7 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 314 3466 • THE REAL FOUNDER "* OF FA1RMQUNT PARK A UNILATERAL CORRESPONDENCE But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, As round and round we run ; And the truth shall ever come uppermost, And justice shall be done. Old English Poet. PHILADELPHIA DUNLAP PRINTING CO., 1332-38 CHERRY STREET 1903 1 THE REAL FOUNDER OF FA1RMOUNT PARK A UNILATERAL CORRESPONDENCE But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, As round and round we run ; And the truth shall ever come uppermost, And justice shall be done. Old English Poet. PHILADELPHIA DUNLAP PRINTING CO., 1332-38 CHERRY STREET IQ03 Philadelphia, June 23, 1903. Addison B. Burk, Esq. Dear Mr. Burk : — I have read with great in- terest and much pleasure your article in the Sunday Ledger, upon the "Making of Fairrnount Park," which appeared in the beginning of May last. Your very interesting account was divided (in the newspaper) into sections, each of which had an appropriate heading. Probably these head- ings were not made by yourself, but by some one in charge of the press work, who used them as a kind of index to the particular matter contained below each of them. One of these headings, en- titled "The Founder of the Park," is, I fear, cal- culated to leave a false impression, and as I feel a great interest in that matter, owing to my knowl- edge of the subject, and my intimate relations with the persons mentioned, I take the liberty of calling your attention to it. Mr. Dreer was a very charitable man and a citi- zen who possessed an unusual amount of public spirit and assisted greatly in promoting the success of the Park, but he was, in no sense, the originator and founder of the new Fairrnount Park. That honor is due to one person alone, viz. : to James Howard Castle, who was the real and original 3 projector of the Park, who first conceived the idea of Fairmount Park such as it exists to-day in all its magnificent beauty and whose almost unaided efforts procured the passage of the Act of Assembly (March 26, 1867, P- L. 547) which made the present Park a possibility. A generation has passed since that event and there are now few persons living who have a personal knowledge of the events of which I am about to speak. Of the ten citizens originally appointed Commissioners by the District Court and Court of Common Pleas in 1867 I do not think one now survives. Mr. Castle, himself one of the most active of the early Commissioners, died March 12, 1878, at the age of sixty. It was chiefly by his labors and persistent efforts that pretentious little Lemon Hill, and Pratt's garden with its beer houses and belongings were transformed by the instrumentality of the Act of March 26, 1867, into the present superb domain, ten miles in length and traversed by a beautiful river and its romantic affluents. Mr. Castle was a member of the Philadelphia bar and was in the later years of his life well known as an efficient member of the Board of Revision of Taxes. In 1867 n ^ s office was in a brick building on the east side of Fifth street, immediately north of and adjoining the old Philadelphia Library. We were very intimate friends and I was much at his office. In that year he prevailed upon the Legislature to pass the Act of 1867, and I remem- ber, as if it were yesterday, meeting him at his office upon his return from Harrisburg and wit- nessing, and I may also say, sharing his delight at the great success which he had finally achieved after a long period of labor, anxiety, and many frequent visits to Harrisburg at his own expense, advocating, nay, earnestly importuning the Legis- lature for the passage of the Act. He was engaged in this work for a year at least before his efforts were crowned with success. It seemed to occupy his thoughts constantly during that period. He talked to me about it incessantly. He received considerable encouragement and very valuable as- sistance from the late N. B. Browne, the first presi- dent of the Fidelity Company, who was one of the original Commissioners ; also from General Meade, Professor John C. Cresson, Theodore Cuyler, Mor- ton McMichael, Joseph Harrison, Gustavus Remak, Henry M. Phillips and John Edgar Thomson, all of them original Commissioners, and all of them long since deceased. Mr. Castle's idea in originating the scheme of a park of great extent and beauty was to provide a place in which the poorer classes of his fellow- citizens and their families might find health and recreation. That was the dominant idea in his mind. He often talked to me about this. The uppermost thought in his mind seemed to be to provide a pleasure ground for the poor and their children. He dwelt more upon this than upou any benefits to be derived by the City in its corporate capacity, from the enterprise. It happened that in 1847 I had for clients Messrs. Frederick W. and Samuel R. Downer, of New York, who had been introduced to me by Henry G. Deforest, Esq., of the New York Bar, and who had been my classmate at Amherst College during my freshman year there. At his instance they employed me to sue out certain ground rents which they owned, issuing out of Sedgely Park. I ac- cordingly brought suits in the District Court, and having obtained judgment for the arrearages I issued an execution under which the property was sold and ^bought in at the Sheriff's sale by the Downers, who received a Sheriff's deed for it, which is duly recorded and may be found in its proper place among the records of the old District Court. Subsequently, about 185 1, Mr. Deforest wrote to me on behalf of the Downers inquiring about Sedgely and whether it could be sold to advantage. Mr. Castle, even at that early date, had become in- terested in the idea of a great park for Philadelphia, and upon my mentioning the fact to him he im- mediately caught at the idea that the property might be secured for such a park. It ended by his going over to New York and buying the prop- erty