George Lippard

For my research project on the history of Philadelphia and the people who shaped it, I have been reading The Quaker City by George Lippard. Lippard was once an extremely important and influential man in this city, but unfortunately many of his works and ideas have been forgotten. We still battle with many of the social issues he fought to end, so it is a shame that he is overlooked in literature. The Quaker City is a very unconventional novel. The plot is based around a corrupt, secret club, The Monks of Monk Hall, as well as the rape of a young girl. The rape reflected an actual situation that occurred in Philadelphia about a year prior to Lippard’s reinterpretation. A man whose name I do not remember raped a young girl from a well-to-do family. The girl’s brother found out who the man was and hunted him down. The showdown ended on the ferry, leaving port in Philadelphia, bound for Camden. The brother found the rapist while he was trying to escape on the ferry, and fired four shots at him, killing him. This is the historic site I chose to visit.

To get there, I took the Broad Street subway line down to City Hall with a friend, where we got off to do some work for another class. Looking back on it, we probably should have used our free transfer over to the Market Frankford line and taken that down to Penn’s Landing. Instead, we walked down to Penn’s Landing from Center City, taking Walnut to where it hits the Delaware River. The port itself was less than exciting. The Ferry does not run in the winter I am assuming, because there was no ferry in sight, nor was the ticket office open. The ticket office itself was a small rectangular building, no bigger than a single car garage, I would estimate. Going to the Penn’s Landing with the knowledge of what had occurred at this same place, I wondered what it had looked like at that time, in 1843. To get to Penn’s landing, you have to walk over and overpass, with I-95 running below. This creates a grand entrance of multiple stairwells, complimented with places to sit and even a few fountains. The whole strip of Penn’s Landing is done in stone, to relate with the rest of Old City. During Lippard’s lifetime, I-95 was not was not there. This saddens me cause I know that the entire coast along the river must have looked entirely different. Despite this one glaring fact, it was still very interesting to visit the location of an actual murder – as dark as that is.

There is still a lot more I want to know about George Lippard. Unfortunately, because he has been so forgotten much about his life was either never recorded or has been lost. I would like to find out at least the area where he lived. Also, he ran a newspaper, so it would be very interesting to find out where that was printed as well. Other than that, I will continue research and reading The Quaker City.