A WALK TO DARBY.

BY TOWNSEND WARD.

It is not surprising that Mr. Watson, living as he did at Germantown, should have given more space, in his "Annals of Philadelphia," to the city itself, and to the country north of it, than to the region south and west, whose history consequently is much less understood. Reflecting on this I decided to walk the road to Darby, not doubting that the story of its past was well worth knowing. Such a walk, however, required the companionship of one well acquainted with the road, and with the names, at least, of the people living on it, and so with such a friend I set out on my pilgrimage. The notes taken at the time lay for eight years untouched, but have now been revised with considerable care.

In the colonial time distances were measured from the old Provincial Hall, that until 1837 stood in the middle of Market Street on the west side of Second. There, in early days, were the elections held; and there, too, was the place of meeting of the Provincial Councils. They sat in sight of that emblem of sovereignty, the Royal Arms of England, of the time of Queen Anne, for they bear her initials, and the motto peculiar to her alone of all the sovereigns of that mighty island. These arms escaped the fury of our Revolution, and now hang on the walls of our Historical Society. The site of the Hall was, therefore, the point from which we started, but before doing so we listened for a moment to the bells of old Christ Church chiming, as they did when in that distant time the vicinity of the old London Coffee House, at the southwest corner of Front and Market Streets, was the busiest scene in all the city. That ancient structure yet stands, but it is no longer the central point of the capital of Pennsylvania, as it was in the time of its proprietor, William Bradford. William

Penn's house, erected in 1683, is also standing, but at some distance back from the street, and concealed from view by houses built on the northern part of the lot. Access to the house was provided for by a passageway left between them, called Letitia Court. Going out Market, or High Street, as it was formerly called, we soon passed the site of the house, on the south side below Sixth Street, once the residence of Richard Penn, and where Sir William Howe had his quarters when the British occupied the city, and where, afterwards, Washington lived while President. But we must not anticipate, for there must needs be much of history connected with a street in which Penn and Franklin and Washington have lived.

In its former days disorderly and unruly persons must have greatly disturbed the street, for it is recorded that "William Hill, the Beadle of the city, had lately in a heat broke his bell, and had given out that he would no longer continue at the place." Sorely as the tramps of the time provoked him, he, however, relented, and afterwards "expressed a great deal of sorrow, desiring to be continued during his good behaviour." Fairs were provided for, and they were opened with a proclamation that "All were to keep the King's peace, and that none were to presume to bear or carry any unlawful weapons to the terrour or annoyance of His Majesty's subjects, or to gallop or strain horses within the built parts of the city." This, no doubt, for a while, had its effect, and kept the street quiet, but not for any great length of time, as subsequently there is the appointment of Daniel Pellito as Public Whipper, at a salary of ten pounds per annum. It may be he was selected as a more efficient practitioner than his predecessors, and, perhaps, with a view to make the office of beadle an easier one. The whipping was performed at Second and Market Streets, and there, also, were to be seen the stocks and pillory. These were not agreeable objects in the sight of those who occasionally ornamented them, and so, on the first of October, 1726, they were burned by evil-minded persons. Of course they were soon rebuilt, and for many years continued to inspire terror to evil doers. A daughter of Dr.

Henry Paschall, Mrs. Mary P. Hopkins, whose protracted life closing near Paschallville in 1869 or 1870, at the great age of ninety-nine years and six months, connects that distant era with our own, often spoke of having seen a man in the stocks at that place. She would tell, too, of having seen her father shoot wild ducks at Fourth and Market Streets.

The "Great Meeting House of Friends," erected in 1695, was on the southwest corner of Second and High Streets. On the front of a house on the north side, just above Second Street, there was placed for the convenience of the people, a large sun-dial, that remained there until about forty years ago. The market houses, at the time that Silas Deane came here, 1775, were of the extent of about twelve hundred feet, situated along the middle of the street. They were gradually extended to Eighth Street, to be finally removed about 1860. Burton, the comedian, when he appeared before our audiences, sang of

"The Mint where they make money,

O lawk, what a pile;

And a market that reaches

For nearly a mile."

