History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 197

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 cat and the rabbit were not forgotteu in the family, and among the pieces of silver bequeathed by Deborah Morris to her uncle, Luke Morris, was a curious tureen, on which was a device representing a cat bearing off a plump rabbit.

1 Watson's " Antals," 47 It is necessary to add that the name of Elizabeth Hard does not appear in Edward Armstrong's list of passen- gera by the "Wele ano ' She might have como In some other early

In December, 1699, when William Penn made his second visit to Pennsylvania, he brought with him his second wite, Hannah Callowhill Penn, and Letitia Penn, his daughter by his first wife. Hannah Penn was so gracious and pleasant in her manners that she at once became a social favorite, and the liking of the people became all the stronger when she gave birth to John Penn, son of the proprietary, and the only one of his children born in this country. To her social qualities she united a keen intellect and a dominating will. After the proprietary returned to England in broken health, and Sir William Keith intrigued to get the government of Pennsylvania into his own hands, she wrote a letter in defense of her husband's rights, that was nearly contemporaneous with the defeat of Keith. Mrs. Penn died about the year 1727.

Her step-daughter, Letitia Penn, was, so far as his- tory tells us, a sober, quiet, and admirable Quakeress. Her mother was Gulielma Maria Penn, who died Dec. 23, 1693. More than a hundred and eighty years ago, on July 7, 1701, the women members of the Friends' Meeting in Philadelphia gave to Mistress Letitia a certificate, in which occurs the subjoined language :

" These may certify that Letitia Penn, etc., has, for good order sake, desired a certificate from us, and we can freely certify to all whom it may concern, that she hath well behaved herself here, very soberly and according to the good instructione which she hath received in the way of truth, being well inclined, courteously carriaged, and sweetly tem- pored in her conversation among us, and also a diligent comer to meet- ings, and hope hath plentifully received of the dew which hath fallen upon God's people, to her seltlement and establishment in the same."

When William Penn came to Philadelphia, in 1699, with his wife Hannah and his daughter Letitia, "they went to live in the Slate-Roof House, corner of Second Street and Norris Alley," a brick building erected by Samuel Carpenter. While they were resi- dents there the proprietary made over to his daughter a deed for " all that half-square laying on High Street," between Front and Second Streets, including thereon the little cottage, the first brick house built in Phila- delphia, which has recently been removed to Fair- mount Park. As the court grew, that being the most conspicuous house standing in it, it was given the name of Letitia Court.

Neither Hannah nor Letitia Penn found themselves altogether at home in the colonies, and in 1701 the husband and father wrote to his friend, James Logan, that, "I cannot prevail on my wife to stay, and still less with Tishe." Surely there was not much attrac- tion in Philadelphia at that time for women who had grown up among English luxuries. Gabriel Thomas, writing of the state of society in the first decade of the last century, says that "women's wages were particularly high for two reasons, the sex was not numerous, which tended to make them in demand, and therefore to raise the price, besides as these mar- ried by the time they were twenty years of age, they sought to procure a maid-servant for themselves in time. Old maids were not to be met with, neither jealousy of husbands. The children were generally

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well-favored and beautiful to behold." Thomas was speaking of the Swedish population of the inchoate city, and in the same line of conviction is the judg- ment of Penn, who noted, on his arrival, that in the houses of the Dutch and the Swedes he found a " lusty and fine-looking race of children."

Although Hannah and Letitia Penn seem to have regarded themselves as unfortunate exiles during their sojourn on American shores, it is not to be judged that there was no society worthy of the name. Austere as were the Friends, they were men and women of decided culture and knowledge, and they were somewhat fairly matched in both respects by the higher class of the German and Swede pioneers. Now as the burden of making society falls upon the women, it is a worthy tribute to the matrons and maidens of Philadelphia in its early days that they were entirely equal to the demands made upon thiem. A ripple on the current was made evident when, in the year 1707, Sarah Eckley, a Quakeress, and heiress to a great estate, eloped with Col. Coxe. They were married in the Jersey woods, with the pine torches blazing around them, and the chaplain of Lord Corn- bury, then Governor of New Jersey, as the officiating minister. Margaret Preston wrote of the wedding that "The news of Sarah Eckley's marriage is both sorrowful and surprising."

