History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 2

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

USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884 > Part 2

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Another admirable foundation was the Quaker almshouse, on the south side of Walnut Street, be- tween Third and Fourth Streets, which was erected, according to tradition, on ground given to the society by John Martin in 1713, upon condition that they would support him for the remainder of his days.

If Philadelphia had numerous churches for her God-fearing citizens and almshouses to shelter the poor and the sick, she had also to provide quarters for a class of persons less worthy of sympathy. With the increase of population there came an increase of crimes and disorders. Not that the character of her citizens had undergone a regretable change, but be- canse England emptied her jails upon the colony, and the title of redemptioner was a cloak under which many an evil-doer left his country " for his country's good," to prey upon the peace-loving community of Friends. For many years offenders were confined in "hired prisons," that is, in private houses, whose owners were paid to take care of the prisoners. An anecdote is told illustrative of the simplicity of these obliging jailers. In 1692, William Bradford, the printer, and John Macomb were implicated in the quarrels of George Keith with the Friends (no very grave offense), and were sent to prison for refusing to give security. The jailer, Patrick Robinson, after some time, granted them " the favor to go home, and, as they were still prisoners, when they wished to petition for their trial at the next sessions, they then went to the prison to write and sign it there; but it happened the jailer was gone abroad and had the key with him. So, as they could not get in, they signed

necker, and Jacob Beghtly." (Westcott's " Ilistory," which seldom over- looks any of these minutiæe of local history, and is very full in ite details, nearly seventy-five chapters being devoted to the subjects trented of in this single chapter.)

857

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 1700-1800.

that paper in the entry or porch." As early as 1685 the subject of building a prison was discussed, and Samuel Carpenter, H. Murray, and Nathaniel Allen reported to the Court of Quarter Sessions that they had treated with workmen and advised with Andrew Griscomb, carpenter, and William Hudson, brick- layer, about the form and dimensions. The project, however, was not carried out until 1695, when the prison was built on High Street. It must have been a very poor affair, for as early as 1702 the grand jury presented it as a common nuisance. The new prison, at the south- west corner of Third and High Streets, for the construction of which an act had been passed in 1718, was finished in 1723, when the old STOCKS. building was torn down and the material sold. The whipping-post, pillory, and stocks were on High Street, in front of the market, and on the eastern side of Third Street.

The building fronting on Third Street was for criminals. It was called the workhouse. Labor was deemed the best antidote to vice, and all offenders were put to work. The building fronting on High Street was called the debtor's jail. There the unfor- tunates who could not satisfy their creditors lingered until they could find persons to sell themselves unto for a term of years to pay the same (i.e., their debts). and redeem their bodies. This custom of selling men for debt only applied to single men ; married men stayed in jail. Such was the fate of "imprudent" debtors. Fraud sent men to the pillory and the workhouse. The last remembered exhibition of the kind was that of a genteel storekeeper, who, to build up his sinking credit, had made too free with other people's names. He was exposed in the pillory, where the populace pelted him with eggs, and, to conclude, had his ears clipped by the sheriff.

Whipping was the usual punishment for larceny and for felonious assaults. In 1743, a black man, brought up to the whipping-post to receive punish- ment, took ont his knife and cut his throat before the officers could interfere.

Murder, honse-breaking, horse-stealing, and coun- terfeiting were punished by hanging. A case of burning at the stake is reported as having taken place at New Castle in 1731. Catherine Bevan was sentenced to be burned alive for the murder of her husband, and Peter Murphy, the servant, who assisted her in the commission of the crime, to be hanged. In order to mitigate the sufferings of the wretched woman, it was designed to strangle her before the flames reached her, by pulling on a rope fastened round her neck, but the flames leaping suddenly from the pile, burned the rope, which broke, and she fell struggling into the fire.

We are horrified at the recital of these barbarous customs, but we should remember that the spirit of the laws of Pennsylvania was the same as governed the laws of England. The home government insisted upon the execution of the existing laws, and saw with jealous eyes any attempt at making new ones, even the civil laws necessary for the proper administration of the colony. Jonathan Dickinson, in 1715, writes that "our laws are mostly come back repealed, among which was our law of courts, and manner of giving evidence, whereupon we have no courts nor judicial proceedings these two years past." Isaac Norris also writes, "Things among us pretty well. Nothing very violent yet, but in civil affairs all stop. We have no courts, no justice administered, and every man does what is right in his own eyes."

