30 



like some heroes of more sanguinary fields, he had harvested more 

 fame than abiding emolument. He was in truth an ill-trained econo- 

 mist, and having "but little here below, had not that little long." 

 But when the Bank of the United States was incorporated a few years 

 later, the influence of the same gentlemen secured his appointment 

 as the architect of the new building. And from this time, so admira- 

 bly exact were his estimates and so vigorous his supervision of the 

 works under his charge, that he was the architect of Philadelphia. 

 He constructed the Mint, the Exchange, the Naval Asylum, our two 

 Theatres, the Mechanics and the Philadelphia Banks, the House of 

 Employment for the Poor in Blockley ; in a word, all the buildings of 

 note in and and about the city. 



"While so engaged, he was called upon to direct extensive and diffi- 

 cult works as an engineer. He made in 1824 a reconnoissance for 

 the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal ; and projected one of the routes 

 across the Peninsula : I was a director of the Canal Company at the 

 time ; and I never doubted, and there are few who doubt now, that it 

 was the best route proposed. He was the first engineer in the service 

 of Pennsylvania after our improvement system took a definite form, 

 and afterwards the engineer of the eastern division of the Philadelphia 

 and Baltimore Rail Road. He planned and executed the Delaware 

 Break-water. He visited England as the representative of a society 

 which was formed by a few spirited gentlemen to advance the indus- 

 trial progress of the state, and made a folio series of reports, which 

 the Society published in a liberally illustrated volume. 



An anecdote occurs to me in connection with this volume, that 

 shows the clearness of his foresight, but that exemplifies also the timo- 

 rousness with which a striking truth finds general acceptance. He 

 had witnessed the great experiment of the first locomotives, the Nov- 

 elty and the Rocket, on the Liverpool and Manchester Rail Road; 

 and in closing his report upon their performance, he prophecied that 

 rail roads were destined to supersede canals. I was the proof reader 

 of his book for the time; and when I was about to remit this passage 

 to the printer, the Society's committee, and I think the Society itself, 

 remonstrated strenuously against so perilous a committal on the part 

 of a gentleman, whose opinions might be confounded with tlieir own. 

 In the end, I rewrote the closing paragraphs of the report at their in- 

 stance, and so saved Strickland from declaring in advance what a 

 large part of the world knows now to be true. 



After many years of success in Philadelphia, he was invited to 

 make the plan for the State Capitol of Tennessee, and subsequently 



