USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Early Philadelphia; its people, life and progress > Part 12
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Thomas Mifflin graduated in 1760. He soon took an interest in public affairs and became a member of the Pro- vincial Assembly and Continental Congress. Although a member of the Society of Friends, he enlisted for the de- fense of Pennsylvania as a major upon the outbreak of hostilities. When Washington became Commander-in- Chief of the American Army, Mifflin was the first aide-de- camp he chose and soon after he appointed him Quarter- master-General " from a thorough persuasion of his in- tegrity and my own experience of his activity." He quickly rose to be a Major-General and Congress maintained im- plicit confidence in him by almost unlimited financial sup- port while he was a Quartermaster-General. He became, indeed, President of Congress and received Washington's resignation in the historic scene at Annapolis after the war. As Mifflin rose in fame and position he was drawn into a critical attitude toward Washington and was sus- pected of being a party to the Conway Cabal. He re- turned to his old allegiance, however, and in receiving Washington's resignation made a particularly graceful and eloquent reply. " You retire," said he in closing, " from
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the theatre of action with the blessings of your fellow citizens; but the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command: it will continue to animate remotest ages." He was long a member of the Pennsyl- vania Assembly, Governor and member of the Convention which formed the national constitution. He was a Trustee of the College.
James Wilson was one of the most distinguished lawyers of his day. He was Professor of English in the College in 1773, received the degree of A.M. in 1766 and LL.D. in 1790. He founded the Law School of the University in 1790, the first on the Continent, was the first Professor of Law and a Trustee. He was a member of Congress until 1787, a signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence and member of the Constitutional Convention, in which he was intellectually the ablest of the members. He is said to have had much, if not most, to do with the writing of the Constitution of the United States and was appointed a Justice of the National Supreme Court in 1789 by President Washington, who had already recog- nized his ability by placing his nephew Bushrod under him.
Philemon Dickinson, of the Class of 1759, was a soldier and statesman. He was a member of the Continental Congress and entered the Revolution as a Colonel of New Jersey troops, soon rising, as a Major-General, to the com- mand of all the troops of his state. He displayed great bravery at the Battle of Monmouth and was especially com- mended by Washington. As Chief Signal Officer of the Continental Army, he had much to do with Washington and was Cadwalader's second in his duel with Conway. After the war he became United States Senator from New Jersey.
John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, of the Class of 1763,
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was a picturesque and romantic figure. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was the pastor of a church at Wood- stock, Virginia. Having accepted a Colonel's commission at Washington's solicitation, he appeared in his pulpit with his uniform under his gown and after preaching a sermon on the wrongs the Colonists had suffered from Great Britain he proclaimed, " There is a time for all things-a time to preach, and a time to pray; but there is also a time to fight, and that time is now come." Then pronouncing the benediction he threw off his gown and took his place at the head of his recruits. He participated in many battles and became a Major-General. After the war he was a member of Congress and United States Sen- ator from Pennsylvania, but resigned before taking his seat. His figure is Pennsylvania's sole representative in Statuary Hall of the national capitol.
Richard Peters, Jr., graduated in 1761 and received his master's degree in 1765 and Doctor of Laws in 1827. He was a member of the Continental Congress, Assembly- man and Judge of the U. S. District Court. He com- manded a company when the Revolution broke out and in 1776 was appointed by Congress Secretary of the Board of War. As the first Secretary of War he frequently came into contact with General Washington. He was a Trustee of the College and a famous wit, as has been re- lated. Another alumnus, Benjamin Stoddert of Mary- land, who served as a Major of Cavalry in the Revolution until badly wounded at Brandywine, was the first Secre- tary of the Navy and served in the cabinets of Adams and Jefferson.
James Tilton, Bachelor of Medicine, 1768, and Doctor in 1771, was a Delawarean and entered the war as a lieu- tenant of light infantry. He soon became regimental sur-
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geon, however, and after serving in several campaigns was called to the hospital department of the army, where he brought order out of chaos and established methodical procedure. He refused the chair of Materia Medica at his Alma Mater, preferring not to desert his country at a critical time. He was present at the surrender of Corn- wallis and soon after was elected to Congress. When the war of 1812 came Tilton was made Surgeon-General of the United States Army. He was a distinguished publicist and member of many important scientific societies.
