By Alan J. Heavens, FrontDoor.com | Published: 10/27/2008
Further Back in Time
History for Philadelphians doesn't begin and end with 1776, 1789 or even 1800, when the federal government moved to the new city of Washington, D.C. It starts in the age of dinosaurs, with an out-of-towner named Hadrosaurus foulkii, whose nearly complete fossilized skeleton, the first ever recovered, was unearthed in a field across the Delaware in Haddonfield, N.J., by a farmer named William Parker Foulke. Thanks to the creature schoolchildren call "Haddy," a Philadelphian and professor of anatomy at Penn, Joseph Leidy, became the father of American vertebrate paleontology. His work and Haddy are at the Academy of Natural Sciences (1812) at 19th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Philadelphia's timeline includes the Leni Lenape Nation who were here when the Swedes arrived to run the place from 1646 to 1682 (Old Swedes Church, at Delaware and Washington Avenue, is the city's oldest building, built in 1701). William Penn, who received a grant for the land from Charles II, a royal personage happy to see the backs of the troublesome admiral's son and his nonconformist Quakers, arrived in 1682.
History didn't end when John Adams headed south to the new capital in 1800. The city continued to play a major role in the development of the nation during the 19th and 20th centuries. Its scientific and academic institutions, many of which are still around today, helped Philly earn the reputation of being the "Athens of America." The city's port sent coal mined in its interior around the world on vessels from its shipyards or in trains built in the Budd Co. works at Broad and Spring Garden Streets. Its factories and shops made hand saws, Stetson hats, windows, mantels, doors and fine furniture. Its politicians continued to shape United States policy long after Adams left.
The city's proximity and connections to the South left it soft on slavery; yet two of the most important Civil War generals, George Meade and Winfield Scott Hancock, were here. One hundred thousand Philadelphians volunteered for the Union side, 54 were Medal of Honor winners, and before the war, thanks to the Quakers and the nation's largest free black population, the city was one of the most important stops on the Underground Railroad to Canada.
A City of "Firsts"
The first American play was produced here; the oldest theater, the Walnut Street, is here. The first stock market, the first street lights, the first fire department, the first school of anatomy, the first recorded industrial strike (printers in 1786); the first U.S. Mint; the first balloon flight, the first savings bank, the first medical textbook, the first automat and the first revolving door.
While Philadelphians are immersed in their history, they are blas? about it, too. Thousands walk back and forth to work, from subway and train stations and bus stops, past historic buildings and by hundreds of markers placed by the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission to commemorate events and people.
When there's something new to learn about their history, however, such as the recent excavation of the quarters of George Washington's slaves on the site of the first executive mansion on Independence Mall, they make it a point to learn as much as they can about it.
Just in case someone asks.
NEXT: A City Rich with History