I/pl] ^'^^- WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 333 



estate is now of very considerable value ; they have erected an elegant 

 house, and over the front door of the building have prepared a niche 

 for the statue of their venerable founder; who, after the establishment 

 of this company, still proceeded to promote other establishments and 

 associations, such as fire-companies ; the nightly-watch for the city of 

 Philadelphia; a plan for cleaning, lighting and ornamenting the streets ; 

 and an association for insuring houses against damages by fire ; to which, 

 as collateral, he soon afterwards added his plan for improving chimnies 

 and fire places, which was first printed at Philadelphia in 1745, entitled 

 "An Account of the New Invented Pennsylvania Fire Places; " which 

 gave rise to the open stoves now in general use, to the comfort of thou- 

 sands, who, assembled round them in the wintry night, bless the name 

 of the inventor which they yet bear ! 



The next institution, in the foundation of which he was the principal 

 agent, was the academy and charitable school of the city of Philadel- 

 phia ; the plan of which he drew up and published in the year 1749, as 

 "suitable to the state of an infant country; " but looking forward, as 

 he did in all his plans, to a more improved state of society, he declared 

 this academy to be "intended as 3^ foundation for poste/ify to erect into a 

 college or seminary of learning more extensive and suitable to future 

 circumstances;" and the same was accordingly erected into a college 

 or seminary of universal learning, upon the most enlarged and liberal 

 plan, about five years afterwards. 



The Pennsylvania Hospital is the next monument of his philanthropy 

 and public spirit ; for the establishment and endowment of which he 

 Avas happily instrumental in obtaining a legislative sanction and grant, 

 by his great influence in the general assembly, in the year 1752. 



These various institutions, which do so much honor to Pennsylvania, 

 he projected and saw established during the first twenty years of his 

 residence in this State. Many more must have been his good offices 

 and actions among his friends and fellow-citizens during that period, 

 which were done in secret, and of which no record remains ; but they 

 went before him to another world, and are written in durable characters 

 by the pen of the recording Angel. 



A life so assiduously employed in devising and executing schemes for 

 the public good could not fail to aid him in his political career. He 

 first became clerk of the general assembly, and then a member of the 

 same for the city of Philadelphia, for the space of fourteen years succes- 

 sively. 



In 1744 a vSpanish privateer, having entered the bay of Delaware, 

 ascended as high as New Castle to the great terror of the citizens of 

 Philadelphia. On occasion of this alarm, he wrote his first political 

 pamphlet called Plaint Truth, to exhort his fellow-citizens to the bearing 

 of arms, which laid the foundation of those military associations which 

 followed, at different times, for the defence of the country. 



