Categories
Historic Sites

A Man Full of Trouble: Philadelphia’s Last Surviving Colonial Tavern


In the years leading up to the American Revolution, Philadelphia was unquestionably a city of taverns. They were a one stop source of food, entertainment, and cheap drinks. Furthermore, they were the largest and most abundant (about one for every 25 men) public buildings available for community interaction. As a result, taverns, or “public houses,” became the center of social, business, and political activity in the city.

The colonial elite were inclined to patronize more fashionable “upscale” establishments. Perhaps most recognized of such venues in pre-revolutionary times was the City Tavern, whose patrons included Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, and George Washington, amongst others. In fact, it is well known that this famous pub is where members of the First Continental Congress met unofficially in 1774 and where the country’s early leaders met to celebrate the first anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Although the original structure was damaged in a fire and subsequently demolished in 1856, a replica was built at 2nd and Walnut Streets in 1976, and is open for business today.

There were, however, other less exclusive public houses that appealed to the humbler and perhaps less refined factions of society, including laborers, sailors, and other waterfront workers. One such establishment – A Man Full of Trouble Tavern is today the only surviving pre-revolutionary tavern in Philadelphia. Man Full still stands at its original building site at 127-129 Spruce Street in Philadelphia”s historic Old City.


Built in 1760 along the banks of Dock Creek, by Michael Sisk, the structure was first put into commercial service sometime in the decade following its manufacture, by its first unlicensed tavern keeper Joseph Beeks. Throughout its history, ownership of the tavern changed hands many times. Beeks’ successor, James Alexander obtained a license in 1773 and ran the pub through 1789 when Thomas Wilkins took it over for a short time. Perhaps the most noteworthy owner, widow Martha Smallwood acquired the property in 1796 and ran it for the next thirty years. Historical and archaeological data hint that Smallwood may have succeeded in bringing a small amount of gentility to a previously oafish establishment. Subsequent to widow Smallwood’s death in 1826, the establishment morphed into Stafford’s Tavern, Cove Cornice House, Naylor’s Hotel – a mid-nineteenth century hotel famous for its oysters – and, in the mid-twentieth century, a wholesale chicken market.


The building was finally, in the 1960s, restored and opened for historic tours by Councilwoman Virginia Knauer. In 1966, Knauer also invited a group of graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania to conduct an archaeological investigation of the site. Significantly, A Man Full of Trouble Tavern is the only public house site in Philadelphia to yield considerable archaeological findings that reveal important nuances of early American public life. Unfortunately, to the dismay of historical enthusiasts, and more specifically, the patrons of Philadelphia’s Tippler’s Tour*, the interior of Man Full, along with its archaeological relics, was closed to public speculation in 1994.


References:

Categories
Public Services

The Life of the Schuylkill: Part One


 

The Schuylkill is not an unattractive river. Reflections of the illuminated arches of the bridges above it gleam on its dark surface at night, while the lights of Boathouse Row have given commuters on I-76 and Amtrak and Septa passengers something to enjoy as they speed past. The Fairmount Waterworks, newly restored and featuring a high-end restaurant and high-tech museum, has been attracting locals and tourists alike for almost 200 years. Many Philadelphians spend hours on and around the river, jogging, fishing, boating and relaxing.

But how many would drink straight out of it?

When William Penn drew up Philadelphia’s grid and decided where to site the city in the late 1600’s, he did so with a careful eye to water resources. Nestled at the closest point between two rivers, Philadelphia was intended to become a green city of lush parks and wide avenues – everything overbuilt, dingy, plague-infested and fire-prone London was not.

Yet as the city grew into the second largest English-speaking city in the world in the eighteenth century, the groundwater Philadelphians had been drinking from wells and streams became deadly. By the time Benjamin Franklin bequeathed 1,000 pounds to the city after his death in 1790 to “insure the health, comfort and preservation of the citizens” by managing the water supply, Philadelphia was on the verge of a series of fever epidemics. A quarter of the population of the city would die, while half of Philadelphians – the wealthier half – moved out into the safety of the surrounding countryside. The cause, according to eminent Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush, was sewage leaked into the city’s underground wells and the general filthiness of the city.

