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PHILADELPHIA. On October 7, 1681, Captain William Markham, Deputy Governor for William Penn, arrived with a small company, and started an English settlement here, which in July of the following year was laid out and called Philadelphia, ‘the city of brotherly love.’ In 1683 a company of Germans, invited hither by Penn, arrived and settled at Germantown, within the present city limits. In 1684, immigration having been rapid from the start, there were 300 houses and more than 2,500 inhabitants. The majority of the early settlers were Friends, and their influence, combined with that of the Germans, predominated for many years and greatly affected the course of Pennsylvania's history. Penn returned to England in 1684, and did not revisit the city until 1699, when he found a population of 4500, and 700 houses. He chartered the city in 1701, and thereafter frequent controversies arose between the people and the Penn family over proprietary privileges, especially as regards taxation of the Penn lands. The first English school was opened in 1683. Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette began publication in 1729 and the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser was started in 1742. In 1741 the city, then having 1621 taxable citizens, was divided into ten wards. In 1723 Benjamin Franklin, who, next to Penn, exerted the greatest influence in the history of the city, came to Philadelphia. In 1747, during King George's war with the French and Indians, the publication of his Plain Truth roused a spirit of military enthusiasm, a force of 10,000 was raised in Pennsylvania, and a battery was erected below the city, on the site of the present United States Navy Yard. In 1751 the first line of packets to New York was established, followed in 1756 by a stage line. Under Franklin's influence, in 1747 the merchants of Philadelphia sent a ship to discover the Northwest Passage. In 1755 a militia bill was passed, and Franklin became colonel of the city regiment.

From 1763 to 1774 Philadelphia was prominent in resisting British aggression, though the Loyalist party was strong, and most of the Friends opposed warfare; and here most of the important official events of the Revolution took place. In 1773 (October 17), during the excitement over the expected arrival of the tea ships, the people met in mass meeting and passed resolutions which, on November 5th, were readopted at Boston. The first Continental Congress met in Carpenter's Hall, September 5, 1774; the second met May 10, 1775, in the State House; and there, on June 15th, Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental army. In 1776 Congress met for the third time in the State House, and there, on July 4th, the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Philadelphia was held by the British from September 27, 1777 to June 18, 1778, and during this period, while the American army was at Valley Forge, was the scene of much gayety. On May 18, 1778, the famous entertainment called the (q.v.), was given in honor of General Howe, who was about to depart for Europe. On October 4, 1777 the battle of (q.v.) was fought. On May 2, 1787, delegates from the different States assembled here, and, after almost four months of debate behind closed doors, adopted a Constitution for the United States, September 17th. On March 11, 1789, the city received a new charter from the Legislature. Epidemics of

yellow fever in 1793 and 1798 caused great loss of life, at least 4000 dying in the former year and almost 5000 out of the 30,000 who remained in the city in the latter.

During the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth Philadelphia was the most important city in America. The historian McMaster says of it in 1784: “The city was then the greatest in the country. No other could boast of so many streets, so many houses, so many people, so much renown;” and Liancourt describes it in 1800 as “not only the finest city in the United States, but. . . one of the most beautiful cities of the world.” Philadelphia was the capital of Pennsylvania from 1683 until 1799, the seat of the Federal Government from 1790 to 1800, and the monetary centre of the country until 1836. (See .) For many years, also, it was the intellectual and literary centre of the country. Here were published the first newspaper in the middle colonies, American Weekly Mercury (1719); the first secular magazine in North America, Ein geistliches Magazin (1764); the first daily newspaper in the United States, the Pennsylvania Packet (1784); the first American edition of the Bible in German (1743), and in English (1781), and the first religious weekly, Religious Remembrancer (1813). The most popular of the early American magazines—the Port Folio and the Analectic—were also published here.

Philadelphia took the lead in the early anti-slavery movement, the first formal protest against slavery in this country being made by four Germans of Germantown in 1688, the first Abolition convention being held here January 1, 1794, on the invitation of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and the American Anti-Slavery Society being founded here, under the leadership of Garrison, in 1833. In 1812 the water-works at Fairmount were begun and were finished in 1815. In 1832 nearly 1000 deaths resulted from Asiatic cholera. In May, 1838, an anti-Abolitionist mob destroyed Pennsylvania Hall, in which an Abolitionist meeting had been just held. In 1844 occurred the anti-Catholic riots, arising from the demand of the Catholics to be permitted to use the Douai instead of the King James Bible in the public schools. The anti-Catholics, or ‘Native Americans,’ burned Saint Michael's and Saint Augustine's churches, and caused much loss of life before they were put down by the militia. Gas was introduced in 1836, and the first telegraph line was established in April, 1846. On February 2, 1854, a consolidation act was passed by the Legislature, extending the city limits to the county boundaries, and uniting under one municipal government all the outlying districts, known as Southwark, Northern Liberties, Kensington, Spring Garden, Moyamensing, Penn, Richmond, West Philadelphia, and Belmont; also the boroughs of Germantown, Manayunk, and other townships. Philadelphia took an active part in the Civil War, and raised more than $1,000,000 by a sanitary fair in 1864. The centenary of American independence was celebrated in 1876 by the Centennial Exposition; the bi-centennial of the landing of William Penn in 1882; and the centennial of the signing of the Constitution in 1887.

Hazard (editor), Watson's Annals (Philadelphia, 1884); Scharf and