America Volume I Part 5

DELAWARE BAY.

The famous navigator of the Dutch East India Company, Hendrick Hudson, was the first white man who entered Delaware Bay. He discovered it on August 28, 1609, two weeks before he entered Sandy Hook Bay and found the Hudson River. When Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, Governor of Virginia, was driven by stress of weather into the bay in 1611, his name was given the river. In 1614 another redoubtable old skipper of the Dutch East India Company, Captain Carolis Jacobsen Mey, searching, like all the rest of the navigators of those days, for the northwest pa.s.sage to Asia and the Indies, came along there with a small fleet of sixty-ton frigates, and tried to give the river and its capes his names; but only one of these has survived, Cape May. The southern portal at the entrance, which he wished to make Cape Carolis, was named a few years afterwards, by the Swedes, Cape Henlopen. The Indians called the river "Lenape-wihituck," or the "river of the Lenapes," meaning "the original people," or, as sometimes translated, the "manly men," the name of the aboriginal confederation that dwelt upon its banks. It had various other names, for when the Swedes came, the Indians about the bay called it "Pantoxet." In an early deed to William Penn it is called "Mackeriskickon," and in another doc.u.ment the "Zunikoway." Some of the tribes up the river named it "Kithanue,"

meaning the "main stem," as distinguished from its tributaries, and those on the upper waters called it the "Lemasepose," or the "Fish River," for the Upper Delaware was then a famous salmon stream, and its early Dutch explorers thus came to calling it the "Fish River"

also. The Delaware, from its source in the Catskills to the sea, is about three hundred and sixty miles in length.

The estuary of Delaware Bay is about sixty miles long and thirty miles broad in the widest part, contracting towards the north to less than five miles. The capes at the entrance are about fifteen miles apart.

As a protection to shipping, the Government began, on the Cape Henlopen side, in 1829, the construction of the famous Delaware Breakwater. It consists of a stone breakwater about twenty-six hundred feet long facing the northeast, and an icebreaker about fourteen hundred feet long, at right angles, facing the upper bay. These were completed in 1870, there being an opening between them of about sixteen hundred feet width, which was afterwards filled up. The surface protected covers three hundred and sixty acres, and the whole work cost about $3,500,000. It was estimated in 1871 that fully twenty thousand vessels every year availed of the protection of this breakwater, the depth of water being twenty-four feet behind it--sufficient for most of the shipping of that day. But as vessels have become larger and of deeper draft, they have not been able to use it, and the Government has recently begun the construction of another and larger breakwater for a harbor of refuge in deeper water adjoining the regular ship channel, some distance to the northward. Delaware Bay divides the States of Delaware and New Jersey. The first settlement in Delaware was made by the Dutch near Lewes in 1630, but the Indians destroyed the colony; and in 1638 a colony of Swedes and Finns came out under the auspices of the Swedish West India Company, landed and named Cape Henlopen, and purchased from the Indians all the land from there up to the falls at Trenton, finally locating their fort near the mouth of Christiana Creek, and naming the country Nya Sveriga, or New Sweden. The Swedes and Dutch quarrelled about their respective rights until New York was taken by the English in 1664, after which England controlled. The first settlement in New Jersey was made by Captains Mey and Jorisz in 1623, who built the Dutch Fort Na.s.sau a short distance below Philadelphia; but it did not last.

Delaware Bay is an expansive inland sea, subject to fierce storms, and broadening on its eastern side into Maurice River Cove, noted for its oysters. A deep ship channel conducts commerce through the centre of the bay, marked by lighthouses built out on mid-bay shoals, and, as the sh.o.r.es approach, by range lights on the banks, the Delaware Bay and River being regarded as the best marked and lighted stream in the country. Up at the head of the bay, years ago, a ship loaded with peas and beans sank, and this in time made at first a shoal, and afterwards an island, since known as the "Pea Patch." Here and on the adjacent sh.o.r.es the Government has lately erected formidable forts, which make, with their torpedo stations in the channel, a complete system of defensive works in the Delaware, first put into active occupation during the Spanish War of 1898, as a protection against a hostile fleet entering the river. Over in the "Diamond State" of Delaware, near here, on the river sh.o.r.e, is the aged town of Newcastle, quiet and yet attractive, having in operation, and evidently to the popular satisfaction, the whipping-post and stocks, a method of punishment which is a terror to all evil-doers, and is said to be most successful in preventing crime, as thieves and marauders give Newcastle a wide berth. This was originally a Swedish settlement, the standard of the great Gustavus Adolphus being unfurled there in 1640, when it was called Sandhuken, or Sandy Hook, it being a point of land jutting out between two little creeks. The Dutch soon captured it, changing the name to New Amstel; and about 1670 the settlement, then containing nearly a hundred houses, became New Castle, under English auspices.

