[17] The author’s route from New York to Philadelphia was by boat to New Brunswick, thence by stage to Trenton on the Delaware, where boat was taken for Philadelphia. Stages, by this time, had practically ceased running between New York and Philadelphia.—Ed.
[18] James Witherspoon, born in Haddingtonshore, Scotland, in 1722, was a descendant of John Knox. Graduating from Edinburgh University, and receiving ordination as a Presbyterian minister, in 1768 he accepted an invitation to become president of Princeton College, and brought with him a considerable addition to the college library. From the first he took an active part in the Revolutionary War; as member of the provincial assembly, he assisted in overthrowing the royal governor; as member of the continental congress he signed the Declaration of Independence, and aided in initiating several important legislative measures. After the close of the war, he retired to his farm near Princeton, dying there in September, 1794.—Ed.
[19] Washington’s Letters, vol. ii, page 4, Lond. 1795.—Flint.
[20] John Mease, a wealthy and philanthropic Philadelphian, was born in 1771. Although a graduate of the Medical College of the University of Pennsylvania, he did not practice regularly, but devoted himself to literary and scientific pursuits. In association with David Rittenhouse and other members of the Philosophical Society, he was engaged in numerous undertakings for the betterment of the city. His Picture of Philadelphia, published in 1811, was for many years the best travellers’ guide thereof.—Ed.
[21] The American Philosophical Society, the oldest scientific association in America, was organized by Franklin in 1743. In 1769 it was combined with the American Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, and from that date (except for a few years during the Revolutionary War) has never failed to meet regularly. Among its presidents may be noted Franklin, Jefferson, Rittenhouse, and Caspar Wistar.
The Society of Artists, formed in 1810, to establish a school of drawing and hold an annual exhibition of foreign and American paintings, was dissolved soon after Flint’s visit to Philadelphia.
The Academy of Fine Arts was organized in 1805, largely through the efforts of Charles Wilson Peale. The following year a building was occupied, and the first exhibition opened in 1811, in conjunction with the Society of Artists. The Academy has ceased to hold exhibitions, but maintains a good permanent collection.
The Museum, opened by Peale at his residence in 1784, contained for the most part portraits of Revolutionary heroes painted by himself. When transferred to Independence Hall (1802), it included a large collection of birds, insects, and the implements of primitive men. The Philadelphia Museum Company acquired it in 1821; but later the collection was sold and dispersed.—Ed.
[22] Dr. Mease’s Picture of Philadelphia.—Flint.
[23] Thomas Cooper, born in London in 1759, was eminent both as a lawyer and a scientist. Educated at Oxford, he practiced law, first in England, and after 1795 in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Upon a visit to France (about 1792), he studied chemistry, and continued his researches in that science after coming to America. Upon being removed, for arbitrary conduct, from a judgeship (1811), he was appointed professor of chemistry at Dickinson College, later at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1820 became president of the college of South Carolina. At the time of his death (1840) he was engaged in revising the statutes of the latter state, and in writing pamphlets in favor of state rights.—Ed.