1862.1 15 



in 1729 and finished in 1734. On the 20th February, 1735-6, the 

 General Assembly passed an Act vesting the State-house and other 

 public buildings, and the lots, in other trustees, to and for the use of 

 the Representatives of the Freemen of the Province, and to and for 

 such other uses as the said Representatives at any time or times 

 thereafter in General Assembly met, should direct and appoint. 

 " Provided ahoays, and it is hereby declared to be the true intent 

 and meaning of these presents, that no part of the said grounds lying 

 to the southward of the said State-house, as it is now built, be con- 

 verted into or made use of for erecting any sort of buildings thereon, 

 but that the said ground shall be inclosed and remain a public open 

 ground and walk forever." Another contiguous lot having been 

 purchased by William Allen, and both he and Andrew Hamilton 

 having died without executing the necessary assurances, the General 

 Assembly, on the 17th January, 1762, passed an Act vesting the 

 whole property in new trustees, for the same uses declared in the 

 former Act, and under the same proviso, with an immaterial altera- 

 tion in its phraseology, and on the 14th May in the same year, they 

 passed another Act, authorizing the trustees to purchase the remain- 

 ing lots between Chestnut and Walnut Streets, for the same uses, and 

 appropriated five thousand pounds for that purpose. By the first 

 of these Acts, two lots, one at the corner of Sixth, and the other at the 

 corner of Fifth Street, were directed to be conveyed, upon the pay- 

 ment of fifty pounds for each, the first to trustees for the use of the 

 County of Philadelphia, for erecting a public building for the holding 

 of courts or common halls for the said county; and the second to 

 the Mayor and Commonalty of the City of Philadelphia, for erecting 

 a public building thereon for the holding of courts or common halls 

 for the use of the said city. 



On the 28th February, 1780, the General Assembly of the Com- 

 monwealth vested the State-house, and the whole lot between Walnut 

 and Chestnut and Fifth and Sixth Streets, in the Commonwealth, to 

 the uses and trusts theretofore appointed and limited. The legal 

 title was therefore in the State of Pennsylvania. From a club called 

 the Junto, originated in 1727, by Benjamin Franklin, sprung a pro- 

 position to form a society composed of virtuosi or ingenious men re- 

 siding in the several colonies, to be called The American Philosophical 

 Society, to be held at Philadelphia, being the city nearest to the centre 

 of the continent colonies, communicating with all of them northward 

 and southward by post, and with all the islands by sea, and having 

 the advantage of a good growing library. It was made in the form 



