So How Come the Indians Don’t Eat Matzoh on Passover?

Few early settlers were as interested in Indians as William Penn. He studied the local Lenape’s customs, culture, diet, religion and language and wrote about his observations.

Historians say Penn’s essay on the Indians provided valuable and astute information.

Well, no one is perfect. Even a scholarly Quaker can made mistakes. Penn thought the local Indians were actually Jews.  

”. . .I am ready to believe them of the Jewish Race, I mean of the stock of the Ten Tribes,” he wrote in 1683.

And then Penn presents arguments and observations to back up his startling theory. He says, like the Jews, the native Americans have a lunar calendar. “They offer their first fruits. They have a kind of Feast of Tabernacle. Their mourning is a year.”

The Lenape language – like Hebrew - can say a lot in one word by adding prefixes and suffixes, he added.

Penn even thought Indians looked Jewish. “I find them of like countenance and their children of so lively resemblance that a man would think himself in Dukes Place or Berry Street in London". (Jewish areas of London at the time) 

One aspect of his theory that Penn got right, when explaining how one of the lost tribes of Israel got here, was by pointing out the closeness of northeast Asia to North America.

A Drunken State Of Independence

Our esteemed founding fathers gave us liberty and independence but they weren’t very sober. Statistically, they drank three times more booze than modern Americans.

Here is a quote from historian Peter Thompson’s Rum, Punch and Revolution detailing a boozy bash at City Tavern on Second Street.

“On Dec, 1, 1779, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania and the state assembly threw themselves a dinner at City Tavern that cost over 2,000 pounds.

“A most ‘gentlemanly liberality’ was the order of the day as 270 diners drank 522 bottles of Madeira, 16 large bowls of punch, nine of toddy, six of Sangaree, and 24 bottles of port.
 
“Some indication of how the evening ended is provided by a bill for damages of more than 100 pounds. The diners destroyed 96 wine glasses, five decanters and one large inkstand.”

A Trio of Fine Authors Looks at Philly

Former Inquirer columnist Steve Lopez:
“It’s a city of bottom feeders. With no bottom.”
 
Author Bill Bryson:
“Philadelphia, the city that gave us Sylvester Stallone and Legionnaire’s disease.”

Pete Dexter, former Daily News columnist:
“It took me a long time to get used to Philadelphia. The weather, the traffic, the ground rules. I’d never seen a place where people were as rude to each other, for no reason. Of course, I hadn’t been to New York.”

Charles Peale and His Posse Paint George Washington

One of the most fun-loving Philadelphians of the 18th century was artist Charles Willison Peale, who outlived three wives, fathered 17 kids, and in his spare time, founded a museum, a zoo, ran a farm and mastered taxidermy. He not only named his kids after artists of the past but taught them (and his brother, James) how to draw and paint.

Peale had already painted George Washington’s portrait six times, but when Philly was the capital city, many artists, including Peale, his sons, and Gilbert Stuart, all wanted to create portraits of the president.

And so it came to pass in 1795 that Gilbert Stuart - whose portrait of Washington is on the one-dollar bill – uttered a little quip that is still clever:

Stuart looked into a room where Washington was sitting for a portrait by Peale, three of his sons, Rembrandt, Raphaelle, Titian and brother, James Peale.

“My God,” said Stuart, “the President was being ‘PEELED’ all around".

A Golfer With a Real 'Handicap'

It’s one of the more famous (or infamous) headlines to appear In the Philadelphia Daily News. 
It refers to golfing great Ben Hogan...

It read:
HOGAN COMES THROUGH WITH BLOODY PUTTS

A “putz” is a Yiddish word normally used to describe a foolish or stupid person.
More literally it means penis.

Philadelphia Trash Talk: An Education on Sanitation

A teacher who once taught at Bensalem High School often recalled the day he chewed-out a misbehaving student.
 
It happened in the 1960s in an older building than the current high school. The teacher’s classroom windows looked out onto a cement courtyard where large trashcans awaited pickup.

As the teacher blasted the boy’s behavior, he noticed the trash truck outside and a man in dirty work clothes dumping the cans.

“Look out there,” said the teacher. “Is that what you want? Huh? Do you want to be a garbage man when you leave here – picking up trash all day for a living?” 

A female student sitting up front suddenly broke out in tears.
“Why are you crying,” the stunned teacher asked.  
“That’s my father,” she blubbered.

Philadelphia Clever Business Names: Part Two

Yet more clever named businesses in Philadelphia.
(yes, these are/were real places!)

• Hairs Janet (hair dresser)

• Miss Demeanor (women's clothing)

• The Couch Tomato (restaurant)

• Whirled Peace (frozen custard)

• Bone Appetite (pet food)

• Hair of the Dog (pet grooming)

• City Clippers (hair salon)

• The Pour House (tavern)

• Sweet Freedom (bakery)

• BoneJour (pet supplies)

• 2NE2 (restaurant where you pick two selection. So NE can be ANY)

Philadelphia Sports Joke: Playing Possum

A riddle about either the Eagles football team and the Flyers ice hockey
team.... This year it definitely applies to the Flyers.

QUESTION: What do the Flyers and a possum have in common?

ANSWER: Both play dead at home and get killed on the road.”

Those Tricky Yankees and Their 'Secret Codes'

The year was 1776 and the British were busy trying to quell a rebellion in the North American colonies. The Brits were stopping all American ships - imprisoning the crews, confiscating cargo and closely examining any documents and mail on board.

Historians don’t tell us the name of the ship containing a letter from Philadelphia merchant Jonas Phillips to a relative and business associate in Amsterdam, Gumpel Samson.

Phillips' letter contained a first printing of the Declaration of Independence, maybe the first to fall into British hands. It also contained a letter in a secret code that none of the British naval officers could decipher.

Phillips was a German Jew (born Feibush) who arrived in North American as an indentured servant. He worked off his indenture, married, fathered 21 kids, and became a successful merchant and staunch patriot.

Phillips purchased his copy of the Declaration from printer John Dunlap on Market Street. And the mysterious letter in “secret code” was in Yiddish - Phillips’ mother tongue, written in Hebrew letters.

Translated , Phillips expressed his confidence in George Washington and the Continental Army to beat the British.

Only 26 copies of Dunlap’s first printing of the Declaration still exist. Each is worth millions. Britain owns three copies, including the copy mailed by Phillips and his letter “in secret code.”