ANNALS OF PHILADELPHIA AND PENNSYLVANIA. OLDEN TIME AFFECTIONS AND RESEARCHES. OUR love of antiquities,-the contemplation of by-gone days, is an impress of the Deity. It is our hold on immortality. The same affection which makes us reach forward and peep into futurity, prompts us to travel back to the hidden events which transpired before we existed. We thus feel our span of existence enlarged even while we have the pleasure to identify ourselves with the scenes or the emotions of our forefathers. For the same cause relics are so earnestly sought and sedulously preserved," they are full of local impressions," and transfer the mind back to scenes before." As Americans, we see in a short life more numerous incidents to excite our observation and to move our wonder, than any other people. The very newness of our history and country ministers to our moral entertainment, and increases our interest in contemplating the passing events. A single life in this rapidly growing country, witnesses such changes in the progress of society, and in the embellishments of the arts, as would require a term of centuries to witness in full grown Europe. If we have no ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum to employ our researches, no incomprehensible Stonehenge, nor circle of Dendara to move our wonder, we have abundant themes of unparalleled surprise in following down the march of civilization and improvements,-from the first landing of our pilgrim forefathers to the present eventful day! The wealth and ambition of a potent prince may have accomplished a magnificent city in shorter time upon the banks of the Neva; but in this country we have many equal wonders by the energies and resources of a people, until lately "no people." The wisdom of our free institutions has made our land the desired asylum of the oppressed. Here human life is not wantonly wasted in ambitious broils. for sovereignty; we therefore behold our population quadrupled in a term of forty years; and our hardy pioneers subduing the soil, or advancing their settlements from the Atlantic to the Pacific wave. Canals, rivaling in magnitude the boasted aqueducts of imperial Rome, Vol. II.-A 1 are in successful operation. By these and rail roads, inaccessible districts are brought nigh; mountains charged with metallic treasures are entered, and their deposits of iron, coal, and lead, &c., lavished over the land. Cities, towns, and villages, arise in the west, as if by enchantment. Many of their present inhabitants redeemed their soil from a waste howling wilderness. In less than twenty years our exports have grown from twenty to eighty millions. Our navy, from "cock-boats and rags of striped bunting," has got up to power, and renown. Our private law, commercial code, and bold diplomacy, have grown into a matured and learned system. Our inventions and improvements in the arts, which began but yesterday, make us, even now," a wonder unto many;" and our vapour vessels, while they crowd our waters and overcome the rapids of the Mississippi and Missouri, are ac• comodating and enriching the old world by their adoption and imitation. Here we have no lordly potentates in church, "lording it over the conscience of the people;" no standing armies to endanger their liberties no despots to riot in the oppression of the subject. Nay, so exalted are our privileges as a self-governed people, that the fact of our example and happiness is bidding fair to regenerate other nations, or to moderate the rigour of despotic government throughout the world! If topics like these,-which enter into the common history of our growing cities, may be the just pride and glory of an American, must not the annals, which detail such facts, (and to such these pages are specially devoted,) be calculated to afford him deep interest; and should it not be his profit, as well as amusement, to trace the successive steps by which we have progressed, from comparative nothingness, to be "a praise in the earth!" There are minds, feeling and cultivated, which can derive rich moral pleasure from themes like these, for "Is there a man, with soul so dead, Such views and such feelings impressed and imbued the mind of the author, else he had never attempted these pages. His stimulus was purely con amore; recompense he did not contemplate, and time. he could ill spare from other engagements; wherefore, indulgence for casual imperfections is but justly due from the considerate reader. He wrote at first for his sole gratification, never intending his collections for the public eye, nor does he encounter that ordeal but by the encouragement of those friends who are willing to accept the performance by their sense of his limited means to perfect it. If it should stimulate others to add to these materials, it will be a grateful service. And if the example, thus set to the sister cities of New York, Boston, &c., should engage minds of kindred feelings and adequate industry to make similar collections of their domestic history, the usefulness of the present publication will be still more felt and acknowledged; and the eventual aim of the author still more accomplished. We should not forget these things: our land and our fathers have been the subject of many heaven-descended mercies. They who love to contemplate the cause of the numerous effects, so indicative of our blessings as a nation, will regard it not less a duty of piety than of patriotism to thus preserve their memorial. "Go call thy sons,-instruct them what a debt Those sacred rights to which themselves were born!” In writing these memorials of the times by-gone, I have often felt the suggestion pressed upon my mind, whether I was indeed pursuing inquiries and preserving facts which will have the sympathies and countenance of others, or am I so peculiar, as to be only amusing myself. I have thought the contemplation of time past has something inherently attractive; not indeed in the notice of our personal waste of years, when sufficiently old to see our sun declining, but in the recollections of the exhilarating sunshine beams of our youth. Not that, when the past was the present, we were all satisfied with our situations and ourselves, but that vexations have been forgotten in the lapse of years, and we remember pleasures alone; as, in looking back on the landscape we have passed over, the rude bills become softened by distance, and the cliffs, that were so difficult to surmount, seem dissolving in the purple sky. For this reason, the recollections of childhood are so captivating to every unperverted mind, though to him whose soul is stained with crimes, they are fraught with pain and remorse. The causes which operated to induce me to form the present museum of incidents of "men and manners" are curious even to myself. The resolution to execute them, was only a concern of a few years; but the love to such objects in general