On High Street, since called Market Street, there stood a mast supporting the great town bell. At the ringing of the bell the people assembled to listen to the royal and provincial proclamations, city ordi- nances, etc., which were read aloud by the town-crier, or beadle, from a stand at the foot of the mast. In 1707 a court-house was erected on this site. It was a grand edifice for the time, and the early Philadel- phians, who called it the "Great Towne-House," or the "Guild Hall," were very proud of it. Beside the assessments and fines devoted to that purpose, many worthy citizens contributed, by voluntary gifts of money, to the expense of its erection. The first per- manent market-house was built in 1710, adjoining the court-house, from which it extended to about half- way to Third Street.

It is pleasant to look over the records of the City Council and to study the patriarchal way in which the city was governed. A republican simplicity per- vades the acts of the city fathers; a republican spirit, far ahead of the age, seems to have inspired many of the measures adopted for the common good. We are apt to think of Philadelphia, even then, as of an American city, forgetting that a long and bloody revolution had to intervene ere it would have any right to that name. The Philadelphians were un- consciously making the apprenticeship of self-gov- ernment.

The office of mayor was no sinecure in those days. It was held for one year, and the Council, under the charter, elected one of their number to serve as mayor. Far from coveting this honor, the good Philadelphians often made strenuous objections to having it thrust upon them, preferring even to pay a fine,-it varied from twenty to thirty pounds as the city grew, and with it the cares of the office. Thus, in 1704, Alder- man Griffith Jones is elected mayor, and prays that the fine of twenty pounds laid upon him for refusing to accept of the mayoralty the last year may be remitted him. In 1706, Alderman Story is fined twenty pounds for refusing the mayoralty. In 1745, Alderman Tay- lor was fined thirty pounds for refusing to serve. The Council then elected Joseph Turner, who also refused,

858

HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

and was fined thirty pounds. The mayor and alder- men, after passing ordinances, gave their personal attention to having them carried out. They were, in every sense of the word, public servants. The mayor, once a month, "went the rounds to the respective bread-makers in this city," weighed the bread, and seized all such as was found deficient in weight. He had many other as arduous duties to perform.

Until the year 1746, it was the custom for mayors upon their retirement from office to give an enter- tainment to the gentlemen of the corporation. In that year the retiring mayor, James Hamilton, rep- resented to the board that he intended in lieu thereof to give a sum of money equal, at least, to the sunis usually expended on such occasions, to be laid in something permanently useful to the city. His donation was one hundred and fifty pounds. This wise and liberal precedent was followed by most of the mayors who succeeded him.

In 1747, William Attwood, retiring mayor, repre- sented to the board that "the time of election of a mayor for the ensuing year is at hand, and of late years it has been a difficulty to find persons willing to serve in that office, by reason of the great trouble which attends the faithful execution of it." Upon his motion it was ordered that one hundred pounds per annum should be paid to the mayor, out of the cor- poration stock, for three years to come.

OLD WATCHMAN.

The city had its beadle, constables, and public whipper. The beadle rang the bell and made proc- lamation of the ordinances. The constables, in addi- tion to their customary offices, superintended for a long time the duties of watchmen. In 1713, William Ilill, the city beadle, getting dissatisfied for some cause not put on record, broke his bell in a fit of passion, and swore that he would no longer serve. When he

became cooler (sober?), however, he repented his folly and expressed deep sorrow, pledging himself to future good behavior. The good aldermen forgave him his offense, and continued him in office. Who paid for the cracked bell is not on record.

The name of one of Philadelphia's public whippers has been handed down to posterity. It was Daniel Pettitoe, who exercised his calling in 1753.

Taverns there were, in which a good deal of hard drinking was done in the Old England fashion, and brawls were frequent in consequence. The watch carried lanterns on their rounds, for there were no street lamps in those days. The young gallants were wont to go walkiog round on moonlit nights, stop- ping now and then to chat with the fair ones sitting on the porches (flirting would be the word nowadays), and as they could not do this on dark nights, they went by the name of lunarians.