The first challenge to a duel known to have been sent in Philadelphia was traceable to an affair in which a lady was concerned. In the year 1715, Peter Evans, gentleman, challenged the Rev. Francis Phil- lips, and wrote in his missive belligerent that "you have basely scandalized a gentlewoman that I have profound respect for." No duel occurred, and a few years afterward Mr. Phillips was dismissed from his church. Five years later Martha Hunt was, with her husband, put to death on the charge of making and passing counterfeit coin,-the first instance in the American colonies in which the extreme penalty was required and exacted for such an offense.

Witchcraft and other phases of superstition appear to have been nearly as rife on the shores of the Dela- ware as on the banks of Boston Bay in the eighteenth century. In 1683, Margaret Mattson and Yeshro Henderson, two Swedish emigrants, were tried for witchcraft, and, although their lives were saved, the jury brought in the verdict "that Margaret Mattson was guilty of having the common fame of a witch, but not guilty in the manner and form as she stands indicted." The woman went to the jail instead of to the gallows.

It is not doubtful that the ancient English tradition in regard to the marriage of a widow was carried into practice in Philadelphia in or about the year 1734. The tradition runs that the lady, clad in a single and most intimate garment, was stationed be- hind the door of her room; her arm was protruded through an opening in the door, and the minister officiated with that barrier between the bride and the

groom. The arrangement was in consonance with the vulgar idea that a widow could only be held re- sponsible for the debts of her deceased husband to the extent of what she carried upon her person when she was married a second time,-hence grew the custom of " marrying in the shift." Kalm, writing in 1748, cites an instance of a widow affecting to leave all to her husband's creditors, and "going from her former house to that of her second husband in her chemise." Her new husband met her upon the way, and throw- ing his cloak about her, cried out, "I have lent her the garments." The ceremony was most curiously like the marriage investiture that prevails to the pres- ent time in the eastern provinces of Hindostan.

" Peggy" Mullen was a woman who in the colonial period was the proprietress of the " Beef-Steak House," on the east side of Water Street, at the corner of Wilcox's Alley. Governor Hamilton and many of the political magnates of the time met there, and the house was used as a rendezvous by the Masons and other societies.

Mrs. Jones kept the "Three Crowns," the house where Richard Penn and his friends frequently met. A famous boarding-house was kept by Mrs. Graydon in the year 1768, at the corner of Front Street and Drinker's Alley, and she was at one time mistress of the Slate-Roof House. Her house was a favorite re- sort for the British and other foreign officers, and among her guests were the Baron de Kalb, Lady Moore, Lady Susan O'Brien, and Sir William Draper, the last of whom was the noted opponent of Junius.

After the year 1742 the Widow Roberts, the Widow Lawrence, the Widow Martin, and Mrs. Jenkins kept coffee-houses and restaurants. Mrs. Jenkins made a tremendously bold move "up-town" when she located in the neighborhood of Market and Fourth Streets. Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. Martin owned handsome private coaches in 1761, and it is quite probable that their equipages were swallowed up in the confiscation during the regime of Lord Howe.

It has been represented that a certain Mr. Horton was the first daring innovator upon the rule that boys and girls should be taught together, and Poor's Academy for Young Ladies, on Cherry Street, was the first female school of celebrity.

In the middle of the eighteenth century the Quakers, the descendants of Penn and his com- panions, were the sober and quiet element of society ; the opposition was composed of the later settlers from England. Among the staid and sombre Quakers were these families : the Shippens, Lloyds, Logans, Morrises, Walns, Norrises, Pembertons, and Benezets. The other and, socially, more prominent class surrounded within its circle the Chews, the Allens, the Hamiltons, the Lawrences, the Couynghams, the Tilghmans, the Inglises, the Simmses, the Bonds, and the Plumsteds. Later on, when the spirit of the Revolution brought in another class, the names of Biddle, Butler, Brad- ford, Reed, Mifflin, Boudinot, and Mckean became

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

familiar. In each of these families there was at least one representative woman.

