Philadelphia (Repplier)/Chapter 3
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and the delicious succotash. Mighty drinkers they were, too, in their own sober fashion, consuming vast quantities of ale and spirits, and making no serious inroads on the "pure and wholesome" water; although we are gravely assured that particular pumps, one on Walnut Street, and one in Norris Alley, were held in especial favour, as having the best water in the town for the legitimate purpose of boiling greens. The first beer was made from molasses, and we have Penn's assurance that when "well boyled, with Sassafras or Pine infused into it, this is a very tolerable drink,"—which we should never have supposed. Rum punch was also in liberal demand; and, after a few years, the thirsty colonists began to brew real ale, and drank it out of deep pewter mugs, such as still adorn the shelves of English rural inns.
It was a community where good wages were paid to all who toiled honestly with their hands, but where brain workers were not greatly in demand. Farmers and mechanics were made welcome; "but of lawyers and physicians," writes Gabriel Thomas, "I shall say nothing, because the Country is very Peaceable and Healthy. Long may it so continue, and never have occasion for the Tongue of the one, nor the Pen of the other, both equally destructive to men's estates and lives." We know, alas! how Bradford, the printer, fared in a town where there was practically nothing to print, yet which had advanced beyond her sister cities in New York, Maryland, and Virginia, by the mere possession of a press. Bradford came to Philadelphia in 1685, struggled for eight years with almanacs and an occasional pamphlet; and then—Satan finding mischief for his idle hands to do—embroiled himself hopelessly in religious and political dissensions, which made him an exile for the remainder of his life.
The wages paid to women in the colony were disproportionately high, because young girls were sought so eagerly in marriage that female servants were always needed, and always hard to keep. Thomas enthusiastically describes little Philadelphia—then in her seventeenth year—as a sort of terrestrial paradise, and not altogether unlike the happy village of the bucolic drama. "Here are no beggars to be seen," he writes, "nor indeed has anyone the least temptation to take up that scandalous, lazy life. Jealousy among men is very rare, nor are old maids to be met with; for all commonly marry before they are twenty years of age. The Christian children born here are generally well favoured and beautiful to behold. I never knew any with the least blemish." One is irresistibly reminded, as one reads, of Prester John, and the blameless people whom he ruled. "No vice is tolerated in our land, and, with us, no one lies."
It is but fair to record, however, that the praises of the local historian receive earnest confirmation from at least one stranger whom the perils of the sea had flung upon our hospitable shores. In 1710, Richard Castelman, having suffered shipwreck on a voyage from Bermuda, came to Philadelphia, and was so delighted with all he saw that he remained for many months, writing a minute account of his adventures, his "miraculous escape," and of the peaceful haven to which the kindly fates had led him. Castleman's eulogiums are as loving and as lavish as those of Gabriel Thomas. He does not even acknowledge that "inconstancy" of the climate which Penn lamented, but stoutly affirms the sky to be "rarely overcast," and the air "so healthy that there is no occasion for physicians, the people finding cures for their accidental diseases by simples." Even the horses are stronger and less liable to sickness than in England. Game of every kind is plentiful throughout the province, and he particularly admires "a creature called a Possum, that has a false belly into which the young retire in time of danger."
As for the town itself, it is, though not yet thirty years old, "a noble, large, and populous city," having houses "that cost six thousand pounds the building." Here "all religions are tolerated, which is one means to increase the riches of the place"; here "a journeyman taylor has twelve shillings a week, besides his board"; and here "even the meanest single women marry well, and, being above want, are above work." "If the distressed people of England knew the comforts of this colony, and the easy means there is of a livelihood, they would never stay where they are, in a continual scene of poverty and misery."
