tures soon brought great affluence
and a high degree of culture. By the time of the Revolution Philadelphia
had become the largest, richest, most extravagant and fashionable city
of the American colonies. Society was gayer, more polished and
distinguished than anywhere else this side of the Atlantic.

Among the skilled artisans attracted by the promise of Penn's "Sylvania"
were numerous carpenters and builders. Penn induced James Portius to
come to the new world to design and execute his proprietary buildings,
and Portius was accompanied and followed by others of more or less skill
in the same and allied trades. While some of the building materials and
parts of the finished woodwork were for a time brought from England,
local skill and resources were soon equal to the demands, as much of
their handiwork still existing amply shows. As early as 1724 the master
carpenters of the city organized the Carpenters' Company, a guild
patterned after the Worshipful Company of Carpenters of London, founded
in 1477. Portius was one of the leading members, and on his death in
1736 laid the foundation of a valuable builders' library by giving his
rare collection of early architectural books to the company.

Toward the middle of the eighteenth century American carpenters and
builders everywhere, Philadelphia included, were materially aided by the
appearance of handy little ready reference books of directions for
joinery containing measured drawings with excellent Georgian detail.
Such publications became the fountainhead of Colonial design. They
taught our local craftsmen the technique of building and the art of
proportion; instilled in their minds an appreciation of classic motives
and the desire to adapt the spirit of the Renaissance to their own needs
and purposes. In those days some knowledge of architecture was
considered essential to every gentleman's education, and with the aid of
these builders' reference books many men in other professions throughout
the country became amateur architects of no mean ability as a pastime.
In and about Philadelphia their Georgian adaptations, often tempered to
a degree by the Quaker preference for the simple and practical,
contributed much to the charm and distinction of local architecture. To
such amateur architects we owe Independence Hall, designed by Andrew
Hamilton, speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and Christ Church,
designed mainly by Doctor John Kearsley.

[Illustration: PLATE II.