time he was called before a committee of the council, 

 and that he said to them: "As sure as there is a 

 Heaven above us, it will not be long before the city 

 must own the Fairmount hills regardless of cost." I 

 infer from this that Mr. Evans must have had plans 

 in connection with these hills that were not approved 

 at the time the "Centre Square plaything," as he 

 always called it, was adopted. 



I will here add that one of the last visits Nathan 

 Sellers paid to Philadelphia after his retirement in his 

 old age to his place in the country, was to see the 

 first stone removed in the destruction of the Centre 

 Square building that he had so earnestly opposed 

 erecting — not from any mechanical defects in the plan, 

 but for inadequacy in supplying the requirements of 

 a growing city. 54 



The want of published mechanical works that Mr. 

 Evans complained of so much did not begin to be 

 supplied until some years after his death. It was not 

 until 1825 that Nicholson's Operative Mechanic, so long 

 a standard, was published in England, and the second 

 American edition bears the date 1831. 55 I do not 

 know the date of the first. As late as 1831 I could 

 not find on sale in either New York or Philadelphia 

 a copy of Dr. Alexander Jamieson's Mechanical Dic- 

 tionary, 56 then considered a standard work in England, 

 and was obliged to import a copy through Carey & 

 Lea, who ordered with my copy some extra ones, 

 which they held a long time before finding purchasers. 



I have dwelt longer on Oliver Evans than I in- 

 tended, for I look back with pleasure at having been 

 privileged to listen to the plans and predictions of so 

 far-seeing a man. 



A good style of mechanical drawing was taught in 

 Philadelphia long before the want of a mechanical 

 publication was filled. 



William Mason, of the firm of Mason & Tyler, 

 makers of philosophical instruments and small tools, 

 taught a private class which I attended. 



William Strickland, as an architect, was always 

 ready to lend a helping hand to young beginners. 



54 The Center Square structure was removed about 1828 

 (Scharf and Westcott, cited in note 14 above, vol. 3, p. 1844) . 

 Nathan Sellers died in 1830. 



55 The first English edition was published in 1825. The 

 first American edition, from the second London edition, was 

 issued in Philadelphia in 1826. 



56 Alexander Jamieson, A Dictionary of Mechanical Science, 

 Arts, Manufactures, and Miscellaneous Knowledge, 2 vols. (London: 

 1827). The 7th edition carries the date 1832. 



He would lend them drawings to copy and give 

 kind advice. I recollect his once saying to me, 

 "Come often and study the plates of my Stuart's 

 Athens;* 1 copy them and recopy them; they are the 

 foundation of sound principle and true taste." 



Some really fine mechanical drawings of my earliest 

 remembrance were made by a divinity student, at 

 that time acting as draftsman at what I think was 

 called the Eagle Foundry and Machine Shop. It 

 was located on the Schuylkill River, near the foot 

 of Callowhill Street. I do not remember who oper- 

 ated it, but it must have been short-lived, as for many- 

 years the great stone building stood vacant and idle. 58 



This student was an accomplished and rapid pencil 

 sketcher of machinery. That and music were passions 

 with him. He spent two or three evenings a week at 

 our house, kept a violin there, and joined my mother 

 and others, of whom I may yet speak, in home con- 

 certs. He frequently brought his drawings to show 

 to my father. On one occasion a finished colored 

 drawing of a pair of bevel cog-wheels in gear, drawn 

 in perspective, to my boyish eyes was a most wonderful 

 piece of work, and, as a matter of course, I had many 

 questions to ask. He then proposed, if I would devote 

 my half-holidays (our Quaker schools gave two — one 

 on meeting day, the other Saturday), he would teach 

 me all he could. On this my father went with John, 

 as we familiarly called him, and selected my fine case 

 of drawing instruments, and with them, proud enough, 

 I trudged away out to the foundry. I say "away out," 



57 This is repeated, but not from this source, in Agnes 

 Addison Gilchrist, William Strickland, Architect and Engineer, 

 1 788-1 854 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 

 1950), p. 31. The influence of Stuart and Revett's Antiquities 

 of Athens on Strickland's work is mentioned several times by 

 Mrs. Gilchrist in her book. 



5 ' The Eagle Works furnished cannon during the quasi-war 

 with France in 1 798-1800. In 1799 a contract with the U.S. 

 Navy called for cannon to be cast solid and bored out "at the 

 boreing Mill on Schuylkill" {Naval Documents Related to the 

 Qjtasi-War Between the United Slates and France, 1797-1801, 7 vols. 

 [U.S. Naval Records and Library Office, Washington: 1935- 

 1938], vol. 2, pp. 205-206). The Eagle Works was operated in 

 1799, and as late as 181 o, by Samuel Foxall. Under the direc- 

 tion of Samuel Richards, in 1820, water pipes of 22-inch 

 diameter were cast in 9-foot sections (Scharf and Westcott, 

 cited in note 14 above, vol. 3, p. 2251). James Mease, in 

 The Picture of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: 1811), p. 77, says: 

 "All kinds of castings are also made at the Eagle Works, on 

 Schuylkill, belonging to S. & W. Richards." Sellers apparently 

 was unaware of the earlier history of the works, which is 

 surprising. 



40 



