Colonial Philadelphia was a place of urban culture and accomplishment. Its streets were crowded with people of diverse national origins, sailors from many countries, leather-clad frontiersmen......
But the city also reflected the hard life that most Americans lived then. Much of the population existed on the edge of poverty. Prostitution and disease were widespread. Many streets were open sewers. Court records revealed much child and spouse abuse. Drunkenness was pervasive. Servants (& slaves) of the wealthy, including those of George Washington, spent many an evening in the taverns of a rough waterfront district called Helltown.
In Colonial times, the 3 blocks north of Arch Street between the Delaware and 3rd St. were known as "Helltown". It was home to many down-and-out Philadelphians: vagrants, criminals, prostitutes, itinerants, fugitive slaves and servants, the insane, incapacitated, and homeless.
While Jefferson and Franklin and the others were enjoying their punch in the cozy confines of City Tavern, the denizens of Helltown were carousing in unlicensed bars with names like Red Cow, Jolly Tar, and Rising Sun. Poor people came to Philadelphia from all over, chasing a better life, but often wound up in Helltown.
At the foot of Race Street, the most infamous colonial watering-hole was the Three Jolly Irishmen. It was run by a thief and pimp named John Roberts (aka Cock Robin) and his "two adopted wives," Elizabeth McSwain and Mary Carrol. Together, they plied their trade: alcohol, gambling, prostitution, and drugs.
By 1800 this section began to gentrify when merchants and wealthy French migrants who fled the revolutions in the West Indies and in France started to build offices and businesses in the area. By that time, the area had already lost much of it's population due to the Yellow Fever epidemic in the 1790's.
Comments