USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Warwick's Keystone commonwealth; a review of the history of the great state of Pennsylvania, and a brief record of the growth of its chief city, Philadelphia > Part 29
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
Charles Godfrey Leland was the intimate friend and companion of George HI. Boker. He was born in Philadelphia in affluent circumstances, took a course in Princeton and after his graduation traveled extensively throughout Europe. In his journeyings through the Old World, he acquired a fluent use of several foreign tongues. He was an early contributor to Sartain's, Gra- hanı's and other magazines of his day and soon became a popular humorist of the country. His "Hans Breitmann Barty" set the whole nation laughing and Hans was so natural and so original a character that he was seen on every
variety stage. The wit was not coarse and, in fact, some of the old Dutch- man's expressions were full of thought and wisdom and during the Civil War, he never failed to arouse the patriotic sentiments of the people. Leland, in later life, seemed to have grown dissatisfied with the reputation he had made as a humorist and devoted himself to the study of serious matters, but his fame was too deeply rooted as a wit to be overshadowed by his subsequent produc- tions and he will always be known to us as the creator of one of the most orig- inal characters in American letters.
In journalism, The North American, The Inquirer and the Public Ledger were classed among the most influential newspapers of the day.
244
WARWICK'S KEYSTONE COMMONWEALTH.
The North American was first published in the spring of 1839 at an office in Dock street near Third. It passed from one hand to another until at last it absorbed the United States Gazette, and came ultimately under the direction of Morton McMichael, who gave it a standing all its own, not only because of his facile pen as a writer, but also because of his ability as a publicist and poli- tician and his reputation as a leader of thought.
The Pennsylvania Inquirer was another influential paper which made its first appearance in June, 1829, and won its position under the direction of Jasper Harding.
The Public Ledger was one of the first papers in this country that was sold for one cent a copy. It was published by three young men, William MI. Swain, A. S. Abel and A. H. Simmons. They formed a partnership just prior to the panic of 1837, at a time when the future gave little hope for the success of a new enterprise. But the paper seemed to have attracted atten- tion from the very start. The firm subsequently established a daily journal in Baltimore, which in appearance was the counterpart of the Ledger, called "The Sun" and which became as renowned as the Philadelphia publication. This wide-awake firm introduced new methods and spared no expense in securing news in advance of their competitors. When Andrew Jackson's message was submitted to Congress, it appeared the same day in Baltimore in the columns of "The Sun," and then was hurried on by couriers as fast as horses could run, to the city of Philadelphia, outstripping the mail carriers by many hours, and appeared in the Ledger the morning after it had been read in Congress. This was considered, in those days, a great journalistic feat.
During the Mexican War, by a relay system in which "sixty blooded horses were used," news reached Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia sixty hours in advance of the arrival of the southern mail. They also used in the trans- mission of news, four or five hundred carrier pigeons. Everything that could facilitate the bearing of news from all points was adopted by this active and enterprising firm, and their methods consequently gave a wide reputation to both journals.
It was about this time that the voices of boys crying the sale of extra edi- tions were first heard in the streets, announcing a horrible murder, a riot or some other event that would induce passers-by to purchase the paper.
Editorials written upon important public questions began now to appear in all newspapers. The proceedings in Congress also were given, and the speeches of prominent statesmen such as Clay and Webster were set forth at full length. Money articles and criticisms upon books, plays and musical pro- ductions were given prominent place. Some of the papers issued morning and afternoon editions, but there were no Sunday papers until some years after- wards, the first to make its appearance being "The Sunday Dispatch," which was not until 1848.
The theatre at this time was a favorite place of amusement. The players were not subjected to interruptions as in the past, and the occupants of the pit were no longer required to raise umbrellas to protect themselves from a shower of missiles hurled from the gallery. The Arch Street Theatre became a fa- mous playhouse. Its doors were opened in October. 1828. It was the third
2.45
WARWICK'S KEYSTONE COMMON WEALTIL.
theatre in the city, and unfortunately this was more than the community could profitably support. Both the Chestnut and the Arch street theatres soon closed their doors. Warren and Wood, the enterprising managers of the past, had met with failure. They were advanced in life, and their many reverses had in a measure broken their spirits. The former died in Baltimore, in October, 1832, and Mr. Wood, after losing his partner, abandoned his vocation as man- ager and appeared upon the stage as an actor.
