Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/356

 home, the life, the leisure, the acquaintance and the society possible 150 years ago to a man who farmed suburban acres are all attested when you stand in Bartram's garden by the river on the gray rock of the only rock wine-press this side of the Atlantic, and remember that on this curving path Washington, Franklin, Hancock, Rittenhouse, Morris, and Kalm, and a score more of the century's great, supped in the cool, open evening with a host whom the first two found at a sudden coming bare-headed, barefooted and plowing. The Revolutionary houses of the environs tell of the farm-profits of this period; so do the "clasped hands" and the "green tree" on the fronts of the olden homes—few or none dating back of the Revolution—which record the organization of rival insurance companies; the earliest building of the Pennsylvania Hospital on Pine with quaint old-world aspect, the little strip of wall at Tenth and Spruce, once part of the almshouse which Longfellow blended with the hospital in Evangeline; Carpenters' Hall, the only Guild house in the colonies; the bit of wall still standing of the brewery at Fifth and Wharton; of the first play-house in the city and, most important of all, the two chief colo