in the back premises of Messrs. John and C. J. Wistar,-say, No. 139 High street, north side, and between Third and Fourth streets. At fourteen feet depth is a regular arched work of stone, sixteen feet long, and without any visible outlet. In breaking into its top to know its contents, they found nothing therein, save a log lying along the whole length. They sealed it up again, and the privy wall now rests upon it. There is no conjecture formed concerning what it may have been constructed for, nor at what time it may have been made. Dr. Franklin once lived in the adjoining house, No. 141; (both houses belonged to Wistar,) whether the vault could have had any connexion with his philosophy may be a question In rebuilding those houses five wells were found under the founda- tions.
In the year 1836, when digging to lay down the hy lrant pipe in
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Curiosities and Discoveries.
High street, opposite to Decatur street, they found, under ground, the floor of a store or stable, out in the middle of the street; the joists were still sound and heavy. I think it must have been the remains of the bridge which once ought to have run across the street at that place.
At that run, a drunken man, who had fallen into it, was found drowned, lying on his face.
In 1738, it is announced in the Gazette, that they have the pleasure to acquaint the world, that the famous Chinese plant, gin- seng, is now discovered in the province, near Susquehanna. It ap- pears from the specimens sent home, that it agrees with Du Halde's account, and with Chambers' Dictionary.
Our Gems .- We are little aware of the treasure we possess among ourselves in the way of gems. The reason that they are not sought and, known is, that they cost so high to prepare them for use; : that only imported ones are now used by our jewellers. We hav the chrysoprase, of a pea-green, the amethyst, the topaz, in the yellow quartz. The white or rock crystal, also the brown crystal or smoky quartz, in splendid specimens, in Lancaster county. The garnet or carbuncle, of a rich red, is found abundantly near West Chester, and some near Germantown. The calcedony, in much variety, abounds in our state and New York. Jasper is found very good at Hoboken. The beryl, splendid and perfect, is found in Chester county, exceeding eight inches in diameter. Several of the above gems are to be gathered by the handful-picking one and two here and there at a time, on the sand beach of Cape May, by the summer bathers who may pad along the strand for that purpose ; they being such as are washed up in storms from the bosom of the ocean, where they may have been cast, in the whirl of waters at the first rotary impulse of the earth, when the fiat went forth- "Let the dry land appear." When we shall have lapidaries work- ing as cheaply as in Europe, these stones may find demand-and withal, lower their market price.
The chalybeate spring, at Harrowgate, is first announced as a discovery by George Esterly, in July, 1784. After that, it became a place of public resort, as a beautiful garden, &c., and was so sus- tained for many years.
428
Whales and Whalery.
WHALES AND WHALERY.
" The huge potentate of the scaly tramn."
IT will surprise a modern Philadelphian to learn how very much the public attention was once engaged in the fishery of whales along our coast, and to learn withal, that they disdained not occasionally to leave their briny deeps to explore and taste the gustful fresh waters of our Delaware-even there
" Enormous sails incumbent, an animated isle,
And in his way dashes to heaven's blue arch the foaming wave."
" The Free Society of Traders" had it as a part of their original scheme of profit, to prosecute extensively the catching of whales. To this purpose they instituted a whalery near Lewistown, and, as I am inclined to think, there was once in some way connected with the whalery a place of sale or deposit, at the junction of " Whale- bone alley" and Chestnut street, on the same premises now Pritchet's. The old house which formerly stood there had a large whalebone affixed to the wall of the house, and when lately digging through the made earth in the yard, they dug up several fragments of whales, such as tails, fins, &c. Its location there originally was by the tide- water ranging in Dock creek. Be this as it may, we are certain of the whales and whaleries, from facts like the following, to wit :
In 1683, William Penn, in writing to the above society, says, " The whalery hath a sound and fruitful bank, and the town of Lewis by it, to help your people."
In another letter of the same year he says, "Mighty whales roll upon the coast, near the mouth of the bay of the Delaware; eleven caught and worked into oil in one season. We justly hope a con- siderable profit by whalery, they being so numerous, and the shore so suitable."
In another letter of 1683, William Penn again says, " Whales are in great plenty for oil, and two companies of whalers, and hopes of finding plenty of good cod in the bay."
In 1688, Phineas Pemberton, of Pennsbury, records a singular visiter, saying, "a whale was seen in the Delaware as high as the falls !"
