20 [April. 



use; but it was provided tlint the title in fee simple to the lot on 

 which said offices may stand, be reserved to the Commonwealth. 



By an Act of 13th March, 1815, the Legislature authorized the 

 County Commissioners to take charge of the State-house, and to let 

 the rooms, giving a preference of the upper part to Mr. Peale, but 

 no lease to exceed one year, and repealed so much of the resolution 

 of 1802 as made it the duty of Mr. Peale to take charge of the 

 State-house; and after the sale to the city on the 23d March, 1818, 

 they directed the Commissioners to give up possession of the lower 

 part to the city. 



On the 11th March, 181G, the Legislature passed a very disgracious 

 Act, providing for the sale of the State-house and State-house yard, 

 by running a street or streets through it, laying it out in lots, and 

 valuing them so as to produce $150,000, and ordering the removal 

 of the clock to Harrisburg; giving, however, an option before a spe- 

 cified period, to the city corporation to purchase the whole for 

 •170,000 (with certain exceptions), but expressly declaring that in 

 such case " no part of the said ground lying to the southward of the 

 State-house, within the wall as it is now built, be made use of for 

 erecting any sort of buildings thereon, but the same shall be and 

 remain a public green and walk forever." 



The two lots reserved and excepted out of the State-house square, 

 were the County Court-house lot, and the lot on the northeast corner, 

 reserved for the use of the city, and the lot on the east side of the 

 square, granted to the American Philosophical Society under the Act 

 of the 28th March, 1785, "and the two public offices which, by the 

 Act of March 24, 1812, were put into the possession of the Com- 

 missioners of Philadelphia County, which said offices are thereby re- 

 leased from the claim of the State, and given and granted in fee 

 simple, in lieu of the expense laid out in repairs on the State-house 

 yard ; and the offices and ground on which they stand, or on which 

 they are allowed by the said Act to stand, are thereby granted and 

 confirmed to the said City and County of Philadelphia forever." 



By the Consolidation Act, the whole of this entire square, with all 

 the buildings on it, with the exception of the lot of the American 

 Philosophical Society, is vested in the City of Philadelphia, subject, 

 of course, to the public use re-declared by the Act of 1816, as to all 

 the ground lying south of the State-house. 



By an Act of 16th March, 1847, the County Commissioners and 

 the Select and Common Councils, — whose powers are now all merged 

 in the consolidated city, — were severally authorized to erect a new 



