The Gazette

Biographical Anecdote.

EDWARD DRINKER was born in a cottage in 1685, on the spot where the city of Philadelphia now stands, which at the time of his birth was inhabited by Indians, a few Swedes and Hollanders. He often talked of pulling blackberries & catching rabbits where this place is now situated. He remembered the arrival of William Penn, and used to point out the spot where the cabin stood, in which that great man and his friends were accommodated on their arrival. He saw the same spot of earth, in the course of his life, covered with woods & bushes, the receptacles of wild beasts and birds of prey, become the seat of a great and flourishing city, not only the first in wealth and arts in America, but equalled by few in Europe. He saw splendid churches rise upon morasses where he used to hear nothing but the croaking of frogs; great wharves and warehouses, where he had often seen savages draw their fish from the river; he saw that river, receiving ships & merchandize from all parts of the globe, which in his youth had nothing bigger than a canoe; he had been the subject of six crowned heads, and after seeing the beginning and the end of the British Government in Pennsylvania, he died in 1791, aged 94 years.