James and Rose Moore in Philadelphia 1684-1720

I am going to try to summarize here what I know and what I do not know about my 9-gr-grandparents, Joseph and Rose/Roose Moore.  If you scroll down you will find lots more information about my research on this couple in other posts in February 2015.  I learned so much about my ancestors and about the very early days of Philadelphia this past week that I can not begin to write it all down.  However, there were a few things I wanted to note before life begins to blur my research.  The area that is pictured below is almost certainly where the couple lived from 1684 until they sell the land in 1693.  James is listed as a blacksmith in the "Philadelphia Business Directory of 1690" in the book, Colonial Philadelphians by Hannah  Benner Roach (I own this book) for this time frame.

Everything that I have read has explained that while William Penn had a very clear master plan for the city of Philadelphia, the actual development did not follow his plan.  Penn chose the site that is shown above as the center of the town.  Of course, the City Hall pictured was built MUCH later.  This  site was to be a center open space that was square in shape.  Penn pictured Philly to be a town with much green space everywhere.  Not the helter skelter town that it has become.

William Penn had chosen the land where the Delaware and the Schuykill Rivers come close making the neck of land narrow for his new city.  You can see the Center Square right in the middle of the map.


 However, those who settled did their own thing.  You can look at Elfreth's Alley to see that there is absolutely NO green space between the row houses that were built on that site.  Jeremiah Elfreth died before 1700, so that Alley is VERY old.  What really happened is that the settlers ended up settling along the Delaware River and ignored the center of the city and the land on the side of the city nearest the Schuykill River.  So the Center square remained outside of the more heavily settled area in the early days.

Wikipedia says:

However, the Delaware riverfront would remain the de facto economic and social heart of the city for more than a century.

[…] hardly anyone lived west of Fourth Street before 1703. Consequently Penn's design of a center square as the hub of his community had to be abandoned. The large Friends meeting house which was built in 1685 at the midpoint between the rivers was dismantled in 1702. Efforts to develop the Schuylkill waterfront likewise collapsed. Of the merchants, tradesmen, and craftsmen who can be identified as living in Philadelphia around 1690, 123 lived on the Delaware side of town and only 6 on the Schuylkill side. One of the latter, a tailor named William Boulding, complained that he had invested most of his capital in his Schuylkill lot, 'so that he cannot, as others have done, Remove from the same.' Not until the mid-nineteenth century, long after the city had spilled northward and southward in an arc along the Delaware miles beyond its original limits, was the Schuylkill waterfront fully developed. Nor was Centre Square restored as the heart of Philadelphia until the construction of City Hall began in 1871.^[10]

This information gives me the idea that James and Rose may have decided to move to the Delaware River front as they found that the center of the city did not develop as they had expected.  James had spent his years while they lived at Center Square working on Penn's Mill and on the leaded glass windows at the Center Meeting house.

From  Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West Jersey and Delaware 1630-1707 Edited  by Albert Cook Myers, Charles Scribners Sons NY 1912:

A footnote by Mr. Myers on page 271 says:  "The Friends' Meeting House in the Centre Square of the city, midway between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, where the City Hall now stands, was built of brick, in 1685-1686, and was used for a time for the more important First Day (Sunday) morning and business meetings of the society.  The location being in the midst of the forest some little distance without the town, and its two or three streets along the Delaware, the meeting was not well attended;  the Friends preferred to wait for the afternoon meeting at the Bank Meeting house, near at hand, within the town proper; consequently, in a few years the Centre Square meeting was abandoned."

My best guess is that James and Rose lived these truths and when the land just to the north of Vine Street (the northern boundary of Philadelphia) opened up, decided that they would move there in order that James' business would be more accessible to the population that was more heavily settled along the Delaware River.  The area in which their land lay was in what is now the Northern Liberties:

 The historical boundaries:  Vine Street as the southern border and the Cohocksink Creek serving as the northern border. The creek now flows as a storm sewer under the following streets (starting at the Delaware River and running from southeast to northwest): Canal, Laurel, Bodine, Cambridge, and Orkney Streets.

The below is the map that Lynn sent to me that helped me locate the bank lot.  Lynn says that the maps came from:  The Philadelphia Map by Holmes was published in 1687. The northern Bank lot area came from the PA State Archive online.

James and Rose sold their Center Square lot in 
James died in 1694.

