After more than forty years of spiritual leadership Beissel died in 1768, and Peter Miller succeeded him, but the society steadily declined, until the year 1875, when disputes divided them into two factions, and consequently into legal entanglements and the effect of the community as a religious enterprise became inconsequential.
Riots in Philadelphia Brought to an
End on July 7, 1844
Between the years 1843 and 1844 a spirit of turbulence, riot and disorder seemed prevalent throughout the United States. Philadelphia felt the influence, which first manifested itself in 1834.
On August 12, 1834, a riot took place which was much more serious than any occurrence of that character previously known. A meeting house, near the Wharton Market, was torn down and many colored people assaulted and badly beaten and their houses ransacked.
In October following occurred the Robb’s Row riot, in the Moyamensing district. A row of houses on Christian Street, west of Ninth, was burned by the mob and many persons injured. This disturbance was created by heated political antagonism, and was fought between rival partisans.
Another riot in which the blacks suffered, and many of their houses burned, occurred in July, 1835.
On May 17, 1838, occurred the Pennsylvania Hall riot, during which a large and elegant building dedicated three days before, to the purpose of public discussion by the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, was broken into, set on fire and totally destroyed.
The Kensington railroad riots took place in 1840, and were a manifestation of opposition to an attempt by the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad Company to lay their tracks on Front Street, in the business and builtup section of the city. In this disturbance the rails were torn up, houses burned and many persons injured.