Jonathan Potts, of the Class of 1768, was made a Doc- tor of Medicine in 1771 also. He delivered the valedictory at Commencement, emphasizing the advantage to be de- rived in the Study of Physic from a previous liberal edu- cation in the other sciences. He was a member of the Provincial Congress and upon the outbreak of hostilities was appointed physician-surgeon of the army for Canada and Lake George. In 1777 he became deputy director- general of the General Hospital in the Northern district. His work of reorganization and efficiency gained for him a commendatory vote of Congress and he was made director- general of the hospitals of the middle department. This brought him into the enormous task of caring for the sick and wounded at Valley Forge. From this exertion he died at the age of 36, before the independence of his country for which he had so ardently longed.
William White, of the Class of 1765, was chosen chap- lain to Congress in 1777. He was riding with a friend when a messenger from Congress overtook him. Realizing the danger of enrolling with the patriots he hesitated a few moments, turned his horse's head and accompanied the emissary to General Washington's headquarters. The rector of the United Churches of Christ and St. Peter's
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and the first American Bishop of the Episcopal Church, was made a Master of Arts in 1767 and a Doctor of Divin- ity in 1783. He was a Trustee from 1774 to 1836 and only lacked one vote of being chosen Provost. He had close and confidential relations with Washington, who attended Christ Church. The Bishop was often present at dinners of state and his residence on Walnut Street was the only place where President and Mrs. Washington allowed them- selves to make a social call. The Bishop was the dispenser of the President's alms.
In 1762, at the age of 18, Tench Tilghman came to Philadelphia from Maryland. His father was a lawyer and soon became a prominent man in the Commonwealth and a Trustee of the University. Sympathizing with the loyalists, the elder Tilghman retired to Chestertown, Maryland, at the outbreak of hostilities, leaving his son a merchant in Philadelphia. Tench Tilghman's mother was the daughter of Tench Francis, Esquire, Attorney-Gen- eral of Pennsylvania. He was a founder and one of the first Trustees of the University. With Franklin he drew up its constitution and rules of government. His grand- father assumed the direction of young Tilghman's educa- tion and he entered the College in 1758, graduating A.B. in 1761. Soon after Lexington and Concord, Tench Tilgh- man became a lieutenant in " The Silk Stockings," a com- pany composed of the young men of the best social position in Philadelphia. When it was merged into Washington's Army Tilghman was Captain. Trained in filial piety and the reverence of a son he found himself violating some of the tenderest sentiments of his nature, but in his relations with his father during the war there never was an alienation of feeling but mutual affection and respect was cherished to the end.
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Thus disregarding pecuniary interests, personal com- fort and family ties, Tench Tilghman became the most trusted and nearest of Washington's aides, " master of the most valuable secrets of the cabinet and the field " and proof against the many attempts made to alarm the gen- eral's suspicions as to his being near his person. In August, 1776, he became a member of Washington's fam- ily and served as his military aide and secretary throughout the war, being in every action in which the main army was engaged.
Upon the surrender of Cornwallis, Washington selected Colonel Tilghman to bear the news to Thomas Mckean (A.M. 1763, LL.D. 1785 and president of the Board of Trustees of the University), president of the Congress then in session in Philadelphia. He asked, too, that the merits of his aide be " honoured by the notice of your Excellency and Congress." The messenger reached Philadelphia in four days, having spread the joyful news to an anxious countryside. McKean was awakened in the middle of the night and the news given to the aroused city, the watch- man calling " Cornwallis is taken " with their announce- ment of the hours. Congress presented Colonel Tilghman with a sword and horse fully accoutred. When Washing- ton resigned his commission in that memorable scene before the Congress at Annapolis, Tench Tilghman stood by his side as they faced the President of Congress, Thomas Mifflin, of the Class of 1760.
