Part 4 (2/2)

And this from the _Times and Potowmack Packet_, April 21, 1790:

Charles Fierer & Co.

Gentlemen may have their Coats of Arms or other devices cut on Gla.s.s and fancy pieces executed by sending their orders.

Also these items:

Doctors Beatty and Martin have just received from Philadelphia and Baltimore: Opium, Mercury, Jolap, Ipecacoanha, Nitre, Glanker Salts, Gum Kino, Columbo root, a.s.sorted vials, carts, etc. Red and other Bark.

Dr. Magruder has lately received an elegant supply of most fas.h.i.+onable paper hangings--and his usual a.s.sortment of Drugs and Medicines.

He catered to various tastes of his patrons:

Dr. Cozens has just opened a general a.s.sortment of Drugs and Medicines in the house formerly occupied by Mr. Andrew McDonald in Water Street, opposite to Mr. James King's Wharf, which he means to sell at a moderate price. He likewise offers his services to the public as a pract.i.tioner of physic, surgery and midwifery. Mrs.

Cozens also informs the ladies that she practices Midwifery and from her experience and universal success she flatters herself she shall give satisfaction to all those who favor her with their commands.

Mr. Gardette, Dentist, respectfully informs the public that he is arrived in George Town, where he proposes staying two weeks or thereabouts. He has taken lodgings at Mr. Semmes' Tavern.

Another poor soul who was in trouble inserted this advertis.e.m.e.nt:

It is terrible to my feelings, but I am compelled to give notice that I intend pet.i.tioning the next General a.s.sembly for an act of Insolvency in my favor.

A few months later he advertised thus:

Having taken the house in this place lately occupied by Mr. James Clagett, between the College and the River, a pleasant and healthy situation, I will take four or five boys as boarders at the usual rates, paid quarterly.

So let us hope he got ”on his feet” again.

John Stevens, merchant, advertised himself thusly:

My weights are good, my measures just, My friends I am too poor to trust. July 15, 1780.

Apparently they had plenty of newspapers. In 1789 _The Times and Potowmack Packet_; in 1790 _The Weekly Ledger_ (an appropriate name for this town of counting houses); in 1796 _The Sentinel of Liberty_, a more high-flown name; in 1801, _The Museum_, and a great many more as time went on.

The first bank was the old Bank of Columbia, organized in 1793. Then, there was the Union Bank. I have seen a great many of its checks, smaller than the ones of today and very simply printed.

Business notes in those days were written on any sc.r.a.p of paper, apparently. Many that I have seen had torn edges, but always the writing was regular and even, if sometimes hard to read. Very often it looked like copperplate engraving. The English pound was used as late as 1796.

Plenty of schools there seem to have been. One famous man (he was William Wirt, the author of _The British Spy_ and Attorney-General of the United States for twelve years under James Monroe and John Quincy Adams) was sent to George Town for his early training, and has written thus: ”In 1779 I was sent to George Town, eight miles from Bladensburg to school, a cla.s.sical academy kept by Mr. Rogers. I was placed at boarding with the family of Mr. Schoofield, a member of the Society of Friends.... I pa.s.sed one winter in George Town and remember seeing a long line of wagons cross the river on the ice, attached to troops going South.”

Thomas Kirk, an Irish gentleman, kept a school first on Was.h.i.+ngton (30th) Street, later at High (Wisconsin Avenue) and Cherry Streets.

Reverend Addison Belt, of Princeton, had a school on Gay (N) Street, between Congress (31st) and Was.h.i.+ngton (30th) Streets. Christian Hines says: ”In 1798 I went to school to a man named Richmond who kept school in a small brick house attached to the house of Reverend David Wiley, graduate of Na.s.sau Hall, who had come in 1802 from Northumberland on the Susquehanna. He was a better mathematical than cla.s.sical teacher. He was mayor, librarian, merchant, teacher, preacher and keeper of the post office at the same time.”

Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Wiley advertised their ”Boarding School for Young Ladies at George Town in the Vicinity of Was.h.i.+ngton.” In the same year E. Phillips had ”A School for Young Ladies on the north side of Bridge Street, nearly opposite the Printing Office.” There were several teachers of French who advertised in the paper; Monsieur A. L.

Jancerez, Monsieur Caille, ”a French gentleman wishes to teach drawing, etc.” To supply all these schools was ”John March, Stationer and Bookseller, next door to Mr. Semmes's Tavern.”

And you see they could buy pretty baubles and delectable foods, for Dinsmore and Francis advertise their ”New Grocery, Wine and Liquor Store, nearly opposite Burnet and Rigden's, Watchmakers and Jewelers.”

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