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    Historical Cities-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Historical Cities-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Historical Cities-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Ebook221 pages3 hours

    Historical Cities-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    By Lyn Wilkerson

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    About this ebook

    This edition of the Historical Cities series explores Philadelphia, the birthplace of the United States. Over 200 historical sites and landmarks are provided for walking tours of the city center and in the surrounding districts. Text is based on the work of the Federal Works Project of the 1930’s and 40’s. All sites have been verified and located with GPS coordinates.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLyn Wilkerson
    Release dateNov 16, 2010
    ISBN9781452371412
    Historical Cities-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Author

    Lyn Wilkerson

    Caddo Publications USA was created in 2000 to encourage the exploration of America’s history by the typical automotive traveler. The intent of Caddo Publications USA is to provide support to both national and local historical organizations as historical guides are developed in various digital and traditional print formats. Using the American Guide series of the 1930’s and 40’s as our inspiration, we began to develop historical travel guides for the U.S. in the 1990’s.

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      Book preview

      Historical Cities-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Lyn Wilkerson

      Introduction

      Philadelphia, A Guide to the Nation’s Birthplace was one of the publications in the American Guide Series, written by members of the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration. Designed primarily to give useful employment to needy unemployed writers and research workers, this project gradually developed the ambitious objective of presenting to the American people a portrait of America its history, folklore, scenery, cultural backgrounds, social and economic trends, and racial factors. In one respect, at any rate, this undertaking was unique; it represents a far-flung effort at cooperative research and writing, drawing upon all the varied abilities of its personnel. All the workers contributed according to their talents; the field worker collected data in the field, the research worker burrowed in libraries, the art and literary critics covered material relevant to their own specialties, architects described notable historical buildings and monuments; and the final editing of copy as it flows in from all corners of a state was done by the more experienced authors in the central offices. The ultimate product, whatever its faults or merits, represented a blend of the work of the entire personnel, aided by consultants, members of university faculties, specialists, officers of learned societies, oldest residents, who had volunteered their services everywhere most generously.

      Historical Cities-Philadelphia edits the information provided by the original Philadelphia Guide; addresses are updated, the status of landmarks and sites are verified, and additional historical places are added where appropriate. Much has changed since the publication of the original guide in 1937, and it is the goal of Caddo Publications USA to preserve the valuable information provided at that time while enabling today’s traveler the means to locate it. This guide merely builds on the great work the Federal Writers Project accomplished, and hopefully promotes their work for the future travelers and tourists of Philadelphia.

      Philadelphia’s History

      Edited from Philadelphia, A Guide to the Nation’s Birthplace

      The first men known to occupy what is now Philadelphia were Indians of the Lenni-Lenape tribes. The Lenni-Lenape, whom the English later named the Delawares, were one of the more important nations inhabiting the eastern regions when Europeans first arrived. They belonged to the great Algonkian linguistic stock and, according to their own legends, had migrated eastward from the country beyond the Mississippi.

      The Lenni-Lenape nation was divided into three main tribal groups the Munsee, Unami, and Unalachtigo. Philadelphia history is concerned chiefly with the Unami (or Turtle) tribe of Lenape, though the Susquehannocks and Shawnees (the former of Iroquoian stock, the latter of Central Algonkian) figured in the city’s early history.

      William Penn’s land treaties were negotiated with the Unami, who occupied both sides of the Delaware from the mouth of the Lehigh River to what is now New Castle, Delaware. Their main village or capital, Shackamaxon, (Indian, place of eels) is generally supposed to have been the scene of the famous treaty conference held by William Penn on the west bank of the Delaware in the autumn of 1682. The village site, now part of Philadelphia, is known as Penn Treaty Park, and one of the streets in the vicinity bears the name Shackamaxon.

      Many other sections of the city retain names given them by the Indians. Some of the more picturesque are Manayunk, where we go to drink; Wissahickon, yellow stream or catfish stream; Passyunk, in the valley; and Wingohocking, a favorite spot for planting. Others are Kingsessing, bog meadow or the place where there is a meadow; Pennypack, still water; Tacony, wood or uninhabited place; Tioga, at the forks; Tulpehocken, the land of turtles; and Wissinoming, or Wissinaming, where we were frightened or a place where grapes grow. The area embraced in Philadelphia was called Coaquannock, or grove of tall pines.

      The Unamis had large heads and faces, and their noses were sharply hooked. Mainly a sedentary and agricultural people, they lived on maize, fish, and game. Men of the tribe dressed in breech clout, leggings, and moccasins, with skin mantle or blanket thrown over one shoulder. Their heads were shaved or clipped, except for a scalp lock generously pomaded with bear’s grease and bedecked with ornaments. The women garbed themselves in leather shirt or bodice, with skirt of the same material. They wore their hair plaited, the long tails falling over their shoulders.

