lost in the attack on the thick walls of the house, ordered a regiment
to remain behind to watch Cliveden, while his main force hastened on.
It has been claimed that this brief delay was responsible for the
defeat at Germantown. Wilkinson, on the contrary, insists that this
delay saved Washington's army from annihilation, since he would
otherwise have hurried on in the thick fog until he was in contact
with the main body of the British army. The result, he thinks, would
have been a far greater disaster than actually overtook the American
arms that day.
The damage done to the house was so great that five carpenters were
busy for months making repairs. Evidently Judge Chew was not satisfied
with the result, for in 1779 he sold Cliveden for $9,000, only to buy
it back again in 1787 for $25,000.
The property descended to Benjamin Chew, Jr., on the death of his
father. During his occupancy of Cliveden, Lafayette was a guest there
in 1825.
[Illustration: THIRD (OLD PINE STREET) PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
PHILADELPHIA
_Photo by Ph. B. Wallace_
See page 159]
XXXV
OLD PINE STREET CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA
WHOSE PASTOR INSPIRED JOHN ADAMS TO PLEAD FOR INDEPENDENCE
There were four thousand, seven hundred and seventy-four houses in
Philadelphia in 1767 when the Pine Street Presbyterian Church, the
third church of this denomination in the city, was built. The
subscription paper, still in existence, shows that L1,078 "in money or
otherwise" was subscribed for the purpose. The sum needed to complete
the building was raised by a lottery, which yielded L2,500. In the
proceeds of the lottery the Market Street Church and the Second Church
shared, L1,035 going to the Pine Street building.
The original building was of but one story, with gable ends. When
alterations were made in 1837 the top of the church was raised bodily,
while a larger roof was built over the old roof. The visitor who
climbs to the loft is able to see the old walls and windows. The
floor was raised one step above the street level, and was paved with
brick.
Rev. George Duffield, D.D., who was pastor from 1772 to 1790, was a
prominent figure during the Revolution. He was chaplain of the
Continental Congress and of the Pennsylvania militia during the period
of the war, and he delivered fiery messages that stirred patriots to
action. John Adams, who was a member of the church, called him a man
of genius and eloquence. On May 17, 1776, after listening to a sermon
in which Dr. Duffield likened the conduct of George III to the
Americans to that of Pharaoh to the Israelites, and concluded that God
intended the liberation of the Americans, as He had intended that of
the Israelites, he wrote to his wife:
"Is it not a saying of Moses, Who am I that I should go in
and out before this great people? When I consider the great
events which are passed, and those greater which are rapidly
advancing, and that I may have been instrumental in touching
some springs, and turning some small wheels, which have had
and will have such effects, I feel an awe upon my mind, which
is not easily described. Great Britain has at last driven
America to the last step, complete separation from her; a
total, absolute independence...."
Headley, in "Chaplains and Clergy of the Revolution," says:
"The patriots of the first Congress flocked to his church,
and John Adams and his compeers were often his hearers.... In
a discourse delivered before several companies of the
Pennsylvania militia and members of Congress, four months
before the Declaration of Independence, he took bold and
decided ground in favor of that step, and pleaded his
cause with sublime eloquence, which afterwards made him so
obnoxious to the British that they placed a reward of fifty
pounds for his capture."
Later on in the same sermon he prophesied:
"Whilst sun and moon endure, America shall remain a city of
refuge for the whole earth, until she herself shall play the
tyrant, forget her destiny, disgrace her freedom, and provoke
her God."
As chaplain of the Pennsylvania militia, Dr. Duffield was frequently
in camp, where "his visits were always welcome, for the soldiers loved
the eloquent, earnest, fearless patriot."
Headley gives this incident of the courageous chaplain's work:
"When the enemy occupied Staten Island, and the American
forces were across the river on the Jersey shore, he repaired
to camp to spend the Sabbath. Assembling a portion of the
troops in an orchard, he climbed into the forks of a tree and
commenced religious exercises. He gave out a hymn.... The
British on the island heard the sound of the singing, and
immediately directed some cannon to play on the orchard, from
whence it proceeded. Soon the heavy shot came crashing
through the branches, and went singing overhead, arresting
for a moment the voices that were lifted in worship. Mr.
