98      MEMOIRS  OF  PHILADELPHIA  COLLEGE  OF  PHARMACY. 
have  no  right  to  be  taking  our  bojs  away  at  noon  to  make  them 
M.  P.'s"  Henry  Troth  was  a  man  of  ideas,  a  man  of  enter- 
prize,  and  the  indignation  of  his  neighbor  and  customer  at  this 
assumption  of  the  doctors  to  teach,  examine,  and  perhaps  in  some 
degree  suborn  the  independent  guild  of  druggists  and  apothe- 
caries, gave  rise  to  the  inquiry,  "  Why  can't  we  have  an  Insti- 
tution of  our  own,  train  our  own  apprentices  and  ourselves, 
supervise  the  qualifications  of  those  seeking  admission  to  our 
ranks 
The  suggestion  seemed  both  timely  and  wise,  and  the  two 
friends,  full  of  their  new  idea,  sallied  forth  to  wake  up  their 
neighbors  to  its  importance.  The  story  goes  that  they  called 
on  some  of  the  wholesale  druggists  first,  as  being  generally  men 
of  some  wealth  and  enterprize,  not  forgetting  the  retailers,  how- 
ever, as  having  perhaps  most  interest  in  the  matter. 
They  were  the  right  men  for  the  work.  Everybody  they 
called  on,  but  one  or  two  prospective  Masters  of  Pharmacy, 
took  hold  at  once  ;  so  a  meeting  was  called.  The  minutes  of 
this  meeting  begin  thus  :  "At  a  Meeting  of  the  Druggists  and 
Apothecaries  of  the  City  and  Liberties  of  Philadelphia,  held  at 
Carpenter's  Hall,  February  23d,  1821,  agreeable  to  notice, 
Stephen  North  was  called  to  the  chair  and  Peter  Williamson  was 
appointed  Secretary.'' 
Let  us  pause  here  to  take  note  of  the  place  of  meeting.  Car- 
penter's Hall  is  second  only  to  Lidependence  Hall  in  its  historic 
interest,  as  connected  with  the  stirring  events  by  ^hich  the 
United  Colonies  of  North  America  emerged  from  colonial  de- 
pendence to  a  separate  and  equal  place  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth.  This  ancient  building  was  first  occupied  by  the  Car- 
.penter's  Company,  founded  in  1724,  by  whom  it  was  built  in 
1771..  The  Library  Company  of  Philadelphia  deposited  their 
library  in  the  second  story  in  1772,  where  it  remained  till  1790, 
when  it  was  removed  to  the  more  commodious  building  in  south 
Fifth  street.  The  Apprentice's  Library  afterwards  used  the 
same  room  for  seven  years.  This  building  was  used  as  a  bank- 
ing house  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  from  1791  to 
1797,  and  subsequently  by  the  Pennsylvania  Bank  and  United 
-States  Custom  House.  But  the  chief  interest  connected  with 
Carpenter's  Hall  arises  out  of  its  having  been  occupied  in  1774 