When the days were warm, Mr. Castelman was wont to seek recreation in walking "with some of the Town" to Faire Mount, "a charming spot, shaded with trees, on the river Schuylkill"; and he can find no words glowing enough in which to describe the beautiful country that stretched for many miles along the river'b bank. Altogether, he is plainly of the opinion that his lines are cast in pleasant places, and it is with keen regret that he meditates a departure from new found, hospitable friends. "The generosity of the Philadelphians is rooted in their natures," he writes warmly, "for it is the greatest crime among them not to show the utmost civility to strangers; and if I were obliged to live out of my native country, I should not long be puzzled in finding a place of retirement, which should be Philadelphia. There the oppressed in fortune
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or principles may find a happy Asylum, and drop quietly to their graves without fear or want."
The "well-favoured" Christian children born in this peaceful community had their young lives saddened by being sent as regularly and pitilessly to school as if merry England had been their home; for the Quaker colonists were equally averse to extremes of ignorance or of erudition. Before Philadelphia was five years of age she had her first institution of learning, a very small and humble one, kept by Enoch Flower, whose modest charges varied with the amount he was expected to impart. For four shillings a quarter, the child was taught to read; for six shillings, to read and write; for eight shillings, to read, write, and cast accounts. Beyond these standard accomplishments, Master Flower wisely declined to lead his little flock. In 1689 the Friends established their grammar school, and placed George Keith, a Scotch Quaker, at its head. His salary was a good one: fifty pounds a year, with dwelling and schoolhouse provided, and twice that sum for two years, if he would consent to teach the children of the poor separately, without charge. There was no royal and smooth paved road to learning in those days. The little scholars took their first reluctant steps along the dismal pathway of the New England Primer.
After weary weeks spent in grappling with this theological alphabet,—during which they freely shared Job's privilege,—the reward of actually learning to read was the cheerless history of John Rogers, burned at the stake for heresy, while the pathetic picture of his wife with "nine small children, and one at the breast," added unutterable gloom to the narrative.
George Keith, waxing fat in the fulness of his salary, proved himself a troublesome colonist. Like a true Scottish "unco gude," he felt the piety of his neighbours to be of an inconsistent and unsatisfactory character; so founded his own little sect of "Christian Quakers," thus relegating his former brethren into the darkness of heathenism, an innuendo which they were not slow to resent. The schoolmaster was accused in Meeting of "enmity, wrath, self-exaltation, contention, and jangling,"—a long indictment,—and also of making the Friends whom he reviled "a scorn to the profane, and the song of the drunkards," the meaning of which words they probably understood. After much animated quarrelling he returned to England, abandoned the Quaker creed, took orders in the Anglican church, and became Penn's most bitter opponent, arousing by every means in his power that sharp animosity which led to the Proprietor's being temporarily deprived of his province. In return, Keith has been roundly abused by Voltaire, who condescended to pelt his insignificance into notice. "The wretch was doubtless possessed of the devil, for he dared to preach intolerance," said the great Frenchman,—himself the most genuinely intolerant of mortals.
After the departure of this Scottish firebrand from Philadelphia, the little grammar school flourished bravely under the care of less pharisaical masters, and the system of education organized by the Friends has been eminently successful for more than two hundred years. Like the Jesuits,—in this regard if in no other,—they have shown exceptional skill in teaching and controlling the young.
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Side by side with the schoolhouse arose the meeting-house, the church, and the prison, amply providing for the needs of all classes of society. For twelve years an ordinary frame dwelling was the only jail the town possessed, and it was oftenest empty. Indeed, the prison at Third and High streets was never finished and placed at the disposal of criminals until 1723; but in the interval they found both public and private accommodation. "A cage seven foot high, seven foot long, and seven foot broad" was constructed for the evil-doer, who dwelt temporarily therein, like a monkey at the Zoo; being taken out with due formality to be "smartly whipped,"—perhaps for selling drink to Indians, perhaps for watering the white man's rum, both of them offences of which the law took especial cognizance. Twenty shillings was the fine imposed for working on the Sabbath day, ten shillings for being drunk on the Sabbath day, and twelve pence for smoking upon the streets on any day of the week. In 1702 George Robinson, a butcher, was fined for "uttering two very bad curses"; and, for presenting a paper which was deemed disrespectful to the Council, Anthony Weston was whipped in the market-place three days, receiving but ten lashes each day, thus suffering as much ignominy and as little pain as could be easily held together. It is well to remember, however, that these public whippings were charged for at the exorbitant rate of six shillings each, and that the offender was compelled to pay for the unwelcome service done him,—a touch of ironical thrift which fully justifies Lamb's admiration for the latent humour of Quakers. Could Anthony Weston have taken his thirty lashes at once, he would have been far easier in his mind, and full twelve shillings richer.
