for at that time it was through the suburbs and by the 

 brick-ponds, on the margin of which I have more than 

 once put up snipe and woodcock in what is now one 

 of the best-built parts of Philadelphia. I profited by 

 these lessons, for he was certainly the best mechanical 

 draftsman of the time, and bid fair to make his mark 

 as a mechanic had he not left its walks for what he 

 considered a higher one — the Church. I was present 

 at his ordination by Bishop White and heard his first 

 public sermon. He was a loss to the mechanical 



world, but not a case of "spoiling a good mechanic to 

 make a bad preacher," for he became eminent and 

 world-wide known as John Henry Hopkins, Bishop of 

 Vermont. 69 He made no mistake in choosing his pro- 

 fession, whatever he may have done by his advocacy 

 of domestic slavery, and his claim that it was justified 

 by Holy Writ. [15] 



59 Born in 1792, Hopkins was George Escol's senior by 16 

 years (Dictionary of American Biography). 









JV- > 



*•«>--. -rsis^-ifi^ *«— • 



Figure 2 1 . — Center Square Water Works, Philadelphia. From 

 Charles \\l . Janson, Stranger in America (London, 1807). Library 

 of Congress photo. 



42 



