Читать книгу A guide book of art, architecture, and historic interests in Pennsylvania - Various Authors - Страница 6

Table of Contents

WITH a royal grant for 40,000 square miles of land in the New World, William Penn, thirty-eight years old, came up the Delaware River in 1682 and landed at the Blue Anchor Inn, built by the Swedes in 1636. The state now covers 45,126 square miles.

No eastern state contains forests of such varied and abundant timber, or extensive mineral deposits. According to official reports of the state geologist, one and one-third billion dollars’ worth of mineral products were taken from below ground in 1916; of these coal is the greatest wealth producer, over $1,000,000,000 annually, the production being nearly one-half that of the entire United States; the supply is still ample and new fields are being opened. Over $100,000,000 in coke; and more than $42,000,000 in its by-products. Petroleum counts for $26,000,000. Gold, silver, platinum, and asbestos are found in small quantities. Natural gas has been used in this state for manufacturing purposes since 1874. This is the greatest manufacturing region in the world, and has the richest agricultural land in the United States. Pennsylvania stands first among the states in the Union in the number of towns over 5000 in population, making it a remarkable selling market. Philadelphia, the chief city, and third in population, 1,823,779, in the United

Philadelphia County

States, is on the site of a village of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians, called Coaquanarck. Through William Penn’s liberal policy to early settlers, and later being the seat of government of the United States, many national institutions were originated here, and many more historical buildings are here than in any other city in America. It comprises the whole of Philadelphia County, and has a distinctive character of its own, reminiscent of the old Quaker life, which is given in this book in two Colonial Walks; the Revolutionary Period is given in automobile routes, framed on Washington’s itinerary; and modern institutions, many of them continuing from colonial times, are in chapters, schools, galleries and museums, hospitals, libraries, music, churches. Philadelphia was the leader in the fight for “Liberty of Conscience.”

The obvious picturesqueness of Philadelphia is in the Pennsylvania Hospital, Independence Hall, Christ Church, Old Swedes’, St. Peter’s. Down in lower Spruce Street and neighboring streets are beautiful colonial houses, stately doorways, decorative ironwork, dormer windows, great gables, facing each other at street corners in harmonious proportions. In not another town were the old streets so well worth keeping unchanged. The early Friends, when they left England, packed up, with their “Liberty of Conscience,” the love of beauty in architecture and the money to pay for it. In a fine period of English architecture, they got good English architects—Wren is said to have been of the number—to design, not only their public buildings, but their private houses; and carried over in their personal baggage, paneling, carvings, ironwork, furniture and the various details they were not likely to procure in Philadelphia.

Long straight lines of streets give the town serenity and repose.

1. Independence Hall. 2. Independence Square. 3. Philosophical Society. 4. U.S. Custom House. 5. Carpenters’ Hall. 6. Bank of North America. 7. Christ Church. 8. Site St. George and the Dragon Inn. 9. Betsey Ross House. 10. Friends’ Meeting House. 11. St. George’s M. E. Church. 12. St. John’s Lutheran Church. 13. Christ Church Burial Ground. 14. Free Quaker Building. 15. Fort Rittenhouse. 16. Mikveh Israel Synagogue. 17. First U. S. Mint. 18. Site Robert Morris Residence. 19. Site President Washington’s Residence. 20. Site Pennsylvania National Bank. 21. Franklin Institute.