in the name of Mr. Ferdinand J. Dreer, who was his intimate friend, it being understood be- tween them that Mr. Dreer should take the title and pay for the property, and that he should ultimately turn it over to the City for a park, upon such easy terms as he could afford. Those terms were well understood between Mr. Dreer and Mr. Castle. Mr. Dreer accordingly advanced the money for the purchase from the Downers and received from them a deed for the property dated March 21, 1 85 1. He held the title until March 3, 1857, when, in pursuance of his original understanding with Mr. Castle, he generously conveyed it to Henry Cope and others in trust for the City, for a price amounting to about what he had himself paid for it, by a deed of that date recorded April 30, 1857, ^ Deed Book R. D. W., 129, page 241, and it is worthy of remark that the deed was witnessed by James H. Castle. Thus it was that the City acquired for the Park the title to the whole of that large and beautiful domain known as Sedgely. These facts are all within my personal knowledge. I was frequently at Mr. Castle's office, and was fully cognizant of the arrangement between him- self and Mr. Dreer for the purchase of the prop- erty. These facts, as well as the fact that Mr. Castle first broached the idea of the Park, and more than any other person was entitled to be re- garded as the originator and founder of the new Fairmount Park, and the fact that it was brought into existence chiefly and almost entirely by his personal efforts in securing the passage of the Act of 1867, were well known to the late Eli K. Price, and to Mr. N. B. Browne, Mr. Cuyler, Mr. Remak, General Meade and the other original Commis- sioners, all of whom have long since passed from this earthly scene. I think you will agree to what I said in my let- ter to the president of the Hayes Mechanics' Home, which you quote in your interesting paper, viz. : "it is not creditable to the City of Philadelphia that among all the numerous monuments in the Park, of all kinds and to all kinds of men, includ- ing quite a number of foreign-born people, none is seen to the man who first conceived the idea of cre- ating a great and beautiful park for the people of his native City, and who labored so long to develop and propagate that idea among influential citizens, and devoted much of his time and no small pro- portion of his own slender means to journeys to Harrisburg to prevail upon the Legislature to pass the Act for the establishment and organization of Fairmount Park, and whose efforts were finally crowned with success — a success achieved almost entirely and exclusively by his sole, individual, persistent, continued and disinterested labors." I have always felt a lively interest in the Park ; for many pleasing recollections go back many years antecedent to its existence, that is, ante- cedent to the grant of the present charter in 1867 — to a period indeed antecedent to Lemon Hill and its beer garden, to a time when the Schuylkill ran uu vexed to the Delaware, when shad were caught at the foot of the falls by a man standing upon the rocks below and wielding an ordinary scoop-net fastened to a pole with which he swept the adjacent waters. I myself beheld it, and it was a bonny sight to see the fish dancing and glittering in the sun, like molten silver in the fisherman's net, from which they were transferred later to the kitchen of Harding's tavern, then situated in a lovely bower of green trees, upon the western bank of the river, just below the falls. There, at the proper season, one might always pro- cure, upon short notice, a delicious supper of broiled shad — and afterward, while the sun still hung like'a lamp in the western sky, he might proceed to the large level compound in the rear and amuse himself by watching the soldiers and sportsmen shooting with a rifle at a mark a hun- dred yards away. The time of which I now speak was about 1837 — thirty years before the grant of the great Park Charter by the Legislature (1867). At that period all the ground above the falls was private property. The banks of the stream, on both sides, being studded with pretty country seats, and the hill-sides clothed with green lawns and shady groves. I was then a lad of eighteen and a sophomore, and I was accustomed to tramp every morning down to the old University on Ninth street above Chestnut, with a bag (even then a green bag), loaded heavily with books, and thrown over my shoulder ; but every Saturday morning I and my associates were early on the road to the upper Schuylkill, where we passed the entire day fishing and rowing in the sunshine and shadow of those beautiful solitudes. That was indeed a life " worth living." But all this is changed now in this dreary hum-drum day of cold unromantic practicality, yet I am still at IO liberty to say sed juvat meminisse. But pleasant as these reminiscences are, I would not have thought of intruding them upon you and your readers, Mr. Editor, except I had been impelled to do so by a very strong sense of duty to the memory of the real author and founder of Fairmount Park — James Howard Castle. Whether his name shall be perpetuated amid those lovely scenes, in bronze or marble, is to him a matter of small consequence now. Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? But if dissatisfied and ashamed of the public in- gratitude, you shall persist in demanding "Where is his monument ? " a voice, perhaps not wholly inaudible to some who revere the benefactors of their race, falling from those green heights and floating upward from the shining river in which their shadowed beauty is perpetually mirrored, may answer you as such an inquiry was once answered long ago in another land : Si quaeris monumentum circumspice — (l If you seek his monu- ment look around you." Yours truly, M. Russell Thayer. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 314 346 6 LIE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 314 346 6 •