Street scene based on a watercolor study by William Birch. Depicts Speaker of the House of Representatives, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, on tour with a delegation of Native American men across from the second edifice of the New Zion Lutheran Church, built on Fourth Street below Cherry Street 1795-1796. The first church building, erected 1766-1769 to accommodate the overflow of the growing German congregation of St. Michael's Lutheran Church, was rebuilt in its original form following a fire in 1794. Scene also includes street and pedestrian traffic of a loaded horse-drawn dray and cart; and a laborer hauling a barrel upon his back. Native American delegations visited the city to pay respect and to negotiate land treaties when Philadelphia served as the nation's capitol. Muhlenberg lead a tour of several tribal groups in 1793., Illustrated in S. Robert Teitelman's Birch's Views of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1982, rev. 2000), pl. 6., LCP holds related watercolor study. (LCP P.9666)., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited.
Creator
Birch, William Russell, 1755-1834, engraver
Date
[1804]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Birch, William-Views of Philadelphia [Sn 6b/P.2276.12]
Street scene on Fourth Street below Cherry Street depicting Speaker of the House of Representatives, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, leading a tour of a delegation of Native American men. Native American delegations visited the city to pay respects and to negotiate land treaties when Philadelphia served as the nation's capitol. Muhlenberg led a tour of several tribal groups in 1793. Also shows buildings in the right, including the New Lutheran Church built 1795-1796., Title from plate 6 in the first edition of Birch's "Views of Philadelphia.", Bequest of Charles Poulson, 1866., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Originally part of a Poulson scrapbook., See Martin Snyder's "William Birch: His Philadelphia views," The Pennsylvania magazine of history and biography 73 (July 1949), p. 271-315., Reproduced in Julius Sachse's Pictures of old Philadelphia from the originals in the collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1901), vol. 1, plate 43. (LCP Print Room Albums)., Reproduced in Edwin Wolf's Philadelphia : Portrait of an American city (Philadelphia: Camino Books in cooperation with The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1990), p. 105.
Creator
Birch, William Russell, 1755-1834, artist
Date
[ca. 1799]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department drawings & watercolors - Birch - Colonel Muhlenberg [P.9666]
