The David Brintnall mentioned here built the first house made of brick in the city of Philadelphia: it was situated in Chestnut Street below Fourth, and stood back from the street-line, with a small garden in front. The first house erected in Philadelphia was a wooden one, on the east side of Front Street, a little north of the place now called “Little Dock Street,” and is said not to have been finished when William Penn first arrived. The owner, John Guest, kept a public house there for many years. His sign was a “Blue Anchor.” The town and boroughs of Philadelphia were located in 1682.
Letters between New York and Boston were, previous to the introduction of stages, conveyed on horseback. Madam Knight, in her journal, dated 1704, says that “she was two weeks in riding with the postman, as her guide, from Boston to New York. In most of the towns she saw Indians.” In 1702, Mrs. Shippen, soon after her marriage, came from Boston to Philadelphia on horseback, bringing a baby on her lap.
Even at a much later period the mode of travelling was still in a slow way, as may be seen by the following advertisement, which appeared in 1776:—
“This is to give notice to the Publick that the stage waggons kept by John Burrowhill, in Elm Street, in Philadelphia, and John Mersereax, at the Blazing Star, near New York, intend to perform the journey from Philadelphia to New York in two days; also to continue seven months, viz.: from the 14th of April to the 14th of November, and the remaining five months of the year in three days. The waggons to be kept in good order, and good horses, with sober drivers. They purpose to set off from Philadelphia on Mondays and Thursdays punctually at sunrise, and to be in Prince-Town the same nights, and change passengers, and return to New York and Philadelphia the following days. The passengers are desired to cross Powlass Hook Ferry the evening before. The waggon is not to stay after sunrise. Price, each passenger, from Powlass Hook to Prince Town, ten shillings; from thence to Philadelphia, ten shillings also; Ferriage free. Threepence each mile any distance between. Any gentlemen or ladies that wants to go to Philadelphia, can go in the stage and be home in five days, and be two nights and one day in Philadelphia to do business or see the market-days. All gentlemen and ladies who are pleased to favour us with their custom may depend on due attendance and civil usage by those humble servants,
“John Mersereax,
“John Burrowhill.
“June, 1776.”
Market-days in Philadelphia at that period, and long afterwards, were great attractions to the country-people, even apart from business. It was also customary to ring the bells of Christ Church on the evenings previous to “market-days” for the edification of the country-people, who had learned to look upon them—or at least to hear their sound—as more or less identified with our independence. There is a peculiar history attached to these bells. They were purchased in England at a cost of £900. There were eight of them, and their aggregate weight was eight thousand pounds, the tenor bell weighing eighteen hundred pounds. In 1777, fearful of their falling back again into English hands, they were taken down and conveyed to Allentown, Pennsylvania, for “safe keeping.” After the evacuation of the city they were replaced, and have been ringing joyfully ever since. They pealed forth in gladsome sounds when the old State-House Bell sounded its note to liberty, and in harmony they proclaimed it to the world. But did the world respond? Did it shake off the bonds which bound man to man by an iron chain? Did it “proclaim” alike to the African that freedom was his birthright? Alas! no; for although the Declaration of our Independence pronounced “all men equal,” yet a distinction was made in color, and, under that very document and the Constitution, slavery came in, to become in time, what it was in reality before, a curse.
Years passed on; trade and traffic in human flesh continued, until the Almighty, in his wondrous mystery, brought about their emancipation in a manner that levelled the institution of slavery to the ground forever. But, alas! have we not as a people and a nation been severely punished? Established on a basis of crime and carried out in a spirit of fiendish ferocity, they dared call it a “divine institution.” For this fearful error on the part of those eminent men who framed that document, our country has suffered fearfully; but these bells and all other bells will peal once more under a new order of things, and truly as well as righteously “proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the people thereof.” Then will our land
“be blest,
Its branchy glories spreading o’er the West;