North America, the oldest financial institution in the United States.

Meanwhile Philadelphia became the very center of the new republic in
embryo. The first Continental Congress met in Carpenters' Hall on
September 5, 1774; the second Continental Congress in the old State
House, now known as Independence Hall, on May 10, 1775; and throughout
the Revolution, except from September 26, 1777, to June 18, 1778, when
it was occupied by the British, and the Congress met in Lancaster and
York, Pennsylvania, and then in Princeton, New Jersey, Philadelphia was
virtually the capital of the American colonies and socially the most
brilliant city in the country.

In Philadelphia the second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration
of Independence, which the whole Pennsylvania delegation except Franklin
regarded as premature, but which was afterward well supported by the
State. The national convention which framed the constitution of the
United States sat in Philadelphia in 1787, and from 1790 to 1800, when
the seat of government was moved to Washington, Philadelphia was the
national capital. Here the first bank in the colonies, the Bank of North
America, was opened in 1781, and here the first mint for the coinage of
United States money was established in 1792. Here Benjamin Franklin and
David Rittenhouse made their great contributions to science, and here on
September 19, 1796, Washington delivered his farewell address to the
people of the United States. Here lived Robert Morris, who managed the
finances of the Revolution, Stephen Girard of the War of 1812 and Jay
Cooke of the Civil War.

Not only in politics, but in art, science, the drama and most fields of
progress Philadelphia took the lead in America for more than a century
and a half after its founding. Here was established the first public
school in 1689; the first paper mill in 1690; the first botanical garden
in 1728; the first Masonic Lodge in 1730; the first subscription library
in 1731; the first volunteer fire company in 1736; the first magazine
published by Franklin in 1741; the first American philosophical society
in 1743; the first religious magazine in 1746; the first medical school
in 1751; the first fire insurance company in 1752; the first theater in
1759; the first school of anatomy in 1762; the first American dispensary
in 1786; the first water works in 1799; the first zoological museum in
1802; the first American art school in 1805; the first academy of