Travels in Philadelphia/The Indian Pole
THE INDIAN POLE
Every street has a soul of its own. Somewhere in its course it will betray its secret ideals and preferences. I like to imagine that the soul of Callowhill street has something to do with beer. Like a battered citizen who has fallen upon doleful days, Callowhill street solaces itself with the amber.
Between Tenth and Fourth streets Callowhill numbers at least a dozen pubs, not to enumerate a score of "cider saloons." A soft breath of hops seems to haunt the air, and the trucks unloading kegs into cellars give promise of quenchers to come. Generally one may meet along those pavements certain rusty brothers who have obviously submitted themselves to the tramplings of the brewer's great horses, as Homer Rodeheaver's anthem puts it.
Callowhill street, like so much of Philadelphia's old and gentle beauty, is in a downward pang, at any rate so far as the picturesque is concerned. It is curious to see those comely old dwellings, with their fluted dormer windows, their marble facings and dusty fanlights, standing in faded dignity and wistfulness among factories, breweries and railroad spurs. Down their narrow side alleys one may catch a glimpse of greenery (generally the ailanthus, that slummish tree that haunts city back yards and seems to have such an affinity for red brick) . If one has a taste for poking and exploring, he will find many a little court or cul-de-sac where hardly a stone or a window has changed for a hundred years. One does not need to travel abroad to find red walls with all the mellow stain that one associates with Tudor manors. There is an old wagon yard on the north side of Callowhill, near Fifth, where an artist might trance himself with the plain lines of old houses, the clear sunlight falling athwart the flattened archway and the decrepit vehicles with their weary wheels.
It is a perpetual delight to wander in such byways, speculating on the beauty of those rows of houses in days gone by. What a poetry there is in the names of our streets—Nectarine, Buttonwood, Appletree, Darien, Orianna! Even the pawnbrokers are romantics. There is a three-ball establishment on Ninth street where the uncle keeps a great rookery of pigeons in his back yard. They coo seductively to embarrassed wanderers. I can hardly keep my watch in my pocket when I hear their soft suggestions. What a city of sober dignity and clean comfort Philadelphia must have been in the forties—say when Mr. and Mrs. James Russell Lowell came to the northeast corner of Fourth and Arch on their honeymoon, in 1845. "My cheeks are grown so preposterously red," wrote Lowell, "that I look as if I had rubbed them against all the brick walls in the city."
As I turned off Callowhill street, at the oblique junction of York avenue, leaving behind the castellated turrets of a huge brewery, I came upon an interesting sight. Where Wood street cuts York avenue and Fourth street there stands a tall white flagpole, surmounted by an enormous weather-vane representing an Indian with bow and quiver, holding one arm outstretched. At its foot stands an iron drinking fountain of the S. P. C. A., dated 1868, and on the other side another water basin (now dry) with a white marble slab behind it. I thought that this might offer some inscription, but it is pasted over with a dodger commending "The coolest theatre in town." The Indian figure engaged my curiosity and I made for a nearby tobacconist to inquire. (I always find tobacconists genial people to supply information.) He referred me to Mr. William Renner, the maker of flags and awnings round the corner at 403 Vine street, and from Mr. Renner I learned many things of interest.
Startling pleasures accrue to the wanderer who starts upon his rambles in total ignorance of what he is going to find. Let me frankly confess that I know nothing of the history and topography of Philadelphia; I am learning it as I go. Therefore when I discover things they give me the vivid delight of a totally fresh experience. The Indian Pole, as it is called, may be an old story to many citizens; to me it was entirely new.
Mr. Renner, who has taken the landmark under his personal protection, tells me that the weather-vane was erected many years ago to commemorate the last Indian "powwow" held in Philadelphia, and also that it is supposed to have been a starting place for the New York stage coaches. However that may be, at any rate the original pole was replaced or repaired in 1835, and at that time a sheet of lead (now kept by the Historical Society) was placed at the top of the pole bearing the names of those who had been instrumental in the restoration. The work was done at the expense of the "United States" Fire Engine Company, that being the day of the old volunteer fire departments.
