from the north side of Swedes' church lot up to near Queen street, was originally a raised cause-way. Therefore, the oldest houses now standing on the western side of that street do not conform to the line of the street, but range in a line nearly south west, and also stand back from the present street on what was (before the street was laid out) the margin of the high ground bordering on the river Delaware. Those houses too have their yards one story higher than their front pavements, and what was once their cellars under ground is now the first story of the same buildings.

From the Swedes' church down to the navy yard, the high hill formerly there has been cut down five or six feet, and by filling up the wharves below the former steep banks, the bank itself, as once remembered, even 20 years ago. seems strangely diminished. At some distance from Swedes' church westward, is a remarkably low ground, between hills, having a pebbly bed like the river shore, which shows it once had a communication with the Delaware river at the foot of Christian street; where Mr. Joseph Marsh, an aged gentleman, told me he had himself filled up his lot on the south west corner as much as three feet. On that same lot he tells me there was formerly, before his time, a grain mill worked by two horses, which did considerable grinding.

The same Mr. Marsh, then aged 86, showed me that all the ground northward of Christian street and in the rear of his own house, No. 13, descended suddenly; thus showing there must have been there a vale or water channel leading out to the river. His own house formerly went down four steps from his door, and now the ground in the street is so raised as to remove them all.

Near him, at No. 7, on the north side of Christian street, is a very ancient-looking boarded house of but one very low story, having its roof projecting beyond the wall of the house in front and rear, so as to form pent-houses. It is a log-house in truth, concealed by boards and painted, and certainly the only log-house in Philadelphia! What is curious respecting it, is, that it was actually framed and floated to its present spot by "old Joseph Wharton" from Chester county. Of this fact Mr. Marsh assured me, and told me it was an old building in his early days, and was always then called "Noah's ark." He remembered it when the cellar part of it (which is of stone and seven feet deep) was all above ground, and the cellar floor was even with the former street! I observed a hearth and chimney still in the cellar, and water was also in it. This water the tenant told me they supposed came in even now from the river, although at 100 feet distance. I think it not improbable that it stands on spring ground, which, as long as the street was lower than the cellar, found its way off, but now it is dammed. The floor of the once second story is now one foot lower than the street.

On the whole, there are signs of great changes in that neighbourhood,--of depressing hills or of filling vales; which, if my conjectures U

be just, would have made the Swedes' church, in times of water invasions from high tides, a kind of peninsula, and itself and parsonage on the extreme point of projection.

The primitive Swedes generally located all their residences "near the freshes of the river," always choosing places of a ready water communication, preferring thus their conveyances in canoes to the labour of opening roads and inland improvements. From this cause their churches, like this at Wiccaco, was visited from considerable distances along the river, and making, when assembled on Lord's day, quite a squadron of boats along the river side there.

There are some facts existing, which seem to indicate that the first Swedish settlement was destroyed by fire. Mrs. Preston, the grandmother of Samuel Preston, an aged gentleman still alive, often told him of their being driven from thence, by being burnt out, and then going off by invitation to an Indian settlement in Bucks county. In Campanius' work he speaks of Korsholm fort, (supposed to be the same place) as being abandoned after Governor Printz returned to Sweden, and afterwards burned by the Indians; very probably as a measure of policy, to diminish the strength of their new masters, the Dutch. There seems at least some coincidence in the two stories.

The road through Wiccaco to Gloucester Point was petitioned for, and granted by the Council in the year 1720, and called-the road through the marsh.

Penny-pot House

AND LANDING.

(ILLUSTRATED BY A PLATE.]

IT was long after I first saw the above title that I met with any certain means of establishing its location at Vine street. Proud spoke of it as "near to Race street," and none of the aged whom I interrogated knew any thing about it. Of course it would be still less known to any modern Philadelphian, although it had been bestowed as a gift to the city by Penn, and was made memorable as the birth-place of "the first born." Some of the following facts will fully certify its location at Vine street.

In the year 1701, William Penn sets forth and ordains "that the landing places now and heretofore used at the Penny-pot house and Blue Anchor, shall be left open and common for the use of the city," &c.

The landing appears to have derived its name from the Inn built there, which was early famed for its beer at a penny a pot.* The house itself was standing in my time as the Jolly Tar Inn, kept by one Tage. It was a two story brick house of good dimensions, having for its front a southern exposure. At first it had no intervening houses between it and the area of Vine street; but when I last saw it, as many as three houses had filled up that space. The aged Joseph Norris of that neighbourhood, who died a few years ago in his ninetieth year, told me he remembered in his youth to have seen a sign affixed to the house, and having thereon the words "Penny-pot Free Landing."

At the time when the city was first formed, the general high bluff-land of the river bank made it extremely difficult to receive wood, lumber or goods into the city, except by the "low sandy beach" at the Blue Anchor, (i. e. at Dock creek,) and at Vine street, which lay along "a vale," and therefore first caused that street to be called "Valley street." As a landing of more width than usual to other streets; it still belongs to the city at the present day.

On the same area, and on the first water t above it, was for many years the active ship yards of Charles West, who came out

The "Duke of York's laws," still preserved in MS. on Long Island, show that the price of beer was fixed in his colony at a penny a pint; and Penn, in 1683, speaks of abundance of malt beer in use then at the Inns.