CHAPTER V.

Johannes Moelich Reaches Pennsylvania in 1735-His Experiences in Philadelphia and Germantown.

In early colonial days King, now Water, street, in Philadelphia, lay close to the edge of the Delaware. A low, one-storey, rambling tavern-house stood fronting it, near the corner of Chestnut, its creaking sign bearing in dull paint the legend of a crooked stick of wood. It was here that Benjamin Franklin ate his first dinner in the Quaker City. This inn gave to the short dock facing it the name of the Crooked Billet Wharf, often mentioned in old-time Philadelphia annals. Any one loitering on this dock on the morning of the twenty-ninth of May, 1735, could have heard the splash of a right-bower, and the rattle of an anchor chain-but hold! a historian is privileged to be prosy but never to be untrue-nearly seventy-five years must elapse before a Philadelphian, or any one else, will hear the musical clank of a payingout cable, and in the meantime many a stout ship will drift to its destruction on the rocks, because of its hawser being cut by submerged ledges. Well! the loiterer would at least have heard the splash of the anchor, and, on looking up, discovered the ship "Mercury," Captain William Wilson, from Rotterdam, swinging round to the tide. As she lies in the stream the vessel shows repeated marks of her weeks of battling with the fierce waves of the Atlantic, and her sides are streaked by the salt spray of many a weary gale.

The log of this ship has not been preserved, so we know nothing of the particulars of her voyage or of the date of sailing. She was without doubt a small vessel, and many days must have elapsed since the yellow arms of Dutch wind-mills had waved farewells to her passengers from behind the dunes of the low Hol

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land coast. Something may be learned of the time usually occupied in such a voyage from a German MS. in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, which recounts the incidents in the journey of David Sholtze and eighteen associate Schwenckfelders. They set sail from Rotterdam on the twenty-fourth of June, 1733, on the brigantine "Pennsylvania Merchant," Captain John Stedman. The journal of these Germans tells of but little save head winds, seasickness, and the occasional death of an emigrant. The first occurred on the eleventh of July, and an account is given of the body being sewn in a sack, weighted with sand, and dropped by the sailors into the sea, the passengers singing the hymn, “Nun lasset uns den Leib begraben." The ship rested for seven days in the harbor of Plymouth, and on the twenty-eighth of September reached Philadelphia. It is fair to presume that the "Mercury's" passage was of equal length, and that it was yet February when she spread her canvas at the mouth of Maas, and made her first bow to the rollers of the North Sea.

Among the one hundred and eighty-six sun-burned, weatherbeaten Germans and Swiss who leaned over her taffrail, looking with curious eyes upon the little entry port of Pennsylvania, was Johannes Moelich and his family. The aspect of this provincial town in its setting of dark forests must have presented a strong contrast to the animated quays, and the spires, belfries, lofty pinnacled houses and dark windmills of the quaint old city from which he had embarked. It would be pleasant to be able to narrate Johannes' impressions and experiences on landing. Had he known that one hundred and fifty years later many of his posterity would have been glad to read of his movements in Philadelphia, he doubtless would have kept a faithful journal. In the absence of such forethought on his part we must draw upon our knowledge of the Quaker City in those early days, and, with the help of Watson, that delightfully garrulous Boswell of old Philadelphia, we shall be able to see with Johannes' eyes as he and his family make their way up into the city.

It was now over fifty years since the little ship "Welcome," of only three hundred tons burthen, had landed William Penn in Pennsylvania, and its capital had grown in population to some eight thousand souls, among whom were 1,621 taxables and

1,097 voters. Thomas Lawrence was mayor, Philadelphia having been a chartered city since 1701. It was a compact little town of about one thousand houses, nearly all of brick, one and two storeys high, with double-hipped roofs, although occasionally a more pretentious dwelling elevated its dormers above a third storey. The area was not very extensive; a very short walk would bring one to the outlying commons and woods. Beyond Fourth street the houses were but scattering; of course there were no pavements, and westerly there were no streets marked out beyond Seventh. The highway leading out of town followed the line of High, now Market, street, and after crossing the location of the present Eighth street, the forest commenced, and extended to the Schuylkill.

Did you ask was there any one to welcome Johannes? Though no message from below had announced the coming of the "Mercury, "without doubt the arrival of the ship was soon noised through the city; let us hope that the immigrant was expected and that when he landed on the Crooked Billet Wharf he found awaiting him some warm-hearted compatriot, who seized his hand and bade him a hearty welcome to America. In fancy, at least, we will picture him so greeted. We have already learned that his younger brother, Johan Peter, had reached Philadelphia in the ship "Mortonhouse," Captain John Coultas, on the twenty-fourth of August, 1728. Perhaps he was among those who thronged the wharf on this May morning. In all the thirty thousand names of foreigners preserved in the Pennsylvania archives as reaching that province between the years 1727 and 1776, those of Johannes' family and that of Johan Peter are the only Moelichs that appear.