The northern boundary of the State of Delaware, dividing it from Pennsylvania, is an arc of a circle, made by a radius of twelve miles described around the old Court House at Newcastle, which still has in its tower the bell presented by Queen Anne.

MASON AND DIXON'S LINE.

In coming over by railroad from the Chesapeake to the Delaware, the train, after crossing the broad Susquehanna and the head of Elk, and rounding in Maryland the Northeast Arm of Chesapeake Bay, soon enters the State of Delaware near the northeastern corner of the former State. This corner is at the termination of the crescent-shaped northern boundary of Delaware. The northern boundary of Maryland here beginning and laid down due west, to separate it from Pennsylvania, is the famous "Mason and Dixon's Line," surveyed by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two noted English mathematicians and astronomers in the eighteenth century. This boundary gained great notoriety because it so long marked the northern limit of slavery in the United States.

For almost a century there were conflicts about their respective limits between the rival proprietaries of the two States, producing sometimes riot and bloodshed, until, in 1763, these men were brought over from England, and in December began laying out the line on the parallel of lat.i.tude 39 43' 26.3" North. They were at the work several years, surveying the line two hundred and forty-four miles west from the Delaware River, and within thirty-six miles of the entire distance to be run, when the French and Indian troubles began, and they were attacked and driven off, returning to Philadelphia in December, 1767. At the end of every fifth mile a stone was planted, graven with the arms of the Penn family on one side and of Lord Baltimore on the other. The intermediate miles were marked by smaller stones, having a P on one side and an M on the other, all the stones thus used for monuments being sent out from England. After the Revolution, in 1782, the remainder of the line was laid down, and in 1849 the original surveys were revised and found substantially correct.

When the little colony of Swedes and Finns under Peter Minuet came into Christiana Creek in April, 1638, and established their fort, they began the first permanent settlement in the valley of the Delaware. It was built upon a small rocky promontory, and they named it Christina, in honor of the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. The Dutch afterwards captured it and called it Fort Altena; but the town retained part of the original name in Christinaham, and the creek also retained the name, the English taking possession in 1664. The Swedes, however, regardless of the flag that might wave over them, still remained; and their old stone church, built in 1698, still stands, down near the promontory by the waterside, in a yard filled with time-worn gravestones. This old Swedes' Church of the Holy Trinity, the oldest now on the Delaware, was dedicated on Trinity Sunday, 1699, and Rev. Ericus Tobias Biorck came out from Sweden to take charge as rector. It was sixty by thirty feet and twenty feet high, and a little bell tower was afterwards added. The ancient church was recently thoroughly restored to its original condition, with brick floor, oaken benches, and stout rafters supporting the roof. This interesting church building is in a factory district which is now part of Wilmington, the chief city of Delaware, a busy manufacturing community of sixty-five thousand people, built on the Christiana and Brandywine Creeks, which unite about a mile from the Delaware. This active city was laid out above the old settlement, in 1731, by William Shipley, who came from Leicestershire, England. Ships, railway cars and gunpowder are the chief manufactures of Wilmington. The Brandywine Creek, in a distance of four miles, terminating in the city, falls one hundred and twenty feet, providing a great water power. Up this stream are the extensive Dupont powder-mills, among the largest in the world, founded by the French statesman and economist, Pierre Samuel Du Pont De Nemours, who, after the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, migrated with his family to the United States in 1799, and was received with distinguished consideration. He afterwards was instrumental in securing the treaty of 1803 by which France ceded Louisiana, and was in the service of Napoleon, but finally returned to America, where his sons were conducting the powder-works, and he died near Wilmington in 1817. Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont, of the American Navy, was his grandson. Farther up the Brandywine Creek, at Chadd's Ford and vicinity, was fought, in September, 1777, the battle of the Brandywine, where the English victory enabled them to subsequently take possession of Philadelphia.

WILLIAM PENN.