was as early as my childhood, and has indeed "grown with my growth and strengthened with my strength." I may now say, I feel gratified that my mind has been thus led to chronicle incidents. Many of them ought to be preserved as the eventful facts of a land peculiarly favoured of Heaven, and as destined, perchance, to future renown. We should not forget these things; and the record of them, in such manner as I have adopted, should be deemed a generous service to all those who, with grateful hearts, love to consider the causes of their blessings. Piety and patriotism equally cherish such sentiments. I have had frequent occasions to lament that this kind of inquiries was not instituted sooner, even by myself; they might have been advantageously begun much earlier, by still older persons. In now recollecting the aged of my early days, of whom I might have inquired, how many are remembered from whom nothing was attempted! To illustrate these ideas, what a treasure might Dr. Franklin have imparted of all he had seen or knew, from the years 1723, to 1790, when he died! He was remarkably qualified to have given us the materials for such a history as I have attempted in these pages. He must have been familiar with the traditions of the primitive settlers; must have seen many who saw Penn, &c. But his mind appears never to have been drawn to the consideration of their value to us, their posterity. The truth is, very few minds are so abstracted from the daily concerns of life, as to perceive that the things which at any given moment every man knows, may, thereafter, become highly interesting. Another reason may be, that Franklin never saw, at any period, any such astonishing improvements, as, since his death, every where arrest attention. Colonial things were too uniform and tame to arouse the mind. All things, in his day, were regularly progressive, gliding to their end with the smoothness of a stream. But if a person of my inquiring mind had had opportunities of drawing from such an observing mind as Franklin's, what a fund of entertainment and information could have been derived for posterity! For reasons like the above, I, who am but little past middle aged, am better qualified to ask various questions which would never occur to the mind of much older men. To me, the field was all new and unexplored, and therefore, with the eagerness of a child which asks questions about every thing, I felt constantly awake to inquiries on topics which would not affect the minds of old persons; things in which they had long ceased to be curious. Owing to this faculty of the mind, the most interesting travels, like Silliman's, are those which record every new thing which most surprises or pleases it. Then such a writer must speak feelingly enough for those who, like himself, have never seen what he so discovers to them. And even to those who have, he refreshes their memories in a way most grateful. About twenty-seven or twenty-eight years ago, I desired to see some such work as the present effected. Not thinking to attempt it myself, I suggested some such scheme to a friend. It met the approbation of the late Mr. Delaplaine, who set upon it with great ardour. My ideas were expressed in the form of a prospectus, which procured a subscription list, it was said, of four thousand subscribers, before the book was even written. With such a patronage, there was a defect of labour or enterprise in producing the materials, and Dr. Mease was resorted to as composuist, to bring out something to answer the claims of the subscribers. It received the name of "The Picture of Philadelphia," but how far like my present result, the reader must judge. The doctor has managed his materials unexceptionably; but the defect was, that he had not the proper staple to weave into his fabric. Had he succeeded better in what were my aims, I should never have made this attempt; but, untouched as my scheme had been, I have made at last, though thus late, my own efforts, although subject to the disadvantage of residing six miles from the city, about which my inquiries and observations are employed, and being withal fettered with daily official duties, and cares of paramount consideration. From reasons like these, those who know me best will be readiest to excuse imperfections, whether of style or selection,-and critics, if they deign to notice such labours, did they know the irregular hours and intervals in which fragments of time were seized for the purpose, might rather wonder it has been so well, than that it should have been so ill executed. To judge beyond this may savour of illnature, "Which taught them still to say, Whate'er was done, might have been better done!" To such I need only say,-"What is writ, is writ,—would it were worthier." Many of my selections of local facts were derived from a very great mass of court papers, and had to be hunted out among files of petitions, recognisances, special presentments for assaults, batteries, felonies, tippling and disorderly houses, &c., being the usual accompaniments of "quarter sessions," as is well known to those in any degree acquainted with the criminal docket. Most probably, such a search they have not had before, since packed away as the lumber of office, and such another, I presume, they will never have again! Some local notices may appear too trivial for notice; but who knows what future discoveries may be made, in digging into some of the former "fillings up?" as, for instance, the late discovery of sub-terrane logs in Chestnut street, by Hudson's alley, (the remains of the old bridge, &c.,) which no living persons could explain from memory! If a jewel, or some pieces of coin, (as may occur !) should hereafter be dug out of some of the "breaches" of Front street, (afterwards filled up,) some of the foregoing facts may tend to elucidate the cause of their deposit there. As Boswell said, in an apology for his minute mention of the "oak cudgel," it was because it might afterwards become the hero of a good tale, in the hands of so interesting a character as Johnson! Johnson's Rambler, too, justly remarks, "nor can it be always safely determined, which should be rejected or retained; for they may sometimes unexpectedly contribute to the illustration of history, and to the knowledge of the natural commodities of the country, or of the genius and customs of its inhabitants." Poulson's paper of March 6th, 1821, contains an article by me, entitled "Old Times" of 1769, &c. It requests others to communicate similar facts. I thus tried to set others at this kind of service, and to exempt myself;-but none heeded my counsel,-and afterwards I made my own attempt. Fame or reward never entered into my motives. Like quaint John Bunyan, ""Twas mine own self to gratify!" The service was sufficiently pleasing in itself, to be a positive recreation and amusement, furnishing its own reward by the way: |