As years went by, the criminal code became more severe, and the death sentence, which Penn had allotted to murderers only, was inflicted upon counterfeiters and highway robbers. Nor were the colonists disposed, like their successors to-day, to wax sentimental over female malefactors. They held women to be as accountable as men before the law, and punished their offences with impartial alacrity. In 1720 John and Martha Hunt were convicted of making counterfeit dollars, and both were promptly hanged, to the unqualified satisfaction of honest and law-abiding citizens.
If real crimes, however, were visited with careful retribution, imaginary ones created but little excitement in a community too sane for fanaticism. The Quaker colonist, indeed, devoutly believed in the possibility of witchcraft; he enacted laws against witches; but he hanged no witch. The opportunity was given him at the very outset of his career, and he passed it lightly by. In 1683 two Swedish women, Margaret Mattson and Yeshro Hendrickson, were accused of sorcery, Penn presiding as governor at the trial. The prisoners were ready, after the painful fashion of such culprits, to admit their guilt; but the unmoved Friends declined to credit them with supernatural powers. The verdict was alike in both cases; vaguely worded, but satisfactory, and a miracle of sturdy common sense. "Guilty of having the common fame of a witch, but not guilty in the manner and form as she stands indicted."
This was a heavy blow to would-be warlocks, who found it difficult to thrive in an atmosphere of calm depreciation. They made frantic efforts from time to time, but with no dramatic success. In vain a negro arrogantly announced that he had sold himself to Satan. The colonists prayed over him, and strove with reasonable perseverance to banish the evil spirit; but they declined to grant him the public honour of a hanging. In vain a white man affirmed that he was to be carried, body and soul, to hell, at six p.m. An idle crowd, foredoomed to disappointment, assembled to witness his departure; but the authorities took no notice of the circumstance, and showed a most mortifying indifference as to whether he went or stayed. Even the phantom coach, which the superstitious averred was driven by a demon at midnight through the silent Quaker streets, awoke but languid curiosity; and little wonder, when we consider how mild was the guilt of its ghostly occupant. "He was deemed," says the old narrative, "to have died with unkind feelings towards one dependent on him." If the town could boast no villain and no villany more picturesquely lurid than this, it had scant right to supernatural honours, to a cavalcade of spectres and evil spirits like the dark procession which bore with dreadful pomp and rejoicing the soul of the terrible, brave old Laird of Lag down to its final doom. The legends which cling so naturally and sympathetically to the blood-stained soil of Scotland seem trivial and pitifully incongruous in the daylight atmosphere of our peaceful and prosperous colony.