Above Wilmington, the Delaware River is a n.o.ble tidal stream of about a mile wide, flowing between gently sloping sh.o.r.es, and carrying an extensive commerce. The great river soon brings us to the famous Quaker settlements of Pennsylvania. William Penn, who had become a member of the Society of Friends, was bequeathed by his father, Admiral Sir William Penn, an estate of 1500 a year and large claims against the British Government. Fenwick and Byllinge, both Quakers, who had proprietary rights in New Jersey, disputed in 1674, and submitted their difference to Penn's arbitration. He decided in favor of Byllinge, who subsequently became embarra.s.sed, and made over his property to Penn and two creditors as trustees. This seems to have turned Penn's attention to America as a place of settlement for the persecuted Quakers, and he engaged with zeal in the work of colonization, and in 1681 obtained from the king, for himself and heirs, in payment of a debt of 16,000 due his father, a patent for the territory now forming Pennsylvania, on the fealty of the annual payment of two beaver skins. He wanted to call his territory New Wales, as many of the colonists came from there, and afterwards suggested Sylvania as specially applicable to a land covered with forests; but the king ordered the name Pennsylvania inserted in the grant, in honor, as he said, of his late friend the Admiral. In February, 1682, Penn, with eleven others, purchased West Jersey, already colonized to some extent. Tradition says that some of these West Jersey colonists sent Penn a sod in which was planted a green twig, to show that he owned the land and all that grew upon it. Next they presented him with a dish full of water, because he was master of the seas and rivers; and then they gave him the keys, to show he was in command and had all the power.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Penn's Let.i.tia Street House, Removed to Fairmount Park_]

When William Penn was granted his province, he wrote that "after many waitings, watchings, solicitings and disputes in council, this day my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England." He had great hopes for its future, for he subsequently wrote: "G.o.d will bless and make it the seed of a nation; I shall have a tender care of the government that it will be well laid at first." Some of the Swedes from Christina had come up the river in 1643 and settled at the mouth of Chester Creek, at a place called Upland. The site was an eligible one, and the first parties of Quakers, coming out in three ships, settled there, living in caves which they dug in the river bank, these caves remaining for many years after they had built houses. Penn drew up a liberal scheme of government and laws for his colony, in which he is said to have had the aid of Henry, the brother of Algernon Sidney, and of Sir William Jones. He was not satisfied with Upland, however, as his permanent place of settlement, but directed that another site be chosen higher up the Delaware, at some point where "it is most navigable, high, dry and healthy; that is, where most ships can best ride, of deepest draught of water, if possible, to load or unload, at the bank or key-side, without boating or lightening of it." This site being selected between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, and the city laid out, Penn, with about a hundred companions, mostly Welsh Quakers, in September, 1682, embarked for the Delaware on the ship "Welcome," arriving at Upland after a six weeks' voyage, and then going up to his city site, which he named Philadelphia, the "City of Brotherly Love."

The first explorers of the Delaware River found located upon the site of Philadelphia the Indian settlement of Coquanock, or "the grove of long pine trees," a sort of capital city for the Lenni Lenapes. Their great chief was Tamanend, and the primeval forest, largely composed of n.o.ble pine trees, then covered all the sh.o.r.es of the river. The ship "Shield," from England, with Quaker colonists for Burlington, in West Jersey, higher up the river, sailed past Coquanock in 1679, and a note was made that "part of the tackling struck the trees, whereupon some on board remarked that 'it was a fine spot for a town.'" When Penn sent out his advance agent and Deputy Governor, Captain William Markham, of the British army, in his scarlet uniform, to lay out the plan of his projected city, he wrote him to "be tender of offending the Indians," and gave instructions that the houses should have open grounds around them, as he wished the new settlement to be "a green country town," and at the same time to be healthy, and free from the danger of extensive conflagrations. Penn bought the land farther down the Delaware from the Swedes, who had originally bought it from the Indians, and the site for his city he bought from the Indians direct.

They called him Mignon, and the Iroquois, who subsequently made treaties with him, called him Onas, both words signifying a quill pen, as they recognized the meaning of his name. Out on the Delaware, in what is now the Kensington shipbuilding district, is the "neutral land of Shackamaxon." This word means, in the Indian dialect, the "place of eels." Here, for centuries before Penn's arrival, the Indian tribes from all the region east of the Alleghenies, between the Great Lakes, the Hudson River and the Potomac, had been accustomed to kindle their council fires, smoke the pipe of deliberation, exchange the wampum belts of explanation and treaty, and make bargains. Some came by long trails hundreds of miles overland through the woods, and some in their birch canoes by water and portage. It was on this "neutral ground" by the riverside that Penn, soon after his arrival, held his solemn council with the Indians, sealing mutual faith and securing their lifelong friendship for his infant colony. This treaty, embalmed in history and on canvas, was probably made in November, 1682, under the "Treaty Elm" at Shackamaxon, which was blown down in 1810, the place where it stood by the river being now preserved as a park. Its location is marked by a monument bearing the significant inscription: "Treaty Ground of William Penn and the Indian Nation, 1682--Unbroken Faith." Thus began Penn's City of Brotherly Love, based on a compact which, in the words of Voltaire, was "never sworn to and never broken." It is no wonder that Penn, after he had seen his city site, and had made his treaty, was so abundantly pleased that he wrote:

