He Had A Karl Marx-Style Beard – So He Must Be a Commie

Walt Whitman and his friend Peter Doyle.
They were believed to have a gay relationship

Back in 1955 people knew a “commie” when they saw one and men who loved other men were “dangerous perverts.”

The commie-pervert that so upset some local people in the mid-1950s was, none other than, poet Walt Whitman, and the proposal to name a new bridge in his honor was galling to some.

The Catholic Church launched and led the attack. Then the Inquirer editorial page, Gloucester City and Philadelphia city councils also went on record as anti- Walt.

An anti-Walt letter writing campaign was started by south Jersey Catholic churches, lay groups and Catholic school kids who copied a form letter.

The Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) had decided to change the name of the Delaware River Bridge to the Ben Franklin Bridge. No problem there. However, the bi-state agency was building a new bridge. Since Ben Franklin was associated with Philly, the new bridge must honor someone from south Jersey.

Now, here was a challenge. Who from south Jersey was famous enough to deserve having a bridge named in his honor?

Well, Walt Whitman was from Long Island but lived in Camden from 1873 until his death in1892. And he is buried in Camden. So, it would be the Walt Whitman Bridge, said a committee of the DRPA.

The first salvos in the Catholic attacks on Whitman were somewhat oblique. Jersey-based priest Rev. James Ryan began with an article in the local Catholic newspaper by attacking Whitman’s talent. Wrote the priest, “Whitman possesses the depth of a saucer and enjoys the vision that extends about as far as his eyelids.”
 
Soon people were made aware that a recent book on the poet described Whitman as “homoerotic.” This was an unfamiliar term for most folks, but they understood “homosexual.”

Letters that poured into DRPA called Whitman “vulgar” “corrupt” “unnatural, “disgusting.” Worse, he was “unchristian” and his work was “contemptuous of religious principles. “

One writer said Whitman’s poetry praising the common man was very popular in Red China. The writer declared: “He is the poet laureate of world communist revolution.”

The bridge controversy got into the New York newspapers and soon there were many pro-Whitman writers. At least, a couple letters said the Catholic church should cleanup its own house in regards to sexual perversion.

The controversy died down in 1956. The bridge opened in 1957 and today most bridge users do not know that the poet was once attacked as a communist, atheist and a shameless queer.

Which Philadelphia Gets the Credit for Cream Cheese?

Cream cheese has a mysterious origin

Here’s how to impress your friends with your vast storehouse of knowledge. 
Ask why it’s called “Philadelphia” brand cream cheese.
 
They’ll probably answer that its origins are either in the city or near Philadelphia.
This is where you smirk and loudly declare “wrong!”
 
Start by telling them there are 17 towns in the United States named “Philadelphia.”

One of those Philadelphias is in upstate New York and it was in this area that cream cheese was developed and eventually became famous.

For decades the people in Philadelphia, N.Y., (population 2,000) felt slighted and angry because most people believed wrongly that the brand was named for the Quaker City.

Years ago Kraft put out an information sheet crediting the upstate New York village for the name. When the village clerk was contacted by the Daily News a few years back, she was miffed that Philadelphia, New York, didn’t get credit.

However, very recently, research placed the dairy that first used the name Philadelphia Cream Cheese in Chester, N.Y. This small town is quite a distance from Philadelphia, New York. It’s more-or-less in the Catskills.

The owner of the Chester dairy has been dead for decades, so we will never know for sure why he used the name Philadelphia for his product.

Helping Our Poor First Lady Buy New Shoes

What could Melania Trump do with an extra $1,000 a month? 
She might buy a pair of shoes or, perhaps, acquire a new raincoat to paint slogans.

The question of the extra grand arises thanks to the last will and testament of Philadelphian Henry G. Freeman Jr., who died in 1917.

Freeman, a lawyer and real estate investor, wrote a will saying that after his children and other beneficiaries die, his estate would go for various good causes. And one of those causes was presidential First Ladies.