We will constitute ourselves one of the party as they leave the wharf and make their way along Water street, the children hanging back to look into the shop windows, for in the year 1735 that street was the centre of the retail trade of the city. They are going to the State House to fulfil the first duty of all newly arrived foreigners, the registering of their names with the secretary of the province. What is more delightful than the first few hours spent in a new country, where everything is totally different from one's ordinary surroundings? Weeks of pleasurable experiences may be passed later, but the peculiar charm

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of the first uprolling of the curtain will never return. Though their own country had been rich in the picturesque, the Moelichs found much to excite both interest and wonder, and in the short time occupied in reaching the State House they received many new and strange impressions. An American on visiting England or the Continent for the first time finds himself attacked by a strange illusion. As he feels himself surrounded by an atmosphere of hoar antiquity, while wandering from one ancient town to another, his whole nature saturated with the charm of quaint architecture and picturesque effects, imperceptibly there steals over him a faint impression of a prior acquaintance, as if revisiting scenes familiar in some previous existence; and he finds himself almost doubting that the retina of the eye is actually receiving the impression of a picture seen for the first time. He recognizes the illusion and fully appreciates that what he sees is really new because not viewed before-he recognizes, also, that to him, at least, it is truly old and familiar; old in a thousand impressions and desires, born of books and the talk of travellers, consequently, he is rarely if ever confronted by the entirely unexpected. Johannes and his party were not troubled by this double vision. They had read no books descriptive of America, nor had they listened to the oft-told tales of returned travellers. To them all the panorama of the Quaker City existence was novel and interesting. Probably the life of the streets affected them as the most peculiarly foreign and odd—indeed, not only the Germans were so impressed for we, who have attached ourselves unbidden to this little party, find no less cause for wonder at the strange sights of these provincial thoroughfares. Proceeding westward along Chestnut street they are met by such a procession as has never been seen on the highways of Europe; a drove of negroes, coupled two by two, recently imported from the Guinea coast, and probably just landed from Barbadoes, which at that time was the distributing mart of the English slave trade. On reaching the next corner there was to be seen an even sadder phase of this barbarous institution. In front of a tavern, from a rude platform resting on two upright hogsheads, was being held a slave auction. "Likely negro boys' and "breeding wenches," as the placarded bills announced, were being knocked down at a few hundred dollars a head, for, as

importing at that time was brisk, slaves did not approach in value to those of our ante-bellum days.

As the Moelichs walked along the street the bordering, detached houses had a kindly, domestic presence, due to their comely little porches with pent-house roofs shading wooden seats, seemingly extending to the passer-by a hospitable invitation to tarry. This air of hospitality was further enhanced by the attractive balconies that faced even the smaller dwellings, on which their occupants were wont to gather to enjoy the air at the cool of the day. Occasional glimpses of quaint interiors were obtained, through open windows that swung on hinges inward, with small panes of glass set in their leaden-framed lattices. In some of the finer houses the best rooms were wainscoated in oak and red cedar, but in most instances the walls were plainly whitewashed. No carpets were to be seen, the floors being covered with silver sand drawn into fanciful figures by a skillful use of the sweeping brush, in which the housekeepers took much pride. Lofty chests of drawers, with round black balls for legs, extended nearly to the ceiling, and all the family china was to be seen through the diamond lights of odd little corner cupboards. On the massive Dutch dresser were displayed brightly polished porringers and platters of pewter, the dinner plates of that day being nearly altogether of that metal, though the use of wooden trenchers was not entirely out of date. Sometimes, through farther doors opening into the kitchen, our party was much amused at the sight of a peculiar feature of household economy. Before cavernous fire-places, often girt with ancient Dutch tiles, were set baking-ovens, whose spits were turned by little bow-legged dogs trained to run in a hollow cylinder, like a squirrel, by which means was the roasting meat kept revolving. "Mine host" Clark, of the State House Inn, advertises about this time in Andrew Bradford's weekly "Mercury," and in Benjamin Franklin's "Pennsylvania Gazette," that "he has for sale several dogs and wheels, much preferable to any jacks for roasting any joints of meat."

But what means this turmoil and uproar, and from whence comes this advancing crowd, enveloped in dust? Johannes' party quickly leaves the street and takes to a little foot-path that runs diagonally from the corner of Third to High and Fourth streets. Standing there, they see surge by an unfragrant

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