"As to outward things, we are satisfied, the land good, the air clear and sweet, the springs plentiful, and provision good and easy to come at, an innumerable quant.i.ty of wild fowl and fish; in fine, here is what an Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be well contented with, and service enough for G.o.d, for the fields here are white for harvest. O, how sweet is the quiet of these parts, freed from the anxious and troublesome solicitations, harries and perplexities of woeful Europe."

The Lenni Lenapes, it is stated, told Penn and his people that they often spoke of themselves as the Wapanachki, or the "men of the morning," in allusion to their supposed origin in the lands to the eastward, towards the rising sun. Their tradition was that at the time America was discovered, their nation lived on the island of New York.

They called it Manahatouh, "the place where timber is got for bows and arrows." At the lower end of the island was a grove of hickory trees of peculiar strength and toughness. This timber was highly esteemed for constructing bows, arrows, war-clubs, etc. When they migrated westward they divided into two bands. One, going to the upper Delaware, among the mountains, was termed Minsi, or "the great stone;"

and the other band, seeking the bay and lower river, was called Wenawmien, or "down the river." These Indians originated the name of the Allegheny Mountains, which they called the Allickewany, the word meaning "He leaves us and may never return"--it is supposed in reference to departing hunters or warriors who went into the mountain pa.s.ses.

THE QUAKER CITY.

The great city thus founded by William Penn is built chiefly upon a broad plain between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, about one hundred miles from the sea, and upon the undulating surface to the north and west. The shape of the city is much like an hour-gla.s.s, between the rivers, although it spreads far west of the Schuylkill.

The Delaware River, in front of the built-up portion, sweeps around a grand curve from northeast to south, and then, reversing the movement, flows around the Horseshoe Bend below the city, from south to west, to meet the Schuylkill. The railway and commercial facilities, the proximity to the coal-fields, and the ample room to spread in all directions, added to the cheapness of living, have made Philadelphia the greatest manufacturing city in the world, and attracted to it 1,300,000 inhabitants. The alluvial character of the sh.o.r.es of the two rivers surrounds the city with a region of the richest market gardens, and the adjoining counties are a wealthy agricultural and dairy section. Clay, underlying a large part of the surface, has furnished the bricks to build much of the town. Most of the people own their homes; there are over two hundred and fifty thousand dwellings and a thousand miles of paved streets, and new houses are put up by the thousands every year as additional territory is absorbed. When Penn laid out his town-plan, he made two broad highways pointing towards the cardinal points of the compa.s.s and crossing at right angles in the centre, where he located a public square of ten acres.

The east and west street, one hundred feet wide, he placed at the narrowest part of the hour-gla.s.s, where the rivers approached within two miles of each other. This he called the High Street, but the public persisted in calling it Market Street. The north and south street, laid out in the centre of the plat, at its southern end reached the Delaware near the confluence with the Schuylkill. This street is one hundred and thirteen feet wide, Broad Street, a magnificent thoroughfare stretching for miles and bordered with handsome buildings. Upon the Centre Square was built a Quaker meeting-house, the Friends, while yet occupying the caves on the bluff banks of the Delaware that were their earliest dwellings, showing anxiety to maintain their forms of religious worship. This meeting-house has since multiplied into scores in the city and adjacent districts; for the sect, while not increasing in numbers, holds its own in wealth and importance, and has great influence in modern Philadelphia. Afterwards the Centre Square was used for the city water-works, and finally it was made the site of the City Hall.