Even before disaster struck, Philadelphians avoided drinking the water when they could, preferring beer, wine or spirits. Apparently this was the foundation of a local joke explaining why the Continental Congress only held meetings early in the day – by afternoon, after a thirsty morning’s work, the founding fathers were unfit for much other than reeling home to sleep it off.


 

Fortunately, the city had a river in reserve. Philadelphia’s growth had not gone at all according to Penn’s plan, hugging the Delaware instead of filling out the grid and leaving the Schuylkill and the land to the west relatively untouched. The city government formed a special Watering Committee to examine the possibility of building a conduit to the Schuylkill or Wissahickon Creek. According to B. H. Latrobe, the engineer tasked with finding a safe water supply and getting it to the city, the Schuylkill was remarkably fresh. Latrobe reported back that “In favor of the Schuylkill: The Principal circumstance is the uncommon purity of its water” and devised an innovative plan to pump the water out using massive steam engines.

The plan went forward – at a time when there were only three steam engines of the size required in America – and a pumping station was built on the Schuylkill at Chestnut Street, which fed water from the river to a 16,000 gallon tank in Center Square, where City Hall is today. It then naturally flowed down from this massive water tower to the rest of the city via a network of underground wooden pipes. Philadelphians were then invited to pay a fee to be connected to the water system. Subscribers – initially mostly businesses like tanneries and breweries – soon numbered in the hundreds.

Already on the cutting-edge of contemporary technology, Philadelphia”s water system then got even better. Frustrated with the expense of fueling the steam engines and the constant breakdowns – and explosions – that plagued the pumping stations, the Watering Committee converted the two-engine Fairmount Waterworks into a water-powered, self-supporting technological wonder.


 

The job fell to Frederick Graff, one of Latrobe’s former assistants. Graff executed one of the most successful public works projects of the era with only a few drawings – there were no similar designs that could be copied and no models or prototypes were made. The Schuylkill is a wide, deep, flood and ice-prone river, a nightmare for engineers of the time to tame, dam and harness. Graff did it, housing his machinery in graceful Greek-revival buildings as Latrobe had done with the pumping stations. A technical and aesthetic triumph, the shift to water-power slashed operating costs from $360 dollars a day to $4.00.

The Fairmount Waterworks’ fame spread to Europe, and the image of the Greek temples by the Schuylkill became one of the most reproduced prints of America in travel books. Hotels were built on the opposite bank for visitors – the public was invited to tour the Waterworks from its first day of operation on. Even Charles Dickens, unremittingly harsh in his observations of the United States in his American Notes for General Circulation, had to admit that, during his visit in 1840, Philadelphia was,”most bountifully provided with fresh water, which is showered and jerked about, and turned on, and poured off everywhere. The Water-Works… are no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a public garden, and kept in the best and neatest order.”

Yet the “golden age” of Philadelphia”s water system was already nearing its close.

Many thanks to the Philadelphia Water Department for their willingness to share valuable information for this blog entry!

References:

  • The Philadelphia Water Department. The Philadelphia Water Department: An Historical Perspective,, 1987.
  • The Philadelphia Water Department, in collaboration with Hal Kirn and Associates and Rocky Collins.The River and the City: Script for a Film, 1994.
  • “View of the practicability and means of supplying the city of Philadelphia with wholesome water.” In a letter to John Miller, Esquire, from B. Henry Latrobe, engineer. December 29th. 1798. Printed by order of the Corporation of Philadelphia. (Accessed via American Antiquarian Society and NewsBank, inc. Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans Readex Digital Collections).
  • See also, http://www.fairmountwaterworks.org/.