Rose sold the Delaware River bank lot in 1709.  Rose died in 1720.  It is not likely that she moved outside of the city limits as her burial is recorded in the Philadelphia Meeting records.  She is listed among the non-Quakers whose burial is recorded by.....

The one more piece of information that I want to add into this post deals with:

PHILADELPHIA EXEMPLIFICATION BOOK 7,

pp 581-582, in archives of the Historical Society of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

JAMES MOORE’S LOT ON THE WEST SIDE OF SECOND STREET IN PHILADELPHIA, PURCHASED 12 OCTOBER 1691 AND CONVEYED BY DEED FROM JOHN MOORE, HIS SON & HEIR, TO NICHOLAS PEARCE ON 2 JANUARY 1694, for use of the Quakers to build a meeting house (James Moore having prior to his death agreed to the sale to Pearce and Pearce having paid him the seven pounds price for it, the same being acknowledged in the following deed by John Moore, son of James, in order to convey title from Moore to Pearce and the Society of Friends.) [this information sent to me by Joseph Moore}

Moore land in Philadelphia

I am a bit confused on where the land on which James and Rose Moore lived in Philadelphia.  So I am trying to sort out what I can sort out.  The Philadelphia Business Directory of 1690 (WOW!  Could there really be such a thing?)  says that there are five smiths in Philadelphia:

Lyonel Brittain a blacksmith from Alney, Buckinghamshire

Thomas Peart a whitesmithwho brought a certificate of removal from Thusk Meeting in Yorkshire

Joshua Morris a tynn-plate-worker or tinsmith who arrived on the Welcome with William Penn in the fall of 1862

James Moore, blacksmith, by warrant dated 17 4m 1684, had a lot surveyed to him at Center apparently at the southeast corner of High Street and Schuylkill Eighth.  Here he built a house and presumably lived here while employed at the Proprietor's mill, and while making the windows for the Center Meeting House.  In December, 1693, he sold it to Richard Worthin, but was not taxed that year.  (the footnote says:  Pennsylvania Archives, 3rd Series, II 752, ibid, 2nd series XIX, 328, which recites Moore's said of the house and lot to Richard Worthin in  1693 , ibid, 89, 92, PGSP, II, 169, See also PGM, XX, 62 for further notes on James Moore.

Jeremiah Elfreth, blacksmith, in 1686 bought from John Wheeler the latter's lot "before Henry Flower's House."  When he came to build on this bank lot in 1690, he bought from Richard Russel the right to build into Russell's north "gavell" wall.  He was not taxed in 1693.  There was a footnote about this entry.  This is almost certainly the Jeremiah Elfreth of Elfreth's Alley fame.

All of this is taken from the book Colonial Philadelphians by Hannah Benner Roach that I bought from the Philadelphia Genealogical Society on Tuesday.  The information about the smiths was found on page 47.

OK, I just reread page 31 of the article in Ms Roach's article about the 1690 Business Directory.  It explains that John Goodson wrote a letter to friends in England in which he listed some thirty-five different grades and businesses that were flourishing in Philadelphia in 1690.  He did NOT list names.    The author has examined many sources that she names on pg 31 in identifying these individuals.  Ms. Roach has footnotes to explain her identifications of the various tradesmen.

On December 8, 1853, Councils gave them new names. Schuylkill Eighth became Fifteenth Street. Schuylkill Seventeenth Street. Schuylkill Fifth became Eighteenth Street. Schuylkill Fourth became Nineteenth Street. Schuylkill Third became Twentieth Street. Schuylkill Second, and Ashton Street to Twenty-third Street.
http://www.ushistory.org/philadelphia/formerstreets.htm

Market Street (Philadelphia) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Street_(Philadelphia)

Wikipedia

Market Street, originally known as High Street, is a major east–west street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

The City was laid out by William Penn, the founder of the province in 1683, and settled by a colony from England, which arrived in that and the preceding years, and was increased by a constant and regular influx of foreigners, to so great a degree, that in just less than a century, and within the lifetime of the first person born within it of European parents, it was computed to contain 6,000 houses and 40,000 inhabitants.
The ground plot of the city is an oblong square, and is intersected by a number of streets at right angles with each other, nine of which run East and West from Delaware to Schuylkill, and twenty three North and South, crossing the first at right angles, forming one hundred and eighty-four squares of lots for buildings.
The streets running East and West are named (except High Street near the middle of the City) from the trees found in the country upon arrival of the colony: Vine, Sassafras, Mulberry, High, Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, Pine, and Cedar Streets, and those running North and South from their numeral order, Front, Second, Third, Fourth, etc. to Broad Street, which is midway between the two rivers.
http://www.fmoran.com/kuhn2.html

Thus  James Moore's land in 1690 would have been on the corner of what would now be Market and Fifteenth Street.  Literally right where Dilworth plaza is today.  I have proven for myself what my buddies told me!  So if James and Rose lived on the property from the time that he had it surveyed until the time that he sold it they were on that property for almost ten years.