Freeman, a millionaire, believed Presidents were poorly paid. To help out, his will created the “Henry G. Freeman Pin Money Trust” for presidential spouses to spend anyway they wished.

You’d have to be an estate lawyer and know all about trusts and tricky wills to figure out the many complications in Freeman’s will. It appears that the Pin Money Fund didn’t kick-in until Barbara Bush was First Lady. Michelle Obama only received a few checks. It’s not that the trust ran dry, but there are technical difficulties.

Those few First Ladies who received the annual $12,000 stipend all donated it to charity.

We’re not sure if Melania Trump is getting her monthly pin money. But if she does get a $1,000 monthly check, it probably gives her a good laugh. A report from her trip to Africa claims Melania and her entourage spent $100,000 for one night in a Cairo hotel.

A House For $8,000 – Dead Cats Included

This is not about a guy who made money flipping houses but the home that C. Jared Ingersoll bought for $8,000 is now worth about $2 million.

A wealthy blue-blood railroad executive, Ingersoll was a pioneer buyer in Society Hill in the 1960s. The Spruce Street dump he made home was built in the 1750s and had an important pedigree.

Recalling the condition of the house he purchased from the Redevelopment Authority, Ingersoll told an interviewer: “It had gone to complete ruin. The filth was beyond belief. The fleas were such and the stench was such that you couldn’t stay in the house over 10 or 15 minutes. There were two dead cats in the bathtub,” he recalled. “The front door was partly opened all the time.”

Needless to say, Ingersoll put many thousands into the old wreck. The three-story Georgian brick townhouse at 217 Spruce contained a lot of Philadelphia history.

It’s known as the Davis-Lenox House and good guides will point it out to tourists.

First, it’s a prime example of good historic restoration.
But it is also important because of who lived there. 

Master builder James Davis built it for his own residence. He was an important officer of the Carpenters Company, the guild that met in Carpenters Hall.

In 1779, the house was purchased by Revolutionary War hero, David Lenox. He became a merchant and banker but for a time he was U.S. Marshal for Pennsylvania and a key actor in the Whiskey Rebellion.

Later, Lenox was ambassador to Great Britain.

Ingersoll had important ancestors in early America. The original Jared Ingersoll probably knew both Davis and Lenox. That Jared Ingersoll was an architect and signer of the U.S. Constitution, Pennsylvania Attorney General and was vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket in 1812.

He Won The Bet But Couldn’t Spend His Winnings

The Colonial Drinking Scene

Cyder Royal was a popular drink in Philadelphia colonial era taverns, writes Joseph J. Kelley in his excellent book, Life and Times in Colonial Philadelphia.

It was way more potent than normal hard cider because it was mixed with 80 proof applejack liquor.

Kelley writes: “In 1737, Thomas Apty walked into the Red Lion Inn in Elbow Lane and laid a wager of Half a Crown that he would drink within one hour and a half, a gallon of cyder royal; which he had no sooner accomplished and said ‘I have finished’ but he fell down and there expired.”

Kelley tells us that Apty was a plasterer by trade.

When It Was Time for Battle He Chose The Boudoir

Howe and Loring

Ever wonder why Great Britain – the most powerful nation in the world – lost the American Revolution?

Here’s one big factor that you won’t find in most history books: 
The British commander General Sir William Howe’s sex life was more fun than pursuing and finishing off the rag-tag Americans.

Both the Patriots and the Tories believed that Howe’ love-life with his blonde, blue-eyed mistress, Elizabeth Loring, was causing him to dilly-dally when he should be leading the troops in battle.

Howe’s paramour was always referred to as “Mrs. Loring” because she was married to a Tory, Joshua Loring Jr., who traded his wife for a lucrative post with the British.

Howe met the couple in Boston. When the British troops left to fight the Americans, Mrs. Loring left with the general. Howe gave her husband the job of buying food and supplies for captured American soldiers – a great opportunity for graft.

The British occupied Philadelphia in the winter of 1777-78 thus providing Howe and Mrs. Loring a pleasant love-nest while Washington and his troops shivered at Valley Forge.