Though the theatres were in so bad a plight, the actors themselves were of the first order. The elder Joseph Jefferson, was, if we may believe the testi- mony of his contemporaries, one of the greatest comedians that ever trod the boards, and there is every reason for us to concur in this judgment when we bear in mind the inimitable acting of the Jefferson of our day who but recently passed away, and who doubtless inherited his ancestor's great talent. The elder Jefferson died in 1832, and was buried in Harrisburg, and to show the respect in which he was held, Chief Justice John Bannister Gibson, himself a great patron of the drama, wrote the following beautiful epitaph which was chiselled into the marble stone that marks the great comedian's grave: "An actor whose unrivalled powers took in the whole range of comic character, front pathos to soul-shaking mirth. Ilis coloring of the part was that of nature, warm, pure and fresh, but of nature enriched with the finest conceptions of genius. He was a member of the Chestnut Street Theatre, of Philadelphia, in its most high and palmy days, and the compeer of Cooper, Wood, Warren, Francis and a long list of worthies, who, like himself, are remembered with ad- miration and praise."
Another great comedian of that period was William E. Burton, familiarly called "Billy" Burton, who was described in those days as "one of the funniest creatures that ever lived." Joseph Jefferson, in his Autobiography wrote, "As an actor of the old, broad, farce comedy, Mr. Burton certainly had no equal in his day. **
* Captain Cuttle and Micawber were his great achieve- ments. Ilis face was a huge map on which was written every emotion that he felt."
But the days of the old stock companies, under the management of War- ren and Wood had passed away, and now came the introduction of stars, and it was then that Forrest had his great opportunity, for there was no play m which he appeared that he did not dominate it from beginning to end. Speci- alists as rope dancers, negro impersonators, Irish comedians and ballad singers now were the attractions. Indeed, it looked for a while as if the days of the legitimate drama were gone forever.
CHAPTER XXIII.
SLAVERY. BURNING OF PENNSYLVANIA HALL. RACE RIOTS. ANTI-CATHOLIC
RIOTS.
I N a prior chapter, reference was made to the fact that the slavery question was beginning to agitate the public mind, and abolition societies were being organized throughout the country. No class of men in the com- munity took a livelier interest in this important movement than the Quak- ers, when they were once aroused to a sense of duty. From the earliest days of the colonies, it was a question that had given great concern to thoughtful men everywhere. Pastorius had raised his voice in protest, and later, Anthony Benezet, a distinguished citizen of French Huguenot blood, led a crusade against the system.
It was in 1619 that African slavery was first introduced into the English colonies in America, the records of that year showing that "About the last of August came in a Dutch man-of-war that sold twenty negars." At that time, every nation in western Europe traded in slaves, and no one seems to have condemned the traffic, for its inhumanity had not yet appealed to the consci- ences of men. Even the King of England derived a personal income from the selling of slaves, and gradually every one of the thirteen colonies became what might be called a slave State. The blacks were held in bondage in great num- bers in the South because there they were employed as field hands, whereas in the North they were engaged only as house servants.
The Portuguese carried on the trade extensively and successfully from a pecuniary point of view, for a cargo of slaves yielded a richer return to the owner of a vessel than most any other kind of merchandise.
Slavery had in the early days of the settlement gained a firm foothold in Pennsylvania, the auction block was set up in the public streets and the ne- groes were exposed for sale and knocked down to the highest bidders. Among the places in Philadelphia where slave sales were held, the principal one was the corner where stood the London Coffee House. Here in the highway a platform was erected sufficient to hold ten or a dozen mien, or if only one slave was to be sold, a cask was turned upside down, and the negro stood above the heads of the buyers in order that an opportunity might be given for inspec- tion. Advertisements appeared in the papers, such as the following: "To be sold by Stocker & Fuller and to be seen at Mr. Daniel Cooper's ferry, west New Jersey, opposite the city of Philadelphia, a parcel of likely negroes." While another paper announced the fact that "A negro man and two negro boys just imported from Barbadoes in the ship William and Mary, would be sold by Willing, Morris & Co." A subscriber in the borough of Lancaster an- nounced the sale of "A likely, healthy negro boy about fourteen years of age, who has had the smallpox and measles and who has been country born and is fit to wait on a gentleman." Another subscriber by the name of Matthias
246
.
2.47
WARWICK'S KEYSTONE COMMONWEALTH.