This " porch amusement" was, of course, enjoyable only in the summer. In winter the company was re- ceived in the sitting-room, which might as well be styled the living-room, for the many purposes it served. They dined in it, and sometimes slept in it. The high-backed settec which graced one of its corners revealed a bed when the top was turned down,-a somewhat rough invention from which our modern sofa-bedstead has descended. The furniture and general arrangement of the room was of the simplest kind; settees with stiff high backs, one or two large tables of pine or of maple, a high, deep chest of drawers containing the wearing apparel of the family, and a corner cupboard in which the plate and china were displayed, constituted a very satisfactory set of parlor furniture in the early part of the eigh- teenth century,-sofas and sideboards were not yet in use, nor were carpets. The floor was sanded, the walls whitewashed, and the wide mantel of the open fireplace was of wood. The windows admitted light through small panes set in leaden frames. A few small pictures painted on glass, and a looking-glass with a small carved horder, adorned the walls.

Wealthier people had damask-covered couches in- stead of settees, and their furniture was of oak or mahogany, but in the same plain, stiff style. They used china cups and saucers, delf-ware from England, and massive silver waiters, bowls, and tankards. Plated ware was unknown, and those who could not afford the "real article" were content to use pewter plates and dishes. Not a few ate from wooden trench- ers. Lamps were scarcely known. Dipped candles in brass candlesticks gave sufficient light at night.

Carpets were introduced about the middle of the eighteenth century, and their use, for some time, was far from general. They were made to cover the cen- tre of the floor, the chairs and tables not resting on, but around it. Paper-hangings came in a little earlier, and, in 1769, we see that Plunket Fleeson first inanu- factured paper-hangings and papier-maché mouldings at the corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets.

-----

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 1700-1800.

859

Mr. Watson, in his " Annals," gives an extract from a letter of Mrs. Benjamin Franklin, written in 1765, to her husband, then in Europe, which shows that house-furnishing had taken a wide stride, at least among the higher classes. The letter is a minute de- scription of their new house just then erected in Franklin Court. Here is the extract: " In the room down-stairs is the sideboard, which is very handsome

WILLIAM PENN'S SILVER TEA SERVICE.

and plain, with two tables made to suit it, and a dozen of chairs also. The chairs are plain horse-hair, and look as well as Paduasoy, and are admired by all. The little south room I have papered, as the walls were much soiled. In this room is a carpet I bought cheap for its goodness, and nearly new. The large car- pet is in the blue room. In the parlor is a Scotch car- pet, which has had much fault found with it. Your time-piece stands in one corner, which is, I am told, all wrong,-but I say we shall have all these as they should be when you come home. If you could meet with a ; Turkey carpet I should like it; but if not, I shall be very easy, for as to these things I have become quite indifferent at this time. In the north room, where we sit, we have a small Scotch carpet, the small book- case, brother John's picture, and one of the king and queen. In the room for our friends we have the Earl of Bute hung up, and a glass. May I desire you to remember drinking-glasses, and a large table-cloth or. two ; also a pair of silver canisters. The closet-doors in your room have been framed for glasses, unknown to me; I shall send you an account of the panes re- quired. I shall also send the measures of the fire- places and the pier of glass. The chimneys do well, and I have baked in the oven, and found it is good. The room we call yours has in it a desk,-the har- monica made like a desk,-a large chest with all the writings, the boxes of glasses for music and for the electricity, and all your clothes. The pictures are not put up, as I do not like to drive nails, lest they should not be right. The blue room has the harmonica and the harpsicord, the gilt sconce, a card-table, a set of

tea china, the worked chairs and screen, a very handsome stand for the tea-kettle to stand on, and the ornamental chiua. The paper of this room has lost much of its bloom by pasting up. The curtains are not yet made. The south room is my sleeping-room with my Susannah, where we have a bed without curtains, a chest of drawers, a table, a glass, and old walnut chairs, and some of our family pictures. I have taken all the dead letters [meaning those be had as Postmaster-General] and the papers that were in the garret, with the books not taken by Billy [his son, W. Franklin, at Burlington], and had them boxed and barreled up, and put in the south garret to await your return. Sally has the south room up two pair of stairs, having therein a bed, bureau, table, glass, and the picture,-a trunk and books,-but these you can't have any notion of !"