Duffield ... proposed that they should adjourn behind an
adjacent hillock. They did so, and continued their worship,
while the iron storm hurled harmlessly overhead."
In spite of his almost constant service in the field, Dr. Duffield was
in Philadelphia among his people every little while. The church
records show that he baptized children every month during the
Revolution, except for the period of the British occupation of
Philadelphia, when the church was occupied as a hospital, and more
than one hundred Hessian soldiers were buried in the churchyard.
Another remarkable fact is that of the one hundred and ten men who had
signed the call to George Duffield in 1771, sixty-seven served in the
army during the war. Colonel Thomas Robinson, whose portrait is in
Independence Hall, was a member of the church; Captain John Steele,
who was field officer on the day of the surrender of Cornwallis, and
Colonel William Linnard, whose company attempted to keep the British
from crossing the Brandywine, were also members. Many other officers
and private soldiers were on the rolls; the stones and vaults in the
cemetery tell of many of them.
One of the original trustees of Pine Street was Dr. William Shippen,
Jr., first Professor of Medicine in America and Director General of
all the hospitals during the war. Benjamin Rush, Signer of the
Declaration, was an attendant at the services, and his mother was a
member.
XXXVI
INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA
WHERE AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE WAS BORN
William Penn was a man of vision. When, in 1682, Thomas Holme surveyed
for him the site of Philadelphia, the Quaker pioneer gave instruction
that "the Centre Square," one mile from the Delaware, be set apart
for the public buildings of the city and colony.
But for many years after the founding of the city, Centre Square was
far out in the country. During these years temporary public buildings
were provided for official meetings, including the Assembly, but in
1728 steps were taken to erect a suitable public building within reach
of the people of the young city. Ground was bought on Chestnut Street,
between Fifth and Sixth streets, and the State House was begun in
1730. The total cost of the building was $16,250. Two wings were added
in 1739 and 1740; these cost some $12,000 more.
Two years after the completion of the main building the Pennsylvania
Assembly passed an act in which this statement was made:
"It is the true intent and meaning of these Presents, that no
part of the said ground lying to the southward of the State
House, as it is now built, be converted into or made use of
for erecting any sort of Building thereupon, but that the
said ground shall be enclosed and remain a public open Green
and Walks forever."
Eighty years after the passage of the act an attempt was made to
divert the State House yard to other purposes. In a curious old
document, dated February 6, 1816, W. Rawle and Peter S. Duponceau made
an argument against this diversion, showing conclusively that the
State House Square had been "irrevocably devoted to the purpose of an
open and public walk." Thanks to their efforts and the efforts of
others who have labored to the same end, the grounds are to-day, and
must forever remain, open to the use of the people.
The first public function held in the new State House was a banquet,
given in the "long room," in the second story. Of this Franklin's
_Pennsylvania Gazette_ of September 30, 1736, said:
"Thursday last William Allen, Esq., Mayor of this city for
the past year, made a feast for his citizens at the State
House, to which all the strangers in town of note were also
invited. Those who are judges of such things say that
considering the delicacy of the viands, the variety and
excellency of the wines, the great number of guests, and yet
the easiness and order with which the whole was conducted, it
was the most grand, the most elegant entertainment that has
been made in these parts of America."
The builders were dilatory. It was 1736 before the Assembly was able
to hold its first session in the chamber provided for it, and not
until 1745 was the room completed. Three years more passed before the
apartment intended for the Governor's Council was ready for its
occupants.
In 1741 the tower was built, and on November 4 Edmund Wooley sent to
the Province of Pennsylvania an interesting bill, "for expenses in
raising the Tower of the State House":
95 loaves of Bread L0 19 9
61-3/3 lb. Bacon, at 7d 1 14 1
148-1/2 lb. Beef at 3-1/2d 2 8 1
Potatoes and Greens 0 7 1
800 Limes at 4s 1 12 0
1-1/2 Barrels of Beer at 18s 1 7 0
44 lb. Mutton at 3-1/2d 0 12 8
37-3/4 lb. Veal at 3-1/2d 0 11 0
30 lb. Venison at 2d 0 5 0
Turnips 0 1 6
Pepper and Mustard 0 1 5
2 Jugs and Candles, Pipes and Tobacco 0 6 0
Butter 9s. 8d. Turkey 4s. 4 pair Fowls 9s 1 2 8
-1/4 of a hundred of Flour 0 3 6
Two former Hookings at getting on two
Floors, and now for raising the Tower, 3 0 0
Fire Wood, etc.