One anonymous Tory wrote a little ditty:

Awake arouse Sir Billy
There forage in the plain
Ah, leave your little filly
And open the campaign.
Heed not a woman’s prattle
Which tickles in the ear
But give the word for battle
And grasp the warlike spear

However, the very witty patriot Francis Hopkinson wrote a little song, which starts:

Sir William he, as snug as a flea
Lay all night a snoring
Nor dreamed of harm, as he lay warm
In bed with Mrs. Loring

Thus, a very good general was mocked by friend and foe alike for spending too much time making whoopee when he should be whooping the American rebels.

A Philadelphia Product You Couldn’t Give Away

The Khian Sea really isn't a Sea?

Scarfo’s gunmen were killing on a grand scale. Ira Einhorn was on the lam.
Dr. Martin Specter was selling human body parts through the mail.

Crazy killers like Gary Heidnik and Joseph Kallinger were titillating the public.
The most astounding killers were an English teacher and the principal of Upper Merion High School.
Negative news was overflowing in Philadelphia during the 1980s and early 1990s.

One negative news story that received international coverage was emblematic of Philadelphia in that era. It involved a ship roaming the globe, seeking a place to dump Philly’s toxic garbage.

The city was burning a lot of its trash during those years, but the process left tons of toxic ash to be disposed. In 1986, just about every landfill on the East Coast refused to accept 15,000 tons of Philadelphia ash.

The contractor hired to get rid of it, finally had it loaded onto an old tub the Khian Sea.

Its first destination was an artificial island in the Bahamas. However, the Bahamas refused the gift.

For almost two years, the Khian Sea traveled to every poor nation it could reach but none would take the toxic cargo. Some of the ash was dumped in Haiti when no one was looking, which the city eventually had to clean up.

Here is a list – we are not sure if its complete – of the Khian Sea’s travels to find a welcome port: Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Morocco, Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka and Singapore.

Along the way the ship changed names a couple of times and had a near mutiny of the crew. The problem was solved when the captain dumped the terrible cargo into the sea.

The co-owners of the ship were put on trial, and it cost the city big bucks to clean up the mess in Haiti, ship the ash to Florida and eventual bury it in an upstate Pennsylvania landfill.
An odyssey that started in 1986, finally ended after 16 years in 2002.

The City Had A ‘Bastard Problem’ in the 1790s

Mederic-Louis-Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery.
Artist: James Sharples

Imagine a Frenchman with the nerved to declare that Philadelphia is a city full of bastards. 

He wasn’t referring to our politicians but an abundance of fatherless children.

During the French Revolution, a chap by the name of Moreau de Saint-Mery escaped to America and opened a book shop in Philadelphia. He also wrote a good deal about his experiences and thoughts on the new nation and especially Philadelphia.

“Bastards are extremely common in Philadelphia,” Saint-Mery wrote in the late 1790s. He declares there are two reasons for the problem – religious and economic.

“The city is full of sects, but none of them give their clergymen any authority to enforce obedience. Consequently there is no way of inspiring shame in women who become mothers for no reason but for the pleasure they get out of it.”

Saint-Mery continues: “In the second place, once an illegitimate child is 12 months old, a mother can disembarrass herself of him by farming him out for 21 years. This makes it possible for her to commit the same sin for a second time.”

A few observations:
Saint-Mery was accustomed to the strict rules of the French Catholic church. And, yes, there was an apprentice system where children could be indentured to a craftsman or farmer, but we seriously doubt that anyone would take a 12-month-old baby to help on a farm or shop.

Also, Saint-Mery seems to forget that bastards are created by men who then refuse to be fathers.

He Wanted to Rest in Peace – Not Pieces

There is a story that in 1813 Dr. Philip Syng Physick – called the Father of American Surgery – got a knock on the door. A large, crude fellow stood there and asked Physick: “Do you want Doctor Rush?”

“What are you talking about?,” asked a perplexed Physick.
“Doctor (Benjamin) Rush has died".

