The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 — John Shaqi
The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850Smyth, Albert Henry
History
The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850
Smyth, Albert Henry
American periodicals -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
William Bingham, father-in-law of the eminent banker Alexander Baring,
who was afterwards Lord Ashburton, entertained in grand style. General
Washington drove out from the Morris mansion along the unpaved streets
south of Chestnut Street in a coach drawn by six horses and attended by
two footmen. In his stables on Minor Street was a stud of twelve or
fourteen horses. General John Cadwallader, father-in-law of the second
Lord Erskine, in his great house at Second and Spruce, made liberal use
of his immense fortune.
In the first year of this century the University of Pennsylvania, which
had played so great a part in the Revolution, and to which Louis XVI
had, in 1786, made so generous a donation, was removed to its new home
in the spacious buildings erected for the executive mansion. The
Philadelphia Library, which had been Franklin's first scheme for public
improvement, and which had been enriched by the generous gifts of James
Logan, was furnishing such opportunities for literary work as were
unknown elsewhere. John Quincy Adams sought in vain to cultivate in
Boston the "Wistar parties" that Caspar Wistar had made so famous in
Philadelphia. One hundred years ago there was only one scientific
foundation within this Republic that was not in Philadelphia, and that
was the American Academy in Boston. The American Philosophical Society
in its venerable hall in State House Yard numbered Presidents
Washington, Jefferson and Adams among its members. The best scholars of
Europe and America read its "Transactions" or contributed to its
"Proceedings." From his private observatory David Rittenhouse made the
earliest astronomical observations in this country, and rested his
transit instrument upon the ancient stanchions that still maintain their
place in the Philosophical Society window looking out upon the fine old
trees planted by the father of John Vaughan, secretary and librarian of
the society. The only Natural History Museum in this country was opened
in 1802 at Third and Lombard by Charles Willson Peale; and far out on
the Schuylkill at Gray's Ferry, John Bartram, whom Linnaeus called "the
greatest natural botanist of the world," had planted the first botanic
garden.
The number of foreign exiles who at this time were moving in
Philadelphia society gave a cosmopolitan character to the city, and lent
to it the air of foreign capitals. Talleyrand, Beaumais, Vicomte de
Noailles and his brother-in-law Lafayette, Volney, the Duc de
Liancourt, and General Moreau, and at a later date Joseph Bonaparte and
Murat, were but a few of the distinguished members of the "French
colony."
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