The bronze statue of the founder, surmounting the City Hall tower at five hundred and fifty feet elevation, clad in broad-brimmed hat and Quaker garb, carrying the city charter, and gazing intently northeastward towards the "neutral land of Shackamaxon," is the prominent landmark for many miles around Philadelphia. A blaze of electric light illuminates it at night. This City Hall, the largest edifice in America, and almost as large as St. Peter's Church in Rome, has fourteen acres of floor s.p.a.ce and seven hundred and fifty rooms, and cost $27,000,000. It is a quadrangle, built around a central court about two hundred feet square, and measures four hundred and eighty-six by four hundred and seventy feet. The lower portion is of granite, and the upper white marble surmounted by Louvre domes and Mansard roofs. This great building is the official centre of Philadelphia, but the centre of population is now far to the northwest, the city having spread in that direction. The City Hall, excepting its tower, is also being dwarfed by the many enormous and tall store and office buildings which have recently been constructed on Broad and other streets near it. Closely adjacent are the two vast stations of the railways leading into Philadelphia, the Broad Street Station of the Pennsylvania system, and the Reading Terminal Station, which serves the Reading, Baltimore and Ohio and Lehigh Valley systems. Also adjoining, to the northward, is the Masonic Temple, the finest Masonic edifice in existence, a pure Norman structure of granite two hundred and fifty by one hundred and fifty feet, with a tower two hundred and thirty feet high, and a magnificent carved and decorated granite Norman porch, which is much admired.

The great founder not only started his City of Brotherly Love upon principles of the strictest rect.i.tude, but he was thoroughly rectangular in his ideas. He laid out all the streets on his plan parallel to the two prominent ones, so that they crossed at right angles, and his map was like a chess-board. In the newer sections this plan has been generally followed, although a few country roads in the outer districts, laid upon diagonal lines, have been converted into streets in the city's growth. Penn's original city also included four other squares near the outer corners of his plan, each of about seven acres, and three of them were long used as cemeteries. These are now attractive breathing-places for the crowded city, being named after Washington and Franklin, Logan and Rittenhouse. The east and west streets Penn named after trees and plants, while the north and south streets were numbered. The chief street of the city is Chestnut Street, a narrow highway of fifty feet width, parallel to and south of Market Street. Its western end, like Walnut Street, the next one south, is a fashionable residential section, both being prolonged far west of the Schuylkill River. In the neighborhood of Broad Street, and for several blocks eastward, Chestnut Street has the chief stores. Its eastern blocks are filled largely with financial inst.i.tutions and great business edifices, some of them elaborate structures.

INDEPENDENCE HALL.

Upon the south side of Chestnut Street, occupying the block between Fifth and Sixth Streets, is Independence Square, an open s.p.a.ce of about four acres, tastefully laid out in flowers and lawns, with s.p.a.cious and well-shaded walks. Upon the northern side of the square, and fronting Chestnut Street, is the most hallowed building of American patriotic memories, Independence Hall, a modest brick structure, yet the most interesting object Philadelphia contains. It was in this Hall, known familiarly as the "State-house," that the Continental Congress governing the thirteen revolted colonies met during the American Revolution, excepting when driven out upon the British capture, after the battle of the Brandywine. The Declaration of Independence was adopted here July 4, 1776. The old brick building, two stories high, plainly built, and lighted by large windows, was begun in 1732, taking three years to construct, having cost what was a large sum in those days, 5600, the population then being about ten thousand. It was the Government House of Penn's Province of Pennsylvania. There has recently been a complete restoration, by which it has been put back into the actual condition at the time Independence was declared. In the central corridor stands the "Independence bell," the most sacred relic in the city. This Liberty bell, originally cast in England, hung in the steeple, and rang out in joyous peals the news of the signing of the Declaration. Running around its top is the significant inscription: "Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof." This bell was cracked while being rung on one of the anniversaries about sixty years ago. In the upper story of the Hall, Washington delivered his "Farewell Address" in closing his term of office as President. The eastern room of the lower story is where the Revolutionary Congress met, and it is preserved as then, the old tables, chairs and other furniture having been gathered together, and portraits of the Signers of the Declaration hang on the walls. The old floor, being worn out, was replaced with tiles, but otherwise the room, which is about forty feet square, is as nearly as possible in its original condition. Here are kept the famous "Rattlesnake flags," with the motto "Don't Tread on Me," that were the earliest flags of America, preceding the Stars and Stripes. Of the deliberations of the Congress which met in this building, William Pitt wrote: "I must declare that in all my reading and observation, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circ.u.mstances, no body of men could stand before the National Congress of Philadelphia." In this building is Penn's Charter of Philadelphia, granted in 1701, and West's noted painting of "Penn's Treaty with the Indians." There are also portraits of all the British kings and queens from Penn's time, including a full-length portrait of King George III., representing him, when a young man, in his coronation robes, and painted by Allan Ramsay.

Other historic places are nearby. To the westward is Congress Hall, where the Congress of the United States held its sessions prior to removal to Washington City. To the eastward is the old City Hall, where the United States Supreme Court sat in the eighteenth century.