The three days' fairs of May and November, only abolished about 1787, made the street at times an enlivening and impres sive scene; but it was from an early day a thoroughfare of note. Franklin, on his arrival here, entered it to buy his loaf of bread, and afterwards lived in it. In 1744, the Virginia Commissioners, and their Secretary, William Black, "took a turn to the Center House, where is a Billiard Table and Bowling Green," the date of whose disappearance, unfortunately, has not been recorded. It was here that Captain Scull was killed by Bruleman, formerly an officer in the British Army, who had gone out that day with the intention to shoot the first man he met, that he might be hung for it, in which he succeeded. The first happened to be Dr. Cadwalader, who so politely raised his hat to him that Bruleman was disarmed by the courtesy. In August, 1755, after Braddock's defeat, the regiments of Halket and Dunbar crossed the Schuylkill, and came down the street, mere shattered remnants, to find

in Philadelphia a welcome shelter. Dunbar proved anew the justice of his designation of "The Tardy," by not settling with his landlady; for the City Councils, two years afterwards, paid the Widow Howell her claim of twenty-five pounds for his board and lodging. Meanwhile the bones of the gallant Sir Peter Halket, of Pitfirrane, lay bleaching on the shores of the Monongahela, only to be accorded funeral rites when, in 1758, General Forbes, the "Head of Iron," as the Indians called him, proved successful where Braddock had failed, and gave to Fort Du Quesne the enduring name of one of England's greatest ministers. The army of Forbes was gathered in Philadelphia, and as his Royal Americans, under Bouquet, in their dark scarlet coats faced with blue, and the Highlanders in kilts and belted plaids, and the Pennsylvania Provincials in their fringed hunting shirts, passed westward up the street, to cross the river, and to sweep onward to victory, the scene must have gladdened the hearts so long made sad by the terrible defeat that had laid one-half of Pennsylvania open to the ravages of the relentless Indian foe. General Forbes returned in triumph, a short-lived triumph, however, for him, as a mortal disease, then wasting his form, soon terminated his life. He was buried in the chancel of Christ Church.

Passing on, we spoke of the time when Sir William Howe occupied the city, and of the 15th Regiment of the Royal Army being in quarters in Market Street in and about Fifth, and then of the post and rail fences, beginning, at the time when Philadelphia was the seat of the Federal Government, somewhere about Ninth Street; and of the feeble light of the old oil lamps, that hardly did more than make darkness visible. Feeble as their light was, the imagination seems to have been quite as much excited by the display, as in our time it can be by the more brilliant gaslights that now stretch for miles along the not wider, but vastly longer avenue. The novelist, of whom Philadelphia has such good reason to be proud, Charles Brockden Brown, in his Arthur Mervyn, a Tale of the Yellow Fever of 1793, brings his hero across the Upper Ferry, and then makes him say: "I adhered to the VOL. III.-11

crossways, till I reached Market Street. Night had fallen, and a triple row of lamps presented a spectacle enchanting and new. I reached the Market House, and entering it, indulged myself in new delight and new wonder. I need not remark that our ideas of magnificence and splendor are merely comparative; yet you may be prompted to smile when I tell you that, in walking through this avenue, I, for a moment, conceived myself transported to the hall 'pendant with many a row of starry lamps, and blazing cressets fed by naptha and asphaltos.' That this transition from my homely and quiet retreat had been effected in so few hours wore the aspect of miracle or magic."

When the war of the Revolution came, Market Street, no doubt, was often the theatre of striking scenes. Silas Deane writes to his wife on the 12th of May, 1775, "I seriously believe Pennsylvania will in one month, have more than twenty thousand disciplined troops ready to take the field. They exercise here twice every day, at five in the morning, and five in the afternoon, and are extremely well armed. . . . The Commons West of the city is every morning and afternoon full of troops and spectators of all ranks." Washington on his way to the ill-starred field of Brandywine, marched down Front Street to Chestnut, and thence out to "the common." From that place, the vicinity of Centre Square, he must have marched out this street, and crossed the Schuylkill at the Middle Ferry. Rochambeau's army of six thousand Frenchmen, in their beautiful uniform of white, though it passed out Vine Street, soon reached it, for they encamped at Centre Square, and, therefore, from that point, also marched along the western part of the street on their way to Yorktown. When the work of that army had been accomplished, the great procession in honor of the Federal Constitution passed the street westward from Fourth. Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, and his brothers, Montpensier and Beaujolais, when they started on their equestrian tour of the West, rode along it to cross the Meneyackse, or the "Noisy Stream" the Ganshow-hanné, as some call the river now named the Schuylkill. The old "Water Works" which were once at Centre Square