cheerfulness for a grave public Friend, especially in the eye of those of them who held "religion harsh, intolerant, austere." Penn was so pleased with the site of "the low sandy beach," as a landing place, (the rest of the river side being high precipitous banks,) that he made it a public landing place for ever in his original city charter; and the little haven at the creek's mouth so pleased him, as a fit place for a harbour for vessels in the winter, and a security from the driving ice, that he also appropriated so much of it as lay eastward of the Little Dock Creek to be a great dock for ever, to be deepened by digging when needful. The waters there were much deeper at first than in after years, as the place got filled up by the negligence of the citizens. Charles Thomson, Esq., told me of his often seeing such vessels as sloops and schooners lading their flour for the West Indies on the sides of the Dock Creek near to Second Street; and a very aged informant (Mrs. Powell) had seen a schooner once as high as Girard's bank. Charles Thomson also told me of one family of the first settlers whose vessel wintered at the mouth of the creek. This original tavern, from its location, was at first of first-rate consequence as a place of business. It was the proper key of the city, to which all new-comers resorted, and where all small vessels, coming with building timber from Jersey, &c., or with traffic from New England, made their ready landing. The house was also used as a public ferry, whence people were to cross over Dock Creek to Society Hill, before the causeway and bridge over Front Street were formed, and also to convey persons over to Windmill Island, where was a windmill for grinding their grain, or to cross persons and horses over to Jersey. It was, in short, the busy mart for a few years of almost all the business the little town required. This landing house, called the Blue Anchor, was the southernmost of ten houses of like dimensions, began about the same time, and called "Budd's Long Row." They had to the eye the appearance of brick houses, although they were actually framed with wood, and filled in with small bricks, bearing the appearance of having been imported. J. P. Norris, Esq., has told me that he always understood from his ancestors and others that parts of the buildings, of most labour and most convenient transportations, were brought out in the first vessels, so as to insure greater despatch in finishing a few houses at least for indispensable purposes. Proud's history informs us, that the house of Guest was the most finished house in the city when Penn arrived; and all tradition has designated the Blue Anchor as the first house built in Philadelphia; from this cause, when it was "pulled down to build greater," I preserved some of its timber as appropriate relic-wood. This little house, although sufficiently large in its day, was but about twelve feet front on Front Street, and about twenty-two feet on Dock Street, having a ceiling of about eight and a half feet in height. "The spring," in a line due west from this house, on the opposite bank of the creek, was long after a great resort for taking in water for vessels going to sea, and had been seen in actual use by some aged persons still alive in my time, who described it as a place of great rural beauty, shaded with shrubbery and surrounded with rude sylvan seats. Little Dock Creek, diverging to the southwest had an open passage for canoes and batteaux as high as St. Peter's church, through a region long lying in commons, natural shrubbery, and occasional forest trees, left so standing, long after the city, northward of Dock Creek was in a state of improvement. The cottage of the Drinker family, seen up the main or northwestern Dock Creek, located near the south west corner of Walnut and Second Streets, was the real primitive house of Philadelphia. The father of the celebrated aged Edward Drinker had settled there some years before Penn's colonists came, and Edward himself was born there two years before that time; he lived till after the war of Independence, and used to delight himself often in referring to localities where Swedes and Indians occasionally hutted, and also where Penn and his friends remained at their first landing. It fully accords with my theories, from observations on the case, that the creek water once overflowed the whole of Spruce Street, from Second Street to the river, and that its outlet extended in a southeastwardly direction along the base of Society Hill, till its southernmost extremity joined the Delaware nearly as far south as Union Street. I think these ideas are supported by the fact, which I have ascertained, that all the houses on the southern side of Spruce Street, have occasionally water in their cellars, and also those on the east side of Front Street some distance below Spruce Street. Mr. Samuel Richards told me it was the tradition of his father and other aged persons about the Blue Anchor Tavern, that the creek water inclined originally much farther southward than Spruce Street. There was doubtless much width of watery surface once there, as it gave the idea to Penn of making it a great winter dock for vessels. We know, indeed, that Captain Loxley, many years ago, was allowed to use the public square, now on the site of the intended dock, in consideration of his filling up the whortleberry swamp, before there. THE TREATY TREE, AND FAIRMAN'S MANSION. "But thou, broad Elm! Canst thou tell us nought Of perish'd generations, o'er whose heads Thy foliage droop'd ?-thou who shadowed once THE site of this venerable tree is filled with local impressions. The tree itself, of great magnitude and great age, was of most impressive grandeur. Other cities of our Union have had their consecrated trees; and history abounds with those which spread in arborescent glory, and claimed their renown both from the pencil and the historic muse. Such have been "the royal oak," Shakspeare's "mulberry tree," &c. "From his touch-wood trunk the mulberry tree Supplied such relics as devotion holds Still sacred, and preserves with pious care." In their state of lofty and silent grandeur they impress a soothing influence on the soul, and lead out the meditative mind to enlargement of conception and thought. On such a spot, Penn, with appropriate acumen, selected his treaty ground. There long stood the stately witness of the solemn covenant-a lasting emblem of the unbroken faith, "pledged without an oath, and never broken!" Nothing could surpass the amenity of the whole scene as it once stood, before "improvement," that effacive name of every thing rural or picturesque, destroyed its former charms, cut down its sloping verdant bank, razed the tasteful Fairman mansion, and turned all into the levelled uniformity of a city street. Once remote from city bustle, and blest in its own silent shades amid many lofty trees, it looked out upon the distant city, "saw the stir of the great Babel, nor felt the crowd;" long, therefore, it was the favourite walk of the citizen. There he sought his seat and rest. Beneath the wide spread branches of the impending Elm gathered in summer whole congregations to hymn their anthems and to hearken to the preacher, beseeching them," in Christ's stead, to be reconciled unto God." Those days are gone, "but sweet's their memory still!" |