Quick History Stops: Philadelphia, PA, Part 4

This is the fourth and final post in my miniseries on my quick history stops in Philadelphia, along with my last post about the city. The first part covered a bank building, a Quaker meeting house, a fire station dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, a cemetery, and a very old alley. The second part covered a historic house possibly belonging to a Founding Mother, commercial buildings from the Industrial Revolution, and a courtyard showcasing local history. The third part covered a bicentennial speech from an unlikely speaker, a publishing company, a preservation society, a religious statue, an historic athletic facilities, and a diner. This post will include fun facts from my favorite informational signs and how some facts relate to past articles on the blog.

In 1833, Quaker activist Lucretia Coffin Mott founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society to advocate for and with African Americans along with giving power to women, who were often shut out of other anti-slavery societies. Mott previously received a shoutout as a member of the influential Coffin family whose patriarch lived in Historic New England’s Coffin House before much of the family moved to Nantucket, as described by the Cape Cod Maritime Museum. In 1850, other Quakers founded Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, carrying on Mott’s message of empowerment. The college survives as a part of Drexel University College of Medicine. An earlier activist was Irish Catholic Mathew Carey, a writer and publisher who founded the Hibernian Society in Philadelphia in 1793 to support of Irish immigrants and unfortunately proved to be anti-Black.

Tomas Garrigue Masaryk was the first President of Czechoslovakia, now the countries of Slovakia and Czech Republic or Czechia. He met the leaders of other Central and Eastern European countries in 1918 at Independence Hall to write the Declaration of Common Aims. A pair of signs outside Congregation Mikveh Israel described the history of the oldest Jewish congregation in Philadelphia, which has been active since the 1740s. One notable member was Polish American Haym Salomon who helped to finance the American Revolutionary War and was twice imprisoned by British troops for his actions. Like fellow financier Robert Morris (whose statue is near Independence Hall), Salomon died in debt at age forty-four after Congress was unable to repay him.

In the young United States after the Revolution, Calvinist or Reformed Christian churches needed to decide how they would manage their congregations. The Presbyterian Church (USA) formed in 1789 after a General Assembly in Philadelphia. While the denomination underwent schisms during the Civil War era, the church reunited in 1983. Besides a new demonomination, another first in Philadelphia was the first central labor council, the Mechanics’ Union of Trade Associations, founded in 1827 and disbanded just ten years later in 1837. An important chronicler during this time of change was diarist Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker, an upper class Quaker matriarch with a keen understanding of business, politics, and medicine. She is interred in an unmarked grave at Arch Street Meeting House.

Among my favorite signs was dedicated to Cyrus Bustill, a Quaker Philadelphian with White, Black, and Native American ancestry who worked as a baker making bread for patriot soldiers during their encampment at Valley Forge and used his earnings to co-found the Free African Society in 1787 plus a school for people of color. A generation later, fellow Quaker Charles Brockden Brown wrote Gothic fiction, advocated for women’s rights, and supported anti-slavery causes. He is buried at Arch Street Meeting House. Nearby, the McAllister family established an “ophthalmic legacy” by opening an eye doctor practice in 1796, working in the first optician departments in American hospitals, and co-founding the American Optometric Association in 1898. Glasses pioneers deserve more recognition!

One of the most unique signs featured Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth, a 19^th century theologian, school principal, and beekeeper who wrote The Hive and the Honey-Bee published in 1853. He invented and patented the first movable frame beehive, which allowed him to watch his bees and collect their honey without scaring them. Another publication from the area was the first edition of Common Sense by Thomas Paine, printed by Scottish American Robert Bell in 1776. A somewhat less fun fact was the founding of the Insurance Company of North America (INA) at Independence Hall in 1792, the first fire insurers in the United States. After a series of mergers and acquisitions, the company is now a part of Chubb.

The final row of signs and plaques begins with less pleasant information. Walnut Street was once the location of the first urban penal institution in the United States, as the Walnut Street Jail lasted from 1775 to 1838. Supporters of this system claim that Quaker founders had originally intended the space to be a penitentiary where inmates could reflect and seek forgiveness for their crimes with solitary confinement acting as a peaceful respite. Instead, the prison was overcrowded and dangerous. The building was replaced by Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829 and later torn down. The house of Alexander Hamilton was also torn down, while a house for Episcopalian bishops still stands. That concludes my extensive and yet not comprehensive three-day adventure in Philadelphia.