Provision was made in 1750 for the extension of the tower for the
accommodation of a bell, and on October 16, 1751, the Superintendent
of the State House sent a letter to the colonial agent in London. In
this letter he said:
"We take the liberty to apply ourselves to thee to get us a
good bell, of about two thousand pounds weight, the cost of
which we presume may amount to about one hundred pounds
sterling, or, perhaps, with the charges, something more....
Let the bell be cast by the best workmen, and examined
carefully before it is shipped, with the following words
well-shaped in large letters round it, viz:--
"'By order of the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania,
for the State House in the city of Philadelphia, 1752,'
"And underneath,
"'Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land to all the
inhabitants thereof--Levit. XXV. 10.'"
When the new bell was hung it was cracked by a stroke of the clapper.
Isaac Norris wrote:
"We concluded to send it back by Captain Budden, but he could
not take it on board, upon which two ingenious workmen
undertook to cast it here, and I am just now informed they
have this day opened the Mould and have got a good bell,
which, I confess, pleases me very much, that we should first
venture upon and succeed in the greatest bell cast, for aught
I know, in English America. The mould was finished in a very
masterly manner, and the letters, I am told, are better than
[on] the old one. When we broke up the metal, our judges here
generally agreed it was too high and brittle, and cast
several little bells out of it to try the sound and strength,
and fixed upon a mixture of an ounce and a half of copper to
one pound of the old bell, and in this proportion we now have
it."
But when the bell was in place it was found to contain too much
copper, and Pass & Stow, the founders, "were so teazed with the
witticisms of the town," that they begged to be allowed to recast it.
In June, 1753, this third bell was hung, and in the following
September the founders were paid L60 13s. 5d.
In 1752 arrangements were made for a clock. The works were placed in
the middle of the main building, immediately under the roof. These
were connected by rods, enclosed in pipes, with the hands on the dial
plates at either gable. Early views of the State House show these
dials. The cost of the clock, which included care for six years, was
L494 5s. 5-1/2 d.
During the twenty years that followed the installation of the clock
and the bell the State House became a civic centre of note; but not
until the stirring events that led up to the Revolution did it become
of special interest to other colonies than Pennsylvania. On April 25,
1775, the day after news came to Philadelphia of the battles of
Lexington and Concord, the great bell sounded a call to arms that was
the real beginning of making the building a national shrine. In
response to the call eight thousand people gathered in the Yard to
consider measures of defence. On April 26 the newspapers reported that
"the company unanimously agreed to associate for the purpose of
defending with arms their lives, liberty, and property, against all
attempts to deprive them of them." This determination of the people
was soon sanctioned by the Assembly, and Pennsylvania prepared to
raise its quota towards the Army of the Revolution.
On May 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress met in the Assembly
Chamber, and took action that made inevitable the adoption of the
Declaration of Independence the next year. On Friday, June 7, 1776, in
the Eastern Room on the first floor of the State House, Richard Henry
Lee of Virginia introduced the following:
"Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought
to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved
from all allegiance to the British Crown and that all
political connection between them and the State of Great
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
At the same time the Pennsylvania Assembly was considering, in the
chamber upstairs, what instruction to give to its delegates. When the
Assembly adjourned the Continental Congress removed to the upper room.
There, on July 2, the Virginian's motion was carried. Later the
Declaration itself was adopted, and on July 4, it was
"Resolved, that Copies of the Declaration be sent to the
several assemblies, conventions, and committees or councils
of safety, and to the several commanding officers of the
Continental troops; that it be proclaimed in each of the
United States and at the head of the army."