At the Commencement of 1783 Washington was given the degree of Doctor of Laws, although he did not receive it in person until he was in Philadelphia in December, on his way to Annapolis to resign his commission.
It has already been mentioned that Washington had a high regard for James Wilson. In 1790 when he was
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President and Judge Wilson was made Professor of Law at the University he attended, on December 15th, the intro- ductory lecture in College Hall which was the beginning of the first law school in America. Mrs. Washington accompanied the President on this important occasion, as did also the Vice-President John Adams, both houses of Congress, President Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania and both houses of the Legislature, " together with a great number of ladies and gentlemen, the whole composing a most brilliant and respectable audience."
As has been said, Washington placed his nephew Bush- rod under James Wilson for the study of the law. He became a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Two other nephews, George Steptoe and Augus- tine Washington, were entered in the College by their uncle and were of the Class of 1792.
After he returned to Mt. Vernon for his last years, Elisha Cullen Dick, of the Class of 1782 Medicine, who was settled in practice at Alexandria, Virginia, became one of the family physicians. He was the Worshipful Master of the Masonic Order in the District of Columbia and walked arm in arm with Washington when the corner- stone of the Capitol was laid. Dr. Dick was the first to arrive at the bedside of the dying General and remained with him until the end.
Dr. James Craik, another alumnus of the University, was not only the family physician but a life-long friend. He spent much time with Washington from the French wars of 1754 until the General's last moments. " Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go," were the last words and as the end came Dr. Craik put his hands over the eyes of the great man who expired without a struggle or sigh.
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On Washington's birthday in 1794, at noon, the faculty waited upon him in person to present their felicitations, which he graciously acknowledged. Since 1826 the Uni- versity of which he was the friend and patron has cele- brated his birthday as an especial occasion to do honour to one who is " enrolled in the catalogue of her sons," hoping, as did those early fathers, that "the rising generation under our care, when hereafter they shall see their names enrolled with yours, will be fired with emulation to copy your distinguished virtues, and learn (from your example) to grow great in the service of their country."
The importance and usefulness of a University can best be determined by the careers of the sons whom she has equipped and this brief glimpse of some of them may perhaps yield an idea of the place which the University of Pennsylvania held in the early days. The list of graduates who have been Attorneys-General and Justices of Supreme Courts in both State and Nation is a considerable one and of Governors of many States there are not a few. Of Commanders-in-Chief of the United States Army there have been three-Anthony Wayne, Jacob Brown and George B. McClellan, and of Cabinet officers seven. In literature, art, science, religion and education the list is obviously too long to give here.
In 1779 the men who had once ruled the colony, driven from office and power and almost even from social influ- ence, were gathered together in the College. These were men like Robert Morris and James Wilson, signers of the Declaration of Independence. It seemed to be the object of President Reed of the Supreme Executive Council of the State to drive such men out of prominence and the destruction of the College seemed to be the final blow in this design. Reed's party, called the Constitutionalists,
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had already handled the College as roughly as they could. They had quartered soldiers in it, suspended the functions of its Trustees and called it a nest of Tories and traitors, although there was nothing to justify the accusation, and its officers had been among the most distinguished patriots. All but three of the twenty-four Trustees had taken the oath of allegiance. The attack indeed was not on account of the so-called Tories in the Board but on account of the patriots in it who differed politically from the Constitu- tionalists. The spoiling of the College was consummated in 1779, the charter declared void, the Board of Trustees and Faculty dissolved and the property given to new Trustees of the Constitutionalist party, who were to be called the University of The State of Pennsylvania. Pro- vost Smith was banished to Maryland where he founded Washington College.
The Assembly seem to have supposed that great uni- versities could be created on paper. They destroyed a true college, the slow growth of years, containing the first and greatest medical school in America, and put in its place a sham. For the next eleven years there were two colleges in Philadelphia, both of them worthless.