      Before the advent of Dutch and Swede upon the Philadelphia scene, the Indians lived in lodges of birch hark. The sturdy log hut of later date probably was copied from the whites, although Iroquoian peoples lived in log dwellings prior to white contact. Not long before Penn arrived in the New World, a group of Shawnees had migrated northward into Pennsylvania, some of them locating for a time on the flats below Philadelphia. The Susquehannocks from Maryland, known as Black Minquas to the Swedes, had preceded them and were well known to the early settlers.

      After a brief sojourn in the vicinity, the Shawnees moved northward to the Wyoming Valley, and thence to western Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Susquehannocks, waging bitter warfare with the Iroquois Confederacy, were driven from their Pennsylvania strongholds early in the period of white colonization.

      Probably no more intimate picture of the Indian living in and near Philadelphia can be given than that of William Penn to the Free Society of Traders in his letter of 1683. Penn wrote:

      For their persons, they are generally tall, straight, well built, and of singular Proportion. They tread strong and clever, and mostly walk with a lofty Chin. Of complexion Black, but by design, as the Gipsies in England. They grease themselves with Bear’s fat clarified ; and using no defence against sun or weather, their skins must needs be swarthy. Their eye is little and black, not unlike a straight-look’t Jew. The thick Lip and flat Nose, so frequent with the East Indians and Blacks, are not common to them; for I have seen as comely European-like faces among them, of both sexes, as on your side of the Sea. And truly an Italian Complexion hath not much more of the White; and the Noses of several of them have as much of the Roman. Their Language is lofty, yet narrow; but like the Hebrew in signification, full. Like short-hand in writing, one word serveth in the place of three, and the rest are supplied by the Understanding of the Hearer; Imperfect in their Tenses, wanting in their Moods, Participles, Adverbs, Conjunctions and Interjections. I have made it my business to understand it that I might not want an Interpreter on any occasion, and I must say that I know not of a language spoken in Europe that hath words of more sweetness or greatness, in Accent and Emphasis than theirs ; For instance, Octokekon, Rancocas,

      Oricton, Shak, Marian, Poquesian, all of which are names of places, and have grandeur in them—Sepassen, Passijon, the names of places; Tamane, Secane, Menanse and Secatareus, are the names of persons.

      If an European comes to see them, or calls for Lodgings at their House or Wigwam, they give him the best place, and first cut. If they come to visit us they salute us with an Itah! which is as much as to say, Good be to you ! and set them down, which is mostly on the ground, close to their heels, their legs upright; it may be they speak not a word, but observe all passages. If you give them anything to eat or drink, be it little or much, if it is given with kindness they are well pleased ; else they will go away sullen, but say nothing.

      In sickness, impatient to be cured; and for it give anything, especially for their children to whom they are extremely natural. They drink at those times a tisan, or Decoction of some Roots in Spring Water; and if they eat any flesh it must be of the Female of any Creature. If they dye, they bury them with their Apparel, be they Men or Women, and the nearest of Kin fling in something precious with them as a token of Love. Their Mourning is blacking of their faces, which they continue for a year. Some of the young women are said to take undue liberty before Marriage for a portion; but when married chaste.

      Their Government is by Kings, which they call Sachama, and those by succession, but always of the Mother s side. For instance, children of him who is now King will not succeed, but his Brother by the Mother, or the Children of his Sister, whose Sons (and after them the Children of her Daughters) will reign; for Woman inherits. The Reason they render for this way of Descent is, that their issue may not be spurious. The Justice they have is Pecuniary. In case of any Wrong or evil Fact, be it Murther itself, they atone by Feasts and Presents of their wampun, which is proportioned to the quality of the Offence, or Person injured or of the Sex they are of.

      For their Original, I am ready to believe them of the Jewish Races.

      Penn’s entire approach to the native was the outgrowth of a combination of characteristics that today seem contradictory. He held an unquestioning belief in the right of the white men, whom he considered God’s chosen people, to populate the new land, in the right of Christians to dispossess the aborigines. But his abiding sense of humanity softened to gentleness the stern measures to which such a belief would appear naturally to lead. Although a shrewd real estate man, promoting his interests even to the extent of circularizing Europe, he dealt generously with the Indians. The result indicated the promptings of his heart, which softened his views on the subject of white invasions and confirmed his belief that peaceful expansion of the Colony depended on the courteous and kind treatment of the natives.

      It is doubtful if even the best intentions could have saved the Indians from a fate that hinged, not so much on the wishes of individual men, as on the inexorable forces working upon European society. Penn treated the Indians with more consideration than any other Colonial Governor. His successors acted in a quite different spirit. It was not long after Penn was in his grave, that the Proprietors tricked the Indians out of a large slice of land by means of the notorious Walking Purchase.

