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.

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.

 

  

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)