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many fine buildings. He despised the few relatives he had, and when he died in 1831 his estate, then the largest known in the country, and estimated at $9,000,000, was almost entirely bequeathed for charity.

      Stephen Girard left donations to schools, hospitals, Masonic poor funds, for fuel for the poor, and other charitable purposes; but the major part of his fortune went in trust to the city of Philadelphia, partly to improve its streets and the Delaware River front, but the greater portion to endow Girard College. This was in the form of a bequest of $2,000,000 in money and a large amount of lands and buildings, together with the ground whereon the College has been built. He gave the most minute directions about its construction, the institution to be for the support and instruction of poor white male orphans, who are admitted between the ages of six and ten years, and between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years are to be bound out as apprentices to various occupations. A clause in the will provides that no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect whatever is to hold any connection with the College, or even be admitted to the premises as a visitor; but the officers are required to instruct the pupils in the purest principles of morality, leaving them to adopt their own religious beliefs. The College building is of white marble, and the finest specimen of pure Grecian architecture in the United States. It is a Corinthian temple, surrounded by a portico of thirty-four columns, each fifty-five feet high and six feet in diameter. The building is one hundred and sixty-nine by one hundred and eleven feet, and ninety-seven feet high, the roof being of heavy slabs of marble, from which, as the College stands on high ground, there is a grand view over the city. Within the vestibule are a statue of Girard and his sarcophagus. The architect, Thomas U. Walter, achieved such fame from this building that he was afterwards employed to extend the Capitol at Washington. There are many other buildings in the College enclosure, some being little less pretentious than the College itself. This comprehensive charity has been in successful operation over a half-century, and it supports and educates some sixteen hundred boys, the endowment, by careful management, now exceeding $16,000,000.

      Philadelphia is great in other charities, and notably in hospitals. Opposite Girard College are the magnificent buildings of the German Hospital and the Mary J. Drexel Home for the education of nurses, established by the munificence of John D. Lankenau, the widowed husband of the lady whose name it bears. The Drexel Institute, founded by Anthony J. Drexel, is a fine building in West Philadelphia, with $2,000,000 endowment, established for "the extension and improvement of industrial education as a means of opening better and wider avenues of employment to young men and women," and it provides for about two thousand students. The Presbyterian, Episcopal, Jewish, Methodist and Roman Catholic hospitals, all under religious care, are noted. Philadelphia is also the great medical school of the country, and the University, Jefferson, Hahnemann and Women's Colleges, each with a hospital attached, have world-wide fame. The oldest hospital, the Pennsylvania Hospital, occupying an entire block between Spruce and Pine and Eighth and Ninth Streets, was founded in 1752, and is supported almost entirely by voluntary contributions. In 1841 it established in West Philadelphia a separate Department for the Insane. The Medico-Chirurgical Hospital is a modern foundation which has grown to large proportions. There are many libraries—not only free libraries, with branches in various parts of the city, for popular use, supported by the public funds, but also the Philadelphia Library, founded by Franklin and his friends of the Junto Literary Club in 1731, and its Ridgway Branch, established, with $1,500,000 endowment, by Dr. James Rush—a spacious granite building on Broad Street, which cost $350,000. One of the restrictions of his gift, however, excludes newspapers, he describing them as "vehicles of disjointed thinking." The Pennsylvania Historical Society also has a fine library pertaining to early Colonial history, and many valuable relics and manuscripts, including the first Bible printed in America, and the original manuscripts of Home, Sweet Home, and the Star-Spangled Banner.

      NOTABLE PHILADELPHIA BUILDINGS.

      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 presided 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, another 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 undermined 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 Longfellow 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

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