The history of Philadelphia's churches is much longer and more disturbing than the history of her crimes and prisons. It is a record of quarrelsome Christian piety, which lacked on the one side the power, and on the other side the desire, to be keenly and consistently intolerant. The Quaker settlers had, indeed, hoped to establish a community where absolute freedom of conscience should silence the voice of discord. This was the "Holy Experiment" on which their hearts were set, and in pursuance of this amiable design they forbore, as far as possible, to meddle with any man's religion. Emigrants of every persecuted creed flocked hopefully to the new Arcadia. The Mennonites settled in Germantown, and Pastorius the schoolmaster, with wise eloquence and gentle ways, held them aloof from worldlings. The Dunkards joined them after a few years, and the pretty straggling village with its substantial homes, its roomy gardens, its one long street, bordered by blossoming peach trees, possessed from the very beginning a charm which it has never wholly lost. The Moravians who founded Bethlehem made it the garden spot of Pennsylvania, and kept the best inns—a proud distinction—in the province. Even the devout and mystic hermits, known as the "Society of the Woman of the Wilderness," came gladly over from Germany—which did not at all want them—and settled in the beautiful glades of the Wissahickon, where they awaited the coming of the Millennium, and, in the interval, dabbled unmolested in astrology, fortune-telling, and the mildest of mild magic. The Welsh wisely chose the Schuylkill's lovely banks, and built the little church of St. David, at Radnor, two hundred years ago.
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There can be little doubt that for many years before the building of St. Joseph's Church in Willing's Alley, 1733,—a church as carefully hidden away as a martyr's tomb in the Catacombs—the Roman Catholics worshipped in small chapels which lay often beyond the town limits, and had the outward appearance of shops and dwelling-houses. The open apprehension with which they were regarded by all except the Quakers was destined later to assume odious and terrible proportions; and among those who helped to fan the flame of mad intolerance was the eloquent and hostile Whitefield, who preached out of doors to vast and eager crowds,—fifteen hundred people assembling at a time to hear him. He it was who succeeded in closing for a while ball-room and concert hall, and who deprived the good people of Philadelphia, not only of all amusements, but of all weak desire to be amused. And he it was who broadened and deepened the breach between Protestantism and Catholicity in the peaceful Quaker town. "He strikes much at priestcraft, and speaks very satirically of Papists," writes Mr. James Pemberton in 1739; adding, with the exquisite serenity of the Friend and non-combatant: "His intentions are good, but he has not yet arrived at such perfection as to see so far as he yet may."
An eloquent proof of the ill-will aroused in England by the repeated protests of the Christ Church party against the tolerance of the proprietary government may be found in a letter printed in the "London Magazine," 1737, which charges the growth of Romanism in the province to the weakness and indifference of the Quakers, and which vehemently demands reform. The letter is brimful of religious wrath, and gives us a very accurate idea of how gossip travelled in those tardy days.
"As I join with you about the Quakers," writes this devout correspondent, "I shall give you a small specimen of a notable step taken towards the Propagation of Popery abroad; and as I have it from a gentleman who has lived for many years in Pennsylvania, I confide in the truth of it; let the Quakers deny it if they can. In the Town of Philadelphia, in that Colony, is a Publick Popish Chapel, where that Religion has free and open exercise; and in it all the superstitious Rites of that Church are as avowedly performed as those of the Church of England are in the Royal Chapel at St. James. And this Chapel is open, not only upon Fasts and Festivals, but it is so all day, and every day in the week, and exceedingly frequented at all Hours, either for publick or private devotion. . . . That these are Truths, (whatever use you are pleased to make of them) you may at any time be satisfied by any Trader or Gentleman who has been there within a few years, (except he be a Quaker) at the Carolina and Pennsylvania Coffee-House, near the Royal Exchange."
Little did it profit the Friends to be so peacefully inclined towards every Christian creed, when their neighbors repudiated with scorn this policy of concession. The Rev. Colin Campbell, secretary of the "London Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," complains bitterly in one of his reports that Quakerism in Pennsylvania is but a "nursery of Jesuits"; and the Rev. John Talbot, who held for years the same pious post, accuses Penn openly of being "a greater Antichrist than Julian the Apostate, inasmuch as instead of striving to convert the Indians to the faith, he labours to make Christians heathens, and proclaims liberty and privileges to all that believe in one God."