So the next question is how does the land up in the Northern Liberties fit into the story of James and Rose?  Certainly this must be the bank lot?

OK...I found it.  Rose is selling this lot in 1709:

...... to wit in the first month 1689/90 surveyed & laid out to the above named James Moore The Right & property of which sd Lot as Surveyed appertaineth unto me the sd Rose Moore.....  James had sold the Center of town lot in December 1693 according to Ms. Roach.  James seemed to have died the following year.  And his widow, Rose, then sold the bank lot 3 May, 1709.  In the land transaction in which Rose is selling the land it is said that she sells the premises and appurtenances. I believe that this implies that it was not vacant land.  Perhaps she and James had moved to the bank lot on the Delaware River from the Center of the City lot for whatever reason.    

Philadelphia Historical Tour with Trevor and Historical and Genealogical Library research

This is the first day that I have been here that both the Genealogy Library and the Historical Library are open.  The Historical Library doesn't open until 12:30, so I am spending the morning at the Genealogy library.  Everyone says that the historical library is a treat in itself:

https://www.hsp.org

However, as the day unfolded, I found that  I had lots more fun at the Pennsylvania Genealogical Library!  It is a bit hard to find as it is upstairs in a nondescript building that appears to be a lawyer's office or some such thing.  But the ladies in the library are a treat!  Joyce Homan, the Executive Director knocked herself out to pull out and print out everything that she could think of that would be helpful.  I also took away the brochure about joining the first families group that the Genealogy Society supports.  I browsed through the books that they have for sale and purchased the following:

Philadelphia Maps, 1682-1982: Townships-Districts-Wards (Special Publication No 6 of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania)
Colonias Philadelphians by Hannah Benner Roach
I mailed the other publications home and will add them once I get home.

Later at the Historical Society library I made the following notes;

 I am looking at a volume that is a facsimile of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting records.  It is the volume that contains Burials 1687-1826 Part I.  On page 413 there is a record of a burial of such as are not friends for the year 1694.  on 8th month, 2nd day Rebecka More daughter of Nicholas and Mary More was buried and on the 9th month  and 6th day Sam'l More son of Nicholas and Mary More was buried.  On the next page in the 9th month on the 25th day Katherine More daughter of Anthony and Jane More was buried.  ad on the 11th month 10th day Henry More was buried.  There is no mention in 1684 of burial of James More.  On page 416 there is a record of burial of Dorothy More, widow of Henry More (dec) buried in 1696.  all of these burials are for non-Friends.  In 1720 another Rebecka More but this time daughter of Anthony and Mary Moor buried as a non-friend.  This is not an oversight on my part.  It says that Rebecka is daughter of Anthony and Mary Moor....not Jane Moor.

Rose is not mentioned in this list in 1720.

Next I had  arranged for a tour that will include Elfreth's Alley and the land on which I now believe James and Rose actually lived and James conducted business as a blacksmith.  This is my last night and I decided that I wanted to see Front street and the area in which James and Rose ACTUALLY lived.  I believe now that the land here near City Hall may have been an investment.  

Trevor picked me up at the Historical Society building at 5:30.  He was a great guide as his interest is history and he has lots of knowledge about the sites and about how the sites came to be.   Of course, that is of great interest to me.  I suggested that their website should include the information that they could work with their clients to do genealogy tours.  Trevor explained that this was not the first time that he had worked with a client to find a genealogy site that was of interest.  I only wish that I had taken the tour with Trevor early in my visit as he explained several pieces of information that would have been good to know as I looked at some of the documents.

Our first stop was Elfreth's Alley.  It is the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhood in the country.

