History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 139

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

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The world has known innumerable excitements about the approaching end of all earthly things. When the close of the first one thousand years after Christ's birth approached, all Europe ran wild with terror and expectation that lasted, indeed, until the thousandth anniversary of the crucifixion had also come and gone. Since then, though many and strange millennial prophecies have been uttered, and many new sects founded on a belief in the speedy "Secoud Advent of Christ," none have equaled that contagious excitement which ushered in the century that witnessed Pope Hildebrand's lion-like pontifi- cate. But America has never had another Second Advent excitement to equal that which occurred in Philadelphia in 1841-44. A period of ten years im- mediately following 1830-33 was marked, so religious writers of the time say, by great fanaticism, and many changes in sects. The probabilities of the Lord's coming and of the reign of the saints on earth were discussed by thousands, unused to any sound logic or just principles of interpretation of the Biblical prophecies. Pamphlets and books on the subject abounded, written by men and women who thought that the day and the hour were revealed to them by especial providence or miraculous interposi- tion. It was reserved for a simple, ignorant, and zealous man, of New England birth, to begin the " Millerite excitement," which spread from the woods of Maine to the lead-mines of Galena and the cane- brakes of Arkansas. Illiterate persons, reading their The crowd at Darby was gathered within two tents, but so great was it that the children for two days were obliged to run about the fields exposed to the peltings of a pitiless storm, and crying for their pa- rents. The parents, clad in thin white "ascension- robes," were almost exhausted for want of food, slept Bibles with single-hearted ardor, accepted the doc- trine that the end of the world was near, and that the prophet was in their midst. Fire was to destroy the earth in October, 1844. The excitement in Phila- delphia had been growing for two or more years, and by the summer of 1842 it was indescribable. The i on the cold, wet ground, and prayed and hymned

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CHARITABLE AND BENEVOLENT AND RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS.

and groaned ineessautly. At midnight of the 22d the " Bridegroom" was to come, and a rain of fire was to descend from the heavens, and the saints were to be gathered up in a whirlwind. There they stood, on that blaek and tempestuous October night, shiver- ing with cold and with fear, their faces upturned, and every eye strained to catch a beam of the awful light piercing the clouds. The morning broke, and with it eame the end of the delusion. The assem- blage dispersed in despair, and slunk away silently and downeast to their homes. One man in his ascen- sion-robes had sat all night on his wife's grave ready to catch her resurrected body, and in her embrace to be translated into heaven. When the woe-begone company arrived in the city, the first intelligence from their former associates was that one of their preachers had deeamped out West with several thou- sand dollars. Many a happy family was broken up by the effects of the mania, and many a man was reduced to penury.

It is said that there was also an encampment by Camac's woods, outside of Philadelphia, where one party waited for the "transformation seene." A writer in one of the Philadelphia papers, about 1874, says, " I was a young man at that time, in a counting- house, near Arch Street wharf, and I well remember the Wartman brothers, who were draymen at Areh and Water Streets, and had their stand there. One of the brothers was so infatuated with Millerism as to offer his share in the business for sale, and he nearly went insane from his belief."

Miscellaneous Churches .- Besides the religious denominations already mentioned, there are in this city the following churches of other religious seets :

ADVENT CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

Edwin King, corresponding secretary.

Advent Christian Mission, corner of Twenty-fifth and Huntingdon Streets. No settled pastor.

Second Advent, Mount Vernon Street, below Broad. Rev. Mr. Graham, E. F. Sergisson.

LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

MORMON, JOSEPH SMITH, JR., BRANCH, -ANTI-POLYGAMOUS.

Church, northeast corner of Nioth and Callowhill Streets. Elder Joseph A. Stewart.

MORMON,-POLYGAMOUS.

Congregation, Caledonia Hall, Pine Street, above Second. Elder Joseph Mullett.

CHRISTADELPHIANS.

West Philadelphia lostitute Hall, Fortieth and Sansom Streets.

CHURCH OF GOD.

First, corner of Germantown Avenue and Berks Street. Rev. George Sigler.

Mission, Richmond Street, helow Shackamaxon.

DISCIPLES OR CHRISTIANS.

First, Twelfth Street, above Wallace. Rev. C. Q. Wright. Second, Frankford. Rev. Carroll Ghent.

Third, Holly Street, above Forty-first. Rev. A. B. Chamberlain.