Slaugh announced that he had "A likely negro fit for town or country busi- ness, about twenty-seven years of age," and added that "she has a likely child which will not be sold with her, her breeding fast being the only reason of her being sold."
The great Wilberforce in England raised his voice against the evil of the traffic, and Mirabeau, in one of his most eloquent orations denounced in vig- orous terms the whole system. "Count for nothing," he exclaimed, "the deso- lations, the incendiaries, the pillages to which it is necessary to devote the African coast in order to obtain the poor creatures at all. Count for nothing those who during the voyage die or perish in the agony of despair. The poor wretches! I see them, I hear them gasping for breath. Their parched and protruded tongues paint their anguish and cannot further express it. How they gather around the grates, how they endeavor to catch a breath of air, even a ray of light in the vain hope of cheering and cooling themselves if only for a moment ! The horrible dungeon, as it moves depopulates itself more and more, day by day. Room is given to the victims only by the death of half the captives. The most revolting plagues, accumulating one upon another frustrate by their ravages the avarice of the dealers in human flesh and blood." How such an orator with a tongue of flame could have gone through the land prior to the opening of the Civil War!
The Virginia Assembly, in 1772, petitioned the British Government to stop the importation of slaves, but the King replied that the importation should in no wise be interfered with "upon pain of his highest displeasure." In the Con- gress of 1774, a bill of rights was presented by Thomas Jefferson which de- clared that "the abolition of slavery is the great object of desire of these col- onies." The same Congress, in October of the same year, resolved, "We shall neither import nor purchase any slaves imported after the first of December next, after which time we shall discontinue the slave trade and shall neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor shall we hire any vessels from or sell our com- modities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it." In a letter writ- ten in 1773, Patrick Henry said, "I believe the time will come when an oppor- tunity will be offered to abolish the lamentable evil." General Washington, in expressing his views upon the subject, said, "There is not a man living who desires more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it." Franklin, John Adams, Morris and most, if not all, of the signers of the Declar- ation of Independence were opposed to it upon moral considerations. In 1784, Mr. Jefferson drafted a bill for the government of the western territories, pro- viding for its prohibition after the year 1800 and in the message he sent to Congress in 1807, he expressed without reservation his views upon the Afri- can slave trade. "1 congratulate you, fellow-citizens," he said, "on the ap- proaching of the period when you may interpose your authority constitution- ally, and withdraw, as citizens of the United States, from those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the nnoffending inhabi- tants of Africa, to which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe."
In 1780, Pennsylvania passed a law for gradual emancipation. Connecti-
248
WARWICK'S KEYSTONE COMMONWEALTHI.
cut and Rhode Island followed with like measures in 1784, and New York in 1799.
In 1793, occurred an event which firmly rooted the system of slavery in the South. Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts, who at that time was living in Georgia, invented what was called the Cotton Gin, that is an engine for the removal of cotton from the pod of seeds. It was one of the greatest labor savings machines ever constructed in America. Up to that time cotton had been raised in great quantities in the South, but in a day's work a slave could separate only about a pound of material from the seeds, but in the same length of time, by the use of Whitney's machine, one man could clean easily a thou- sand pounds. Cotton was now raised in greater quantities than ever, and the exportations increased so rapidly that a stream of wealth flowed into the hands of the planters. Had it not been for this wonderful and useful invention, slav- ery doubtless would gradually have been abolished. The statement seems para- doxical but nevertheless true that it was due to a machine invented by a Yankee, that cotton became king. The increasing wealth in the slave States, their devotion most exclusively to agriculture, the increased production and the commercial importance of cotton, gradually fixed slavery as a permanent institution in the South, and the effort was now made to obtain political con- trol of the government in order to strengthen and preserve the system, or rather to save it from destruction. The negro was a good field hand, patient in disposition, merry in mood, and able to endure without inconvenience the heat of a semi-tropical summer. His labor was cheap and profitable, so that the desire to preserve the system of slavery turned upon a pecuniary consid- eration. Slavery was a most pernicious institution; it destroyed the dignity of labor, created a landed aristocracy and divided society into three classes, the planters, the slaves and the poor whites, the latter designated contemptu- ously as "trash" by the wealthy slave owner as well as by the abject serf.
