PHILADELPHIA 



4626 



PHILADELPHIA 



City Government. Philadelphia ; one 



of the finest municipal buildings in the United 

 States, [ta eiry hall covers four and a half 

 acres, and is the home, not only of the < 

 government, but of the county officers and 

 city, state and com/ 



a lu-ight >f 5-lS ft : larters of an 



inch; at its to] William Penn. 



thirty-seven feet long and weighing over t \ven- 

 tv-six 



y and county governments cross each other 

 at many points, for the city and county are 

 coexi The mayor is elected for four 



a and may not be immediately reflected. 

 Authority is vested in him to a greater degree 

 than in many other cities. He appoints the 

 heads of more than a dozen departments, but 

 the city treasurer, controller and city attorney 

 are elected. The school system is not ame- 

 nable to the city government authorities; the 

 board of education, of fifteen members, acts 

 under state authority. The law-making power 

 is vested in a select council of one member 

 from each of the forty-two wards and in a 

 common council of one member elected by 

 distinct groups of. 4,000 voters each. Members 

 of the first serve four years; of the second, 

 two years all without pay. The salary of the 

 mayor is $12,000. 



History. The first white settlement was not 

 made by William Penn, for in 1636 a company 

 of Swedes occupied the site, by authority of 

 the Swedish queen, but they remained only a 

 few years. In 1681 Penn sent Captain Mark- 

 ham as deputy-governor with a small company, 

 and in July of the following year the ''City of 

 Brotherly Love" was laid out. That settle- 

 ment was permanent, and in 1683 it was re- 

 enforced by a company of Germans, who set- 

 tled, upon Penn's invitation, at Germantown, 

 a few miles up the Schuylkill River, but now a 

 part of the great city. Within three years after 

 1682 the settlement was in a thriving condi- 

 tion; tin re were 200 buildings and 2,400 people, 

 largely Quakers, or Friends, with Germans sec- 

 ond in numerical strength. The influence of 

 these two groups strongly affected Pennsylvania 

 history for generations, and the Friends yet 

 have their American stronghold in this section. 

 After the Revolution and continuing for many 

 years the Scotch and Irish held the balance of 

 power in the city, the effect of heavy immigra- 

 tion for over a decade. 



Between 1682 and 1684 Penn was personally 

 in charge of his colony. In the latter year he 

 sailed for England, there endured a period of 



cution. and when he returned in 1699 Phila- 

 delphia had grown to be a town of t.500 peo- 

 ple and of over 700 residences. Two years later 

 (1701) he chartered the city; the Penn holdings 

 of land were enormous, and the new city and 

 Prim were soon disputing over taxation of his 

 s and various proprietary privileges which 

 he enjoyed as Lord Proprietor of Pennsylvania, 

 under his charter. This continued at intervals 

 until Penn's influence was nullified by his finan- 

 cial ruin. 



Next to Penn the man most conspicuous in 

 the town's affairs was Benjamin Franklin, who 

 entered the city in 1723 carrying a loaf of 

 bread under each arm and eating a third. 

 Within six years (1729) he was publishing the 

 I'( nnxiilrania Gazette, and from that time he 

 was the dominant spirit of the city. His ap- 

 peal in 1747 secured 10,000 volunteers for 

 King George's War, and led to the erection of a 

 battery on League Island. In 1755, und< 

 militia law then passed, Franklin was made 

 colonel of the Philadelphia regiment. From 

 this time forward the city thought largely in 

 militant terms, and naturally was foremost in 

 resisting British injustice to the colonies. The 

 spirit of opposition to England was but little 

 tempered by a considerable number of loyal- 

 ists and the Friends, the latter religiously op- 

 posed to strife. 



The city was conspicuous during the Revo- 

 lution by reason of the following historical 

 events enacted within its borders: 



October 17, 1773 Mass meeting protested 

 against a tax on tea; its resolutions were after- 

 wards adopted at a similar meeting in Huston. 



September 5, 1774 First Continental Congress 

 met in Carpenter's Hall. 



May 10, 1775 Second Continental Congress 

 met in what is now Independence Hall. 



September 27, 1777 to June 18, 1778 British 

 troops entered the city, and the expelled Ameri- 

 can army spent a terrible winter at Valley Korge. 



October 4, 1777 Battle of Gennantown was 

 fought, and wounded Americans were laid in 

 rows upstairs in Independence Hall. 



May 14, 1787 Convention met in Carpenter's 

 Hall to revise the Articles of Confederation, and 

 on September 17 adopted the result of its labors, 

 the Constitution of the United Sta. 



During the entire period of the war. when the 

 British were not threatening the city or in pos- 

 session of it, Philadelphia was the seat of the 

 Congress and therefore the center of the new 



nation's political activity. In describing the 

 Philadelphia of that day. a historian says: 



The city was then [1784] the greatest in the 

 country. No other could boast of so many streets, 

 so many houses, so many people, so much renown. 