Adjoining is the Hall of the American Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin Franklin, and an outgrowth of his Junto Club of 1743. It has a fine library and many interesting relics. Franklin, who was the leading Philadelphian of the Revolutionary period, came to the city from Boston when eighteen years old, and died in 1790. His grave is not far away, in the old Quaker burying-ground on North Fifth Street.

A fine bronze statue of Franklin adorns the plaza in front of the Post-office building on Chestnut Street. Farther down Chestnut Street is the Hall of the Carpenters' Company, standing back from the street, where the first Colonial Congress met in 1774, paving the way for the Revolution. An inscription appropriately reads that "Within these walls, Henry, Hanc.o.c.k and Adams inspired the delegates of the colonies with nerve and sinew for the toils of war." On Arch Street, east from Franklin's grave, is the house where Betsy Ross made the first American flag, with thirteen stars and thirteen stripes, from a design prepared by a Committee of Congress and General Washington in 1777. In this committee were Robert Morris and Colonel George Ross, the latter being the young woman's uncle. It appears that she was expert at needlework and an adept in making the handsome ruffled bosoms and cuffs worn in the shirts of those days, and had made these for General Washington himself. She had also made flags, and there is a record of an order on the Treasury in May, 1777, "to pay Betsy Ross fourteen pounds, twelve shillings twopence for flags for the fleet in the Delaware River." She made the sample-flag, her uncle providing the means to procure the materials, and her design was adopted by the Congress on June 14, 1777, the anniversary being annually commemorated as "Flag Day." Originally there was a six-pointed star suggested by the committee, but she proposed the five-pointed star as more artistic, and they accepted it. The form of flag then adopted continues to be the American standard. She afterwards married John Claypole, whom she survived many years, and she died in January, 1836, aged 84, being buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery, on the southwestern border of the city.

GIRARD COLLEGE.

The name of Girard is familiar in Philadelphia, being repeated in streets, buildings, and financial and charitable inst.i.tutions. On Third Street, south from Chestnut Street, is the fine marble building of the Girard Bank, which was copied after the Dublin Exchange. This, originally built for the first Bank of the United States, was Stephen Girard's bank until his death. One of the greatest streets in the northern part of the city is Girard Avenue, over one hundred feet wide, stretching almost from the Delaware River westward far beyond the Schuylkill River, which it crosses upon a splendid iron bridge. In its course through the northwestern section, this fine street diverges around the enclosure of Girard College, occupying grounds covering about forty-two acres. Stephen Girard, before the advent of Astor in New York, ama.s.sed the greatest American fortune. He was born in Bordeaux in 1750, and, being a sailor's son, began life as a cabin boy. He first appeared in Philadelphia during the Revolution as a small trader, and after some years was reported, in 1790, to have an estate valued at $30,000. Subsequently, through trading with the West Indies, and availing of the advantages a neutral had in the warlike period that followed, he rapidly ama.s.sed wealth, so that by 1812, when he opened his bank, he had a capital of $1,200,000; and so great was the public confidence in his integrity that depositors flocked to his inst.i.tution. He increased its capital to $4,000,000; and when the war with England began in that year he was able to take, without help, a United States loan of $5,000,000. He was a remarkable man, frugal and even parsimonious, but profuse in his public charities, though strict in exacting every penny due himself. He contributed liberally to the adornment of the city and created many fine buildings. He despised the few relatives he had, and when he died in 1831 his estate, then the largest known in the country, and estimated at $9,000,000, was almost entirely bequeathed for charity.

Stephen Girard left donations to schools, hospitals, Masonic poor funds, for fuel for the poor, and other charitable purposes; but the major part of his fortune went in trust to the city of Philadelphia, partly to improve its streets and the Delaware River front, but the greater portion to endow Girard College. This was in the form of a bequest of $2,000,000 in money and a large amount of lands and buildings, together with the ground whereon the College has been built. He gave the most minute directions about its construction, the inst.i.tution to be for the support and instruction of poor white male orphans, who are admitted between the ages of six and ten years, and between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years are to be bound out as apprentices to various occupations. A clause in the will provides that no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect whatever is to hold any connection with the College, or even be admitted to the premises as a visitor; but the officers are required to instruct the pupils in the purest principles of morality, leaving them to adopt their own religious beliefs. The College building is of white marble, and the finest specimen of pure Grecian architecture in the United States. It is a Corinthian temple, surrounded by a portico of thirty-four columns, each fifty-five feet high and six feet in diameter. The building is one hundred and sixty-nine by one hundred and eleven feet, and ninety-seven feet high, the roof being of heavy slabs of marble, from which, as the College stands on high ground, there is a grand view over the city. Within the vestibule are a statue of Girard and his sarcophagus. The architect, Thomas U. Walter, achieved such fame from this building that he was afterwards employed to extend the Capitol at Washington. There are many other buildings in the College enclosure, some being little less pretentious than the College itself. This comprehensive charity has been in successful operation over a half-century, and it supports and educates some sixteen hundred boys, the endowment, by careful management, now exceeding $16,000,000.