What a travesty was presented to the eyes of the world! A Republic boasting that it was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal was south of a certain line all slaves, north of it all free. The struggle was now not so much to bring about the abolition of slav- ery as to prevention of its extension into the territories, and in 1820 when Missouri sought to become one of the States of the Union, the North opposed her admission unless she should come in free. The fight was a bitter one and provoked the most angry discussions, but as a result of the contention, Mis- souri was allowed to enter the Union as a slave State, but under the express condition that in all future cases the States formed out of the territory north- west of Missouri, or, to be more partienlar that territory that is north of the parallel of 36 degrees 30 minutes should come in free. This gave great relief to the people both north and south of the line, and many believed that the compromise settled for all time the question of the limitation of slavery, but so long as the system continued the agitation only slumbered.
All sorts of plans to abolish slavery were suggested, and among them was one by Benjamin Lundy, a New Jersey Quaker who had settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He took a trip to Wheeling, West Virginia, then one of the principal market centres for the sale of slaves in the South. The spec-
WARWICK'S KEYSTONE COMMONWEALTHI. 249
tacle of the auctioneer knocking down to the highest bidder the poor negro, appealed to his sympathies, aroused him to a sense of duty, and every where he went he argued for emancipation. It was in 1821 that he established a journal called "The Genius of Universal Emancipation," the first anti-slavery paper ever published in this country. For nearly eighteen years he argued his cause, in season and out of season. He was not so radical in his views as some of the other abolitionists, and brought forward a scheme to transport the slaves to Liberia, and although he did this in the interest of the negro, the free leading men of that race throughout the country offered a most strenu- ous opposition, for many of them in the North were well located, and success- ful in business, and were not willing that the slaves should be transported to Africa. Their fathers had been stolen from their native land and conveyed across the sea as beasts of burden. They had been sold like cattle to the high- est bidders; but, notwithstanding all these facts they had formed associations here, had become acclimated and looked upon this country as their home.
In 1831-on New Year's Day of that year-William Lloyd Garrison published in Boston the first number of a paper called "The Liberator." He advocated the absolute destruction of the system and the emancipation of all the slaves, and inasmuch as it was contended that the Constitution supported the system, he made the bold declaration that the instrument was "A covenant with death and an agreement with hell." In his demand for the "immediate and unconditional emancipation of every slave held in the United States," he declared that that purpose should be accomplished even if it should result in the destruction of the Union. In taking his position he said: "I am in earn- est-I shall not equivocate-I shall not excuse-I shall not retreat a single step and I shall be heard." With so definite a declaration, backed by a spirit so uncompromising, his voice rang out like a trumpet blast, and at once at- tracted the attention of the people of the whole country. In the South, he was considered as a wild fanatic, and the majority of the people of the North seemed to agree with their Southern brethren.
There were others, however, of more conservative tendencies, who were not so radical in their views or so drastic in their methods. Dr. Channing, broader and more liberal in temperament than Garrison, and possessed of a more compromising spirit, declared in a communication to Daniel Web- ster, that he considered slavery as the Sonth's calamity and not as its crime, and that the whole nation should share with it the burden of putting an end to the institution, and with this object in view, he proposed that the United States should appropriate the money from the sale of public lands for the pur- chase of slaves from their owners. If such a plan had been successful it might have saved ns from that bloody struggle of the Civil War. But it did not meet with general favor, in many quarters was considered as impracticable, and be- fore the project was fairly launched, seems to have fallen by the way.
The South was not altogether to blame for the maintenance of slavery. It was tolerated by the whole nation. There is no escape from the fact that it was a national crime. The system was as valiantly defended in the North as in the South. Pastors in the pulpit, politicians and statesmen of all parties temporized with the question. The New England cotton manufacturer was
16
250
WARWICK'S KEYSTONE COMMONWEALTH.
just as eager in its support as the planter in South Carolina. The interests of commerce seemed to be far more important than any principle of justice or humanity. Abolition was a term of reproach throughout the Union and an anti-slavery representative or advocate was as liable to be mobbed and sub- jected to abuse and derision in New York and Boston as in Charleston and Richmond.
The Fugitive Slave Law which enabled the Southern planter to arrest his slave who had escaped to free soil, gave a great opportunity to Northern abolitionists to protect the runaways. They were concealed in many instances, in others released by writs of habeas corpus, and assisted on their way further North towards the Canadian line by friendly and kindly hands. Pennsylvania, being on the border line of the Southern States, was the first free State in which the negro found a sanctuary, and Pennsylvania became in time the main station on the underground railroad. If a Virginian brought his body servant into the State he was liable to lose possession of his property, for there were friends on all hands to prevent the slave's return to the South.