Fourth, Twenty-second Street, above Montgomery Avenue. Rev. O. A. Bartholomew.

EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION.

Rev. J. Yeakel, presiding elder of Atlantic Conference.

Christ, Eighth Street, below Girard Aveque. Rev. J. D. Woodring.

Emanuel, Fourth Street, below Poplar. Rev. J. P. Schnatz. Services in German.

Southwark, Fifth Street, above Washington Avenue. Rev. (. B. Flichr. St. John, coroer of Sixth and Dauphin Streets. Rev. George Knerr. St. John Mission, Nicetown ; and Zion Mission, Bridesburg. Rev. Jo- seph Steltzer.

Zioa, Rittenhouse Street, near Green (Germantown). Rev. William A. Leopold, Morning services, German ; evening, English.

SPIRITUAL ASSOCIATIONS.

First Association of Spiritualiats, hall corner of Eighth and Spring Garden Streets.

Keystone Association of Spiritualists, northeast corner of Ninth and Spring Garden Streete. Joseph Wood, president.

Second Spiritualist Church, Thompson Street, below Front.

UNDENOMINATIONAL MISSIONS.

Clarence, near Municipal Hospital. Henry W. Koons, superintendent. Free Gospel Tabernacle, Resteio Hall, Seventh and Dickinson Streets. Rev. William B. Cullis.

Kensington Mission, Girard Avenue, east of Otis Street.

Meadow Chapel, Moyamensing Avenue, above Seventh. John A. Neff, superintendent.

Park Avenue Union Mission, Diamond Street, above Twentieth.

Salvation Army Post, Richmond Street, west of Shackamaxon. Capt. H. C. Brown.

UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST.

ENGLISH.

Jasper Street, Jasper Street, below Lehigh Avenue. Rev. J. W.

Taylor.

Mount Pisgah, Kipp and Cambria Streets, enst of Front. Rev. T. B. Miller.

GERMAN.

First, Fourth Street, above Norris. Rev. F. List. St. Paul's, Edgemont and Westmoreland Streets. Rev. W. A. Bairer.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CHARITABLE AND BENEVOLENT AND RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS.

Almshouses .- Although the original settlers of Philadelphia were persons of means and of industry, so that it was a boast about the time of the foun- dation of the province that " no one need ever starve or be in want in this fruitful country," the lapse of years brought idle persons to the town, or misfortune overwhelmed some of those who were already there, so that they were really in want of assistance.

An act for the better provision of the poor was passed in 1700, and repealed by the queen in eouneil in 1705. The Assembly adopted a new law in the latter year, by which it was directed that justiees of the peace should annually appoint two overseers of the poor for each township, and might for the sup- port of the poor levy a rate of one penny per pound on real and personal estate of citizens, and four shil- lings per head on all citizens not otherwise rated "to be employed for the relief of poor, indigent, and im- potent persons, inhabiting within the said town- ships." The system established for the overseers seems to have been by personal relief, as the names of the beneficiaries were entered in the poor-book. The Common Council in 1712 resolved, "the poor of this

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

City, Dayly Increasing, it is ye opinion of this Coun- cil that a Workhouse be immediately Hired to Im- ploy poor P'sons & Sufficient P'sons appointed to keep them at Work." The overseers of the poor were empowered to attend to this business, and in the course of the year were authorized to find a conveni- ent building for a work-house. Whether they carried out this direction does not appear in the minutes of Councils, which contain no further reference to the subject.

The establishment in the succeeding year of the ' lum for paupers, was established an infirmary, or Friends' Almshouse may have had some influence in relief of the public. Yet that institution was strictly confined to the relief of poor members of the Society of Friends, and it was not available as a place of refuge to the general public. In 1717 it was directed that persons receiving relief from the overseers of the poor should wear upon the right shoulder of the upper garment a large Roman P, together with the initial of the county, city, or place of which the pauper was an inhabitaut. The said letters to be cut either in red or blue cloth, as the overseers of the which the almshouse was built. As a consequence poor shall direct. Every poor person who should of the establishment of this almshouse, which was probably the first set up on public account in the province, the Assembly passed a new statute in rela- tion to the relief of the poor March 29, 1735.

