Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/176

 Mr. French and four other merchants of the neighborhood, T. Morris Perot, Edward H. Ogden, John C. Croxton and William Renner (the father of the present Mr. Renner). That pole, which is still standing, is eighty-five feet from ground to truck. The Indian figure is nine and one-half feet high; it stretches nine feet from the rear end of the bow to the outstretched hand. The copper ball beneath it is sixteen inches in diameter. Mr. Renner says the figure is of wood, several inches thick, and sheathed in iron. He thinks that the hand alone would weigh 150 pounds. He thinks it quite remarkable that though many church steeples in the neighborhood have been struck by lightning the Indian has been unscathed. On holidays Mr. Renner runs up a large flag on the pole, twenty-one by thirty-six feet.

When I remarked that this was a pretty big flag I touched Mr. Renner in a tender spot. Probably there is no man who knows more about big flags than he, for he told me that in 1911 he had made in his workroom on Vine street a Stars and Stripes which is supposed to be the largest flag ever made. It measured 75 by 150 feet. It was flown in Chestnut Hill Park that summer and the next year was hung in a park in Bridgeport, Conn. It was hung on a wire cable between two masts, each 125 feet high and 780 feet apart. Mr. Renner was to have taken it to Panama to be exhibited there when the canal was opened, but unfortunately it was damaged in a fire in Bridgeport.