”Yes,” said the stranger.”For $20 I can get his body for you.”

Maybe it was this incident (or maybe the story is a myth) that made Physick totally paranoid that his body might be dug up and sold to surgeons for dissection.

More likely it was watching stolen bodies being cut up as a medical student in England and then doing the same himself as a great surgeon that sparked the paranoia.

Physick’s will reveals the obsession. A section of his will, dealing with his own burial, is reproduced and displayed at the Physick House on 4th street near Pine.

It says he wants his body wrapped in flannel and left in a warm room for six days. In other words, until his cadaver starts to stink. Then, he wants his body placed in a lead casket that would be soldered shut, and then placed in a wood coffin.

Finally, he wanted a guard on his grave for a full month.

Physick died in 1836. It’s unlikely all his conditions were met. He was buried at Christ Church Burial Grounds, 5th and Arch. We assume no one has ever tried to steal his body.

Camden: More Dangerous Than ‘The Wild Frontier?’

Davey Crockett after losing $168

File this under the category “things that don’t change.”

It’s an irrefutable fact that Camden, N.J., suffers from a high crime rate.

But who would guess that in the year 1834 crime would also be a problem in Camden?

This fact is illustrated in the journal of frontiersman Davy Crockett – the same guy who died in Texas at the Battle of the Alamo and was prone to wear a coonskin cap.

Davy was already quite a famous character and was a U.S. Senator from Tennessee at the time of his visit to Camden. He apparently was visiting several East Coast cities.

Here are Crockett’s notes on his Camden visit:
“Having promised Mr. Hoy of Camden to call and see him on my return, and having fixed the time, I went over, accompanied by several gentlemen, to the Jersey shore where there were a great deal of people waiting for me. . . . We proceeded to Mr. Hoy’s and then I took a walk through Camden.”

During his visit, Davy gave the Camden folks a demonstration of his marksmanship with a rifle.

“Sometime after this, we were asked to dinner. And heard someone say he had lost his pocket-book [wallet]. And in a few minutes, a second cry was raised, that another man had lost his pocket-book,"

“I then felt for mine, but I felt in vain – it was gone, with one-hundred and sixty-eight dollars in it.”

Yes, a Camden pickpocket had enjoyed a very lucrative day.

It was also in New Jersey that Crockett took his first railroad ride. He marveled at the speed – an amazing 25 miles-an-hour.

Taking a Bride Rambo-Style

The Cannonball House near Fort Mifflin

There is the Hollywood Rambo and the real historic Rambo of ye olde Philadelphia.

The Rambo family was among those early Swedish pioneers who settled in the virgin forests and swamps along the Delaware River decades before William Penn arrived.

The Cock (or Koch) family were also early Swedish settlers.

The Rambo noted in history was the young horny John Rambo. This Rambo was charged in the colonial court in Chester, Pa., with criminal intercourse.

In 1684, Rambo was accused of climbing onto the roof of Peter Cock’s farmhouse at midnight and “by pulling off a plank of the house on the loft near (the bed) chamber, he jumped down to the floor.”

Rambo was now in the bedroom of his sweetheart, Bridget (also called Britta). He then got into bed with Bridget and her two sisters, ages 16 and 19.

“Saying he was resolved to be the husband of Bridget – even as his brother before him had taken another sister – and must there lie. Whereupon, there being a crowded place, the two sisters, with strange submission, withdrew and lay upon the floor all night in a cold December.”

The court ordered Rambo to marry Bridget “before she be delivered and then maintain the child”. Both had to pay a 10-pound fine.

Some accounts say the couple married while other accounts say Rambo was fined again for non-compliance.

Historians say Peter Cock’s farmhouse was later known as “the Cannonball House". It was close ro Fort Mifflin and during the battle at Fort Mifflin in 1777, a cannonball went through one wall and exited another wall.

The house had great longevity and was moved about half-a-mile in the 1970s to the grounds outside Fort Mifflin. It was considered the oldest structure in Philadelphia.