Among the hosts of emigrants who flocked from the Old World to try their fortunes in the New, the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians had least patience with the gentle tolerance of the Quakers whom they regarded with unconcealed aversion and contempt. Men of brawn and muscle were these Scotch-Irish colonists, strong of purpose, steadfast in action, brave, thrifty, and intelligent; but, on the other hand, quarrelsome, arrogant, and exceedingly hostile to the Indians, whom they promptly antagonized by rough treatment, and to whom they showed scant equity, and scantier compassion. It became, in time, a difficult matter to keep the peace with savages, perpetually angered by encroachments and high-handed injustice.
The two most interesting places of worship now standing in Philadelphia are Christ Church and Gloria
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Dei,—the first because of the important part it has played in the history of the colony, and the second because of its old age and curious associations. Five years before Penn sent his first ships over the sea, the pious Swedes had established a congregation, and met for service in a rude blockhouse, built of logs, and
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"The Antique Font"
pierced with narrow loopholes, through which attacking Indians might be spied and shot. On the site of this primitive chapel they built in 1700 a brick church, costing twenty thousand Swedish dollars, which, at the time, was deemed "a great edifice, and finest in the town." Poor and few as were these simple worshippers, they gave fifteen thousand dollars before the first stone was laid in place; and, with that laudable shrinking from debt which has ceased to harass the modern church builder, they left the belfry unfinished, "in order to see whether God will bless us so far that we may have a bell, and in what manner we can procure it." The antique marble font of Gloria Dei was once the sole adornment of the blockhouse chapel, and in the graveyard which surrounds its venerable walls are huddled close together mouldy and crumbling tombstones, from many of which the wind and weather have worn away all records of the forgotten dead. We read on one the name of a little child who died in 1708, nearly two centuries ago, when Anne ruled over England, and Marlborough carried the might of English arms past the Flemish frontier into France.
A keener and more combative interest attaches itself to Christ Church, which was for many years the sole rallying point of the Anglican party, a church militant in a peaceful community, and a standing peril to the dominant Quaker power. Its congregation, small in numbers, was strong in intelligence, in sustained hostility, and in the support of the English government. It was natural that such men should find much to anger them in the new province. They had expected the Quakers to claim complete tolerance for their own worship, and they were prepared to concede as much with a good grace; but they had never anticipated this strange, serene, perverse colony, where all creeds were on an absurdly equal footing, and where the time-honoured privilege of snubbing dissenters and persecuting Papists was rigorously denied them. English clergymen, keenly alive to their distinction in representing the great National Establishment, were little disposed to receive poor Francis Pastorius, or Count Zinzendorf, the Moravian bishop, or even the Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, pastor of the German Lutherans, as brothers in Christ. From the very beginning they and their parishioners held themselves stanchly aloof, a small, compact, able, antagonistic body of men; and, as a first step towards concentration and influence, they built a church which, for the time and place, must always be regarded as a marvel of extravagance and beauty.
Now church building was no easy task in colonial days, when fortunes were few, and men were reluctant to part with hard-earned gains. The present edifice, old though it be,—as we count age in the New World,—replaced a still more ancient structure which for thirty-five years harboured the little congregation. Perhaps the second church would never have seen completion, had it not been for the ever popular device of lottery tickets, by help of which our unscrupulous ancestors reared most of their important public buildings. Two lotteries were projected by the vestry of Christ Church, the tickets for each selling at four dollars apiece. One of them, known as the "Philadelphia Steeple Lottery," was drawn as late as March, 1753, and paid for the steeple, nearly twenty years after the body of the church was built. Within its walls generations of Philadelphians knelt to pray; and from its vestry and congregation issued those endless petitions to the Privy Council which kept the colony in a state of perpetual agitation and alarm. Four times in seventy years the crown was urged to compel the Quaker Assembly to place the province in a state of defence
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against pirates and Indians,—a reasonable request; and four times in seventy years it was urged to force upon the Quaker magistrates such oaths of office as were customary and obligatory in England,—an utterly unreasonable request, having for its aim and object nothing less than the exclusion of Friends from the Assembly, and from all positions of trust in a colony which owed to them its existence, its prosperity and peace. The Anglicans in the heat of their resentment did not hesitate to petition the King to dispossess the Proprietor, to dissolve the existing government, and to rule Pennsylvania as a royal province. In fact, they were as willing at one time to relinquish their charter, and with it their colonial rights, as they were determined a few years later to protect and cherish both. The ardent churchman felt no sacrifice too great for the coveted privilege of correcting his neighbour's misdemeanours.
