The Philadelphia Police, Past and Present

https://archive.org/stream/cu31924068919533#page/n7/mode/2up

 

 

Present, that is, if you live in 1887 or thereabouts. This is a comprehensive 892-page account of the department from its founding by Penn through the Consolidation and beyond, up to 1887 anyway. The Free Library Central Branch  has a reprint from 1974 in the  Social Science and History Department, classified as "Closed Reference." That just means it doesn't circulate and it's not on the shelves. You have to ask for it.

Here's a nice searchable online version from Archive.org, with all the illustrations and pictures. This is text version.
 
In it you'll find such interesting tidbits as:

William Penn went back to England and ran the Commonwealth from there for 17 years. In 1697 he wrote a letter to the governor:

"The Council were informed in plain terms that reports and accusations, tending to ruin and disgrace, had reached England, and among other things, that they had not only countenanced but actually encouraged piracy. In regard to Philadelphia, it had been reported that there was "no place more overcome with wickedness, sins so scandalous, openly committed, in defiance of law and virtue, and, in short, actions of so bad a nature that modesty forbade their recital."
The first Chief of Detectives was Joseph Wood 1859 who organized the new department, and he did a bang-up job catching crooks. "It was not long before it came to be considered that Philadelphia was a good place 'to keep away from,' among professional criminals."
 
"During Chief Wood's term of office he made a number of important arrests and secured the conviction of many notorious offenders. Among them was James Buchanan Cross, the forger, who was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Cross was one of the most celebrated and expert forgers of his time."

Wood was a hands-on kind of chief:
 
"Probably the most important criminal event in which Mr. Wood had a hand while chief of detectives was the "turning up," arrest and conviction of a gang of counterfeiters. They were acknowledged to be the most expert of that day, and even the banks were imposed upon by their spurious notes. Those arrested and sentenced to the penitentiary were "Bill" Cregar and " Bob" Bridley, who were arrested by Chief Wood personally, and on each of whom he found $300 of the counterfeit notes; "Si" Bright and Manassas, or "Minnie" Price, as he was called. Six thousand dollars of counterfeit notes on the Western Bank  were captured at "Minnie" Price's tavern, Nineteenth and Perkiomen streets, which was used as headquarters for the gang. Each of these men was sentenced to five years' imprisonment." 

Wood instituted the Rogues' Gallery, a Philadelphia's Most Wanted List, 1884's collection seen below.

 

  

PhilaBILL: Scrapple it up!

PhilaBILL: Scrapple it up!: "Scrapple Love" TableMatters.com http://tablematters.com/2013/11/11/scrapple-love/ What would a Philly blog be without mentio...

Scrapple it up!

"Scrapple Love" TableMatters.com http://tablematters.com/2013/11/11/scrapple-love/

What would a Philly blog be without mention of scrapple?

Scrapple is not an acquired taste. It is a, when cooked correctly, love-at-first-taste taste. Cooking correctly merely entails higher temperature in the frying pan, deep frying or even broiling, in order to crisp it. Formula ingredients may differ, just as hot dog formulas differ, but if you see Dietz & Watson's don't pass it by.

The Scrapple Wikipedia entry (grain of salt) seems about right, but how can it be "arguably the first pork food invented in America"  and then be traced back to pre-Roman Europe and the German panhas?

I did the scrapple Google search so you don't have to.

And there's no indication I've found yet that the word scrapple is actually a  Pennsylvania Dutch colloquialism for the question "What the heck do we with the rest of the pig after we make sausage, ribs and bacon.."

Enchanted Colonial Christmas Village

Merry Christmas to all!

It's nice to find that the Enchanted Christmas Village we remember now resides at the Please Touch Museum which, by the way, now resides an Memorial Hall, Fairmount Park. Perfect place for both. For those unfamiliar, Memorial Hall was the main exhibition space for the 1876 International Centennial  Exhibition. In Philadelphia.

The Village made Lit Brothers, one of the major department stores in Philadelphia, an annual destination.

Lit Brothers. Seventh & Market Streets. 1936.

Saloons of the Golden Age

Image: The Smithsonian - The Spirited History of the American Saloon
 

You know how you can tell this photo is authentic? No barstools.

"Not many Americans had seen anything quite so impressive (as the saloon at The Pavilion hotel, Staten Island, 1839) but as the century wore on, fancy saloons appeared in every American city. They were intended to dazzle, in the Victorian manner, with an all-out decorative onslaught. Woodwork was massive, ceilings high, glassware ornate. 'I have visited in my day the barrooms of all civilized countries,' Mencken wrote in the 1940s, 'but none that I ever saw came within miles of a high-toned American saloon of the Golden Age....(In) the time I speak of, saloon architects stuck to mirrors...to honest brass and to noble and imperishable mahogany."

Straight Up or on the  Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail by William Grimes

S.S. United States

The S.S. United States at Pier 82 (Photo at http://picturephilly.com)

Catherine and I floated down to South Columbus Boulevard (nee Delaware Avenue) to explore the medium commercial zone (in Sim City-speak) offerings. We made land at the Wal-Mart, took on some supplies, and then cruised on over to the PLCB Wine and Spirit Special Collection Shoppe, for some fuel (cheer.)