Apparently the Indian Pole became a kind of rallying point for rival fire engine companies, and there was much jealous competition, when steam fire apparatus was introduced, to see which company could first project a stream of water over the top of the staff. This rivalry was often accompanied by serious brawls, for Mr. Renner tells me that when the Indian figure was repaired recently it was found to be riddled with bullet holes. This neighborhood has been the scene of some dangerous fighting, for St. Augustine's Church, which was destroyed in the riots of 1844, stands only a few yards away down Fourth street.
In 1894 the pole again became dangerous, not as a brawling point, but on account of age. It was removed by the city, but at the instance of Mr. Howard B. French, of Samuel H. French & Company, the paint manufacturers on Callowhill street, the Indian figure and the ball on which it revolved were kept and a new pole was erected by Mr. French and four other merchants of the neighborhood, T. Morris Perot, Edward H. Ogden, John C. Croxton and William Renner (the father of the present Mr. Renner). That pole, which is still standing, is eighty-five feet from ground to truck. The Indian figure is nine and one-half feet high; it stretches nine feet from the rear end of the bow to the outstretched hand. The copper ball beneath it is sixteen inches in diameter. Mr. Renner says the figure is of wood, several inches thick, and sheathed in iron. He thinks that the hand alone would weigh 150 pounds. He thinks it quite remarkable that though many church steeples in the neighborhood have been struck by lightning the Indian has been unscathed. On holidays Mr. Renner runs up a large flag on the pole, twenty-one by thirty-six feet.
When I remarked that this was a pretty big flag I touched Mr. Renner in a tender spot. Probably there is no man who knows more about big flags than he, for he told me that in 1911 he had made in his workroom on Vine street a Stars and Stripes which is supposed to be the largest flag ever made. It measured 75 by 150 feet. It was flown in Chestnut Hill Park that summer and the next year was hung in a park in Bridgeport, Conn. It was hung on a wire cable between two masts, each 125 feet high and 780 feet apart. Mr. Renner was to have taken it to Panama to be exhibited there when the canal was opened, but unfortunately it was damaged in a fire in Bridgeport. What has become of it since he does not know. The flag was made of standard wool bunting and weighed half a ton. It was sold for $2500.
We are not thought to be very sentimental about our flag, but Mr. Renner tells me that a few years ago, when he was hoisting a very large flag at Chestnut Hill Park, he had an amusing experience which sounds more Parisian than Philadelphian. He had been sitting in a "bosun's chair" at the top of the staff while the flag was pulled up and his face was black with soot from the smoke of the nearby scenic railway. Descending from the pole he was leaning against a pavilion looking up at the flag, when an old lady who had been watching rushed up, threw her arms round his neck and embraced him. Mr. Renner still blushes modestly when he recalls the ordeal.
It is a pleasant thing for any community to have some relic or trophy of its own that fosters local pride. Those who live in the neighborhood of Fourth and Callowhill streets are proud of the Indian Pole, which the city once consigned to the dump heap, but which they rescued and have cherished as an interesting landmark. And there are other matters thereabout to invite imagination: The bright blue laboratory of a certain dandruff nostrum; inns named "The Tiger" and "The Sorrel Horse," and a very curious flatiron-shaped house that stands just behind the flagstaff.
I thought the Indian Pole was quite an adventure for one morning, but at Fifth and Arch I met another. Passing the grave of Ben and Deborah Franklin I noticed that it was being swept.
"Do you do that every day?" I asked the sexton.
"Every day," he said. "I like to keep it clean."
I think that Deborah, who was a good housewife, would be glad to know that her plain Quakerish tombstone is dusted every day. The good man who does it is Jacob Schweiger and he lives at 221 Noble street.