The old Trustees of the College kept up a struggle for the restoration of their property, which was successful in 1789. Fisher says " But they could not restore the past or bring back life. The wound had been too deep. The eleven years of death had broken up the tone, the tradi- tions, and the spirit of the old College of Philadelphia, and it never could be made to live again. Its rival, the State University, was still alongside of it, and within a year or two it became evident that neither one was accomplishing anything. A union was suggested and effected, and a third
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HOUSE BUILT FOR PRESIDENT WASHINGTON, SOUTHWEST CORNER NINTH AND MARKET STREETS, OCCUPIED BY THE UNIVERSITY 1802-1829
IN THE MUSEUM COURTYARD AT THE UNIVERSITY, 1917|
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institution appeared, which was the present University of Pennsylvania."
" But the Provost was not connected with it, and it is doubtful whether he ever cared to be. Its Board of Trus- tees was made up of representatives from every party, clique, and faction in the city, in the hope that the more dissimilar and disunited they were the more they would work in harmony. It was a miserable failure. From the year 1794 to the year 1830 this hotch-potch University graduated an average of twelve students a year in the department of arts, and sometimes went down as low as three. The only part of it which managed to pull itself together and make a name was the medical school, which shows how strongly rooted among us are institutions of science. It was not until after the Civil War that the healing effects of time and the energetic administration of Dr. Stille began to restore some of the ancient strength and usefulness."
The old buildings at Fourth and Arch Streets event- ually became too contracted and too badly situated for further usefulness, and the minds of the Trustees were turned toward the securing of a new location. On Ninth Street, between Market and Chestnut, there was a large and handsome building erected at the expense of the state as a dwelling place for the President of the United States, when it was expected that Philadelphia would remain the national capital. But destiny chose a far different spot for the White House, and the Philadelphia presidential mansion remained untenanted. In 1802 this building was secured for the College, which immediately emigrated thither from its old Fourth Street home. Alterations and additions were made from time to time, till in 1829 it was torn down and two buildings were put up on the same
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site, one for the Department of Arts, one for the Medical School. In 1825 the College course was raised from three to four years, entrance requirements made more rigorous, and then, or not long previously, a rule was made that students should not be admitted under fourteen years of age.
With the middle of the century, a number of scientific courses in the College were successively established, addi- tional members were added to the faculty, and several professors of strong personality and influence were teach- ing simultaneously.
A few years later, in 1872, a great break with the past was made by the removal from the centre of the city to West Philadelphia. This proved to be the beginning of a new life, especially as it coincided with the administration of a new Provost, Dr. Stille. What the Fourth Street location had become by 1802, the Ninth Street site had become by 1872. It was surrounded and hemmed in by the world of business. In West Philadelphia the Univer- sity had elbow-room, and it began promptly to take advan- tage of its opportunity for expansion. In the years imme- diately succeeding was erected the original group of four buildings, consisting of College Hall, Medical Hall, the Medical Laboratory, and the University Hospital. All these buildings were of green serpentine stone.
Between 1880 and 1890, during Dr. Pepper's provost- ship, several more buildings were erected, among these the Library, the present Botanical Building, and the old Veter- inary buildings, which have since given way to the new Medical laboratories, erected in 1904. Between 1890 and 1900 the additions to the University group of buildings included the Observatory, the beginning of the Dormitory system, the Harrison Laboratory of Chemistry, the
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ENTRANCE TO THE DORMITORY TRIANGLE FROM THE BIG QUADRANGLE AT THE UNIVERSITY, 1917
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Museum, Wistar Institute, Houston Hall, Dental Hall, and the Law School. During this period the direction of the University passed from Dr. Pepper to Charles Custis Harrison, LL.D., whose term of office as Provost dated from 1894 to 1910, Vice-Provost Edgar F. Smith, Sc.D., LL.D., succeeding him in office.
