modate the Congress of the United States, at their next session, with the use of the same, for the sum of 300 dollars. Only think of such a school-house, of eighty by fifty feet, being seriously purposed for the use of the American congress. The congress was then so small; it is now so great.

The circumstance which led to the intended application of the house, grew out of an inquiry made by Gen. Washington, who then resided in Germantown, in the house afterwards for many years the summer residence of the Perot family-now of Samuel B. Morris. In 1793, when Gen. Washington dwelt in Germantown, the town was held as the government place of the state of Pennsylvania and of the United States; and this was because of the necessary retreat of the officers and offices, from the city of Philadelphia, where the yellow fever was raging with destructive effect. At that time the office of state, &c., of Pennsylvania, was held in the stone house next above B. Lehman's. There you could every day see Governor Mifflin and his secretary of state, A. J. Dallas. The house now the Bank of Germantown was occupied by Thomas Jefferson, as secretary of state of the United States, and by Mr. Randolph, as attorney general. The Bank of the United States was located in the three-storied stone house of Billings, and when its treasure was brought, it was guarded by a troop of horse. Oellers, once celebrated for his great hotel for the congressmen, in Chestnut street, had his hotel here, in the house since Clement Bringhurst's; and, at that house, filled with lodgers, the celebrated Bates, of comic memory, used to hold musical soirees at 50 cents a head, to help to moderate the gloom of the sad times. At that time, the whole town was crowded with strangers and boarders; and especially by numerous French emigrants, escaped from the massacre of St. Domingo.

It was then expected that the next, or future years, might be again visited by yellow fever; and, therefore, numerous engagements of houses, and purchases of grounds at increased prices were made, to insure a future refuge. In this way, the Banks of North America and of Pennsylvania found a place in the Academy in the next fever, which occurred in 1798.

It ought to be mentioned as a peculiar circumstance connected with Perot's house, before mentioned, that it had been the residence severally of Gen. Howe, the British commander in the war of the revolution, and at the same time, the home of the then youth, Prince William, the late king of England, William IV.; afterwards, in 1793, the residence of Gen. Washington, while President of the United States. Look at its size as then regarded good enough and large enough for a president, in contrast with the present presidential palace at Washington city! It is thus that we are rapidly growing as a nation from small things to great things!

The French West India residents that were in Germantown, were of various complexions, were dressed in clothing of St. Domingo fashion, presenting a peculiarity of costume; and showing much VOL. II-F

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gayety of manners. They filled the streets with French conversation by day-for they were all idlers; and with much of music at night. They were withal great shooters, and killed and eat all manner of birds without discrimination-they saying that crows, swallows, &c., were as good as others, as all depended upon the style of the cooking. I have seen or known of several officers of the Revolution, who had been in the battle of Germantown, who came again, in advanced age, to revisit the active scenes of their military prowess; so came Capt. Blakemore and Capt. Slaughter, both of the Virginia regiment; so Col. Pickering, of New England; so some of the relatives of Gen. Agnew, who was killed, &c. What scenes for them to remember afresh.

Intimately connected with the fame and reputation of Germantown is the now frequently visited stream, the Wissahiccon, made attractive by its still native wildness, and rugged, rocky, woody character; there is also there, under the name of the "Monastery of the Wissahiccon," a three-storied ancient stone building of an oblong square, situated on high ground, near to a woody, romantic dell, through which the Wissahiccon finds its meandering way. About this house, so secluded and little known to the mass of the people, there have been sundry vague and mysterious reports and traditions of its having been once occupied as a monastery. A name, and purpose of use, sufficiently startling, even now, to the sensibility of sundry protestants.

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The place was last owned and occupied by Joshua Garsed—a large manufacturer of flax-thread, twine, &c.-who has shut up many of the windows, which were formerly equal to four to every chamber, making two on every front or angle of the square. Those who saw the structure sixty years ago, say that it then had a balcony all around the house at the floor of the second story. The tale told in the early days of the present aged neighbours was, that it once contained monks of " the Seventh-day Baptist order," and that they used wooden blocks for pillows [like those at Ephrata,] scallopped out so as to fit the head. Some have also said that they remembered to have seen, near to the house, small pits and hillocks which indicated a former burial place, since turned into cultivation.

With such traditionary data for a starting point, it has become matter of interest to many, who are curious in the history of the past, to learn what further facts we can produce, concerning the premises. If the house should have been built as early as 1708--when Kelpius, the hermit, died "at the Ridge," it may have been constructed by the forty students from Germany-the Pietists who came. out in 1694, with Kelpius, to live a single life in the wilderness; but if it was built, as is most probable, and as has been said, by Joseph Gorgas, a Tunker-Baptist, who intended it as a branch of the brotherhood established at Ephrata near Lancaster, and to whom he afterwards moved and joined himself,-then he must have built it before the year 1745, when Conrad Matthias, "the last of the Ridge her

mits" died. It is known, by "the Chroniea Ephrata,"-a folio, that there was a brotherly affinity between "the Ridge hermits" (of Roxborough) and those of Ephrata. After Joseph Gorgas had gone to Ephrata, the premises, with a farm of seventy acres and a grist mill, fell to his son John Gorgas; from him it was sold about the time of the Revolution, to Edward Miller;-thence to Peter Care, fifty years ago, who held it till about the year 1800. Then it was bought by John Livezey, miller; next by Longstreth, who made it a paper mill; and lately and lastly, by Joshua Garsed & Co. Since their possession of the premises, they have considerably increased the numbers and size of the buildings along the creek; and the Monastery House they have converted into an agreeable dwelling, changing and modernizing the internal forms of the rooms-taking out all the corner chimneys, &c.

The scenery from this house, and from the dell below, is very romantic, rugged, and in nature's wildest mood,-presenting, particularly, very high and mossy rocks, studded with stunted trees-the whole standing out very perpendicularly into the line of the Wissahiccon, and turning it off very abruptly in another direction.

It was in the year 1732, that the religionists of Ephrata first agreed to quit their former solitary life, and to dwell together in monastic society as monks. This they did first, in May 1733. Their book of chronicles says, that "the society was enlarged by members from the banks of the Wissahiccon." Of course, intimating and confirming the idea already advanced, that there was a brotherhood of their order, dwelling at or near the place now called the Monastery. Christopher Ludwick, once an inhabitant of Philadelphia and Germantown,-interred at the Lutheran ground in said town, in 1801, at the age of 81 years, was quite a character in his day; and deserves some special notice. A short memoir of his life has been drawn up and published by Doctor Rush; he deeming him to be a person fully worthy the effort of his pen to report him, as an exemplary and valuable citizen. He was by birth a German, born in 1720; by trade In early life he enlisted in the Austrian army and served in the war against the Turks. At Prague he endured the hardships of the seventeen weeks' siege. After its conquest by the French in 1741, he enlisted and served in the army of Prussia. At the peace, he entered an Indiaman, and went out to India under Boscawen; afterwards he was in many voyages, from 1745 to 1752, from London to Holland, Ireland and the West Indies, as a sailor. In 1753, he sailed to Philadelphia with an adventure of £25 worth of clothing, on which he made a profit of $300, and again returned to London. He had taken the idea of becoming a gingerbread baker in Philadelphia; and in 1754 he came out with the necessary prints-a seemingly new idea among the simple cake eaters then! He began his career in Lætitia court, and began to make money fast by his new employment. He proved himself an industrious, honest and