neglect or refuse to wear such a badge was liable to the suspension or withdrawal of the relief, and also to whipping and keeping at hard labor for twenty-one days.1 The Assembly passed an act iu 1717 author- izing the erection of work-houses in Philadelphia, Chester, and Bristol. The preamble of the act de- clared that for want of proper prisons or houses of correction evil-doers escaped unpunished, and servants who for their neglect and abuses should be kept at work in such houses have become incorrigible. In Philadelphia a work-house was directed to be estab- lished within three years. It was to be managed by a board of assistants of the poor, appointed by a justice of the peace of the city and county. But this direction does not seem to have been immediately obeyed. The outdoor system of relief was still main- tained. In 1729 the overseers of the poor presented a memorial to the Legislature setting forth the diffi-

culty under which they labored from the great num- , almshouse. Even at this early day abuses in furnish- ber of poor from foreign ports and neighoring prov- inces, and likewise from the insolvent debtors and their wives and children. The city having recom- mended this application, the Assembly resolved to loan the mayor and commonalty one thousand pounds, to be applied to purchasing a piece of ground and building an almshouse for the use of the poor of the city. The Council received this money in 1720, and the mayor and alderman, Plumsted and James Steel, were appointed a committee to fix upon a proper place to build the almshouse, to draw a plan, and to make estimates.

In the succeeding year a square of ground was bought from Aldrau Allen for two hundred pounds

which had formerly belonged to John Knight, and was a square bounded by Third, Fourth, Spruce, and Pine Streets. The lot was then a green meadow. The building was of brick, and probably finished in 1731 or 1732. The main front faced Third Street, from which there was an entrance by a stile. The great gate was on Spruce Street. There was a piazza all around the building, and in general appearance the house resembled the Friends' Almshouse, upon Waluut Street, west of Third. Here, beside the asy- hospital, with accommodations for the sick and in- sane, which was the commencement of the institu- tion which has always been conducted in connection with the almshouse, and has been known of late years as the Philadelphia Hospital. Although this building was erected by the city of Philadelphia, it must have been in use by the county as well. There would be no difficulty about the tax-rate, the county justices having full authority to make levies, and the State really having furnished the money by

They regulated the manner in which persons who came into the city of Philadelphia or any township or county, except those who arrived from Europe, might obtain a legal settlement. Housekeepers or inhabitants who received into their dwellings persons not having legal settlement were bound to give prompt notice to the overseers of the poor, under penalty. There were particular directions as to how persons removing should secure or keep their settle- ments. The act said, "The almshouse built for the city of Philadelphia may, if well regulated, be of service and help to ease the inhabitants of the taxes yearly assessed on them for the maintenance of the poor." The mayor, recorder, and aldermen were given authority to appoint a superintendent of the ing public supplies had been noticed, against which complaint and absolute legal provisions have been directed ever since. The preamble of one of the sections recites that "Complaints have been made against Overseers of the Poor who have supplied the Poor with Necessaries out of their own Stores and Shops at exorbitant Prices, and also against Overseers who have paid unreasonable Accounts to their Friends and Dependents for Services done the Poor." After thirteen years of occupation the almshouse be- came too small to accommodate the persons who sought relief.

In 1764 the overseers of the poor represented to the Assembly that they were very much restricted in ac- commodation of the paupers. Into rooms but ten or eleven feet square they had been obliged to crowd four or six men. The church was turned into a

1 Under this law a pauper of the city was known by the badge-letters P. 1.

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METHJOU ** |OVF

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FOR WIDONS

FOSTER HOME

BURD ORPHAN ASYLUM

PROMINENT CHARITABLE ISTITUTI NE.

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CHARITABLE AND BENEVOLENT AND RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS.

