lives near the capital city, has an orchard and gardens adjoining to his great house that equals any I have ever seen, being a very famous and pleasant summer house, erected in the middle of his garden, and abounding with tulips, carnations, roses, lilies, &c., with many wild plants of the country besides."

Such was the place enjoyed by Edward Shippen, the first Mayor, under the regular charter of the year 1700. Shippen was a Friend, from England, who had suffered "for truth's and Friends' sake" at Boston, by a public punishment from the misguided rulers there. Possessing such a mansion and the means to be hospitable, he made it the temporary residence of William Penn and his family, for about a month, when they arrived in 1699. About the year 1720 it was held by Governor Keith, and in 1756 it became the residence of Governor Denny. As it usually bore the name of "the Governor's house" in aftertimes, it was probably occupied by other rulers.

The Shippen family came out from York in England to Boston. One of the family, Joseph Shippen, married there Abigail Gross, in 1702, and when she visited her relations in Philadelphia, some time after, she came all the way from Boston on horseback,-nor is this all, she brought a baby with her safely, resting it all the way on her lap. Think of that, ye ladies of the present day! We know, from Madame Knight's horseback journey to New York, the long and arduous concerns of such an enterprise. The postman was the guide on such occasions.

A minute of the City Council of the year 1720, while it shows the then residence of Sir William Keith on the premises, shows also the fact of keeping open and beautifying the prospect to the river, to wit: "The Governor having requested the Mayor to propose to the board the grant of the piece of ground on the south-west side of the dock, over against the house he now lives in, for such term as the corporation shall think fit, and proposes to drain and ditch the same, this board agree the Governor may enjoy the same for the space of seven years, should he so long continue in the said house." It was probably during his term of use that the green lawn had a few tame deer, spoken of as seen by Owen Jones, the Colonial Treasurer.

Thomas Storey, once Master of the Rolls, who married Shippen's daughter Anne, must have derived a good portion of the rear grounds extending out to Third street, as the late aged Colonel A. J. Morris tells me that in his time "Storey's grounds," sold to Samuel Powel, were unbuilt, and enclosed with a brick wall from St. Paul's church down to Spruce street, and thence eastward to Laurel Court.

The lofty pine trees were long conspicuous from many points of the city. Aged men have seen them sheltering flocks of blackbirds; and the late aged Samuel R. Fisher remembers very well to have seen crows occupying their nests on those very trees. The fact impresses upon the mind the beautiful lines made by his son on VOL. I.-2 W

that bird of omen and long life. Some of them are so very descriptive of the probable state of scenes gone-by, that I will not resist the wish I feel to connect them with the present page, to wit:

"The pine tree of my Eyry stood

A patriarch mid the younger wood,
A forest race that now are not,
Other than with the world forgot;
And countless herds of tranquil deer,
When I was fledged, were sporting here.

And now, if o'er the scene I fly,
"Tis only in the upper sky:

Yet well I know, mid spires and smoke,
The spot where stood my pine and oak
Yes! I can e'en replace agen

The forests as I knew them then,—
The primal scene, and herds of deer,
That used to browse so calmly here!

Such musings in the "bird of black and glossy coat," so renowned for its long endurance of years, may readily be imagined in an animal visiting in numerous return of years "its accustomed perch." It saw all our city rise from its sylvan shades

"It could develope, if his babbling tongue

Would tell us, what those peering eyes had seen,

And how the place looked when 'twas fresh and green!"

The sequel of those trees was, that the stables in the rear of them on Laurel Court took fire not many years ago, and communicating to them, caused their destruction.

The house too, great and respectable as it had been, possessed of garden-grounds fronting on Second street, north and south of it, became of too much value as a site for a plurality of houses, to be longer tolerated in lonely grandeur, and was therefore, in the year 1790, pulled down to give place to four or five modern houses called "Waln's Row." The street there as it is now levelled is one story below the present gardens, in the rear.

BENEZET'S HOUSE, AND CHESTNUT STREET BRIDGE.

THE ancient house of Anthony Benezet, lately taken down, stood on the site of the house now No. 115, Chestnut street. It was built in the first settlement of the city for a Friend of the name of David Breintnall. He, deeming it too fine for his plain cloth and profession, bired it for the use of the Governor of Barbadoes, (or of Bermuda, as said by some,) who had come here for the recovery of his health. While he lived there he used to come in a boat by the Dock creek to his own door. David Breintnall in the mean time occupied the house and store at the south-west corner of Hudson's alley, where he died in 1731. The house having been a good specimen of respectable architecture was drafted by Mr. Strickland just before it was taken down in 1818, and an engraving made from it was published in the Port Folio of that year.

The bridge near it was long lost to the memory of the oldest inhabitants, and none of the youths of the present day have any conception that a bridge once traversed Dock creek in the line of Chestnut street! In the year 1823, in digging along Chestnut street to lay the iron pipes for the city water, great surprise was excited by finding, at six feet beneath the present surface, the appearance of a regularly framed wharf-the oak logs so sound and entire as to require some labour to remove them, and sorne of the wood of which was preserved for me in the form of an urn, as a memento. It was in fact the abutment wharf of the eastern end of the original bridge, where it has been preserved one hundred and forty years, by its being constantly saturated with water.

The fact of the original wooden bridge, and of the later one of brick and stone after the year 1699, is set forth in the following copy of an original MS. petition, which I have seen in the records of the Mayor's Court, dated the 7th of 2d mo., 1719, to wit: "We, whose names are hereunto written, livers in Chestnut street, humbly showthat at the laying out of the city, Chestnut street crossed a deep vale, which brought a considerable quantity of water, in wet seasons, from without and through several streets and lots in the town,[emptying into the Dock creek,] this rendering the street impassable for cart and horse, a bridge of wood was built in the middle way which for many years was commodious; when that decayed, an arch of brick and stone was built the whole breadth, which with earth cast thereon made the street a good road, except that walls breast high, to keep from falling from the top, were neglected-not being finished, as the money fell short. Now this we think to be