Philadelphia is great in other charities, and notably in hospitals.

Opposite Girard College are the magnificent buildings of the German Hospital and the Mary J. Drexel Home for the education of nurses, established by the munificence of John D. Lankenau, the widowed husband of the lady whose name it bears. The Drexel Inst.i.tute, founded by Anthony J. Drexel, is a fine building in West Philadelphia, with $2,000,000 endowment, established for "the extension and improvement of industrial education as a means of opening better and wider avenues of employment to young men and women," and it provides for about two thousand students. The Presbyterian, Episcopal, Jewish, Methodist and Roman Catholic hospitals, all under religious care, are noted.

Philadelphia is also the great medical school of the country, and the University, Jefferson, Hahnemann and Women's Colleges, each with a hospital attached, have world-wide fame. The oldest hospital, the Pennsylvania Hospital, occupying an entire block between Spruce and Pine and Eighth and Ninth Streets, was founded in 1752, and is supported almost entirely by voluntary contributions. In 1841 it established in West Philadelphia a separate Department for the Insane.

The Medico-Chirurgical Hospital is a modern foundation which has grown to large proportions. There are many libraries--not only free libraries, with branches in various parts of the city, for popular use, supported by the public funds, but also the Philadelphia Library, founded by Franklin and his friends of the Junto Literary Club in 1731, and its Ridgway Branch, established, with $1,500,000 endowment, by Dr. James Rush--a s.p.a.cious granite building on Broad Street, which cost $350,000. One of the restrictions of his gift, however, excludes newspapers, he describing them as "vehicles of disjointed thinking."

The Pennsylvania Historical Society also has a fine library pertaining to early Colonial history, and many valuable relics and ma.n.u.scripts, including the first Bible printed in America, and the original ma.n.u.scripts of _Home, Sweet Home_, and the _Star-Spangled Banner_.

NOTABLE PHILADELPHIA BUILDINGS.

There are many notable structures in Philadelphia. The United States Mint, opposite the City Hall, and fronting on Chestnut Street, has executed nearly all the coinage of the country since its establishment in 1792, the present building having been completed in 1833. It contains a most interesting collection of coins, including the "widow's mite." A fine new mint is now being erected on a much larger scale in the northwestern section of the city. The Bourse, on Fifth Street near Chestnut, erected in 1895 at a cost of $1,500,000, is the business centre, its lower hall being the most s.p.a.cious apartment in the city, and the edifice is constructed in the style of Francis I.

The white marble Custom House, with fine Doric portico, was originally erected in 1819, at a cost of $500,000, for the second United States Bank, this noted bank, which ultimately suspended, having been for many years a political bone of contention. On the opposite side of the street, covering a block, is a row of a half-dozen wealthy financial inst.i.tutions, making one of the finest series in existence, granite and marble being varied in several orders of architecture. The Post-office building, also on Chestnut Street, a grand granite structure in Renaissance, with a facade extending four hundred feet, cost over $5,000,000. The plain and solid Franklin Inst.i.tute, designed to promote the mechanical and useful arts, is not far away.