lodging room with fifteen beds.1 There were several persons needing accommodation for whom there was no proper lodging. The number of paupers requiring this care at that time was two hundred and twenty. In 1766 the overseers of the poor again made appli- cation to the Assembly upon account of the insuffi- eiency of accommodation to the paupers. The sup- port of the poor for 1765 had cost three thousand two hundred dollars. Beside the inmates of the house, there were one hundred and fifty out-pensioners. About this time the urgency of the duty to the poor attracted the attention of persons of benevolence and means, and it was proposed that if the Assembly would charter a corporation with power to establish and maintain an almshouse and house of employment, such a company should be formed. In compliance with this suggestion the Assembly passed, on the 8th of February, 1766, " an act for the better employ- ment, relief, and support of the poor within the eity of Philadelphia, Distriet of Southwark, the townships of Moyamensing and Passyunk, and the Northern Liberties." By this law every person who contrib- uted ten pounds toward the purposes of the almshouse became thereby a member of the corporation with power to elect twelve managers, a treasurer, etc. They were embodied as " Contributors to the Relief and Employment of the Poor within the city of Philadel- phia." As soon as they raised a stock of fifteen hun- dred pounds the city corporation was authorized to borrow on mortgage of the almshouse premises at Third and Spruce Streets, two thousand pounds, and to pay that over to the managers of the almshouse corporation for the purchase of ground, the erection of buildings, etc. The contributors were authorized to construet a commodious building, one part of which was to be appropriated to the reception and maiute- nance of persons who were poor and helpless, and the other, ealled the house of employment or work-house, for the reception, lodging, and employment of poor persons who were able to work. The managers pur- chased for the accommodation of the establishment a lot of ground bounded by Spruce, Pine, Tenth, and Eleventh Streets. The price was eight hundred pounds.

The buildings were opened in October, 1767. The almshouse was laid out in the form of an L, one hundred and eighty feet by forty, two stories in height, joined by a turret thirty feet square, and four stories high. The house of employment was on the west side of the lot, running south from Spruce, fronting Eleventh Street, also in shape of an L, so that the entire range of buildings inelosed on three sides a quadrangular space. A large central building was ereeted on Spruce Street, which stood between the L's. The first story of the almshouse and house of employment on the interior was a cloister of open

arehes. The buildings on Tenth and Eleventh Streets occupied two stories and a garret. The main central building, when finished, was three stories in height, with a hip-roof, surmounted by a small cupola. A habit soon grew up among the people of calling this establishment " the Bettering-House," a title which in time became somewhat an epithet of contempt. Two hundred and eighty-four persons were admitted into the almshouse in October, 1767. and in three months afterward the number had increased to three hundred and sixty-eight. The inmates of the house of employment were soon put to work, and in it were made various kinds of goods, principally of wool, hemp, and flax. When, in years after, cotton began to be grown in the United States, the manufacture of that fibre became an important industry in the estab- lishment.

The events of the Revolution, which resulted in the impoverishment of many of the contributors, gradually reduced the membership and the income of the institution so much that, in 1781, the Legisla- ture passed a law to the effect that if the corporation could not be kept up, or should cease to act, the overseers of the poor should be vested with all the powers of the corporation, and be themselves a cor- poration, under the title of the "Guardians of the Poor of the ('ity of Philadelphia." In 1803, by an aet of Assembly, it was ordered that the guardians of the poor, who were to be " substantial housekeepers," should be elected annually, sixteen by the corpora- tion of the city, six by Southwark corporation, and eight by the justices of the peace of the township of the Northern Liberties. Outside of the city, North- ern Liberties, and Southwark, the poor were attended to by the overseers of their respective districts. By act passed March 5, 1828, commissioners of Kensing- ton and of Southwark, guardians who aeted for Penn township, were added to the number of guardians, which was reduced to twelve. By the same act au- thority was given for erecting buildings for the ae- commodation of the poor upon a suitable site, not exceeding two miles from Market and Broad Streets, and if they desired, they might separate these build- ings and erect a hospital at some place within the limits of the city eastward of Schuylkill Eighth Street. A loan of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was authorized to be negotiated for that purpose.

Some time afterward two hundred acres of land were purchased in Blockley township, on the west side of the Schuylkill River, and extending along the south and east side of the Baltimore turnpike from a point near Chestnut Street and Hall Street an } the present Thirty-fourth Street. Upon this lot were erected four distinct buildings, disposed at right angles with each other, and indo-ing an nteror space of seven hundred by five hundred feet. The men's almshouse fronted the southeast. The main building contained a portico mhely feet in front,

1 This was the ball used as the assembly room for the use of the ¡ aupers for religious and moral instruction, and not a separate church building.

