are: public safety, public works, receiver of taxes, city treasurer,
city controller, law, education, charities and corrections,
supplies, wharves, docks and ferries, civil service commission and
sinking fund commission (composed of the mayor, the city
controller and a commissioner elected by a majority vote of the
city councils). Members of the select council are elected for
three years—one-third each year; members of the common council
for two years—one half each year; and the receiver of taxes, the city
treasurer, the city controller, and the city solicitor, who is the head
of the department of law, for a term of three years. The police
constitute a bureau of the department of public safety, and at their
head is a superintendent appointed by the director of the department
with the approval of the select council. The department of
education is administered by a central board appointed (at large)
by the judges of the courts of common pleas.
The assessed value of taxable property in the city increased from $153,369.048 in 1856 to $536,667,834 in 1880, to $880,935,265 in 1900, and to $1,358,675,057 in 1910. The city's yearly expenditure increased from $5,170,680 in 1856 to $14,640,479 in 1880, to $30,628,246 in 1900, and to $48,012,630 in 1909. The principal items of expenditure in 1909 were: for public schools $8,242,218; for the bureau of water, $2,827,200; for streets and highways, $4,219,260; for police, $3,810,535; and for protection against fire, $1,873,720. The receipts for the same year were $44,372,927, of which $18,851,442 were from the property tax (municipal and state), and $4,396,124 were from the water tax. The city's indebtedness increased rapidly for a period of twenty-five years following consolidation. At the beginning of 1856 the funded debt was $16,781,470, by the beginning of 1870 it had grown to $42,401,933, and by the beginning of 1880 to $70,970,041. By the new state constitution adopted in 1873 no municipality is permitted to create a debt exceeding 7% of the assessed value of its taxable property,[1] in 1879 the state legislature passed an act to prevent the city from living beyond its income, and as a consequence of these restrictions the funded debt, less loans held by the sinking fund, was reduced by the beginning of 1895 to $33,139,695. The great expense of installing the new filter plant, developing the park system, and making other improvements has, however, caused it to grow again; at the beginning of 1910 the total funded debt was $95,483,820 and the net funded debt was $84,901,620.
History.—The patent granted to William Penn for the territory embraced within the present commonwealth of Pennsylvania was signed by Charles II. on the 4th of March 1681 and Penn agreed that “a quantity of land or ground plat should be laid out for a large town or city in the most convenient place upon the river for health and navigation,” and that every purchaser of 500 acres in the country shall be allowed a lot of 10 acres in the town or city, “if the place will allow it.” In September Penn appointed William Crispin, Nathaniel Allen and John Bezan a commission to proceed to the new province and lay out the city, directing them to select a site on the Delaware where “it is most navigable, high, dry and healthy; that is where most ships can best ride, of deepest draught of water, if possible to load or unload at the bank or key side without boating or lightering of it.” Crispin, a kinsman of the proprietor, died on the voyage out, but William Heage had been named a fourth commissioner some time after the appointment of the others and the three survivors arrived in the province toward the close of the year. They had been preceded by Penn's cousin, Captain William Markham, as deputy-governor, and were soon followed by the surveyor-general, Thomas Holme. Although the Swedes had established a settlement at the mouth of the Schuylkill not later than 1643 and the site now selected by the commissioners was held by three brothers of the Swaenson family, these brothers agreed to take in exchange land in what is now known as Northern Liberties, and as early as July 1682 Holme, according to modified instructions from Penn for making the lots smaller than originally intended, laid out the city extending from the Delaware river on the east to the Schuylkill river on the west, a distance of about 2 m., and from Vine Street on the north to Cedar (now South) Street on the south, a distance of about 1 m. Penn landed at New Castle on the Delaware on the 27th of October 1682 and two days later came up as far as Upland, now Chester, 13 m. south of Philadelphia, but when he came to his newly founded city is not known. He is known, however, to have presided at a meeting of the provincial council held here on the 10th of March 1683, and from that time Philadelphia was the capital of Pennsylvania until 1799, when Lancaster became the capital. During nearly the whole of this period it was also the most important city commercially, politically and socially in the colonies. Quaker influence remained strong in the city, especially up to the beginning of the 19th century; and it was predominant in Philadelphia long after it had given way before the Scotch-Irish in the rest of Pennsylvania. But even in Philadelphia the academy (later the university of Pennsylvania) soon came under the control of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The first Continental Congress met in Carpenters' Hall on the 5th of September 1774; the second in the old state house (Independence Hall) on the 10th of May 1775; and throughout the War of Independence, except from the 26th of September 1777 to the 18th of June 1778, when it was in possession of the British,[2] Philadelphia was the virtual capital of the colonies; it was a brilliant social city, especially during the British possession. The national convention which framed the present constitution of the United States sat in Philadelphia in 1787, and from 1790 to 1800 the city was the national capital. Here Benjamin Franklin and David Rittenhouse made their great contributions to science, and here Washington delivered his farewell address to the people of the United States. Here, in July and August 1789, the clerical and lay delegates from the Protestant Episcopal Churches in the United States met and formally organized the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Here the first bank in the colonies—the Bank of North America—was opened in 1781, and here the first mint for the coinage of the money of the United States was established in 1792. The city was visited with an epidemic of yellow fever in 1793 and again in 1798; and in 1832 nearly 1000 inhabitants died of Asiatic cholera.
The original boundaries remained unchanged for 172 years, but the adjoining territory as it became populated was erected into corporated districts in the following order: Southwark (1762), Northern Liberties (1771), Moyamensing (1812), Spring Garden (1813), Kensington (1820), Penn (1844), Richmond (1847), West Philadelphia (1851) and Belmont (1853). In 1854 all these districts, together with the boroughs of Germantown, Frankford, Manayunk, White Hall, Bridesburg and Aramingo, and the townships of Passyunk, Blockley, Kingsessing, Roxborough, Germantown, Bristol, Oxford, Lower Dublin, Moreland, Byberry, Delaware and Penn was abolished and the boundaries of Philadelphia were extended to the county lines by a single act of the state legislature. The consolidation was in part the outcome of a demand for efficiency in preserving order. There had been occasional outbreaks of disorder: on the 17th of May 1838 an anti-abolition mob had burned Pennsylvania Hall, which had been dedicated three days before to the discussion of abolition, temperance and equality; in May 1844 anti-Catholic rioters had burned St Michael's and St Augustine's churches, and minor riots had occured in 1835, 1842 and 1843. Philadelphia was from the first strongly anti-slavery in sentiment, and it was here in December 1833 that the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized, and in 1856, on the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, that the first national convention of the Republican party met. During the Civil War the arsenal and the Southwark navy yard were busy manufacturing material for the Federal armies, the city was crowded with wounded soldiers, and here in 1864 was held the great sanitary fair for the benefit of the United States sanitary commission, an organization for the relief and care of wounded and sick soldiers. In 1876, the centennial year of American independence, a great exhibition of the industries of all nations was held in Fairmount Park from the 10th of May to the 10th of November, and about fifty buildings were erected for the purpose. In October 1882 the city celebrated the bi-centennial of the landing of William Penn, and in October 1908 the 225th anniversary of its foundation.
- ↑ If the debt of a city already exceeded the 7% limit it could be increased only by permission of the legislature.
- ↑ Lord Howe, who had been in command of the British, embarked for England on the 24th of May, and on the 18th of this month was held for his farewell entertainment the famous Mischianza, a feast of gaiety with a tournament somewhat like those common in the age of chivalry, which was in large part planned by Captain John André.
