The romance of old Philadelphia

Front matter

FROM

LIBRARY

Brigham Young University

Preface

THERE is no romance like that of the lives of those who, when duty calls, dare to venture in the dark, who are content to lay the foundations on which others may build, who are brave enough to endure present privation for the sake of future good, especially when they realize that the good they hope for may not be seen, except in fleeting shadow, by their own generation.

The emigrants who followed the explorers from Europe to America, who struggled with pioneer conditions in the midst of savages, who, though they knew from experience little of representative government, or of freedom to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, or of education that was free to all, yet made their brave and successful effort to build up government and church and schools, would have appreciated words written centuries later by Robert Louis Stevenson, “Life is a thing to be daringly used and cheerfully hazarded.”

Those words tell the truth concerning the life of the pioneer, a life of toil, of sacrifice, of heroic endurance, but to them, a life of real joy and to those who look back on it a life of the richest romance.

We can realize more of the truth of the statement as applied to the brave men and women of pioneer days than they could possibly see for themselves. They knew that they were making a venture into the unknown; we know now what that venture cost them.

PREFACE

They understood that they were lining up with the trail blazers of history who have paved the way for a better civilization, but the modem world’s appreciation of this fact is far beyond anything that they could have. There were probably times when many of them thought with a fine glow of the picturesqueness and glamour of a life that had in it so much of conflict with hard reality, but it was not possible for them to measure truly the relieving features of their daily struggles and triumphs.

It is given to us who can have the perspective supplied by the lapse of decades and centuries to see the romance in the determination to break with home and associations in the home land, to face the stormy Atlantic, to carve out a new home in a country which had never known the tread of civilized man, to build up a civilization that would, in many ways, surpass any that other countries have ever had, to stand for liberty when that stand would certainly involve all in fearful hardship and would just as certainly lead many to death.

The study of the romantic element in such pioneer struggles has an appeal that is universal; it is of absorbing interest to every American who loves his country, whether it is based on the experience of those who lived in New England, or those who settled in the Southland, or those who made their homes on the shores of the Delaware or the Hudson.

. Because of the unique part played by Philadelphia in the history of the nation, the appeal made by the records of those who lived and labored, who loved and struggled there, has even more of general interest than 6

PREFACE a similar study of the pioneers of many other portions of the country. Not only was Philadelphia the city of the Declaration of Independence, but it was the center for a long period of activity during the Revolution, it was the city of the Constitution, it was the capital of the country during ten of the formative years of the nation’s life, it was the home of Washington, the place where he liked to be better than any other except his own beloved Mount Vernon.

These facts have been constantly in the mind of the author in planning The Romance of Old Philadelphia,. It has been the effort to picture the romance of early American life.

Much of the material for the volume has been gathered from manuscripts and genealogical records in the matchless collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, from the files of the Pennslyvania Historical Magazine, which is a vast treasure-house of curious and interesting facts about the early history of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, and from other rare books, all found in the library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society and on the shelves of the Library Company of Philadelphia,

The author has resisted the temptation to examine Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia, though realizing that he was thus depriving himself of the use of a compilation that has been for many years a source of inspiration and a mine of information to the students of Philadelphia history.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to George W. Jacobs & Co,, Philadelphia, publishers of “ Historic Dress in America” (copyright, 1903), and to the artist,

PREFACE

Miss Sophie B. Steele, for permission to copy the illustrations of Colonial dress reproduced on pages 137, 157 and 212; to Messrs. Ferris & Leach, Philadelphia, publishers of “The Quaker” (copyright, 1901), for the use of the illustrations on pages 181, 202 and 213 ; to the Macmillan Company, New York, publishers of “Two Centuries of Costume in America,” copyright, 1903, by Alice Morse Earle, for permission to use the illustrations on pages 128, 136 and 231; to Miss Clara E. Graff, for permission to use the photographs from “The Claypoole Family” (copyright, 1893), which are reproduced on pages 27 and 36; to Simon Castner, of Philadelphia, who, from his priceless collection of prints of old Philadelphia, lent the beautiful print from which the Frontispiece was made; to Ernest Spofford, Assistant Librarian of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and George Maurice Abbot, Librarian of the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the courteous members of his staff; to Philip B. Wallace, photographer, 711 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, who made the photographs reproduced in the volume; and to E. S. Holloway, of J. B. Lippincott Company, whose skill and patience have helped to give form to these records drawn from the history of Old Philadelphia.

Philadelphia,

August, 1918

J. T. F.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. FACING THE STORMY ATLANTIC 19

THE SUBLIME COURAGE OF THE PIONEERS “NEITHER HOUSE