Categories
Historic Sites

The Divine Lorraine Hotel


 

Standing at the corner of Broad and Fairmount Streets in North Philadelphia is a building that is historically significant on a number of different levels. The Divine Lorraine Hotel, formerly known as both Lorraine Apartments and the Lorraine Hotel, was designed by architect Willis G. Hale and built between 1892 and 1894. The building originally functioned as apartments, housing some of Philadelphia’s wealthy residents.

Both the location of the building and the architecture itself reflect the changes that were occurring rapidly in the city of Philadelphia and in the country at the time. North Philadelphia of the 1880s attracted many of the city’s nouveau-riche, those individuals who became wealthy as a result of the industrial revolution. The Lorraine was a place of luxurious living, providing apartments with new amenities such as electricity. In addition, the building boasted its own staff, eliminating the need for residents to have private servants. There was also a central kitchen from which meals were delivered to residents.

The Lorraine Apartments were also an architectural feat. Prior to this period, the majority of Philadelphia’s buildings were low rise, generally being no more than three or four stories tall. Not only were construction materials and techniques not capable of supporting taller buildings, but also imagine the inconvenience of the many flights of stairs one would have to ascend in order to get to higher floors in the absence of an elevator. However, around the time of the industrial revolution, improvements in building materials made taller buildings possible. The Lorraine, at ten stories tall, was one of the first high rise apartment buildings in the city. An earlier high rise apartment building was also designed by Hale, which was built at 22nd and Chestnut Streets in 1889 and stood until demolished in 1945.


 

In 1948 the building was sold to Father Divine (aka George Baker or Reverend Major Jealous Divine). Father Divine was the leader of the Universal Peace Mission Movement. After purchasing the building, Father Divine renamed it the Divine Lorraine Hotel. His hotel was the first of its class in Philadelphia to be fully racially integrated. The Divine Lorraine was open to all who were willing to follow the rules of the movement. Among other things, these rules included no smoking, no drinking, no profanity, and no undue mixing of the sexes. Men and women therefore resided on different floors of the building. Also, guests and residents were expected to uphold a certain level of modesty, meaning that women were expected to wear long skirts – no pants. Believing that all people were equal in the sight of God, Father Divine was involved in many social welfare activities as well. For example, after purchasing the hotel, several parts of it were transformed for public use. The 10th floor auditorium was converted to a place of worship. The movement also opened the kitchen on the first floor as a public dining room where persons from the community were able to purchase and eat low cost meals for 25 cents each.

Divine’s followers ran the hotel after his death until its sale in 2000. The Universal Peace Mission Movement still exists in the form of a network of independent churches, businesses, and religious orders. Its followers also run another hotel, the Divine Tracy in West Philadelphia. The Divine Lorraine received a historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 1994 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 as a site significant in terms of both architectural and civil rights history. After its most recent purchase in 2006, future plans for the hotel included converting it into condominiums.

References:

  • ARCH: Pennsylvania’s Historic Architecture and Archaeology. http://www.arch.state.pa.us/. (accessed 29 March 2007).
  • Hotes, Robert J., et al. “Divine Lorraine Hotel Honored with Landmark Building Award.” Preservation News. http://www.preservationalliance.com/news_divine_2.php (accessed 26 March 2007).
  • Newall, Mike. “Left Behind: A rare look inside North Broad’s Divine Lorraine, a hotel with a heavenly past on the cusp of (commercial) resurrection.” Philadelphia City Paper. 13-19 January 2005. http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2005-01-13/cover.shtml (accessed 28 March 2007).
  • Rohrer, Willa. “Noble Savage: Selling the guts of a Philly landmark.” Philadelphia Weekly. 18 October 2006. http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=13214. (accessed 28 March 2007).
  • “The Universal Peace Mission Movement of Father Divine.”16 June 1997. http://www.americanreligion.org/cultwtch/frdivine.html. (accessed 28 March 2007).
  • Wikipedia. “North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Philadelphia,_Pennsylvania. (accessed 28 March 2007).