When the City Dancing Assembly was organized, in 1748, an acknowledged leader of society was Mrs. Jeykell, the wife of a brother of Sir Joseph Jeykell, and, on her father's side, a granddaughter of the first Edward Shippen. The Jeykell house was on Second Street, just south of Edward Shippen's great mansion, and Mrs. Jeykell made it a nucleus of the social world. She was the grandmother of George Chalmers. The Assembly demonstrated its exclusiveness by refusing admission to its meetings to a daughter of Esquire Hillegas, who had married "in trade," that is to say, that she had been wedded to a jeweler. Two dancing assemblies were in existence during Washington's presidency, and it is related that, when invited to both balls, he chose the humbler one, and danced with the pretty daughter of a mechanic.

Sarah Franklin, the only daughter of Benjamin Franklin, was a stellar light in Philadelphia a hun- dred years ago. She was born in 1744, and although there is no record of her education, the letters that she wrote to her father when he went abroad in 1764 are evidence of her wit, her observation, and her lit- erary industry. Sarah was intensely incensed when some of the parishioners of Christ Church condemned the appointment of her father as the colonial agent of the province, and wrote to her father that she would leave the church. He was then on his way to Europe, and when he received at Reedy Island his daughter's letters, he rebuked her intention, and in- structed her: "Go constantly to church, whoever preaches. The act of devotion in the Common Prayer-Book is your principal business there, and, if properly attended to, will do more toward amending the heart than sermons generally can do, for they were composed by men of much greater piety and wisdom than our common composers of sermons can pretend to be, and therefore I wish you would never miss the prayer days. Yet I do not mean that you should despise sermons, even of the preachers you dislike, for the discourse is often much better than the man, as sweet and clear waters come throughi very dirty carth." Mr. Franklin was very much of a skeptic in his religious views, but he had a liberal regard for all pulpits.

Sarah Franklin was twenty-three years old when, in 1767, she married Richard Bache, an Englishman, who had gone into business in Philadelphia. The young couple lived with Mrs. Franklin while Benja- min Franklin was in Europe, and the domicile was comfortable, even luxurious. The war and the ap- proach of the British army exiled them, and in October, 1778, Mrs. Bache was back in Philadelphia, and wrote a doleful narrative to her father,-"There is, ' she said, " hardly such a thing as living in town. If I was to mention the prices of the common neces- saries of life it would astonish you."

As the war of the Revolution progressed Mrs.

Bache and other patriotic women formed an associa- tion for the relief of the American soldiers. When the Marquis de Chastelleux saw her he wrote that he had paid her a visit in the morning, "according to the Philadelphia custom," and that "she was simple in her manners, like her respected father." Mrs. Bache died in October, 1808, and was interred in the burial-ground of Christ Church.

Deborah Logan was born in October, 1761, at the handsome residence of the Norris family, on Chest- nut Street, near Fifth, where the Custom-House now stands, and by birth a Norris, by marriage a Logan, she united two streams of the best blood in the colony. She was a child fifteen years of age when the Declara- tion of Independence was read in the State-House yard, and she heard the reading. These are her own recol- lections of the eventful morning :

" How a little time spreads the mantle of oblivion over the manner of the most important events. It is now a matter of doubt at what hour or how the Declaration was given to the people. Perhaps few remain who heard it read on that day. Of those few I am one, being in the lot adjoining to our old mansion on Chestout Street, that then extended to Fifth. I distinctly heard the words of that instrument read to the people."

Sally Wister, another piquant and demure Quak- eress, was an intimate friend of Deborah Norris, and kept her informed of events in the city after the Nor- ris family had sought refuge and seclusion away from peril and alarm. Miss Wister lived, it might almost be said, among the troops; and the diary that she made from day to day for her "Saucy Debby Norris" is a naïve confession of the likings of the girls for the soldiers. "I feel," she writes, " in good spirits, though surrounded by an army, the house full of soldiers, the yard alive with soldiers. Very peaceable sort of peo- ple though. They eat like other folks, talk like them, and behave themselves with elegance, so I will not be afraid of them, that I won't. Adieu. I am going to my chamber to dream, I suppose, of bayonets and swords, sashes, guns and epaulets." After Deborah Norris' marriage to Dr. Logan they returned to the ancestral home, as the Logan family at "Stenton," in the neighborhood of Fisher's and Nicetown Lanes. Among her guests were Kosciusko and the Abbe Cor- rea, the witty Portuguese monk, many of whose say- ings have become proverbs. We are indebted to him for the apt designation of Washington as "a city of magnificent distances." Dr. Franklin was occasion- ally Mrs. Logan's guest, so in later years was Robert Walsh, the editor of the National Gazette, who pub- lished her anonymous poems. But the visitor whom Mrs. Logan mentions with most pride is "the father of his country," then in Philadelphia, officiating as president of the Federal Convention. Returning from Mount Vernon, Dr. Logan and his wife stopped at Fredericksburg, to call upon the mother of Gen. Washington.