      The Walking Purchase of 1737 was resorted to in settling a controversy due to a loosely drawn deed covering a tract extending from a point a short distance above Trenton, west to Wrightstown in Bucks County, northwest and paralleling the Delaware River as far as a man could walk in a day and a half, and then east to the Delaware, following a line not defined in the deed. Thomas Penn finally prevailed upon the Indians to agree to the terms of the document, and preparations were made for the walk. Instead of the leisurely method of walking, which the natives expected, the whites advertised for fast walkers, marked trees to insure a straight line of travel, and made every effort to procure the greatest amount of land. Three walkers were hired, two of whom fell out, but the third reached a point more than 60 miles from the start. The deceit was continued by drawing the line at an angle, rather than straight, thus claiming the best lands of the Minisink region.

      With the development of Philadelphia, Indians retreated to the outskirts, and finally to remoter regions, being pushed northward and westward as the frontiers spread out. Not long after the Walking Purchase, the last Delaware council fire died out upon the Wissahickon’s hills, leaving Philadelphia to the white man and the white man’s ways. The descendants of the Delawares and their historic allies were later domiciled in Oklahoma and Ontario, with some scattered in Kansas and Wisconsin. Research in this important field, long neglected, has been carried on since 1928 through the University of Pennsylvania Research Fund.

      Philadelphia is unimportant archeologically. Although most of the city stands upon a very ancient land mass, possibly rich in paleontological and archeological remains, no evidence that man existed in the area prior to the coming of the Indian has been found. The nearest approach to a paleontological discovery was a section of a petrified tree dug up in 1931 by workmen excavating for the Eighth Street Subway. Even that find has not yet proved to be of scientific value, since neither its age nor its origin has been determined.

      And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement named before thou

      wert born, what love, what care, what service and what travail has

      there been to bring thee forth, and to preserve thee from such as

      would abuse and defile thee.

      William Penn

      A tiny ship, with weather-beaten sails billowing above her cluttered deck, limped into Delaware Bay on the afternoon of October 24th, 1682, and beat slowly upriver against a northerly wind. She was the 300-ton Welcome, bound from Deal, England, to New Castle, Delaware, with Captain Robert Greenway in command and William Penn as one of her 70 passengers.

      High-sterned, and perilously low at the stem, the vessel was crowded with men, women, and children. Cows, pigs, and sheep took up much of her deck space; her alleyways were glutted with masses of baggage, household utensils, and boxes of provisions. Her tween-decks exuded the miasma of contagion; and from everywhere came the stench of crowded humans and penned-up livestock.

      For eight weeks the Welcome, pushing her slender bow through the North Atlantic seas, had battled gales and the scourge of smallpox. On September 1st, she had raised anchor and stood down the

      English Channel with 100 passengers, among them one who had come aboard at Deal bearing the deadly germs. Within a few weeks nearly half the crew and passengers were down with the plague. The bodies of 30 victims had been committed to the sea before land was sighted.

      Under such discouraging circumstances did William Penn first look upon American soil, and to the travail of storm and death there was now to be added the opposition of wind and tide. Though within the capes, the Welcome had to struggle against headwinds for three days before reaching New Castle.

      On the morning of the 28th (the Welcome actually had arrived the evening before) Penn landed in New Castle, there to be greeted by his cousin, Captain William Markham, resplendent in naval uniform, and by a gathering of Dutch, Welsh and English settlers. Tall, handsome, and still of slender figure, Penn made an impressive appearance on that autumn Saturday as he formally took possession of the Delaware territory by receiving the turf, twig and water symbols of ownership, and renewed the commissions of incumbent magistrates. Impatient to see his Province of Pennsylvania, he proceeded that afternoon to Upland (now Chester) settled by the Swedes about 40 years before and landed at the mouth of Chester Creek, named by the Indians Mee-chop-penack-han, or the stream where large potatoes grow. Here he was entertained over the weekend at Essex House, home of Robert Wade, a Friend whom Penn had known in London.

      Sometime during the first week in November, Penn and a party of friends rowed up river to the tongue of land formed by the converging Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, where the town of Philadelphia was being laid out. They continued past the Schuylkill s mouth, proceeding up the Delaware to where Dock Creek led into a large green clearing on the west bank of the river. The place was called Coaquannock by the Indians because of its tall pines. In the vicinity, such small Swedish settlements as Wicaco and Tacony had been established. Some of the land desired by Penn was owned by these early Swedes, and still more belonged to the original owners, the Indians, particularly the Unamis of the Lenni-Lenape nation. Adjustments were made later with the Swedes; but since Penn’s agents already had acquired considerable acreage from the Indians, the clearing on the Delaware was even now taking on the semblance of a real estate development.

      Under the supervision of Captain Thomas Holme, the surveyor general whom Penn had sent to America with the

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