Notable Philadelphia Buildings

( Originally Published 1900 )

There are many notable structures in Philadelphia. The United States Mint, opposite the City Hall, and fronting on Chestnut Street, has executed nearly all the coinage of the country since its establishment in 1792, the present building having been completed in 1833. It contains a most interesting collection of coins, including the " widow's mite." A fine new mint is now being erected on a much larger scale in the northwestern section of the city. The Bourse, on Fifth Street near Chestnut, erected in 1895 at a cost of $1,500,000, is the business centre, its lower hall being the most spacious apartment in the city, and the edifice is constructed in the style of Francis I. The white marble Custom House, with fine Doric portico, was originally erected in 1819, at a cost of $500,000, for the second United States Bank, this noted bank, which ultimately suspended, having been for many years a political bone of contention. On the opposite side of the street, covering a block, is a row of a half-dozen wealthy financial institutions, making one of the finest series in existence, granite and marble being varied in several orders of architecture. The Post-office building, also on Chestnut Street, a grand granite structure in Renaissance, with a façade extending four hundred feet, cost over $5,000,000. The plain and solid Franklin Institute, designed to promote the mechanical and useful arts, is not far away.

Down nearer the river is the venerable Christ Church, with its tall spire, built in 1727, the most revered Episcopal church in the city, and the one at which General Washington and all the Government officials in the Revolutionary days worshipped. William White, a native of the city, was the rector of this church and chaplain of the Continental Congress, and in 1786 was elected the Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, being ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth in February, 1787. He pre-sided over the Convention, held in this church in 1789, which organized the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Christ ,Church still possesses the earliest chime of bells sent from England to America, and the spire, rising nearly two hundred feet, is a prominent object seen from the river. Bishop White died in 1836, aged 88. He was also, in his early life, the rector of St. Peter's Church, an-other revered Episcopal church at Third and Pine Streets. In its yard is the grave of Commodore Stephen Decatur, the famous American naval officer, who, after all his achievements and victories, was killed in a duel with Commodore Barron in 1820, his antagonist also dying. The most ancient church in Philadelphia is Gloria Dei, the " Old Swedes" Church, a quaint little structure near the Delaware River bank in the southern part of the city, built in 1700. The early Swedish settlers, coming up from Fort Christina, erected a log chapel on this site in 1677, at which Jacob Fabritius delivered the first sermon. After he died, the King of Sweden in 1697 sent over Rev. Andrew Rudman, under whose guidance the present structure was built to replace the log chapel; and it was dedicated, the first Sunday after Trinity, 1700, by Rev. Eric Biorck, who had come over with Rudman. Many are the tales told of the escapades of the early Swedes in the days of the log chapel. The Indians on one occasion under-mined it to get at the congregation, as they were afraid of the muskets which the men shot out of the loopholes. The women, however, scenting danger, brought into church a large supply of soft-soap, which they heated piping hot in a cauldron. When the redskins made their foray and popped their heads up through the floor, they were treated to a copious bath of hot soap, and fled in dismay. This is the . " Old Swedes" Church at Wicaco of which Long-fellow sings in Evangeline. The poet, in unfolding his story, brings both Evangeline and Gabriel from Acadia to Philadelphia in the enforced exodus of 1755, and thus graphically describes the Quaker City :

"In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware's waters,
Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn, the Apostle,
Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.
There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty,
And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the forest,
As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested.
There, from the troubled sea, had Evangeline landed an exile,
Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country.
Something, at least, there was, in the friendly streets of the city,
Something that spake to her heart and made her no longer a stranger ;
And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the Quakers,
For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country,
Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters."

In Philadelphia it is said Evangeline lived many years as a Sister of Mercy, and it was thus that she visited the ancient almshouse to minister to the sick and dying on a Sabbath morning :

"As she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east wind,
Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of Christ Church,
While intermingled with these, across the meadows were wafted
Sounds of psalms that were sung by the Swedes in their church at Wicaco."

There she found the dying Gabriel, and both, ac-cording to the tradition, are buried in the yard of the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity, at Sixth and Spruce Streets:

" Still stands the forest primeval ; but far away from its shadow,
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,
In the heart of the city, they lie unknown and unnoticed.
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever;
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy;
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors ;
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey."

In the ancient graveyard of " Old Swedes " is buried Alexander Wilson, the American ornithologist, who was a native of Scotland, but lived most of his life in Philadelphia, dying in 1813. The largest church in the city is the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, fronting on Logan Square, an imposing Roman Corinthian structure of red sand-stone, two hundred and sixteen by one hundred and thirty-six feet, and crowned by a dome rising two hundred and ten feet. The chief institution of learning is the University of Pennsylvania, the most extensive and comprehensive College in the Middle States, dating from 1740, and munificently endowed, which occupies, with its many buildings, a large surface in West Philadelphia, and has three thousand students. This great institution originated from a building planned in 1740 for a place in which George Whitefield could preach, which was also used for a charity school. This building was conveyed to trustees in 1749 to maintain the school, and they were in turn chartered as a college in 1753 " to maintain an academy, as well for the instruction of poor children on charity as others whose circumstances have enabled them to pay for their learning." This charitable feature is still maintained in the University by free scholarships.