The Friends' Almshouse of Philadelphia was founded in 1713 by the city's Quaker leadership to help destitute members of the Society of Friends, although people of other creeds were sometimes admitted. As such, this was the first institution in America to care for poor citizens. The combination poorhouse and workhouse occupied two small buildings built especially for it on the south side of Walnut Street between Third and Fourth Streets. The houses were augmented with a substantial brick building fronting Walnut Street in 1729.
Not to be confused with the city-run Philadelphia Almshouse (established in 1732), the Quaker Almshouse provided food, housing, work and perhaps even modest healthcare for the indigent until 1841 when it was demolished, although one of the original houses lasted into the 1870s. Today, the Catholic Heritage Center stands on the site.
Benjamin Chew was a fifth-generation American, a Quaker-born legal scholar, a prominent and successful Philadelphia lawyer, head of the Pennsylvania Judiciary System under both Colony and Commonwealth, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Province of Pennsylvania. Chew was well known for his precision and brevity in making legal arguments as well as his excellent memory, judgment, and knowledge of statutory law. His primary allegiance was to the supremacy of law and constitution.
Tun Tavern was a tavern and brewery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which was a founding or early meeting place for a number of notable groups. It is traditionally regarded as the site where what became the United States Marine Corps held its first recruitment drive during the American Revolution. It is also regarded as one of the "birthplaces of Masonic teachings in America".
Center City includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of Philadelphia, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It comprises the area that made up the City of Philadelphia prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854, which extended the city borders to be coterminous with Philadelphia County. Greater Center City has grown into the second-most densely populated downtown area in the United States, after Midtown Manhattan in New York City, with an estimated 173,284 residents in 2010.
Walnut Street Prison was a city jail and penitentiary house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1773 to 1838. Legislation calling for establishment of the jail was passed in 1773 to relieve overcrowding in the High Street Jail; the first prisoners were admitted in 1776. It was located at Sixth and Walnut Streets, where it acquired its original name Walnut Street Jail.
The Blockley Almshouse, later known as Philadelphia General Hospital, was a charity hospital and poorhouse located in West Philadelphia. It originally opened in 1732/33 in a different part of the city as the Philadelphia Almshouse. Philadelphia General Hospital closed in 1977.
Samuel Sloan was a Philadelphia-based architect and best-selling author of architecture books in the mid-19th century. He specialized in Italianate villas and country houses, churches, and institutional buildings. His most famous building—the octagonal mansion "Longwood" in Natchez, Mississippi—is unfinished; construction was abandoned during the American Civil War.
The Slate Roof House was a mansion that stood on 2nd Street north of Walnut Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from about 1687 until its demolition in 1867. Built for Barbadian Quaker merchant Samuel Carpenter, the house occupied a small hill overlooking the Delaware River. It was built of brick in the Jacobean style, with its façade featuring two projecting wings that flanked a recessed central entrance. The house was notable for its large size as well for its slate roof, which was a rarity in early Philadelphia.
Walnut Street is located in downtown Philadelphia and extends from the city's Delaware River waterfront through Center City and West Philadelphia. Walnut Street has been characterized as "the city's premier shopping district". A portion of the street commonly called Rittenhouse Row was ranked 12th in 2005 by Women's Wear Daily among its list of the most expensive retail streets in North America, with rents of $90 per square foot, and is home to several "upscale dining, retail and cultural" establishments. In 2013 rents had risen to an average of $107 a foot, a growth of 34% over 2012 and the largest percentage growth of any retail corridor in the country.
Deborah Fisher Wharton was an American Quaker minister, suffragist, social reformer and proponent of women's rights. She was one of a small group of dedicated Quakers who founded Swarthmore College along with her industrialist son, Joseph Wharton. She was a contemporary and friend of Lucretia Mott and had many of Mott's sympathies but did not actively pursue the women's rights cause, rather she was a proponent of liberal Quaker spirituality.
The Arch Street Friends Meeting House, at 320 Arch Street at the corner of 4th Street in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a Meeting House of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Built to reflect Friends’ testimonies of simplicity and equality, this building is little changed after more than two centuries of continuous use.
Addison Hutton (1834–1916) was a Philadelphia architect who designed prominent residences in Philadelphia and its suburbs, plus courthouses, hospitals, and libraries, including the Ridgway Library and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. He made major additions to the campuses of Westtown School, George School, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, and Lehigh University.
Union Fire Company, sometimes called Franklin's Bucket Brigade, was a volunteer fire department formed in Philadelphia in 1736 with the assistance of Benjamin Franklin. It was the very first firefighting organization in Philadelphia, although it was followed within the year by establishment of the Fellowship Fire Company. The fire company was formed on 7 December 1736 after a series of publications in the Pennsylvania Gazette by Franklin and others pointing out the need for more effective handling of fires in Philadelphia and remained active until approximately 1820. Although modeled after the Mutual Fire Societies of Franklin's native Boston, the Union Fire Company protected all members of the community rather than only the members of the company.
Fort Beversreede was a Dutch-built palisaded factorij located near the confluence of the Schuylkill River and the Delaware River. It was an outpost of the colony of New Netherland, which was centered on its capital, New Amsterdam (Manhattan), on the North River.
The Cohoquinoque Creek was formerly a stream running west to east through the Callowhill neighborhood in Philadelphia, along the southern part of Northern Liberties and immediately north of original northern boundary of Philadelphia. This small tributary of the Delaware River remains today, as a sewer, under Willow Street, which winds its way through what is sometimes called the East Callowhill Industrial District. Its name, spelled various ways, is said to be derived from a Lenni-Lenape word for "the grove of long pine trees." This was also the name of a nearby Lenape village.
Spring Garden Street Bridge is a highway bridge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, that crosses the Schuylkill River below Fairmount Dam. It connects West Philadelphia to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Benjamin Franklin Parkway. It is the fourth bridge at this location.
The Girard Avenue Bridge is an automobile and trolley bridge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that carries Girard Avenue over the Schuylkill River. It connects the east and west sections of Fairmount Park, and the Brewerytown neighborhood with the Philadelphia Zoo. The current bridge is the third built on the site.
The Benjamin Loxley house was a house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania owned by a major of the same name who served in the Continental Army. The house is associated in history records as the place where Lydia Darragh, a Quaker Patriot, overheard secret British plans and passed them on the next day to General George Washington. Her efforts are believed to have saved the Continental Army from a surprise attack on December 4, 1777 from British General William Howe, who was occupying Philadelphia.
Letitia Street House is a modest eighteenth-century house in West Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. It was built along the Delaware riverfront about 1713, and relocated to its current site in 1883. The house was once celebrated as the city residence of Pennsylvania's founder, William Penn (1644–1718); however, later historical research determined that he never lived there.
Friends meeting houses are places of worship for the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. A "meeting" is the equivalent of a church congregation, and a "meeting house" is the equivalent of a church building.
Chester Friends Meetinghouse is a Quaker meeting house at 520 East 24th Street in Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States.