It was ordered that the Declaration be proclaimed from the State House
on Monday, July 8, 1776. On that day the State House bell sounded its
glad call; for the first time did it indeed "proclaim liberty
throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." And in the
hearing of those who gathered in response to its call the Declaration
was read.
From that day the State House has been known as Independence Hall,
while the State House Yard has become Independence Square.
The sittings of Congress in Independence Hall were interrupted by the
approach of the British. For five months the building was used as a
British prison and hospital. But on July 2, 1778, Congress returned;
the building once more belonged to the nation.
The building became more than ever a national shrine when, in 1787,
the Constitutional Convention met there. On September 17, 1787, the
votes of eleven States were recorded in favor of the Constitution, and
Benjamin Franklin, looking toward a sun which was blazoned on the
President's chair, said of it to those near him, "In the vicissitudes
of hope and fear I was not able to tell whether it was rising or
setting; now I know that it is the rising sun."
In 1790, the Congress of the United States met in the western portion
of the buildings on the Square, erected in 1785 for the Pennsylvania
Assembly.[1] This building was, by that body, offered to Congress and
accepted for the term of ten years, until the Capital should be
removed to the shore of the Potomac.
During these ten years, and for thirty-five years more, the Liberty
Bell continued to sound notes of joy and of sorrow. On July 8, 1835,
it was tolling for Chief Justice Marshall. When the funeral procession
was on Chestnut Street, not far from Independence Hall, the bell
cracked. Since that day it has been mute.
The passing years have brought many changes to Independence Hall, as
well as to the Liberty Bell. The bell cannot be renewed, but the
historic building and the Square have been restored until they present
essentially the appearance of the days of 1776. The chief difference
is in the steeple. The present steeple was built in 1828. It is much
like the old steeple, but a story higher.
As the visitor passes from room to room of the venerable building, and
examines the relics and studies the portraits of the great men who
gathered there so long ago, his heart is stirred to thankfulness to
those who dared to call a nation into being, and he cannot but think
that it is good to live for one's country.
[Illustration: DAVID RITTENHOUSE'S HOUSE, NORRITON, PENNA.
_Photo by Ph. B. Wallace_
See page 170]
XXXVII
THE DAVID RITTENHOUSE HOME, NEAR PHILADELPHIA
THE HEADQUARTERS OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S FRIEND AND CO-LABORER
_"See the sage Rittenhouse with ardent eye
Lift the long tube and pierce the starry sky!
He marks what laws the eccentric wanderers bind,
Copies creation in his forming mind,
And bids beneath his hand in semblance rise
With mimic orbs the labors of the skies."_
This was Barlow's way of telling of the achievement of David
Rittenhouse, the colonial astronomer, in fashioning the marvellous
orrery, the mechanical representation of the movements of the
planetary system. Thomas Jefferson's prose description was a little
more readable:
"A machine far surpassing in ingenuity of contrivance,
accuracy and utility anything of the kind ever before
constructed.... He has not indeed made a world, but he has by
imitation approached more its Maker than any man who has
lived from the creation to this day."
The father of the maker of the orrery was a paper manufacturer near
Germantown, but when David was three years old he moved to a little
farm in Norriton, nineteen miles from Philadelphia, where, in 1749, he
built the stone house in which his son spent the rest of his life.
It was his purpose to make a farmer of David, and he might have
succeeded if he had not invested in a few mathematical books. The
twelve-year-old boy was fascinated by these volumes. Samuel W.
Pennypacker has told the result:
"The handles of his plough, and even the fences around the
fields, he covered with mathematical calculations.... At
seventeen he made a wooden clock, and afterward one in metal.
Having thus tested his ability in an art in which he had
never received any instruction, he secured from his somewhat
reluctant father money enough to buy in Philadelphia the
necessary tools, and after holding a shop by the roadside,
set up in business as a clock and mathematical instrument
maker."
Dr. Benjamin Rush once said that "without library, friends, or
society, and with but two or three books, he became, before he had
reached his four-and-twentieth year, the rival of two of the greatest
mathematicians of Europe."