"She received un," Mrs. Logan saye, "with great kindness, in her humble, decayed-looking dwelling, within which she appeared to have thlogs comfortable. She was quite old, but of a fine majestic presence,

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PROMINENT WOMEN IN PHILADELPHIA HISTORY.

and polite manners, and the general so much resembling her that she might be known for his mother. She did not live apart for want of aa invitation to live with him at Mount Vernon, as both himself and Mrs. Washington informed us, but she preferred her humbler home. She epoke of his kindness, and of her hope that things would continue to go well with him, but not the least exultation was apparent in having auch a con. For the general himself never did feel euch veneration and respect for any one clothed with mortality as I felt for his person and character."

Mrs. Logan developed considerable literary activity, and after being widowed, in 1821, she devoted most of her time to collecting or writing events of the past. She died at Stenton in 1838 or 1839.

Esther De Berdt, who in 1770 became the wife of Joseph Reed, was of English birth, but her patriotism was not surpassed by any of the natives of America. She met her future husband while he was a student of the Temple (London), and they were married at St. Luke's Church in that city. The next year they made their home in Philadelphia. She maintained a regular correspondence with her brother in England, and her letters are a most graphic delineation of the Philadelphia of her day.

In June, 1771, Mrs. Reed's first child, a delieate and sickly daughter, was born, and thus the ties were strengthened that bound her to her new home. Her husband being a lawyer, she was very thankful in 1772 that-

"ont of the four greatest lawyers in this city three have resigned practice. Mr: Galloway being a good deal advanced in life, and having a very large fortune, cares very little about it. Mr. Dickinson, also, married a wife worth thirty thousand pounde, is improving and build- ing on bie estate, aud Mr. Waln, whom you may remember in the Tem- ple 56 with Mr. Reed, is, on a sudden, turned Quaker preacher. He had very greut business, they say nearly two thousand pounds a year, but he has resigned on principle, as he says no good man can practice law. However wrong these sentimente, I cannot say I am sorry they infla- ence him just at this time. Mr. Chew has recovered hie health per- fectly and practices as neual, but he cannot be on both sides of a ques- tion."

Mrs. Reed's sympathies were entirely with the Americans, and she noted with clear judgment the approach of the troubles with the mother-country. In 1775 she wrote to her brother that "civil war with all its horrors stains this land, and whatever our fellow-subjects may think, the people here are deter- mined to die or be free. Indeed everything in this eity wears a warlike aspect. Two thousand men in the field, all in uniform, make a very military ap- pearance." When Washington was appointed com- mander-in-chief of the army, Joseph Reed was one of the Philadelphia citizens who accompanied him part of the distance to Boston, and from New York he wrote to his wife that Washington had prevailed upon him to accept service upon his staff as aid and military secretary. This sudden decision eaused his wife much suffering, and to her brother she lamented the separation. She says,-

" I wrote, my dear Dennis, about a fortnight ago, sinco which an event has taken place which I little thought of, and which I assure you my dear Mr. Reed as little suspected when he went from home,-that ja, bis appointment ae secretary to the genoral, in which atation he atayn at Cambridge till a fixed appointment is mado, es he does not in- tend to take upon himself the constant business. However, I don't ex-

pect him home for two monthe at least. I confess it Is a trial I never thought I should have experienced, and therefore am the lese prepared to bear it; but I am happy that bia character does not expose him to personal danger, and he is as securo as he can be amid ao much war. What do you think-what do the people in general think-of our dis- treseen end conduct? The whole continent is so engaged now that they will never give up. Georgia has joined the Congress; every beart and every hand almoet is warm and active in the cause. Certainly, my dear brother, it is a glorious one. You see every person willing to sacrifice hie private interest in this glorione contest. Virtue, honor, unanimity, bravery, all conspire to carry it on, and sure it has at least a chance to be victorious. I believe it will at last, whatever difficulties and discour- agements it may meet with at first."

