PhilaBILL: Camp-Follower Family Portrait

PhilaBILL: Camp-Follower Family Portrait: The image above is on the cover of the Western Pennsylvania History Magazin e's Commemorative Issue from Summer 2013 , which can be r...

Camp-Follower Family Portrait

The image above is on the cover of the Western Pennsylvania History Magazine's Commemorative Issue from Summer 2013, which can be read online. Yes, families followed the father's camp and from the looks on these faces you could conclude that for this family it was not a hard call. It may have been their only move, depending on the situation at home. If not a necessity it might not be a stretch that it may have been framed as the 19th Century equivalent to the modern "working/vacation."

This could be a family portrait set up for when the family arrived in camp, and to show more about how they are than just what they looked like. Mother has a full basket of, probably, food. Dad poses with tools. Son has the dog and daughter a doll. This is who they are and what they do.

Also note the soldiers in the background. Since photos took so long to set up back then it was simple matter for them to do what today would be called a photo-bomb.

Here's the on-the-cover description about the image from the hard copy magazine: "Wives and even families sometimes accompanied soldiers to the front. In this 1861 photo (one of a pair of stereographs) the 31st (later the 82nd) Pennsylvania Infantry passes time at Queen's farm near Fort Massachusetts/Slocum , five miles north of the White House."

Weccacoe Engine Company vs. Weccacoe Hose Company

Above is the Queen  Street headquarters of the Weccacoe Engine Company, a volunteer fire company founded in 1800. The picture is from 1896 when the building housed the City's  Engine Company #3. Below is the building, which still stands (now a private residence) in more contemporary times. These photos are from the  Philadelphia Real Estate Blog.

Philaplace.Org has a page with a period photo of the Engine Company entertaining firemen visiting from Baltimore and a short piece on how Weccacoe Engine spawned the spin-off company Weccacoe Hose, which set up at Front and Catherine. Among other differences (political, ethnic) Weccacoe Engine was temperate while Weccacoe Hose was not. Volunteer fire companies in all parts of the City  were notoriously competitive and their competition often resulted in violent confrontation. If you suspect that the two Weccacoes had a special rivalry you'd be correct. This from The Peoples of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-class Life published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, in an essay by Bruce Laurie entitled "Fire Companies and Gangs."

"In late June of 1844, [Weccacoe Hose] resolved to deliver a coup de grâce and marched to the engine house under cover of darkness. Expecting the visitors, the engine men fired muskets from the upper floor of their house and scattered the mob. The Weccacoes carried their wounded to Diehl's Tavern opposite their hose house and prepared for another assault with a musket of their own."

 Check out the whole piece for more on the fire company phenomenon.

The Great Comet of 1861

The Great Comet of 1861, also known The War Comet, was in the skies over strife-torn North America at the outbreak of the War Between the States.

Vanity Fair Magazine carried the above political editorial cartoon depicting commanding general of the Union army Winfied Scott as the comet. His Anaconda Plan was named by a newspaper editor as ridicule but Scott's waging of economic war is often credited as a crucial component of the North's victory.

First Philadelphia Civil War Death

 

George Leisenring's grave.

George Leisenring, German immigrant, Fishtown resident and early volunteer, was a member of the unarmed, Philadelphia-recruited Washington Brigade that was set upon by anti-Union rioters as it passed thorough Baltimore in 1861. Leisenring was wounded (stabbed) and brought back to Pennsylvania hospital for treatment, where he died. He's buried at the Palmer Burial Ground, Palmer and Memphis Streets in Kensington.

Shot Tower

All right. Here it is. The project is pretty far along.The project being a historical novel. Research must STOP! Thirty-plus years off-and-on should be enough! Two official false-starts and then three strikes and you're out! The photo here is the best and most dynamic of the Tower I've come across so far, for the purposes. The purposes being a candidate for a cover (if acquirable, reasonably.) This is from an informative page about the Shot Tower at a quite interesting site altogether there at Workshop of the World - Philadelphia. The authors may be only slightly, and forgivably, remiss in not noting the cultural significance of the building. Forgivably because it would be a somewhat editorial observation. What you're looking at when you see the Shot Tower is the birthplace of the American arms industry.

As a side note, the tropical-looking vegetation in the photo is known as the Tree of Paradise. Any wandering city boy would know it -- if not by name  -- that species of critter being expert in the flora and fauna of your urban vacant lot. It is tropical in origin but thrives in temperate climates. It's being tagged as "invasive" these days by those who go about such things. But back in the day who knew from invasive? It was here and it was everywhere and it wasn't going anywhere.

Here's another side of it, this bad baaad invasive tree is being used as a Tree of Solace for cancer patients.

Billy Penn's Headaches

Over at Hidden City Philadelphia an informative post with details about the communication uses to which Penn's statue on City Hall has been put over the years. Though for all the talk of debasement and vandalism of a (at the time) notable world class landmark it might be considered that Penn himself, not the statue, might have had strong feelings about the eradication of Centre Square, the centerpiece park of his Greene Countrie Towne, with a massive granite government building.

One clue to Penn's position on this might be noted in the book Lost Philadelphia, by Mauger and Skiba, where Samuel Carpenter proposed the Slate Roof House that would overlook the river "initially Penn resisted  requests to build houses close to the Delaware, hoping to preserve the foliage along the waterfront...." Penn inevitably gave in to development.

Slate Roof House. Razed in 1867.

Then again Lost Philadelphia also mentions how, when Penn returned to the city after his long hiatus in England, he made the Slate Roof House his residence, in effect, making it the City Hall.

Mummers - Philadelphia - 2014 - Happy New Year!

Heading out to the Mummers in a bit, the tradition predates Philadelphia's parade by centuries but is carried on the USA only here, where the fun is taken seriously.  Enjoy the current parade now from anywhere in the world by clicking this link for the live stream provided by WPHL Channel 17.

Notice the umbrellas carried by the wenches, This and the sun shapes you'll see in the themes and back pieces of costumes in many of the other groups marks the day as a celebration of the return of the sun, and so can be traced near-directly to the sun worship of the Egyptians.

Swede and English imported the tradition of masking to Philly and it was made an official event sanctioned by the city in 190,9 but recognition of the tradition goes back to George Washington.

Happy New Year!