An occasional success crowned these untiring efforts. After the accession of William and Mary, and the passing of what, by an exquisite stroke of irony, was called the Toleration Act, the vestry of Christ Church petitioned the Privy Council, through Colonel Quarry, to impose the "Test" upon all who wished to hold office, or worship publicly in Pennsylvania. The Council yielded to this demand, and a congregation of five hundred souls succeeded for a time in saddling the whole province with one of those petty exactions, harmless enough in itself,—as the only class it really injured were the Roman Catholics, and they were too few for consideration,—but opposed to the broad-minded, tolerant spirit of the colony, and sufficiently annoying to keep a peace-loving population in a state of ill-humour and disquiet.
It must be frankly admitted, however, that this combative little church held within itself a large proportion of Philadelphia's ability, energy, and learning. As time went on, both the proprietors and governors of Pennsylvania added the weight of their influence to the Anglican party, in a ceaseless conflict with the Quaker Assembly, which held its own for nearly a hundred years by the simple and time-honoured device, dear to the Anglo-Saxon heart, of granting or withholding supplies. Nothing could wrench from it the power of the purse, and nothing could long survive the closing of the purse-strings. Even the governors who came over from England with sovereignty in their hearts, and sealed letters of instruction in their pockets, found it more or less difficult to maintain the dignity of their position when the Assembly paid them no salaries; and, after a year or two of high-handed autocracy, they were glad to temporize with the imperturbable Friends for the sake of a necessary income.
No such humiliation as this befell the Christ Church rectors. Their stout-hearted congregations supported them liberally, and found money to spare for intellectual, as well as for spiritual and political requisitions. When Franklin conceived his plan for organizing the "College and Academy of Philadelphia," he found the assistance he needed in the Anglican party; four-fifths of the college trustees were church members; and the Rev. William Smith—one of the most able, irascible, and contentious men in the community, with whom Franklin was destined to have many a quarrel—was elected the first head-master. When the hostile French and Indians threatened the safety of the province, it was Christ Church again which maintained the duty of a defensive—which rapidly became an offensive—warfare; and Dr. Smith preached from its pulpit eight rousing military sermons, well calculated to increase the general discontent at the moderate measures of the Assembly. As usual, too, the Christ Church vestry, aided and abetted by the vestry of St. Peter's, which by this time had taken up its share of the dispute, petitioned the crown to exclude all non-resident Quakers from the legislative body,—a petition which was wisely ignored.
Finally, when the coming Revolution cast its significant shadow on the colony, the Anglicans, while always hoping for peace, remonstrated clearly against the injustice of the Stamp Act, and the impolicy of concessions to England. If they paused on the brink of open rebellion, it was through conservatism and not cowardice. Three of the signers of the Declaration of Independence,—Franklin, Robert Morris, and Hopkinson,—were Christ Church pew-holders; and it was immediately determined to drop from the service the long familiar prayer for the King and the Royal Family. With the departure of that prayer, the political importance of the church ceased forever. Severed from the great English Establishment, it stood politically on a par with every sectarian chapel in the land. The old order had passed away, and the new order concerned itself but little with doctrines and dogmas. No more Tests! No more petitions to the Privy Council! Only an intellectual supremacy remained, and that was soon to be disputed by rival creeds. The clergy, the vestry, the congregation of Christ Church recognized clearly what the Revolution was to cost them. They did not long hesitate to sacrifice their own interests to the wider, greater, nobler needs of a country which demanded to be free.
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- ↑ "Old St. David's." Longfellow.