Mrs. Franklin's house was furnished in better style than the primitive "sitting-room" we have described, but such improvements were not to be found every- where. The tastes of the people were simple, and it was a long time before they thought of luxury in their homes. What did it matter? They enjoyed health, they wanted none of the necessaries of life ; food was abundant and wholesome, clothes did not change in style and color with every change of sea- son, their amusements were of the simplest kind. Those bare walls resounded with as much genuine merriment as the brilliant parlors of our day. True

CREAM POT PRESENTED TO HENRY HILL BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Motto, " Keep bright the chain."

love-vows were whispered on that rustic porch or under the noble tree that sheltered the roof. The old people sitting in the chimney-corner planned and schemed as much as papas and mammas of mod- ern times do about their children's future.

Hospitality and good feeling reigned. The large pine table often groaned under the weight of the viands spread out in welcome of some friendly guests.

860

HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

The punch-bowl was a fixture even in the Quaker's house, and it was not deemed a crime to enjoy a social glass. We may even admit that our old citizens were hard drinkers, which is far from meaning that they were drunkards. They were sensible enough to distinguish use from abuse, and temperance societies had not yet been invented.

The dress of the early Philadelphians was neces- sarily simple, made of strong and coarse material that could resist the hard usage to which it was put. Men could not hew trees, build houses, and drive the plow in velvet coats and satin breeches, nor could their wives and daughters bake and scrub and sweep with their hair "frizzed, crisped, and tortured into wreaths and borders, and underpropped with forks, wires, etc.," and flouneed and furbelowed gowns. Coarse cloth and deerskins for the men, linseys and worsted for the women, were of every-day use; the "Sunday-go- to-meeting" clothes were carefully preserved in the huge chest of drawers that contained the family ap- parel. There was little difference between the dress of the Quakers and that of the remainder of the people. The former's adoption at a later date of a more formal costume of sober color was an effort to resist the extravagances of fashion, which had pene- trated into the far-distant colony, making its belles and beaux a distorted counterfeit of the beruffled and gilded courtiers of Queen Anne's or George I.'s times.

But fashion is a mighty ruler, against which it is useless to rebel. The greatest men, thinkers, poets, philosophers, and soldiers have bowed to her decrees, and made themselves appear ridiculous to please " Monsieur Tout le Monde," as the Frenchman said. As for the dear ladies, whom they wish to please is a mystery, for have they not, from the oldest time to the present day, often accepted the most unbecoming styles of dress and coiffures, despite of the protest of their male admirers ? They must have a more laudable object than exciting admiration, and their apparent fickleness of taste conceals, perhaps, a charitable desire to comfort such of their sisters to whom nature has not vouchsafed perfect symmetry of form or feature. Some woman of high rank has very large feet, and to conceal them she wears a long dress; immediately the prettiest little feet hide themselves ; a lady of the British court had one of her beautiful shoulders dis- figured by a wart; she concealed the unpleasant blemish by means of a small patch of black sticking- plaster; soon black patches were seen on every woman's shoulders ; thence they crept to the face, and were seen cnt in most fantastic shapes on the chin, the cheeks, the forehead ; the tip of the nose was the only place respected. An infanta of Spain had the misfortune of being born with one hip higher than the other ; to conceal this defect a garment symmetri- cally distended by wires was invented, and, forthwith all the ladies wore hoops. Louis XIV., of France, whose neck was not of the straightest, introduced the