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

supported by eight columus, in the Tuscan order, built of brick and rough cast, and was flanked by two wings, each two hundred feet in length. The portico being elevated on a high flight of steps, rising beyond the basement story to those of the principal story, gave to this group of buildings a commanding ap- pearance. The women's almshouse was directly op- posite the department for males, on the northwest side of the quadrangle. Between these buildings, on the sides, was the hospital, five hundred feet front, and the house of employment, of the same dimen- sions, immediately opposite. Court-yards and yards of labor, gardens and walks, were allotted to each building, for the accommodation of the inmates, the departments being separated by walls. In time, how- ever, the inclosure became filled up with buildings absolutely necessary for the use of the establishment. The group of buildings was considered sufficient to accommodate four thousand persons, and the cost was about nine hundred thousand dollars. They were first occupied about the year 1835.

TOWNSHIP ALMSHOUSES .- In consequence of the peculiar system which combined certain portions of the city and county of Philadelphia in arrangements for the maintenance of the almshouse, other town- ships or districts were compelled either to rely upon the overseer system of relief, or else to establish poor- houses of their own. Moyamensing, Passyunk, King- sessing, Bloekley, unincorporated Northern Liberties, Germantown, Roxborough, Oxford, Bristol, Lower Dublin, Byberry, and Moreland were not within the almshouse jurisdiction when the buildings were erected at Third and Spruce Streets or at Tenth and Spruce Streets. Some of them were not united with the city and other distriets in the management of the main almshouse after the great establishment was built in Blockley. Under an aet passed April 11, 1807, authority was given to establish a public cor- poration, styled " the Directors of the Poor and of the House of Employment for the Townships of Oxford and Lower Dublin of Philadelphia County." Under this law a farm was purchased of one hundred and forty-five acres, near the mill-dam of Samuel Comly and others. In 1823 the guardians of Bristol township were incorporated, with authority to erect a poor-house, purchase land, etc. In 1809, for German- town, a corporation was created, entitled "The Mana- gers for the Relief aud Employment of the Poor of the Township of Germantown, in the County of Philadel- phia." They hought a lot of ground, containing twenty acres, and established au almshouse upon a lane east of the main road, which thenceforth was called for many years "Poor-House Lane." The township of Roxborough was authorized to build a poor-house in the year 1837. The borough of Manayunk was united with the township, and the almshouse grounds contained twenty acres. The Moyamensing Almshouse was established in the early part of the century, on Irish Track Lane, now

obliterated (below the present Fitzwater Street). It was of brick, with several onthouses, and the in- closure comprised several acres of ground.

THE FRIENDS' [OR QUAKER] ALMSHOUSE .- Char- ity and benevolence in a community founded by the Society of Friends might naturally be supposed to have been quite active from the foundation of the province of Pennsylvania. This expectation does not seem to be justified by facts. Want, suffering, and sickness went on for many years without attention being directed to relief and comfort. The first purely charitable institution known to have been established was strictly sectarian, and its benevolence was confined closely to the members of the religious denomination in the interests of which the so-called charity had arisen. The Quaker Almshouse was not a place for the support of the poor unless they should happen to be Quakers. The ground was a gift by the will of John Martin, who died in 1702, and devised the property on Walnut Street to Thomas Chalkley, Ralph Jack- son, and John Michener, without reservation or ex- pression of desire that they should hold it for any trust. The devisees, however, understood from con- versations with Martin in his lifetime why he made this devise to them, and they represented to the | Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends that there was an understanding that Martin intended that "his estate should be disposed of for the use of poor Friends according to this meeting's direction." Small houses appear to have beeu erected upon this grouud for almshouse purposes before 1714, and "a messuage and messuages" are spoken of in a declaration made by the executors of John Martin's will in that year. The front building, quaint in its appearance and character, which occupied the whole frout of the lot, was not built until 1729. "The eentral portion rose above a simply ornamented doorway to an open- arched entrance which led from the street by steps to the garden and buildings in the rear. The ground was naturally higher than the level of the street. The central building rose above the wings two stories in height, one of them being of a basement character. The garrets were under a steep-pitched roof. The centre had a third story and garrets. Four chimneys were conspicuous from the street. The eaves were heavy and the roofs pitched sharp and high. The entire appearance of the structure was peculiar, and unlike anything else to be seen in the city. There was a fitting accompaniment to the oddity of the structure in a little one-story building with steep gar- ret-room on the west, which in modern times was known as the Wigmore House, in which lived at one time Joseph A. Wigmore, a bottler, who was suc- ceeded in the occupation by his widow, famous for many years among the young population as a fabri- cator of molasses candy.1

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 139

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992