Elfreth’s Alley was home to the 18th-century artisans and trades-people who were the backbone of colonial Philadelphia. While a modern city has sprung up around it, the alley preserves three centuries of evolution through its old-fashioned flower boxes, shutters, Flemish bond brickwork and other architectural details. Two adjacent houses, built in 1755, are now a museum and are open to the public.

Trevor explained that two men (one of whom had last name Elfreth) subdivided their residence into extra housing between the two homes.  So the alley/street would have been on the boundary of their lots.

I am adding this in 2018:  Jeremiah Elfreth died in 1720.  I am not certain without looking that the man responsible for this alley was Jeremiah...but I don't want to loose this thought.  Jeremiah Elfreth is said to be a blacksmith in the Philadelphia Business Directory of 1690.  Very possible that James Moore and Jeremiah Elfreth were at least acquaintances.

Our next stop was to the area in which my James Moore owned land before 1700.  Trevor explained that that the area was called Northern Liberties.  It was outside of the official area of Philadelphia in the time period that James lived.  Vine Street would have been the northern boundary of Philadelphia.

I will add a map here when I update this site

I had done a bit of homework that I showed Trevor.  He drove me to Front Street.  We believe that we found the spot where James and Rose's property would have been.  From the map that Lynn sent me, it looked as if the lot was just where Marg (aret?) Street came into Front Street.  But the problem that I had was that I couldn't find Marg (are?) Street on a modern map.  Trevor helped me find the spot where an old street came into Front Street.....the old trolley tracks are a sure clue to the fact that it had been a street before the Interstate came through.  The area that was there was not pretty enough to photograph.  There is a storage facility in the area on which we agreed most likely for actual lot of James and Rose.  But Trevor and I were standing on the spot on the street that would have fronted their residence/land.

Front street in the area is not much different than it would have been many years ago except for the buildings and cars and etc that are built along it.  It almost looks like an alley.

In this area, the homes would have been right along Front Street.  But Penn, who was very much a proponent of everyone being equal, required that the land owners maintain steps that were public for anyone to have access to the river.  The steps would take one down from Front Street to Water Street and the actual wharves and the river itself.

The below are the original steps leading from Front Street down to Water Street and the wharves and River below.

These stairs would have been in place during James and Rose's time in Philadelphia.  However, they may not have been the stairs closest to their home.  The next photo is a photo of Front Street at the same stop as the stairs:

I am adding this in 2018:  When I took my kids and grandkids to Philly this past winter, we found this area by taking 

I would never have found any of this without Trevor!  The rest of the evening was his choice as I had seen what I most wanted to see.  Trevor made the city come alive for me!  One other thing that I want to mention is that one one the particularly interesting sites was a market site in the west of the city.  Trevor explained in early days there would have been a market similar to it on Market Street and also one up north in North Liberties on North Market Street which is the street that would have ended on the river at the land of James and Rose.  I'll try to find a photo of the market to add here when I have more time.

City Hall and James Moore's WIll

Ok, today is the big day.  I have an appointment at City Hall to view the Will of James Moore!  And if possible to get a photo of the wax seal that he used on the document.  I am to go to Room 185.  I am taking nothing with me except my phone.  And perhaps a piece of paper and a pencil in case I decide that I want to transcribe it.  However, our research group already has a typed transcription of the will.

The trip was not disappointing, but I do not feel that we know much more about John Moore from my having looked at his original will and wax seal than we knew yesterday.  It was certainly fun to just look at the actual will.  The handwriting was very nice and it was actually quite easy to read.  All of the witnesses signed the will themselves except for Sarah Cureton who signed with her mark which looked like the letter c.  However, who knows what might come of my jaunt to city hall.  The office was very relaxed and the will was in the drawer for me to view.  If someone is hoping to look at the will for oneself, you should call 215-686-6269 several days ahead of time so that the staff can have the will readily available for viewing.  It is kept off-site in some sort of storage area.  The lady with whom I had talked ahead of time made a copy of the will for me.  I took a few photos of the seal before I was told that there were no photographs allowed.  The photos are disappointing.  But I will put them below:

The other two are even blurrier.  I think that the next time one of us tries to photograph the seal, we need some sort of specialized lens....or perhaps some practice with our iPhone to take very close up photos.

I then went a block or so away and bought all sorts of magnification ....Hoping to try to take a photo of the seal when it was magnified.  However, none of the magnification yielded results that I felt were worth making someone angry in the office trying to take a photo after I had been told not to.