In 1696, Gov. Andrew Hamilton, of Burlington, New Jersey, authorizes George Taylor, of Cape May, to be his deputy, and to take into his possession wrecks, or drift whales, or other royal fish, that shall be driven on shore along the coast, or in the Delaware.
In 1722, deficiency of whales is intimated, saying in the Gazette, that there are but four whales killed on Long Island, and but little oil is expected from thence.
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Whales and Whalery.
In 1730, a cow whale of fifty feet length is advertised as going ashore to the northward of Cape May, dead. The harpooners are requested to go and claim it; thus showing, I presume, that a fishery was then near there, by the same persons who may have harpooned it.
In 1733, month of April, two whales, supposed to be a cow and a calf, appeared in the river before the city. They were pursued and shot at by people in several boats, but escaped notwithstanding. What a rare spectacle it must have been to the fresh water cockneys of the city.
In 1735, month of July, some fishermen proved their better suc- cess at this time in capturing an ocean fish, such as a shark of seven feet length in a net, a little above the city. The Gazette of the day says it is but seldom a shark is found so high in fresh water. If that was strange in that day, it was still stranger in modern times, when " a voracious shark" of nine feet long and five hundred weight was caught at Windmill cove, only five miles below Philadelphia, in July, 1823. Not long after, say in January, 1824, near the same place, was taken a seal of four feet four inches long, and sixty-one pounds weight, near the Repaupa flood gates.
About the same time another was taken in the Elk river. Many years ago seals were often seen about Amboy, but to no useful purpose.
In 1736, February, " two whales are killed at Cape May, equal to forty barrels of oil, and several more are expected to be killed by the whalemen on the coast."
Finally, the last " huge potentate of the scaly train" made his visit up the Delaware about the year 1809,-then a whale of pretty large dimensions, to the great surprise of our citizens, was caught near Chester. He was deemed a rare wanderer, and as such became a subject of good speculation as an exhibition in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Thomas Pryor, who purchased it, made money by it, and in reference to his gains was called " Whale Pryor." The jaws were so distended as to receive therein an arm chair, in which vi siters sat.
Two dead whales were driven on shore at Assateague beach, near Snowhill, Maryland, in December, 1833; one a hundred and seventeen feet in length, and the other eighty-seven feet in length. The cause of their death unknown. They were expected to make three hundred barrels of oil.
It is a fact but little known, that, even now, there is a family on Long beach, New Jersey, who are every winter seeking for, and sometimes capturing whales. In this business they have been en- gaged, the father and two sons, ever since the time of the Revolution.
In May, 1834, a young whale, of sixty feet, went into New Haven harbour-was chased, grounded, and used up.
In April, 1833, three seals were seen near Chester. One of them was caught in the shad seine, and was kept for exhibition. Some had before appeared in New York harbour near their old haunt at Robyn's reef.
430
Grapes and Vineyards.
GRAPES AND VINEYARDS.
NUMEROUS incidental intimations and facts evince the expectations originally entertained for making this a flourishing grape and wine country. Before Penn's arrival, the numerous grapevines, every where climbing the branches of our forest trees, gave some sanction to the idea that ours may have been the ancient Wineland so mys- teriously spoken of by the Norwegian writers. Almost all the navi- gators, on their several discoveries, stated their hopes, from the abundance of grapevines, with exultation. But neglecting these we have substituted whisky!
Penn, in his letter of 1683, to the Free Society of Traders, says, " Here are grapes of divers sorts. The great red grape, now ripe, (in August,) called by ignorance the fox grape, because of the rich relish it hath with unskilful palates, is in itself an extraordinary grape, and by art, doubtless, may be cultivated to an excellent wine -if not so sweet, yet little inferior to the Frontignac, as it is not much unlike in taste, ruddiness set aside, which in such things, as well as mankind, differs the case much. There is a kind of mus- cadel, and a little black grape, like the cluster grape of England, not yet so ripe as the other, but they tell me, when ripe, sweeter; and that they only want skilful vignerons to make good use of them." Then he adds-" I intend to venture on it with my French- man this season, who shows some knowledge in these things. At the same time he questions whether it is best to fall to fining the grapes of the country, or to send for foreign stems and sets already approved. If God spare his life, he will try both means"-[a mode of practice recently obtaining favour with several experimenters.] " Finally," he says, " I would advise you to send for some thousands of plants out of France, with some able vignerons."
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