There it sat on wood supports in total disrepair - an old relic of revolution and romance. In 1995 the old Cannonball House was demolished by the city claiming it was beyond saving.

Have a Seat. The Doctor Will Be With You Soon.

He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and “the Father of American Psychiatry.”

​Dr. Benjamin Rush was a great man whose ideas were way ahead of his time. He believed in racial equality and female education. He pointed out the terrible effects of smoking and railed against hard liquor more than 200 years ago.

​But his book on mental illness was a mishmash of good ideas and – viewed from today – pure nonsense.

​Rush wanted to help his catatonic patients and their opposite - highly excited mental patients.

​He felt bleeding and a heavy dose of laxatives helped both types of madness, but he had a unique invention that looked very much like a modern electric chair.

​The patients was strapped in tightly. A hood device covered the head and the agitated, raving patient just sat there motionless until he calmed down.

This was Rush’s “tranquilizing chair.”

There was a similar chair to treat “torpid madness” or catatonic-types. This chair was called the “gyrator.” Again, the patient was strapped in but the chair could spin – round-and-round.

​Rush felt the spinning chair would get blood up to the brain of the torpid patient, making the person more alert and active.

​Neither chair used by Rush at Pennsylvania Hospital survives. But a good sketch of the device does survive.

An 18th Century Dessert: First Assemble a Half-Dozen Cooks

Clarissa Dillon on the great age of English puddings

OK, amateur cooks try this recipe – if you dare.

It’s called “hartshorn flummery” from a book of colonial American recipes collected by local historian Clarissa F. Dillon, an expert on 18th century cooking and gardening.

First, definitions: 
“hartshorn” is shavings of a deer antler used like bones to create a gelatin and “flummery” is a sweet jelly-like or custardy dessert.

Only wealthy colonists with slaves or servants would even think of making this dessert. In an era without electric mixers, consider this instruction: “beat it for an hour and a half.”

So here’s the recipe:

Boil half a pound of shavings of hartshorn in three pints of water, till it comes to a pint then strain it through a sieve into a basin, then set it by to cool. Then set it over the fire. Let it just melt. And put it to half a pint of of thick cream, scalded and grown cold again. (add) a quarter of a pint of of white wine and two spoonfuls of orange-flower water. Sweeten it with sugar, and beat it for an hour and a half or it will not mix well, nor look well. Dip your cups in water before you put in your flummery, or else it will not turn out well. It is best when it stands a day or two before you turn it out. When you serve it up turn it out of the cups and stick blanch’d almonds cut in long narrow bits on the top. You may eat them either with wine or cream.

James Logan And The Name Game

When American Indians wanted to give the ultimate honor to another person they suggested an exchange of names.

So, when a Chief Wingohocking suggested to James Logan an exchange of names, Logan had to think fast. He sure didn’t want to be known as “James Wingohocking.”

So, Logan pointed to a stream running through his property and suggested it be named for Chief Wingohocking. Logan said he would die, but the creek would flow forever.

Thus the Indian would become “Chief Logan” and the Wingohockingn Creek would eventually be channeled underground. So, we now have Wingohocking Street.

Of course, Logan’s name lives on in the neighborhood, Logan, and Logan Circle. His farm and home, Stenton, is a fascinating historic site worth a visit.

It’s a shame that Philadelphians don’t know more about this great man.

Logan (1674-1751) was a Quaker who came to Pennsylvania in 1699 as William Penn’s business manager. During his long life, he served as Philadelphia mayor and chief justice of the colony’s supreme court.

He was a great scholar, botanist and had a library of 3,000 books, perhaps the largest in America at that time.

Chief Logan’s name lives on in a Central Pennsylvania school district. At one time there was a Chief Logan Inn in New Hope, Pa. The Chief Logan’s name also lives on in Ohio and West Virginia. But these states may be naming parks and schools for the son of our Chief Logan.

