during the Revolution by various bodies representing the Province, such as the provincial convention of 1775 and the Committee of Safety to enforce measures recommended by Congress and to devise " ways and means. The Philadelphia Library occupied the upper story from 1775 until 1791, though the library-room was used during the Revolution as a hospital for sick American soldiers. In 1775 the Assembly met here to attend the funeral of Peyton Randolph, the first president of Congress.

The British took possession of the hall in 1777, and continued to hold it during their stay in Philadelphia. The soldiers made a target of the vane on the cupola, and several holes were drilled through it by their balls.

In 1787 the hall was occupied by General Henry Knox as commissary-general of military stores; from 1791 to 1797 by the first Bank of the United States, and afterward by the Bank of Pennsylvania until their house on Second street above Walnut was finished. This bank had previously occupied the Masonic Lodge building in Lodge alley. It was during its occupancy of the Carpenters' Hall that the Bank of Pennsylvania was robbed in 1798 of $162,821.61. In 1798 it was used by the United States as a land-office, and from 1802 to 1819 as a custom-house. General John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, General John Shee, and General John Steel were collectors; William Bache and James Glentworth surveyors; General William Macpherson and Samuel Clarke naval officers. From 1817 to 1821 it was used by the second Bank of the United States, William Jones president and Jonathan Smith cashier. In 1822 it was used by the Musical Fund Society; in 1825 by the Franklin Institute; the Apprentices' Library used the second story for seven and a half years; in 1827 it was used by the Hicksite Society of Friends as a meeting-house until the meeting-house in Cherry street near Fifth was built. For twenty-nine years C. J. Wolbert sold furniture and had his horse-market here, and Johnny Willetts, the peculiar and well-remembered schoolmaster, held sway; and in 1857 the Carpenters' Society again took possession of their ancient hall, and have, ever since its restoration to former appearances, kept it open for exhibition as an historic relic, as it is only second in interest to Independence Hall. A volume of fifty-seven pages was published in 1858, giving a history of the hall and the society. The architect of the building was Robert Smith, and not Nathan Allen Smith, as has been sometimes stated.

The one hundred and fifty-third anniversary of the Carpenters' Company was held in Carpenters' Hall in January, 1878. Seventysix out of the ninety members were present and sat down at the annual dinner.

The report of the Centennial Committee, preparing the ancient

edifice for the reception of Centennial visitors, was read. This report shows that over seventy thousand copies of the little work entitled Carpenters' Hall and its Historic Memories had been given away to visitors. It is estimated that at least half a million of people paid a visit to this time-honored building during the Exhibition. The names and residences of seventy-two thousand visitors are registered in fifteen large books, but as these registers were kept on the second floor, not more than one person out of ten was able to go up stairs on account of the crowd, and consequently did not sign the register.

One little instance will suffice to illustrate the great interest shown by visitors in everything connected with the hall. In the Historic Memoirs mention is made of the prayer offered by Rev. Mr. Duché of Christ Church when the first Congress of the United States assembled in the hall.

Mr. Jay of New York and Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina opposed the motion made by Mr. Cushing, that the session should be opened with prayer, when Mr. Samuel Adams arose and said "that he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from any gentleman of piety and virtue who was at the same time a friend to his country; he was a stranger in Philadelphia, but had heard that Mr. Duché (Duchay they pronounce it) deserved that character; and therefore he moved that Mr. Duché, an Episcopal clergyman, might be desired to read prayers to Congress to-morrow morning." The motion was seconded and passed in the affirmative. "Mr. Randolph, our president, waited upon Mr. Duché, and received for answer that if his health would permit he certainly would. Accordingly next morning he appeared with his clerk and in his pontificals, and read several prayers in the Established form, and then read the Psalter for the 7th day of September, which was the thirty-fifth Psalm. You must remember that this was the next morning after we had heard of the horrible cannonade of Boston. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning."

On one of the desks in the hall a Bible published by the American Bible Society at a comparatively recent date was placed for the convenience of visitors who might wish to read over the thirty-fifth Psalm, spoken of above, but the notion being started that this was the "original Bible" from which Mr. Duché read, the relic-hunters tore out piece by piece not only the entire Psalm, but other portions of the book, and now the Bible, all torn and soiled, is retained in the library as one of the relics of the Centennial year.

The secretary's report showed that three members of the company had died during the year, and that two had been admitted. The oldest member, Moses Lancaster, ninety-six years, residing at Newtown, was not able to be present, but John M. Ogden, aged eighty-six, the second member on the list, and D. H. Flick

wir, the third in point of age, were present. It also mentions the fact that William Wirt Henry of Richmond, Virginia, has presented the society with a mezzotint of his grandfather, the celebrated Patrick Henry.

