A frequent guest was Dr. Adam Kuhn, who studied in Edinburgh, and brought home treasures of learning as his contribution to this “feast of reason.” Here were also the Shippens, father and son,—both Williams, both practising at the same time, and both so eminent that they have frequently been confused by the historian. An honorable line of Shippens, in different callings, but notably in law and medicine, has come from that Edward Shippen of whom Boston was not worthy, and who, after being lashed and driven through the town at the cart’s tail, because, forsooth, good Puritans couldn’t abide good Quakers, came to Philadelphia in 1693, to be its first mayor and the founder of a distinguished family.[27] Here also shone the kindly face of Dr. Samuel Powel Griffitts, who seems to have brought with him, wherever he went, an atmosphere of “peace and good will to men.” And here, these gatherings being formed of men of various callings and professions, came such lawyers as William Rawle, who was ready to discuss theology as well as law,—perhaps a little readier to talk of the one than of the other. One day he is writing his notes on the Constitution of the United States, while upon another such subjects as Original Sin and the Evidences of Christianity engage his versatile pen.
Among legal gentlemen who were frequent guests of Dr. Wistar were William Tilghman, of Maryland, later Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, who in an interesting biographical sketch has embalmed the memory of his host; George Clymer, statesman and patriot, whose name is appended to the Declaration; and Peter Du Ponceau, who, although a Frenchman, had an ardent admiration for American institutions and the primitive simplicity that characterized the old Quaker régime in Philadelphia. And that the cure of souls might not be neglected, we find here John Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary, an intimate of Wistar, and a correspondent of Du Ponceau, who later translated Heckewelder’s interesting work on Indian manners and customs into the French. Here also was John Vaughan, the Unitarian philanthropist, of whom it has been said that “he represented this city as faithfully as its own name ‘Brotherly Love.’” Did they meet and talk together, these two at the extreme poles of doctrine, the devout Moravian and the Arian whose life was consecrated to the service of his brother man? If they met, and in their discourse fell upon such subjects as engage the characters in “Paradise Lost” and the “Divina Commedia,” we may be sure that in their large mutual love for mankind they found abundant sympathy,
“Nor melted in the acid waters of a creed
The Christian pearl of charity.”
A goodly company, among whose members there is no one more worthy to be remembered than the host, generally known as Dr. Caspar Wistar, Jr., being descended from another Caspar Wistar, who came to this country in 1717. We are informed by a German scholar and a genealogist that all the Wisters, whether ter or tar, come from one common stock in Germany, where the name is written Wüster, and that Caspar, who came to Philadelphia in 1717, son of Hans Caspar and Anna Katerina Wüster or Wister, in having a deed of conveyance prepared was put down Wistar by the clerk. This mistake he did not take the trouble to correct, and from this first Caspar has come a line of tars, of which Dr. Caspar Wistar, Jr., was the most distinguished. A second son of old Hans Caspar Wister, of Hilsbach, Germany, coming over later, had his papers made out properly, according to the German orthography of the name, and thus established the Philadelphia line of ters. We venture to give this rather lengthy explanation in view of the fact that the spelling of Wister has been a fertile subject for discussion in the Quaker City for some years, and because it is a most reasonable one, as will be admitted by all who have studied the records of past generations. In old letters and papers of the last century it is not unusual to find a surname variously spelled in the same letter, or even on the same page. This is notably the case in the voluminous “Penn and Logan Correspondence,” where Jenings and Jennings, Ashton and Assheton, Blaithwaite and Blathwayt, used interchangeably, hopelessly confuse the reader.
A student of the schools of Edinburgh, Professor in the College of Philadelphia, and later in the University, Dr. Wistar has the honor of being the author of the first American treatise on anatomy. Eminent as a physician, teacher, and man of science, this large-brained and busy man found life incomplete without the cultivation of its social side.
It is to be regretted that Mr. Vaughan, Mr. Du Ponceau, or the learned Dr. Benjamin Rush, who at times used a pen with a humorous nib, or some of the other habitués of these unique gatherings, have not left us pleasant and gossiping reminiscences of the Wistar Club, which would serve to render us as familiar with these old figures as contemporaneous writers have made us with the frequenters of the Kit-Cat Club, where the wits of Queen Anne’s time gathered, or that later circle at the Turk’s Head, dominated by the great burly figure of the dictionary-maker. Garrick, Reynolds, and all the rest are grouped about him; and Boswell is ever at hand, taking notes. Did humble Boswell realize that he was painting pictures for the future, as well as, even better than, the elegant Sir Joshua, who sat near him? Goldsmith was at it too, giving us life as it was, not some fanciful picture of it; and to them we owe it that these men live before us now. The following is the nearest approach that we can find to such a picture, and this, from the pen of the late Chief Justice Tilghman, gives us only one figure, when we would like to be presented to the whole company.
After dwelling upon the modest dignity and bland courtesy of Dr. Wistar’s bearing as President of the Philosophical Society, and the ardor with which he incited its members to diligence in collecting, before it should be too late, the perishing materials of American history, Mr. Tilghman says,—
“The meetings of this committee he [Dr. Wistar] regularly attended. It was their custom, after the business of the evening was concluded, to enter upon an unconstrained conversation on literary subjects. Then, without intending it, our lamented friend would insensibly take the lead; and so interesting were his anecdotes, and so just his remarks, that, drawing close to the dying embers, we often forgot the lapse of time, until warned by the unwelcome clock that we had entered on another day.”
Here is another pen-sketch from a writer signing himself “Antiquary,” which has a touch of life in it, and shows the good doctor’s ready tact in setting a gauche stranger at his ease. Mr. John Vaughan introduced into the learned circle what the narrator is pleased to call “a living, live Yankee, a specimen of humanity more rare,” he says, “forty or fifty years ago than now.” It would appear that this compatriot was received into the company with emotions similar to those awakened, later, by the advent of the “American Cousin” in England.
“He was,” says the writer, “a man remarkable for his mechanical turn of mind, but entirely unused to society. No workshop could turn out a more uncouth individual. I was standing near the door when John Vaughan brought him in. Between the blaze of light, the hum of conversation, and the number of well-dressed men, he was completely overcome, and sank into the first chair he could reach. Mr. Vaughan could not coax him out of it, and I expected every minute the door opened that he would make a bolt for the street. Presently Dr. Wistar, who had the happy knack of suiting his conversation to all ages and classes, was introduced to the shy Yankee. Soon the ice was broken, and I saw the shy mechanic conversing freely with scientific men, explaining to them his views upon mechanism, etc.”