Across the way, docked at Pier 82 just below Snyder is the ocean liner S.S. United States, the biggest ship ever built in the USA, It's 100 feet longer than the Titanic was and was faster than Cunard's Queen Mary. It's been at Pier 82 there since 1996. The United States is the sister-ship of the S.S. France, which I had boarded as a teen  to see parents off on a Caribbean cruise. They left me in charge of their maroon Pontiac Bonneville. Fiddling with the 8-track player on the White Horse Pike and...well, to make a long story short, I wasn't able drive to New York to pick them up.    

Here's a link to the S.S. United States Conservancy, which has more photos, information and ways you can help. 

Here's the obituary of its last skipper, Leroy. J. Alexanderson, who also landed Marines on Okinawa. .

Merchant's Hotel

The Merchant's Hotel opened as the Washington Hotel on the first block of north Fourth Street, in 1837 and enjoyed a run as the premier lodging destination in Philadelphia, mostly due to its location. Details here.

Historical Society of PA Holiday Gift

HSP will share a resource a day from now until the end of the year on Facebook and Twitter.

FB: facebook.com/historicalpaT: @historicalpa

Image: Old Log Cabin on the Wissahickon Creek, Fairmount Park, East Side, watercolor by David Johnson Kennedy



 

First ever SELFIE

It was made by Robert Cornelius in 1839, in Philadelphia. Story here.

Pier 53 Boardwalk

Pier 53 at the site of the old US Navy Yard when it was at Washington Avenue will be a public access park with an elevated boardwalk. See the news and a photo gallery here.

Chaos in the Streets. The Philadelphia Nativist Riots. 1844.

The Philadelphia Nativist Riots, 1844. In May parts of Kensington were incinerated. Homes and churches destroyed. In July focus shifted to another Irish-Catholic enclave, Southwark.

Villanova has a nice online exhibit here.

Or if you want to see how the Southwark chaos turned out, well, you'll want to read the book. I'll keep you posted.

Archaic Job Titles I

 

Spent a day last week at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, a few hours of it looking listing-by-listing at the McElroy City Directory of Philadelphia, 1861. The City Directory was like a White Pages/Yellow Pages but without phone numbers, of course. It gave your name, address and occupation. Barely through the As for my purposes but I started to notice many occupations that no longer exist:

turner
coach trimmer
bonnet presser
bridgetender
trunkmaster
hatter
cordwainer
wheelwright
gentlewoman
lampblack
watchcasemaker
morocco dresser
morocco finisher
morocco manufacturer

This was through two pages. Gentlewoman I believe would have meant "rich lady." Morocco is a type of leather made from goat hide. Apparently in 1861 Philadelphia was the morocco capital of the world, outside of Morocco, I'd imagine. One guy was listed as tailor AND publisher. There was an iron works at Fifth and Tasker. It was owned my Mr. Morris and Mr. Tasker. For those unfamiliar, Morris is the name of a Philadelphia street one block south of Tasker. At Fifth and Arch was an establishment that dealt in dental supplies, and it looks like they also did a big business in porcelain teeth.

 

(The porcelain teeth in the photo are circa 1880 and are available at Collect Medical Antiques.)

 

William Penn's Hangout

Since CARR is a family name, while doing research at the Historical Society of PA on old taverns, it looks like a fellow named Carr is responsible for the very genesis of taverns in Philadelphia. I'm currently targeting an establishment called "The Blue Anchor', later name changed to the "Boatswain and Call" and then changed back. It also changed location a number of times but for a hundred or more years was on a bluff overlooking the Delaware at Budd's Row, in what is now known as Penn's Landing. The Blue Anchor, according to this document, was Penn and his party's first stop off the boat, and for years afterward Billy Penn could be seen on the porch smoking a pipe. The Blue Anchor is stated as present, in a different location in 1896, at Dock street below Second.

As for the Carr angle, it's recorded in a report made to the Colonial Society of Pennsylvania on November 9, 1896, and published in the "Bulletin of the Colonial Society of Pennsylvania #2" that "the tavern was facing a landing on a higher bluff... in the year 1671 [ten years before before Penn arrived] it was proposed by Captain CARR to Governor and Council [of New Castle, a trading post founded by the Dutch East India Company]..."'that ye number of Victuallers or Tappers of strong drink be ascertained, that is to say, Three only for ye town & and some few up ye river, who ye officers shall think fitt and approve of the same few up ye river.' The Blue Anchor became one."

So it was a Carr idea to institute the food & beverage industry in America. And the Blue Anchor had one of "some few" liquor licenses.

(Except for picture, first posted to Facebook October 7, 2013)

Receiving Ship Princeton

The image is at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.  '

The Princeton was moved to Philadelphia to serve as a receiving ship through the Civil War. The big buildings in the background were in the U.S. Navy Yard, at that time at Washington Avenue. A receiving ship was where new naval recruits reported for duty, as recorded in "A Journal of a Cruise in the U.S.S Powhatan" by Charles S. Mervine, age 15. Repeat, age 15.

"August 1862. At sea.

"8th. I shipped in the U.S. Navy at Philadelphia (for three yrs.) The same day find myself on board the Receiving Ship "Princeton" where [I] remained going through the ups and downs of a sailor's life until the night of the 9th when I was drafted on board the 'Powhatan.' We lay in the Delaware [with] many visitors coming aboard until the 25th."