Mrs. Reed was mistaken as to her husband's office being a temporary one. She accepts, however, the fact that he was to remain with the general philo- sophically, and writes,-

" Hie service has proved of so much consequence in the camp that he hae devoted himself to the service of the public, and 1 doubt not it will give him as much pleasure in the recollection as any occurrence in his life. Indeed, my dear Dennis, the cause in which he is engaged is the cause of liberty and virtue, how much soever it may be branded by the names of rebellion and treacon. But I need not vindicate or explain the motives of our conduct to you. I think it must be plain to every person who thinks justly and ie unprejudiced. We have a powerful enemy to contend with, if they are united heartily against un, which I fear ie but too likely."

As the enemy gathered around Philadelphia, Mrs. Reed, with her children, took refuge first at Burling- ton, and afterward at Evesham. The wife of a prom- inent and trusted member of Washington's military household could scarcely live at peace among British soldiers and Pennsylvania Tories. Her life in the New Jersey retreats was a severe trial. Her physical health was broken down, and the perils to which her husband was subjected were a constant source of men- tal perturbation. She appears to have occasionally met Col. Reed in or near Philadelphia whenever his duties allowed him to absent himself from headquar- ters, and of the risks of these meetings she speaks this in a letter to a friend :

" It has already become too dangerone for Mr. Reed to be at home more than one day at a time, and that seldom and uncertain. Indeed, I am easier when he is away from home, as hie being here brings danger with it. There are so many disaffected as to the canee of their country that they lie in wait for those who are active, but I trust that the same kind presiding Power which has presorved him from the hands of bin oDemies will etill do it."

In 1777, Mrs. Reed, with her mother and little chil- dren, went to Flemington, in the upper part of New Jersey, and there they remained until after the evacu- ation of Philadelphia and the battle of Monmouth, in 1778. It was there that a new calamity befell her. Smallpox broke out in the family, and one of the children died of it ; a bereavement which the mother's sensitive heart, in its loneliness, traced to her own failure of duty :

" Surely," she writes, " my affliction has its aggravation, and I cannot help reflecting on my neglect of my dear lost child. For, thoughtful And attentive to my owa situation, I did not take the necessary precau- tion to prevent thut fatal disorder when It was in my power. Surely I ought to blame myself. I would not do It to aggravate my sorrow, but to learn a lesson of humility and more caution and prudenco in the future. Would to God I could leara every lesson intended by the atroke ! I think sometimes of my loss with composure acknowledging the wis-

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

dom, right, and even the kindness of the dispensallon. Again, I felt it overcome me sod strike the very hottum of my heart, and tell me the work is not yet finished."

In 1778, Joseph Reed was chosen President, or, as we should now say, Governor of Pennsylvania, and when the family returned to Philadelphia, Mrs. Reed was indefatigable in the work of supplying clothing for the troops and in other relief measures. She was at the head of the Ladies' Association, formed in May, 1780, and her husband writing to Washington said,-

" The ladies have caught the happy contagion, and in a few days Mrs. Reed will have the honor of writing to you on the subject. It is ex- pected she will have a eum equal to one hundred thousand pounds, to be laid out according to your Excellency's direction, in such a way ns may be thought most honorable and gratifying to the brave old soldiers who have borne so great a share of the burden of this war. 1 thought it lieet to mention it, In this way, to your Excellency for your con- sideration, as it may tend to forward the benevolent scheme of the donors with dispatch. 1 muet observe that the ladies have excepted Fuch articles of necessity as clothing which the States are bound to provide."

And now we have Esther Reed's promised letter to Washington, and such a brave and devout act of writing it is :

" PHILADELPHIA, July 4, 1780.

"Sin,-The subscription set on foot by the ladies of this city for the use of the soldiery is so far completed as to induce me to transmit to your Excellency an account of the money I have received, and which, although it bas answered our expectations, does not equal our wishes, but I am persuaded will be received ae a proof of our zeal for the great cause of America, and our esteem and gratitude for those who eo bravely defend it. The amount of the subscription is $200,580, and £625 6s. 8d. In specie, which makes, in the whole, in paper money, $300,634.

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 197

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