Rained-Out War Games And Barrels of Laughs

Some very bloody battles of the American Revolution were fought in and around Philadelphia: Brandywine, Paoli, Germantown, Fort Mifflin.

But there are two local battles that are rarely mentioned:
The Battle of the Clouds and The Battle of the Kegs. 

Maybe you never heard of either because they weren’t bloody. You could bring your grandmother to these two “battles” and she’d be safe.

Brandywine was fought on September 11, 1777 (that 9-11 date seems to be unlucky for America). Casualties were high on both sides and Washington was forced to retreat.

But five days later, the two sides faced off again in Chester County. Washington was deciding whether to fight or retreat. British Gen. William was hoping to finish off the rebels.

Then suddenly the sky got dark. There was thunder, lightning and incredible torrential downpour. The ground was soaked, the soldiers soaked and most important the gunpowder was soaked and useless.

The British couldn’t even mount a bayonet charge. “The mud was up to our calves,” wrote one soldier.

So, Washington and his troops retreated to fight another day. God had intervened. There would be no killing in the “Battle of the Clouds.”

Fort Mifflin on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River and Fort Mercer on the New Jersey side were preventing British ships from reaching British-occupied Philadelphia. After a long heroic stand against constant shelling, the forts were abandoned.

Now British supply ships could dock in Philadelphia but the Yankees had a little trick, which became known as the “Battle of the Kegs”.

A clever New Englander, David Bushnell, developed an effective floating explosive mine. The devices were put in kegs and floated down the Delaware where many British ships were docked.

Two boys found one of the kegs, which exploded with deadly results.

Now the British were alarmed and told to shoot at anything floating in the Delaware. We can imagine the Red Coats lined up on the river banks blazing away.

No British ship were damaged. But Americans got a good laugh.

Patriot Francis Hopkinson wrote a humorous ditty entitled “The Battle of the Kegs” sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle.

Archaeology in Philadelphia Can Be A Dirty Business

Probably no American city has had more archaeological digs than Philly.

The usual finds are mostly broken pottery, bottles, hand-made bricks and bones from 240 year-old pot roasts. 

But once in awhile there’s a surprise item - like ye early American pornography.

In a thick book entitled “The Buried Past” by Penn archaeologist John Cotter, he tells of a “carved phallic end of a wooden shaft” found in an old privy pit “near the East Wing of Independence Hall.”

You might also call it a wooden circumcised penis or more crudely yet, a dildo. Its use was most likely as a barrel stopper. And it probably gave the boys in the tavern a good chuckle.

Yes, our founding fathers liked a good smutty joke and most of them smoked clay pipes. The smokers often carried a pipe tamper. The diggers have found the top piece of two metal pipe tamper, also called finials, depicting a man and women making love in the standing position.

One was dug up near Carpenters Hall, the other on the 300 block of Cypress Street. Since the naked couple are making love under a tree some think they represent Adam and Eve. So the smoking pipe tool is not only smutty, it’s sacrilegious to boot.

Philadelphia Surgeons Cutting It Close

This is a story about two surgeries and two surgeons. 

These unique tales come from the “Memoirs of William Williams Keen.”

Known as Dr. W.W. Keen. He was born in 1837 and died at age 95 in 1932. He lived to see some dramatic advances in medicine - such as the germ theory, as this first anecdote will show.

Keen attended Jefferson Medical School where he studied under the nation’s greatest surgeon, Dr. Samuel Gross, whose books on military surgery were used by both sides in the Civil War.


One evening in 1862 Gross asked student Keen to assist in removing a damaged piece of bone in the calf area of an old soldier wounded 50 years ago. Just the fact that Gross would operate on the old man’s home sofa, tells us something about the lack of knowledge of cleanliness and infection.

Even worse, Keen tells us: “as was often his custom Dr. Gross whetted his knife on his boot.”

By 1887, thanks to Joseph Lister, a great deal was known about cleanliness and germs and Keen was on his way to becoming Philly’s top surgeon. He was one of the world’s first surgeons to remove a brain tumor.