Since 1900 the physical equipment of the University has been materially augumented, the erection of the fol- lowing buildings attesting a period of remarkable develop- ment and extension : the new Medical laboratories, already referred to; the Engineering Building; the Veterinary Hall and Hospital; the Gymnasium; the Training House and Franklin Field; the remodelling of the University Hos- pital; enlargement of the Museum of Science and Art, additions to the Dormitories; the School of Dentistry; the Women's Dormitory, The Phipps Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Tuberculosis; and the University Settlement House. The new building for the Graduate School will shortly be constructed, and a site for the Wharton School building has been chosen. In addition, the University has acquired, by grant from the city, a neighbouring tract of about fifty acres, which extends the campus to the western edge of the Schuylkill River, and gives it a total acreage of one hundred and seventeen, exclusive of streets and sidewalks.
But after all, the campus and buildings are only the shell of the University. It is the history of the life within them which is important. During the period from 1870 to 1913, a number of new departments of study were estab- lished, in the Scientific courses, in Biology, in Finance and Economy, in Architecture, in Dentistry, in Music, in Vet- erinary Medicine, in Education, and in the Graduate
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School, in addition to corresponding extensions of the old departments, the College, and the Medical and the Law Schools; the separation of the Wharton School and the Towne Scientific School from the College in 1912 was an important administrative change. The number of students in all departments had risen from less than a thousand, in 1870, to 9000 in 1916, and the number of instructors from less than fifty to more than six hundred. Representatives from every state of the Union and forty-one foreign coun- tries are included in the student enrollment.
THE LAW ACADEMY
S early as 1783 there was a society in Philadelphia composed of students preparing for admission to the Bar, of which Bushrod Washington, John Wilkes Kittera and Peter Stephen Duponceau were members. Bushrod Washington was the favourite nephew of the President and was placed by him under the tutelage of James Wilson, founder and first professor of the Law Department in the University, the first on the Continent. Both Wilson and Washington became Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. There was another society about 1778 which numbered among its members Robert Morris and Joseph Hopkinson. The latter was admitted to practice in 1791 and is distinguished further as the author of "Hail Columbia." His defense of Justice Chase on his impeachment before the Senate of the United States was noteworthy. He became a Federal Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and was on the bench until his death in 1842.
In 1811 a Law Society was formed and elected Mr. Duponceau to preside at its discussions. The duration of all these societies is lost in obscurity, as is the life of that headed by Thomas M. Pettit, John K. Kane and John N. Conyngham in 1818. In 1820 a new association was formed and Mr. Duponceau again consented to act as President. An association of Judges and members of the bar took it under its wing and erected it into a Law Academy subject to regular discipline under a Provost, Vice-Provost and a Board of Trustees. Accordingly, Mr. Duponceau was elected Provost and James Gibson Vice-Provost. The Academy was formally opened on February 21st, 1821.
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Peter S. Duponceau, the first Provost of the Law Acad- emy, was a Frenchman who had been educated for the min- istry, becoming indeed a tonsured Monsieur l'Abbé. At the age of 15 he was made a Regent at the Episcopal Col- lege of Bussiere and had a class in Latin. His colleagues, annoyed at the equality with themselves given to a mere boy, made life miserable for him and he went to Paris, where he lived by translating English books into French. Through Beaumarchais he became associated with Baron Steuben as Secretary and set out with him from Marseilles to volunteer in the service of the new Republic. This little event reminds us that the services of Baron Steuben were of French and not German origin. Duponceau became a Captain in the Continental Army and passed a wretched winter at Valley Forge. He was advanced to be Baron Steuben's aide-de-camp when that officer became a Major- General. Consumption seized him in 1779 but by a life in the saddle he regained his health and after the war was appointed to an office in the office of Foreign Affairs. He studied law with William Lewis and was admitted to practice in 1785, becoming one of the leaders at the Bar.
Thomas Sergeant succeeded Mr. Duponceau as Pro- vost of the Law Academy in 1844 and continued until 1855, when George Sharswood was elected. The work of the Academy consists in the preparation and argument of cases by students and young members of the Bar before Judges of the Philadelphia Courts. It is of the greatest practical help to these struggling young men not only in encour- aging habits of thought along well-directed lines but in facility of expression and delivery.
George Sharswood was a worthy descendant at the Bar of that long line of Philadelphia legal talent whose ornaments had been such men as Isaac Norris, Andrew
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