The skilled astronomer was soon called upon to render a service to
several of the Colonies. By means of astronomical instruments he did
such accurate work in marking out the boundary between Delaware and
Pennsylvania that Mason and Dixon later accepted his results, and he
settled the dispute between New Jersey and New York as to the point
where the forty-first degree of latitude touches the Hudson River.
Perhaps, however, the achievement that won for him greatest fame was
the observation, made in 1769, of the transit of Venus. The importance
of the observation is evident from the facts that it provides the best
means for calculating the distance between the heavenly bodies, which
had never been satisfactorily made, and that the opportunity would
not occur again for one hundred and five years. After months of
preparation, which included the making of delicate instruments,
Rittenhouse, one of a committee of three appointed by the American
Philosophical Society, succeeded. In the words of Pennypacker, "The
first approximately accurate results in the measurement of the spheres
were given to the world, not by the schooled and salaried astronomers
who watched from the magnificent royal observatories of Europe, but by
unpaid amateurs and devotees to science in the youthful province of
Pennsylvania."
Benjamin Franklin found in him a kindred spirit, and the Philadelphian
was frequently a visitor at the Norriton farmhouse. On Sunday the two
friends often went to the old Norriton Presbyterian Church, which had
been built on the corner of the Rittenhouse farm, within sight of the
house. This church, which probably dates from 1698, is still standing
in good repair.
Some years after the successful observation of the transit of Venus
brought fame to the American astronomer, he moved to Philadelphia.
There, among other duties, he had charge of the State House clock.
At the beginning of the Revolution the Council of Safety asked that he
should "prepare moulds for the casting of clock weights, and send them
to some iron furnace, and order a sufficient number to be immediately
made for the purpose of exchanging them with the inhabitants of this
city for their leaden clock weights." The leaden weights were needed
for bullets. Later he was sent to survey the shores of the Delaware,
to choose the best points for fortifications.
When he became Engineer of the Council of Safety "he was called upon
to arrange for casting cannon of iron and brass, to view the site for
the erection of a Continental powder mill, to conduct experiments for
rifling cannon and muskets, to fix upon a method of fastening a chain
for the protection of the river, to superintend the manufacture of
saltpeter, and to locate a magazine for military stores on the
Wissahickon."
This was but the beginning of service to Pennsylvania during the
Revolution. His activities were so valuable to the Colonies that a
Tory poet published in the _Pennsylvania Evening Post_ of December 2,
1777, a verse addressed "To David Rittenhouse," of which the first
stanza read:
"Meddle not with state affairs,
Keep acquaintance with the stars;
Science, David, is thy line;
Warp not Nature's great design.
If thou to fame would'st rise."
The following year Thomas Jefferson wrote to him:
"You should consider that the world has but one Rittenhouse,
and never had one before.... Are those powers, then, which,
being intended for the erudition of the world, are, like
light and air, the world's common property, to be taken from
their proper pursuit to do the commonplace drudgery of
governing a single State?"
To the call of the nation Rittenhouse responded in April, 1792, when
President Washington appointed him the first Director of the Mint.
His closing years were full of honors, but his strength was declining
rapidly; he had spent himself so fully for his country that his power
of resistance was small. Just before he died, on June 26, 1796, he
said to a friend who had been writing to him, "You make the way to God
easier."
XXXVIII
THE HEADQUARTERS AT VALLEY FORGE, PENNSYLVANIA
WHERE WASHINGTON LIVED DURING THE WINTER OF 1777-78
A few rods from the beautiful Schuylkill River, at Valley Forge,
Pennsylvania, twenty-four miles from Philadelphia, is the quaint stone
house where Washington spent nearly six months of the most trying year
of the Revolution.
While the British troops were occupying Philadelphia Congress was in
session at York, Pennsylvania. Valley Forge was accordingly a
strategic location, for from here it was comparatively simple to guard
the roads leading out of Philadelphia, and to prevent both the exit of
the British and the entrance of supplies designed for the enemy.
The eleven thousand men who marched to the site selected for the camp
were miserably equipped for a winter in the open. Provisions were
scarce, and clothing and shoes were even more scarce. But the men
looked forward bravely to the months of exposure before them.