Of course, Keen did not whet his scalpel on his boot. He didn’t even use a scalpel.

He proudly writes that the brain tumor was exactly where he predicted. But it was large (7 1/2inches), so Keen had to remove additional bone.

“My heart sank within me at the prospect of only attempting its removal. But no other course was possible, so I passed my little finger around its margin and peeled it out as easily as one scoops a hard-boiled egg out of its shell with a spoon.”

Keen writes that only two or three brain tumors of this size had ever been removed at the time. He tells us the patient was alive and healthy 28 years later.

So, there it is: two of the greatest surgeon of their times - one honed a scalpel on his boot, and the other removed a tumor with his fingernail.

Benjamin Franklin Gets Globular: Drinking in No Uncertain Terms

No survey of Philly humor can ignore Ben Franklin. 
But where to start?

Let’s start with Ben’s 200-word list of synonyms for being drunk. 
We will only offer a sample.

Some words are still familiar:
boozy, addled, cock eyed, tipsy, stewed...

Many 18th century words and expression for inebriation are totally obscure today:
cherubimical, he cut his capers, he’s Prince Eugene, groatable, fox’d, got
the flanders, got Hornson, killed his dog, het his kettle, he’s half way to Concord,
been to Jericho and, got the gladders.

Then there some expressions that disappeared, but are clever enough to revive:
his head is full of bees, sees two moons, he’s juicy, he’s oiled, he’s in the
suds, raddled, as stiff as a ring-bolt, cherry merry and as dizzy as a goose.


Our favorite archaic words From Ben’s list are globular and knapt.
Let’s start using them.

“Look at Uncle Joe. He’s totally knapt. Last week he got globular on margaritas.”

Knowing Your Business: Philadelphia Institutions With Straightforward Names

Unlike our times, the 19th century was an era of plain talk. 

Sex workers were known as prostitutes. Senor citizens were simply old folks. And local institutions in Philadelphia pulled no punches in spelling out their purpose.

Here are a few examples: 

The Edwin Forrest Home for Decayed Actors

Pennsylvania Training School for the Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Children 

Inglis House for Incurables 

Northern Home for Friendless Children 

Ralston House for Widows and Single Women 

Franklin Reformatory Home for Inebriates 

The Bettering House of Employment 

Blockley Almshouse 

Union Home for Old Ladies 

Old Ladies Home of Philadelphia 

The House of Industry 

Saint Edmond’s Home for Crippled Children 

House of Saint Michael’s  

All Angels for Crippled Colored Children 

Guardians of the Poor

Jumping Into Elfreth's Alley: Accidental Tourists

You’re home alone and you hear footstep downstairs. 
What do you do?

Do you dial 911 and grab you revolver? 
Do you lock yourself in a closet and cower in fear?

Well, if you live on Elfreth’s Alley, you just grin and chuckle. 

Then you go downstairs and explain to the tourists that this house isn’t a museum. It’s a private residence and you simply forgot to lock your door.

It happens frequently to residents of the quaint street that bills itself as the oldest continuously residential street in America.

One long-time resident recalls leaving her door wide-open while she took some purchase into her basement. “I heard footsteps in my kitchen and people talking," she recalls. “They were nice folks who simply thought it was a museum and walked in. They apologized. I told them it was my fault for not closing the door and offered them a cup of coffee. I like meeting people, That’s why I moved here.”

Bob Christophersen has not lived on Elfreth’s Alley in many years but says he loved his time there. “I had a Dutch door that I could leave half open. People might peek in and occasionally someone would walk into the house. I’d explained it was a private house and answer any question they might have.”

Tourists that jump up to peer into windows are known as “jumpers” to folks who live there.

“All the neighbors were very close and friendly,” adds Christophersen, who is the type of people-person who knows almost everyone in his condominium complex.

        "I remember a guide saying that Jeremiah Elfreth had several wives," Christophersen recalls.  "A tourist asked if he was a bigamist. The guide responded, 'No.  He was a Quaker.'"