During the occupancy of the Carpenters' Hall by the Bank of Pennsylvania in 1798, to which it had removed from its former premises, the Masonic Lodge building in Lodge alley, it was robbed September 1st, 1798, in the evening, of the large sum of $162,821.61. The suspicion of the officers of the bank was directed upon Patrick Lyon, because of his known skill and of the following circumstances: Sixteen months before the robbery he had been employed to make two doors for the vault of the bank; at the time he cautioned the officers that the inner doors were insufficient, and recommended something stronger. His advice was not taken, and in August of 1798 he was again employed to repair the locks upon the two inner doors. At this time the yellow fever, which was raging, drove every one from the city who could get away, and Lyon with an apprentice left the city a week afterward, and stayed at Lewes, Delaware. The boy sickened and died of the yellow fever, and Lyon attended to his burial. Two weeks after the robbery Lyon heard of it, and that he was suspected. He immediately left Lewes and walked to the city, as no vehicle could be had on account of the embargo by the yellow fever. He called at the house of John Clement Stocker, a director, and said he would meet the officers there next day. On the following morning he met the president, Mr. Fox, and the cashier, Mr. Smith, and Robert Wharton, mayor, at Mr. Stocker's house. He gave them in a clear, straightforward manner an account of every hour, and proved that on the night of the robbery he was attending the sick boy. His testimony and manner were in vain. They judged him to be an accomplice; he was imprisoned in the Walnut Street Prison for three months, his bail, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, being too large to be raised. Although, after he had been incarcerated two months, surrounded by and exposed to the yellow fever, one of the real thieves was captured, they still detained him on the plea of being an accomplice. The real culprits proved to be Thomas Cunningham, the porter of the bank, and a carpenter named Isaac Davis. porter shortly after the robbery took the yellow fever and died within a week. Davis was arrested, and disgorged over one hundred and fifty-nine thousand dollars, and was allowed to escape. Not until three weeks later was Lyon let out on two thousand dollars bail, and an indictment carried before the grand jury, who ignored it. Lyon brought suit againt Fox, Stocker, and Haines the constable, but it was not till late in 1805 it came to trial, and Lyon got judgment for twelve thousand dollars. A new trial was granted, which was kept off till the spring of 1807, but the matter was compromised by the payment by the bank

The

of nine thousand dollars to Lyon nearly nine years after his

arrest!

OFFICE OF SECRETARY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

P. 423. The office for the Secretary of Foreign Affairs was demolished in March, 1846, as well as the small office south of it, both represented in the engraving on p. 419. The house of P. S. Duponceau, at the corner of Sixth and Chestnut, a handsome, old-fashioned brick structure, which stood back from the line of the street, with a one-story office north of it, was also demolished at this time-all, with another building at the south of the "office," giving way to a new structure erected for stores and offices by Abraham Hart of the late firm of Carey & Hart, booksellers. It was five stories in height and named "Hart's Buildings." They were nearly destroyed by a terrible fire in the winter of 1851-December 26th, the evening of the banquet to Louis Kossuth at Musical Fund Hall-as well as the buildings on the other side of Sixth street and known as the "Shakespeare Buildings," adjoining the Chestnut Street Theatre. This fire occasioned the death of W. W. Hayley, a lawyer, part author of Troubat & Hayley's Practice, just returned from Europe with his wife, née Miss Haldeman of Harrisburg; also of another young man, John Baker, a watchman-both crushed by falling walls and burned to death; their bones alone and Hayley's watch were found. By request of the widow, the bones of both were buried in one coffin. The building was rebuilt as it now stands, and is owned by A. J. Drexel, Esq.

PETER S. DUPONCEAU.

Peter Stephen Duponceau, an eminent scholar and lawyer, was a native of France, having been born June 3d, 1760, in the Isle of Rhé, where his father had a military command, the son being also destined for that profession. On the death of his father, by his mother's persuasion, he entered the ecclesiastical order and became the Abbé Duponceau. In 1755 he abandoned it and repaired to Paris, where he lived by teaching and translating, understanding the English and Italian languages. Here he made the acquaintance of Baron Steuben, and accompanied him to the United States as private secretary and aide-de-camp in 1777. His first experience of American military life was at Valley Forge; he served ably for two years. In 1779 he left the army, and became a citizen of Pennsylvania in 1781, and the

following year was appointed secretary to Mr. Livingston, Secretary of Foreign Affairs. The business was transacted in that narrow two-story building, which most of us remember, on the east side of Sixth street, adjoining Mr. Duponceau's one-story office.

At the close of the war Mr. Duponceau studied law. In 1788 he married and led a retired life, practising his profession. In that year the Federal Constitution was promulgated; Mr. Rawle and Mr. Duponceau took opposite sides, the latter belonging to what was called the Anti-Federal party. He afterward said, "I thought I was right; subsequent events have proved that I was in the wrong."

For many years he occupied a prominent place at the bar, and was frequently employed in the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, whither he went with his eminent contemporaries, Messrs. Rawle, Tilghman, Ingersoll, and Dallas. He thus writes of these journeys: "The court sat there, as it does at present, or did until lately, in the month of February, so that we had to travel in the depth of winter, through bad roads, in the midst of rain, hail, and snow, in no very comfortable way. Nevertheless, as soon as we were out of the city and felt the flush of air, we were like school-boys on the playground on a holiday, and we began to kill time by all the means that our imagination could suggest. Flashes of wit shot their coruscations on all sides; puns of the genuine Philadelphia stamp were handed about; old college-stories were revived; macaronic Latin was spoken with great purity; songs were sung, even classical songs, among which I recollect the famous bacchanalian of the archdeacon of Oxford, Mihi est propositum in taberna mori;' in short, we might have been taken for anything but the grave counsellors of the celebrated bar of Philadelphia."

On their return from one of these expeditions the merriment of these venerable persons became so excessive as to upset the driver, who lost his reins; the horses ran away at a frightful rate; all but Mr. Duponceau leaped from the stage, and were more or less bruised; he kept his seat and took snuff with mechanical regularity and characteristic abstraction. "We had," he said, "a narrow escape. I am now left alone in the stage of life, which they were doomed also to leave before me. I hope I shall meet them again in a safer place."

Mr. Duponceau made himself at home in this community; he mastered the language completely, and spoke with the slightest French accent. He admired our political and social creeds, and reverenced the founder and early lawgivers of the State. He suggested and took an active part in establishing the "Society for Commemorating the Landing of William Penn," which afterward, unfortunately, died of exaggeration and collapse.

The society met originally, with great and appropriate simpli