The first hospital in America was “The Pennsylvania Hospital,” chartered by Assembly of Pennsylvania, May 11, 1751.
The first American work on botany was by John Bartram and was published in 1751. Its title was “Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil, Divers Productions, Animals, etc., made in his travels from Pennsylvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario.”
The first fire insurance company in America was the “Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire.” It was organized April 13, 1752, and twelve directors chosen at that time, who held their first meeting May 11, 1752. At this meeting was adopted the well-known seal which has given the company its nickname of “Hand-in-Hand.”
The first expedition fitted out in the United States for Arctic exploration and the discovery of a northwest passage, sailed from Philadelphia on the schooner Argo, Captain Charles Swaine, March 8, 1753.
The first cartoon published in America was the famous snake divided into eight parts, representing the colonies: New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and bore the motto, “Join or die.” It was published by Benjamin Franklin in “The Pennsylvania Gazette,” May 9, 1754, and was called forth by the massacres of colonists in the French and Indian wars.
The first life insurance company in this country was the “Presbyterian Ministers’ Fund of Philadelphia,” founded in 1759.
The first mention of Shakespeare (discovered to date, April, 1916) in any American work occurs in “Science, A Poem,” by Francis Hopkinson. Published by William Dunlap in Philadelphia, 1762.
The first night school in America was opened in the Germantown Academy, October 14, 1762. The sessions were from 6.00 p. m. to 9.00 p. m., each scholar to find his own candle and pay 2 shillings 6 pence for firewood; the compensation was 10 shillings per quarter.
The first observatory erected in this America was on South Street near Front, and was built for Mason and Dixon in 1763.
The first religious magazine in America was the “Geistliches Magazine,” published by Christopher Saur in 1764.