xamples of eighteenth-century frescoes.

A short distance east of Independence Square, in a narrow court off
Chestnut Street, between South Third and South Fourth streets, hedged
about by high modern office buildings that dwarf its size, is
Carpenters' Hall, in which the first Continental Congress assembled,
September 5, 1774, and in which the National Convention, in 1787, framed
the present Constitution of the United States. The building was also the
headquarters of the Pennsylvania Committee of Correspondence; the
basement was used as a magazine for ammunition during the Revolution,
and from 1791 to 1797 the whole of it was occupied by the first United
States Bank.

[Illustration: PLATE XC.--Old Stock Exchange, Walnut and Dock Streets;
Girard National Bank, 116 South Third Street.]

[Illustration: PLATE XCI.--Christ Church, North Second Street near
Market Street. Erected in 1727-44; Old Swedes' Church, Swanson and
Christian Streets. Erected in 1698-1700.]

The Carpenters' Company, established in 1724, was patterned after the
Worshipful Company of Carpenters of London, which dates back to 1477,
and the early organization of such a guild in America indicates the
large number and high character of the Colonial builders of Philadelphia
and explains the excellence of the architecture in this neighborhood.
The present building was begun in 1770, but was not completed until
1792, so that throughout the Revolutionary period it was used in a
partly finished condition. Since 1857 it has been preserved wholly for
its historic associations. Here was conceived that liberty which had its
birth in Independence Hall, so that its claim to fame is second only to
the latter. Like it, too, there are many interesting relics of those
glorious days to be seen within. An inscription on a tablet outside very
properly reads, "Within these walls, Henry, Hancock, and Adams inspired
the delegates of the Colonies with nerve and sinew for the toils of
war."

The building is in the form of a Greek cross with four projecting gable
ends and an octagonal cupola of graceful design and proportions at the
center of the roof. It is of characteristic Philadelphia brickwork, with
handsomely cased twenty-four-paned windows shuttered on the lower floor.
The entrance facade, with its broad, high stoop and pedimental doorway,
double doors and fanlight above; its pleasing fenestration, especially
the round-headed, Palladian windows of the second floor, above