Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-10-11
Fifty Philadelphia "Firsts
Continued hpmpo
Continued from page 8

and sailed north from that port, March D.
1853.
The first orrery Ito illustrate the move
ments, etc, of the solar System) con-
structed in this country was the work of
David Rittenhouse, a grandson of William
Ryttenhuisen of paper mill fame, a self
trained astronomer, who completed the
instrument in 1855. 1t is now owned by
Princeton University
The first school of anatomy in America
was opened in Philadelphia, November
26, 1862, DR.. William Shipper, the virtual
founder, associating DR.. John Morgan
with himself in the lectures.
Steam as motive power for land car
riages was first suggested to Philadelphia S
elder statesmen in 1878 by Oliver
Evans, The American Watt" To-day
the Quaker City is one of the foremost
centers for manufacturing automobiles.
The first American Congress Called
Continental') assembled in Philadel-
penter's Hall, just off of Chestnut-st.
midway between Third and Fourth The
delegates, representing all the Colonies
save Georgia. continued their delibera-
tions for seven weeks.
The first daily newspaper in America
was D. c. Claypoole's Pennsylvania
Packet" which made its appearance in
Philadelphia in 1774, having grown out
of weekly sheet of the same name es-
tablished there three years earlier by
John Dunlap.
The first antislavery society was
formed that same year G774 by Phila-
delphia philanthropists: The Pennsyl-
vania Society for Promoting the Abolition
of Slavery Benjamin Franklin was its
first president.
The first United States flag (the Stars
and Stripes) was adopted by Congress,
assembled in Philadelphia, June IA, 1777,
having been made under General Wash
ington's supervision by a Philadelphia
widow, Betsy Ross, at her tiny home on
Arch-st, near Second.
The first Abolition Act in America,
providing that slavery be abolished in
Pennsylvania, was passed by the Assem-
bly, in Philadelphia, March I, 1880.
The first English Bible printed in Amer
lea came from Robert Athens Philadel-
phia press in 1882.
The Protestant Episcopal Church in
America was organized at a general con-
vention of the clergy of the faith in
Philadelphia, September 81, 1855.
The first steamboat model was exhibited
before the American Philosophical So
ciety in their rooms on Independence
Square in the same month by John Fitch;
and on August 22, 1857, Fitch's first
sidewheel vessel, forty-fve feet long and
twelve feet beam, Unanswered success
fully on the Delaware, thus antedating
Fulton's more noteworthy achievement of
this sort by twenty years
The first American dispensary was
founded in Philadelphia in 1886 by DR..
Benjamin Rush, The Sydenham of Ameri-
ca He was signer of the Declaration
of Independence, one of the founders of
Dickinson College, and for fourteen years
treasurer of the federal mint.
The first Greek book printed in the in
FAINT Republic was the Dialogues" of
Lucian, issued from the Philadelphia press
of Joseph James in 1850.
The first public canal company in
America was chartered in Philadelphia,
April 10, 1871, under the title of the
Schuylkill & Susquehanna Canal Com
pany.
The first bank in the United States
was opened for business in Carpenters
Hall, Philadelphia, in December, 1871,
with Thomas Willing as its president.
Its capital was ten million dollars, and
branches were established in Boston,
New York, Baltimore, and Charleston.
The first mint established by the ma
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