The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, Vol. 2 (of 2): or, Illustrations, by Pen And Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for IndependenceLossing, Benson John
History
The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, Vol. 2 (of 2): or, Illustrations, by Pen And Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence
Lossing, Benson John
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
* This edifice was erected in 1774, and taken down in 1836. The
beautiful new Athenæum occupies a portion of the ground on Sixth Street,
and the remainder is covered by elegant dwellings. It is a singular fact
that the architect who constructed it was the first person incarcerated
in it. He was a Whig, and, having incurred the displeasure of the
British, he was locked up in that prison. The Public Ledger of June
26th, 1837, gives an account of an armorial drawing, representing,
in bold relief, a cuirass, casque, gorget, and Roman battle-ax, with
radiating spears, which was made upon an arch of one of the second story
cells, by Marshall, an English engraver, who was confined there for many
years for counterfeiting the notes of the United States Bank. He was the
son of the notorious "Bag and Hatchet Woman," of St. Giles's, London,
who followed the British army in its Continental campaigns, and gathered
spoils from the slain and wounded on the field of battle. Those who were
dead were readily plundered, and the wounded as readily dispatched. This
woman and son were master-spirits in the purlieus of St. Giles's, among
robbers and counterfeiters. The gang were at length betrayed, and the
parent and child fled to this country, bringing with them considerable
wealth in money and jewels. They lived in splendid style in
Philadelphia, riding in a gorgeous cream-colored phaeton, drawn
by richly-caparisoned horses, driven tandem. Their means were soon
exhausted, when the son married, and commenced business as an engraver.
He counterfeited notes of the United States Bank, was detected, and in
1803 was sentenced to eighteen years' confinement and hard labor in
the Walnut Street Prison, then the State Penitentiary. While he was in
prison, his mother, who had wandered away from Philadelphia in poverty
and destitution, was executed in another state for a foul murder and
arson.
[[[Washington Square.--Office of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs.--The
Secretary's Aids.]]]
{308}at Newgate, in England; but the records of that prison, examined by
Mr. Bancroft, exhibit no such name.
Washington Square, the finest promenade in Philadelphia, was inclosed
and set apart as a "Potter's Field"--a place to bury strangers in--in
1704, and was used for that purpose until within the last thirty-five
years. There a great multitude of soldiers, who died of the small-pox
and camp diseases, were buried in 1776--7. It was indeed a Golgotha.
Many of the bodies, buried in pits from twenty to thirty feet square,
were piled upon each other, the topmost barely covered with earth. At
least two thousand American soldiers were buried there within the space
of eight months. The bodies of hundreds of victims of the yellow fever,
in 1793, there found a resting-place. At that time, the ground being
full, interments ceased.
[Illustration: 9318]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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