No one did more effective work in this direction, of sheltering the negro than a Quaker by the name of Isaac T. Hopper, a resident of Philadelphia. As early as 1804, when Pierce Butler was about to return to Georgia, taking with him his man-servant, and separating the poor slave from his wife, Ilop- per served upon the rich Southerner in his Chestnut street home, a writ of habeas corpus. "Get out of my house, you scoundrel," exclaimed the prond planter. But Hopper, not for a moment losing his temper, looked around the walls of the room and simply remarked, "What a beautiful house this is in which you reside." After a prolonged litigation, Ben was allowed to remain in this State with his wife. Still, notwithstanding the kindly offices of the abolitionists, the majority of the people looked upon them as wild and unrea- sonable fanatics, and even in Boston, William Lloyd Garrison was pulled through the streets by an infuriated mob, with a rope around his waist, and with the threat to fasten it about the neck when a convenient place for execu- tion was reached, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the police rescued him from the hands of the rabble. But persecution only intensified, as it gen- erally does, the ardor of the fanatics.
Whenever the abolitionists held meetings in this city for the discussion of the slavery question, mobs gathered and interrupted the proceedings. If a speaker appeared upon the public streets, or in the open squares and addressed the people, he was hooted and jeered and pelted with missiles of all kinds. Nothing seemed to so quickly arouse the anger of the mob as the discussion of this question. It was difficult, too, for the anti-slavery men to secure the use of the halls, for the owners were afraid that the result would be the de- struction of their property. In order that a place might be secured for the discussion of this all-important matter, a building called Pennsylvania Hall, capable of seating three thousand persons, was erected in the Spring of 1838 on Sixth street, between Race and Cherry streets. Here were held a number of anti-slave meetings and the mob marked the building for destruction. Fa- natical speakers who were not at all temperate in their utterances, aroused great public excitement, one prominent orator going so far as to say that he
251
WARWICK'S KEYSTONE COMMONWEALTH.
was ready "to fight the battle of Liberty as long as he had a shot in the locker." An immense crowd gathered, and were urged by their leaders to destroy the building. Bricks were hurled through the windows, and the mob made pre- parations to burn the structure to the ground. The owners of the hall, fear- ful that these threats might be carried into execution, before help arrived, hurriedly notified the Mayor and the Sheriff and called on them for protec- tion. The latter, in answer to the demand, replied that he had not a sufficient force for the purpose, that he had but three deputies, a force totally inadequate to render the assistance that was required. John Swift was the Mayor of the city at that time. He was a Democrat and was looked upon as a Southern sympathizer, or at least as a man whose views were not in accord with those of the Abolitionists. The crowd increased rapidly and every moment became more uproarious and threatening in its aspect, when suddenly the Mayor ap- peared upon the scene. His coming was greeted with cheers. In an inter- view with the owners of the building, he stated that he could not disperse the mob unless he were put in actual possession of the property, and could give assurance to the public that no meeting would be held that night. The man- agers, thereupon, delivered to him the keys. He mounted the steps, and in a kindly, pacific speech endeavored to placate the people, telling them that the fair name of the city was imperilled and appealing to them as good citizens to disperse and go quietly to their homes. He promised them that if they would retire there would be no meeting in the hall, and that the doors would be closed and locked. "I feel confident," he said, "that it will not be necessary to call out the police or ask for military aid and as Mayor of the city I make every one of you a guardian of the public peace." He then bade the crowd "Good-night" and was given an ovation as he was about to take his departure. lle put the keys of the building in his pocket and leisurely proceeded on the way to his home believing no doubt that he had quelled the disturbance, but his mild speech did not seem to change the temper nor the purpose of the mob, nor did it disperse at his bidding. No sooner was his back turned, than a cry went up from the multitude to burn the hall. Aroused by the eloquence of its orators, the mob began an attack, battered down the doors and in a few min- utes, sooner than it takes to tell the story, the building was in flames. The fire companies, in answer to an alarm, soon arrived upon the scene. Their pres- ence and the changing of the bells added greatly to the tumult and excitement, but being in sympathy with the crowd, the firemen did not make an effort to save the hall from destruction, but turned the hose on the adjoining buildings. The flames were allowed to have full sway, and in a few moments the struc- ture was a mass of ruins.
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.