So I spent the rest of the time with the 6x magnification examining the seal for myself.  And I came right back to the room to write down my gut feelings....thoughts....best guesses... the things that came to me while I was looking at the seal first hand.

The seal in the above photo is somewhat magnified.  The actual seal is about the size of a dime.  It looks to me that the method used was to put a blob of wax on the paper and then to press one's seal into the wax.  There is some black that you can see around the edges.  I don't know if that is ink or if the wax has been contaminated with something.    The actual seal is about the size of a dime.  The copy from the copy made by the clerk below is a truer rendition to the size:

What did I think that I saw after studying with 6x magnification?  I did not see a clover as someone else seems to have seen.  I thought that I saw a H or an E on the far left hand side around the rim...about where the pen stroke at the end of Moore points on the seal.  I felt as if there had been other letters in the same area, but I could not make out other letters even with my vivid imagination.  the light triangles are not a part of the design.  They are spots where the wax has disappeared and one sees paper underneath.  Now my next comment is just kind of off the wall.  But my imagination caused me to "see" an arm coming from the right hand side and holding a torch. The torch was held high towards the center of the top of the seal.....then on the other side I saw another arm also holding something high in the air towards the center of the top of the seal.  Could have been another torch....but what came into my mind was that it was a bare arm with a sleeve and that it could have represented the fact that John was a blacksmith.  I'll go on line to kind of show what I imagined.....Now honestly there was very little there....I am just telling you what jumped into my mind.

So on the right hand side I imagined a torch held somewhat like that below only higher:

  And the left hand side I envisioned an arm somewhat like the one below:

or like the below only arm higher so that both arms from both sides pointed up at something in the middle of the top of the seal.

I can only say that I didn't really see these things exactly....but I felt as if perhaps I saw at least one of the arms....and not necessarily did I see both arms at the same time...but that is what jumped into my head as I examined the seal.  So imagine arms coming from both sides and raised in the air.

I think that I am headed out this afternoon.  When I was looking for the magnifying glasses, I saw a Quaker center that I will explore.

I spent a few minutes googling blacksmith in Philadelphia and found this site that I don't want to loose:

https://books.google.com/books?id=8uYkAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA2251&lpg=PA2251&dq=History+of+Blacksmiths+in+Philadelphia&source=bl&ots=6t5jr23ox9&sig=R6L6nrJKuTn-OnrMA-h0IActrrM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jHXrVKG6I-zbsASy5IKABw&ved=0CFoQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=History%20of%20Blacksmiths%20in%20Philadelphia&f=false

I want to explain a bit better about the letter or letters that I saw.  The E or H was actually the clearest thing on the seal.  I felt as if the letter was part of several letters placed much as the letters in the below example are.....that is encircling the seal:

So the letter that I saw would have been about where the V in Pennsylvania is on this example.  I though perhaps I was seeing another letter or two in the same area...perhaps where the Y and L are.  But I saw no evidence of letters anyplace else on the edges around the outside of the seal.  Best I can do.

This evening I decided to sit at the bar at Bank and Bourbon instead of sitting by myself....So I ended up drinking Old fashions because I was so well entertained by the man sitting beside me who was in town on business.  He works for an advertising company that helps explain to doctors how different drugs work for their patients.  He spent time explaining in a thoroughly entertaining way about the new drugs that are injectable and also the cancer drugs that are immunotherapy (I might have made up that word, but it will trigger for me what I learned).  At the end of the evening he showed me photos of his beautiful family.  It was a very nice ending to another great day.

Arch Street Meeting House

Arch Street Meeting House was the last site on my agenda yesterday and I walked there from the Revolutionary war Sites with snow falling all around and the city beginning to shut down.  It was VERY cold  but very pretty.

My Moore research group believes that Rose Moore (our 9-gr-grandmother) was buried on this land.   Probably James Moore (our 9-gr-grandfather) was buried here as well.  William Penn gave his permission to use this land for burials in 1693.  James Moore died in 1694.  Rose did not die until after 1719 as her son, John Moore, mentions her in his will as his mother.   In Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy Vol II page 446 Roose Moore is mentioned in the section for the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting:

 Roose Moore buried 6-27-1720.  It does not specifically say that the list of these people were buried in the Quaker Graveyard, but it would seem to imply such a thing.  James and Roose lived very close to the burying ground.  