Down nearer the river is the venerable Christ Church, with its tall spire, built in 1727, the most revered Episcopal church in the city, and the one at which General Washington and all the Government officials in the Revolutionary days worshipped. William White, a native of the city, was the rector of this church and chaplain of the Continental Congress, and in 1786 was elected the Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, being ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth in February, 1787. He presided over the Convention, held in this church in 1789, which organized the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Christ Church still possesses the earliest chime of bells sent from England to America, and the spire, rising nearly two hundred feet, is a prominent object seen from the river. Bishop White died in 1836, aged 88. He was also, in his early life, the rector of St. Peter's Church, another revered Episcopal church at Third and Pine Streets. In its yard is the grave of Commodore Stephen Decatur, the famous American naval officer, who, after all his achievements and victories, was killed in a duel with Commodore Barron in 1820, his antagonist also dying. The most ancient church in Philadelphia is Gloria Dei, the "Old Swedes'" Church, a quaint little structure near the Delaware River bank in the southern part of the city, built in 1700. The early Swedish settlers, coming up from Fort Christina, erected a log chapel on this site in 1677, at which Jacob Fabritius delivered the first sermon. After he died, the King of Sweden in 1697 sent over Rev. Andrew Rudman, under whose guidance the present structure was built to replace the log chapel; and it was dedicated, the first Sunday after Trinity, 1700, by Rev. Eric Biorck, who had come over with Rudman. Many are the tales told of the escapades of the early Swedes in the days of the log chapel. The Indians on one occasion undermined it to get at the congregation, as they were afraid of the muskets which the men shot out of the loopholes. The women, however, scenting danger, brought into church a large supply of soft-soap, which they heated piping hot in a cauldron.

When the redskins made their foray and popped their heads up through the floor, they were treated to a copious bath of hot soap, and fled in dismay. This is the "Old Swedes'" Church at Wicaco of which Longfellow sings in _Evangeline_. The poet, in unfolding his story, brings both _Evangeline_ and Gabriel from Acadia to Philadelphia in the enforced exodus of 1755, and thus graphically describes the Quaker City:

"In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware's waters, Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn, the Apostle, Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.

There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty, And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the forest, As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested.

There, from the troubled sea, had Evangeline landed an exile, Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country.

Something, at least, there was, in the friendly streets of the city, Something that spake to her heart and made her no longer a stranger; And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the Quakers, For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters."

In Philadelphia it is said Evangeline lived many years as a Sister of Mercy, and it was thus that she visited the ancient almshouse to minister to the sick and dying on a Sabbath morning:

"As she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east wind, Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of Christ Church, While intermingled with these, across the meadows were wafted Sounds of psalms that were sung by the Swedes in their church at Wicaco."

There she found the dying Gabriel, and both, according to the tradition, are buried in the yard of the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity, at Sixth and Spruce Streets:

"Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow, Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard, In the heart of the city, they lie unknown and unnoticed.

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them, Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever; Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy; Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors; Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey."

In the ancient graveyard of "Old Swedes" is buried Alexander Wilson, the American ornithologist, who was a native of Scotland, but lived most of his life in Philadelphia, dying in 1813. The largest church in the city is the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, fronting on Logan Square, an imposing Roman Corinthian structure of red sandstone, two hundred and sixteen by one hundred and thirty-six feet, and crowned by a dome rising two hundred and ten feet. The chief inst.i.tution of learning is the University of Pennsylvania, the most extensive and comprehensive College in the Middle States, dating from 1740, and munificently endowed, which occupies, with its many buildings, a large surface in West Philadelphia, and has three thousand students. This great inst.i.tution originated from a building planned in 1740 for a place in which George Whitefield could preach, which was also used for a charity school. This building was conveyed to trustees in 1749 to maintain the school, and they were in turn chartered as a college in 1753 "to maintain an academy, as well for the instruction of poor children on charity as others whose circ.u.mstances have enabled them to pay for their learning." This charitable feature is still maintained in the University by free scholarships.

Philadelphia is eminently a manufacturing city, and its two greatest establishments are the Cramp Shipbuilding yards in the Kensington district and the Baldwin Locomotive Works on North Broad Street, each the largest establishment of its kind in America. The city has spread over a greater territory than any other in the United States, and sixteen bridges span the Schuylkill, with others in contemplation, its expansion beyond that river has been so extensive. The enormous growth of the town has mainly come from the adoption of the general principle that every family should live in its own house, supplemented by liberal extensions of electrical street railways in all directions.

Hence, Philadelphia is popularly known as the "City of Homes." As the city expanded over the level land, four-, six-, eight-and ten-room dwellings have been built by the mile, and set up in row after row.

Two-story and three-story houses of red brick, with marble steps and facings, make up the greater part of the town, and each house is generally its owner's castle, the owner in most cases being a successful toiler, who has saved his house gradually out of his hard earnings, almost literally brick by brick. There is almost unlimited s.p.a.ce in the suburbs yet capable of similar absorption, and the process which has given Philadelphia this extensive surface goes on indefinitely. The population is also regarded as more representative of the Anglo-Saxon races than in most American cities, though the Teuton numerously abounds and speedily a.s.similates. The greatest extent of Philadelphia is upon a line from southwest to northeast, which will stretch nearly twenty miles in a continuous succession of paved and lighted streets and buildings.