The J\(ew zJftCarket in Second Street OR the first sixty years of Philadelphia's history, the great market in High, now Market, Street supplied the provisions Ffor the entire city. But as Philadelphia spread out, household- ers in the newer parts of the town found it inconvenient to shop at the central market and proposals for an additional one to be built at Second and Lombard streets on Society Hill were brought forward. Council began to plan for a market in Second Street as early as 1741. Before anything could be done about building a market house, arrangements had to be made to widen Second Street, originally fifty feet in breadth, in order to find room for a market place be- tween Pine and Cedar (South) streets. Warrants were issued to survey several lots along Second Street within these bounds, and the owners of all lots on both sides of the street were asked to grant the city forty feet of their land so that a market place one hundred and thirty feet wide could be laid out. This space was judged sufficient to take care of the flow of traffic on market days, leaving passage way for wagons, barrows, and people on either side of the market stalls, which were to be erected in the center of the street.1 In all probability, the widening of Second Street was not accom- plished without delay and argument. Some of the property owners of the neighborhood must have been seriously inconvenienced by the loss of part of their ground. John Morris, for example, had to de- molish his house when the street was widened. He was not required to give up this part of his property without any return, however, for Joseph Wharton, a wealthy merchant and one of the principal land- owners in the district, noted in his ledger that he had paid £10 to 1 Report of the Solicitor on the Titles to the City Property Pursuant to the Resolutions of Council of the 8th of March and 9th of August, 1810, 86-100, in Department of Archives, City of Philadelphia (City Archives). The owners of the land on the east side of Second Street were: "Samuel Powel; Anthony Morris; Anthony Morris bought Lawrence Growden; Joseph Wharton bought Lawrence Growden; Bought W. Allen; Joseph Wharton; The Proprietaries." On the west side the owners were: "The Proprietaries; the Frankford Co.; Edward Shippen bought of Lawrence Growden; Lumbard Street 50 feet; William Allen Esqr; The Proprie- taries." Manuscript map showing the streets and owners of lots from Pine to Cedar, Front to Third, in The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP). 379 380 MARGARET B. TINKCOM October Morris "In part of the Purchase money which Edward Shippen agreed with him for the Pulling Down his House in order for the making the Market Place the Bredth which it now is." Wharton added that this £10 was in addition to his contribution of "all the Front of my Ground."2 Although I have found no other records of payments made to Second Street landowners, it is likely that some others were also reimbursed for their losses. Any similar payments that were made would probably have resulted from private agree- ments between the owners and Wharton and Shippen, the backers of the New Market project, and not from arrangements made between the owners and the city, in spite of the fact that it was the latter which condemned the land for public use. Four years elapsed between the time Council first took action in the matter of a new market and the time when they were ready to entertain proposals for building the stalls. Persuading the property owners to go along with the scheme and arranging the legal matters involved in the widening of Second Street obviously took time, but by July, 1745, the market place was ready and the sponsors could take their plans for the market house to Council. At a meeting of that body, July 1, 1745, Edward Shippen, who was then Mayor of Philadelphia, and Joseph Wharton proposed to build "Sixteen Stalls in the New Market place, Viz. Eight Stalls in Second Street to the Southward of Lombard Street, and Eight Stalls to the Northward of said Lombard street ... at their own Costs and Charge." The stalls were to be "Built after the same Modell as the present Stalls in the West Side of the Court house of this City." Shippen and Wharton asked to have the right to collect the rents for these stalls until "such Time as the Principall Money and Interest they shall Advance for Building said Stalls, are reimbursed them." The city would have the right to take over the market at any time upon payment of the money owing the entrepreneurs, less whatever they had already collected in rents. Council accepted this offer, requiring only that eight of the stalls be built forthwith and the other eight "With all Convenient speed" and that the market "shall be Under the Direction, from Time to Time, of this Board."3 2 Joseph Wharton, Ledger Book B (1736-1793), 51, HSP. 3 Minutes of the Common Council of the City of Philadelphia, 1704 to 1776 (Philadelphia, 1847), 446, hereafter cited as Minutes. The courthouse was, of course, the High Street Court House built in 1707. 1958 THE NEW MARKET IN SECOND STREET 38 I The New Market, like its model on the west side of the court- house, was a shed with brick piers supporting a gabled roof over an arched and plastered ceiling. In general, it conformed to the style of rural markets in England and the Low Countries.4 An examination of the old shambles, as the permanent stalls in the market sheds were called, which still stand north of Lombard Street shows that the roof of the 1745 market was probably supported by nine pairs of piers, of which eight remain. Judging from the existing evidence, the original ground plan provided for a terminal cross aisle between the first two sets of piers, then two stalls, one on each side of the center aisle, two more sets of piers with a cross aisle between them, four more stalls separated by a pair of piers, another cross aisle between piers, the last two stalls, and in all probability another terminal cross aisle at the north end of the shambles between the last two pairs of piers. The terminal cross aisles would have served to shelter the stalls from a driving rain.5 Some slight variation in the height of the piers and in the framing of the roof in different sections of the shambles illustrates the city's procedure in the financing and erecting of this particular public building. Ordinarily, Council would have borrowed the necessary money from an affluent citizen or two, or have divided the cost among the aldermen and councilmen, as was done when the market house was built in High Street in 1709,6 then would have arranged with carpenters and masons to have the building erected, and have supervised the work as it progressed. The case of the New Market was quite different. Wharton and Shippen did not propose to lend the city what money it needed for the market, leaving the building of the stalls to Council; they expected to build the stalls themselves as well as to pay the cost of their construction.7 The fact that the stalls of the Second Street market house were built privately and at different times by several persons acting more or less independently, although 4 The market house built in 1741 on Market Square, Germantown, was almost identical in design with the New Market in Second Street built four years later. 5 "The New Market in Second Street, Philadelphia, Pa.," a report prepared by G. Edwin Brumbaugh for the Philadelphia Historical Commission, 1958, on file in the Commission office, 1220 City Hall Annex. 6 Minutes, 1704-1776, 64. 7 Wharton, Ledger Book B, 51, 155. Watson is in error in suggesting that Wharton and Shippen lent the money only. See John Fanning Watson, Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsyl- vania. (Philadelphia, 1927), III, 185. 382 MARGARET B. TINKCOM October in accord with a generally agreed upon plan, may account for the small structural differences noted above. Neither Wharton nor Shippen were acting as disinterested philan- thropists. Both men owned considerable property in the Society Hill area and, although neither shopping centers nor supermarkets had been heard of, both men realized that a conveniently situated market would enhance property values in their neighborhood. They went to a good deal of trouble and to some expense to get the New Market going, and they fully expected to be repaid in one way or another. How promptly the market justified their expectations may be inferred from the references to it in the advertisements of houses for sale in the area after 1745.8 Joseph Wharton's Ledger Book B, which contains an account of some of his expenses incident upon the building of the New Market, also indicates pretty clearly his attitude toward the whole business. Wharton accompanied these accounts by a long and almost illegible memorandum describing his interest in the market from the time of its inception. This memorandum was written in 1770, twenty-five years after the building of the market, and at a time when Council was inquiring into the financial status of the New Market with a view to taking over its management. The city fathers decided in 1769 that, after almost twenty-five years of profit-taking, the angels of the Second Street Market should have been fully repaid, principal and interest, and they named a committee of Council—Samuel Rhoads, Alderman, William Logan and George Clymer, Common Council- men—to look into the matter.9 Up to that time Wharton, according to his own statement, had never kept any formal record of his receipts and disbursements connected with the New Market.