In 1701 William Penn officially donated the land at Arch Street to be used as a burial ground even though it was already in use as such.  The burying ground was in use for 100 years until the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic filled the entire grounds up.  My guide, Jim Pettijo, said that people were dropping bodies over the walls of the burial ground in the middle of the night.  That was the end of the use of this land as a burying ground.  

The land was left unused until 1804 at which time the Quakers built the Arch Street Meeting house to be used as a Yearly Meeting.  Jim also told me that meeting houses did not usually have walls nor fences around them.  It is because it was first a burial ground that this Meeting House does have a wall.  

Lynn sent me a URL for information about burials in the Philly area that he found on the Swarthmore site that I believe supports my gut feeling that both James and Rose are buried at Arch Street Meeting house:  http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/philaburials3.htm

Early Philadelphia History

I am sitting in the Central Library that is located between Old City Hall and the Art museum.  Thought that I would take a few hours to read a bit about the early history of the area.  First book that I am looking at is An Illustrated History of Pennsylvania by Donald E. Markle.  On page 20-21 he says:

"Penn persuaded about six hundred investors to invest in his venture, and in the two years between 1682 and 1684, over fifty ships carrying four thousand immigrants sailed for the new colony of Pennsylvania.  ...."

"In 1692, due to the Glorious Revolution in England that led to the ouster of James II and the establishment of the reign of William III, Penn had his colony taken away from him.  He had been a supporter of James II during the Glorious Revolution and suspected of treason by the followers of William III   The colony was not returned until 1694, when the Crown was restored  to the English throne.  Penn, who had returned to England in 1684 in an attempt to solidify his financial holdings, returned to the colony in 1699, remaining there for a period of two years before once again returning to England"

The question that is raised in my mind here is this:  Are there records of ships that came with Penn in the  years between 1682 and 1684?

The next book that I am looking at is Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West Jersey and Delaware 1630-1707 Edited  by Albert Cook Myers, Charles Scribners Sons NY 1912:

In 1675 Fenwick brought over the initial Quaker colony in the ship Griffin, and planted Salem, the first permanent English Settlement on the east side of the Delaware. (page 180-181)

On page 189: ......trustees soon effected sales of large tracts of land to two Quaker companies in England, one in southern Yorkshire and contiguous territory and the other in London........ The second colony of two hundred persons, bearing this constitution, went over in the ship Kent in 1677, and laid the foundations of the two and settlement of Burlington, more than fifty miles up the Delaware from Salem.  The Yorkshire and London tract were located respectively north and south of the new town.

On page 190:  "Several hundred more immigrants followed those who came on the Kent and gradually extended the bounds of the two original settlements of Salem and Burlington.

Then Mr. Myers presents a treatise written by an unknown person about the settlement in the New World that is meant to entice more settlers to follow.  On page 194 there is the following points:
"16. For transportation of Passengers to West-Jersey, Ships set Sail from London generally  Once in Three Months, sometimes in Two Months:  The Master gives notice Six Weeks (or more) of his going before-hand.
17.  The Price for every Passenger, (that is to say) for men and women, Meat Drink, and Passage, with a chest is Five Pounds Sterling per Head:  Children of Twelve Years of Ag and under, Fifty Shillings per Head; Sucking children, nothing:  For Goods, Forty shillings a ton Freight, to be landed at Burlington, or elsewhere upon the Delaware-River.
18.  Sometimes ships go from Dublin, Sometimes from Hull:  Bur ir any Persons , to the number of Thirty or more in Scotland or Ireland, desiring to be taken in There, the Ship Master will take them in at Leith, Dundee, or Aberdeen on the East, and at Aire on the West of Scotland, and at Dublin or Waterford in Ireland....."

and on the same page (p271) William Penn says:  "We are now laying the foundation [the document written by William Penn is dated 1685]  of a large plain Brick House, for a Meeting House, in the Center (sixty foot long, and about forty foot broad) and hope to have it soon up, many hearts and hands at Work that will do it.  A large Meeting house 50 foot long and 38 foot broad, also going up on the front River, for an evening Meeting the work going on apace.  ..."

the footnote to this statement :

A footnote by Mr. Myers on page 271 says:  "The Friends' Meeting House in the Centre Square of the city, midway between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, where the City Hall now stands, was built of brick, in 1685-1686, and was used for a time for the more important First Day (Sunday) morning and business meetings of the society.  The location being in the midst of the forest some little distance without the town, and its two or three streets along the Delaware, the meeting was not well attended;  the Friends preferred to wait for the afternoon meeting at the Bank Meeting house, hear at hand, within the town proper; consequently, in a few years the Centre Square meeting was abandoned."