large wig, with curls descending half-way down the back and covering the shoulders ; the men, as a matter of course, adopted the cumbersome head-gear. The women were loath to conceal their shoulders, so, after a time, they found a means of making quite as ex- travagant a display of their hair : they built it up in an immense pyramid, so high at one time that a woman's face seemed to be placed in the middle of her body. A lady of diminutive stature finding that this upper structure was disproportionate to her size, had wooden heels, six inches high, adapted to her shoes; all the women learned to walk on their toes, and the tall ones looked like giantesses. An old magazine publishes the doleful tale of a gentleman who, having married a well-proportioned lady, dis- covered, when she appeared in déshabille, that he was wedded to a dwarf. That old rake, the Duke de Richelieu, the fit companion of the dissolute Louis XV., having grown gray, was the first to use powder over his hoary locks, and for fifty years all Europe powdered the hair with flour or starch. Even the soldiers had to be in the fashion, and some curious economist once made the calculation that inasmuch as the military forces of England and the colonies were, including cavalry, infantry, militia, and fen- cibles, two hundred and fifty thousand, and each man used a pound of flour per week, the quantity con- sumed in this way was six thousand five hundred tons per annum ; capable of sustaining fifty thousand persons on bread, and producing three million fifty- nine thousand three hundred and fifty-three quartern loaves !

As we have had occasion to remark, the fashions were slow in changing in Pennsylvania during the early part of the eighteenth century, and Addison could not have said of the ladies of Philadelphia as he did of the London belles,-" There is not so vari- able a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress. Within my own memory I have known it rise and fall above thirty degrees. About ten years ago it shot up to a very great height, insomuch that the female part of our species were much taller than the men. The women were of such enormous stature that we ap- peared as grasshoppers before them. At present the whole sex is in a manner diminished and sunk into a race of beauties that seems almost another species. I remember several ladies who were once very near seven feet high that at present want some inches of five. How they came to be thus curtailed I cannot learn. Whether the whole sex be at present under any penance which we know nothing of, or whether they have cast their head-dresses in order to surprise us with something of that kind which shall be en- tirely new ; or whether some of the tallest of the sex, being too cunning for the rest, have contrived the method to make themselves sizable, is still a secret, though I find most are of opinion they are at present like trees, new lopped and pruned, that will certainly sprout up and flourish with greater heads than he-

861

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 1700-1800.

fore." This was before the time of powdered heads ; when this fashion did come, the ladies' head-dresses rose to a greater height than before.

Let us picture a fashionable couple walking in the streets of Philadelphia in 1712. The lady trips lightly on her dainty little feet cased in satin slip- pers. Her flounced silk petticoat is so distended by the recently-introduced hoops that it is a mystery how she can pass through an ordinary-sized doorway ; her tightly-laced stomacher is richly ornamented with gold braid; the sleeves are short, but edged with wide point-lace, which falls in graceful folds near to the slender wrists. Her hair, no longer propped up by wires and cushions, drops in natural curls upon her neck. A light silk hood of the then fashionable cherry color protects her head. The useful parasol was not yet known, but she carries a pretty fan, which, when folded, is round like a marshal's baton.

The gentleman walks by her side, but is precluded from offering her the support of his arm by the am- plitude of her skirts, and of his own as well, for his square-cut coat of lavender silk is stiffened out at the skirts with wire and buckram ; it is opened so as to show the long-flapped waistcoat with wide pockets wherein to carry the snuff-box and the bonbonnière. The sleeves are short with large rounded cuffs; his gold-fringed gloves are hidden in his good-sized muff. A point-lace cravat protects his neck, and over his tie- wig he wears a dainty little cocked hat trimmed with gold lace. His feet are encased in square-toed shoes with small silver buckles. His partridge-silk stock- ings reach above the knee, where they meet his light-blue silk breeches.

At a respectful distance behind come the gentle- man's valet and the lady's maid. He wears a black hat, a brown-colored coat, a striped waistcoat with brass buttons, leather breeches, and worsted stock- ings, stout shoes with brass buckles. The abigail's dress is of huckaback, made short, the skirts not so distended as those of her mistress, yet are puffed out in humble imitation of the fashion. A bright apron and silk neckerchief and a neat cap give a touch of smartness to the plain costume.

Here come a worthy tradesman and his buxom wife. His coat, of stout gray cloth, is trimmed with black. His gray waistcoat half conceals his service- able leather breeches ; worsted stockings and leather shoes protect his legs and feet. The good dame by his side has put on her chintz dress, and though the material is not as costly as that worn by the fine lady before her, it is made up in the fashionable style, and the indispensable hoops add to the natural rotundity of the wearer. A peculiarity in her costume is the check apron that spreads down from her stomacher, concealing the bright petticoat.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 2

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