Next I am looking at a book called Philadelphia a 300-Year History which seems to be an anthology by many authors.  Editor is Russell F. Weigley.  It is a Barra Foundation Book published by W.W. Norton and Company, New York and London.
on p 11 in an article called The Founding 1681-1701 byMary Maples Dunn and Richard S. Dunn the following is found:

"Population advance through the first two decades can be traced with reasonable accuracy through tax lists and quitrent rolls for the city.  In 1693 there were 356 taxpayers in Philadelphia;  three years later there were 419.  Demographers calculate that one out of four persons were tables in colonial America, which suggests a totally population of about 2000 for the city in 1700.  This approximate figure is confirmed by two early quitrent rolls, which indicate how many building lots were patented within Philadelphia.  In 1689, 377 lots were patented on the Delaware side of the town; by 1703 the number had risen to 516.  The rent rolls show that a great many of these lots were unoccupied.  Taking into account those persons who occupied unpatented lots, and those living on the Schuylkill side of town, it  appears that Philadelphia had about 400 houses at the turn of the century. "

and on page 16:  ".....Consequently Penn's design of a center square as the hub of his community had to be abandoned.  The large Friends Meeting house which was built in 1685 at the midpoint between the rivers was dismantled in 1702.  ..."And a ink engraving probably from the mid 1800s has as its caption:  "The Friends' Bank Meeting House, Front Street north of Arch, built in 1702 with materials from the dismantled meetinghouse in Centre Square.  The author says that the engraving is from Quaker Collection, Haverford College Library.

Philadelphia sight seeing

If you read my last blog post, you know that I had planned on doing the usual sites in the area around the Liberty Bell today.  The Concierge warned me that it was going to start snowing about noon.  I didn't get started as early as I might have because it was COLD and also because I couldn't resist the bourbon donuts and coffee in the restaurant this morning.  So I finished my day in the snow.  But I absolutely did everything that I had hoped to do!  And the Philadelphia sites are truly wonderful.

I will edit this better tomorrow.  But the big surprise is that the Liberty Bell site is all about slavery in our nation in the early days.  And the site absolutely gets your attention!  It begins with a view of an archaeology site that shows the foundation of the house in which George Washington lived while he was president.  We forget that George Washington lived in Philadelphia during his two terms as president.  His home was extremely close to the site of the building being used temporarily as the Federal building in Philly....truly it was only steps away.  The guide in the building said that they knew it was a temporary arrangement....and that the Pennsylvania court system moved out to another location to give the federal government a place to meet.  The site that shows the foundation for George Washington's house points out that he brought slaves from his home in Virginia ....and there is another check point as you move toward the Liberty Bell that shows a video of the escape of Hercules from being the chef for George Washington as a slave .....to being FREE!  There is a segment of the video in which they try to get the daughter of Hercules to say that she is sad that her father left her behind....and instead she says:  "I am glad that he is free".  It is very nice.

I wanted to make sure that I wrote down the comment made by the Park Ranger who stands beside the Liberty Bell when one finally gets up to the site where you view the bell.  I don't know if the comment is this man's take or if it is the standard comment that the park ranger is supposed to say.  But he explains that the crack is not because of amateur recasting nor is it because of inferior materials that the crack is in the middle of the word liberty.  It is because Liberty had not been established for EVERYONE....the crack was from the fact that this nation had not yet established liberty for all.  It is a very nice take on the story.  I learned so MUCH from today's agenda.


One more reminder about the bell.  The bell was NOT cast for a celebration about our nation's liberty.  The Liberty Bell was cast in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of William Penn's Charter of Privileges in 1701.

From the National Park Service site  http://www.nps.gov/inde/historyculture/stories-libertybell.htm

The State House bell, now known as the Liberty Bell, rang in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House. Today, we call that building Independence Hall. Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly Isaac Norris first ordered a bell for the bell tower in 1751 from the Whitechapel Foundry in London. That bell cracked on the first test ring. Local metalworkers John Pass and John Stow melted down that bell and cast a new one right here in Philadelphia. It's this bell that would ring to call lawmakers to their meetings and the townspeople together to hear the reading of the news. It's not until the 1830's that the old State House bell would begin to take on significance as a symbol of liberty.

The website has a podcast that tells about the bell.  Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly Isaac Norris chose the inscription for the State House bell in 1751.  It is thought that it was to commemorate  the 50th anniversary of William Penn's 1701 Charter of Privileges which granted religious liberties and political self-government to the people of Pennsylvania.

Next I viewed Independence Hall.  Wikipedia says:

It is known primarily as the location where both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted.  However, I also looked at it with "Quaker Eyes" as Mark Dixon suggested:

Independence Hall was not -- despite its current packaging -- built as Independence Hall.  It was built as the Pennsylvania statehouse by a Quaker-dominated state assembly.  This is the assembly from which Friends resigned during the French & Indian War rather than participate in war making.

The below photos show the interior of the building.  One of the very most interesting facts is that the chair shownin the second photo on the podium  is the actual chair in which George Washington sat:

I can not wait to tell you about my wonderful visit to Arch Street Meeting.....In the snow....true Serendipity!  The man who is usually there wasn't and Jim was!  Wonderful!  My last stop of the day was the Arch street Meeting House.  It is still being used today by Quaker members who are as dedicated to the beliefs of the Quaker philosophy today as those in past years.  There was a group in worship while I was there which had met as a committee involved in ecological interests and then moved to the worship area.  The dioramas that could be viewed in the large room that had been the original area for worship were wonderful  And Jim spent much time explaining to me the history of the Meeting house and general information about the Quaker religion.  It was a magical visit.  

 Jim pointed out the sounding board in the meeting room above.  It was a new "invention" at the time this room was built.  The sounding board would make the voices easier to hear in the large room.

First night in Philly

Here is the view out the window of my room tonight:

The brightest building in the center of the photo is City Hall. 

The trip was very easy.  I am safe in my room.  I have to admit that I tried the Bourbon Bar and it turned out fun because I sat at the bar beside a couple .... a tennis player who plays a bit of golf with his wife because they both admit that they can't play tennis together and stay married.  They were either honestly interested in genealogy or pretended to be out of just being nice.  I tried comparing a Buffalo Trace bourbon and the Elijah Craig bourbon.  Perhaps the Elijah Craig is a bit smoother, but they were very similar.  I doubt that I could tell the difference if I had been blindfolded.  Anyone have any suggestions on other bourbons I might compare for the next few nights?

When I checked in the bellman was exceptionally helpful telling me the stories of the building that houses my hotel.  He explained that the hotel building was in the 1930's the highest skyscraper in the nation:
Soaring 33 stories into the air, our Loews Philadelphia Hotel is a genuine landmark. In fact, this 1930s structure was the nation’s first skyscraper.
And that the elevators on one side of the lobby were the first automated elevators .....sounding the doom for the elevator operators of the world.


The concierge suggested a plan for me this morning.  I like it and will probably give it a try unless the predicted snow shuts down the historical sites early.   He suggested walking to the liberty bell, independence hall,  National Constitution Center, Arch Street Meeting House and then taking a taxi home from there if I have had enough walking and standing on my feet.  All of them except for the Arch Street MM are quite close together and only 6 or 8 blocks away.  I will put on all my warm clothes.

So here is William Penn on the top of the "steeple" taken from my window in the morning:

I am adding a note much later:  June 2015.  I sat on the patio with Chris Curry and John O'Dell.  We were talking about bourbons and I said that when I got home from this trip, I bought one of the Bourbons that I had tasted.  But I couldn't come up with which one.  I looked when I got home tonight.  It was the Basil Hayden.  It is a very easy to drink Bourbon....some of the reviews call it light.  It has rye mixed into the corn mixture.

Wikipedia says:

Basil Hayden's is the lightest bodied bourbon whiskey in the family of Jim Beam small batch bourbons produced by Beam Suntory. It is 80 proof, in contrast with its three sibling brands of higher alcohol concentration (Knob Creek, Booker's, and Baker's).   Beam Suntory is now owned by a Japanese Company.  The bourbons that are actually produced by Jim Beam descendents are Elijah Craig and Evan William which are bourbons produced by Heaven Hill by Beam master distillers (cousins to Jim Beam).  This distillery is still a family owned business owned by the Shapiro family.