Today the surface of Elfreth’s Alley is a combination of paving materials which were installed when the street was reconstructed in 1975.
I have sometimes heard tour guides repeat the story that the Belgian block paving some Philadelphia streets was brought across the Atlantic as ballast in ships--ballast is basically heavy stuff loaded onto a ship to weigh it down as though it was holding cargo. While it is possible that some ships coming to the British colonies in North America did require ballast, and even that some of that ballast, in the form of stones, was put to use in building and/or paving, this story is largely a myth.
For one thing, by the time British American cities were paving streets, incoming ships surely would have had plenty of cargo to sell to colonists and needed little to no ballast. For another, the sheer number of stones needed to pave even a few streets would have surpassed the number brought over in ships.
I came across this debunking of the myth a couple of years ago and revisited it recently. I was struck by this comment by user “Crispinius” (italics are mine):
“As far as paving with ballast stones or bricks,…I know that Stone Street, (or Duke Street as it was officially known for decades) is a street in Manhattan, NY that apparently got its colloquial name in 1656 from being paved. [BTW – The Belgian blocks on Stone Street now are new construction.] That is the earliest I have heard of street paving in the American colonies. Philadelphia began paving some streets (ostensibly at Mr. Franklin’s suggestion) in the 1760’s.”
I realized that while I am confident in the debunking of the ballast-to-paving myth, I know next to nothing about early street surfaces in Philadelphia. So I set out to find out more! Here are some of my preliminary discoveries, and I hope to find out more when I have the time to read up further on this topic.
In 1765, the city of Philadelphia entered into a contract with a man named Robert Erwin, naming Erwin the official city Scavenger. This meant that Erwin had the sole right to collect various forms of garbage or detritus—”mud, dirt, and filth”—found on the city’s paved streets, and do with it what he would. Erwin also was charged with visiting each resident living along these streets once per week to collect household trash. Erwin likely was able to profit from this arrangement by essentially recycling some of the garbage—manure, for instance—but it’s not clear if he was paid by the city itself.
But wait, I wanted to learn about the paving of streets, right? So what did I learn from this document?
Well, I learned that “Crispinius” was at least partly right: there were paved streets in Philadelphia in the mid 1760s. I also learned that the paving of the streets was connected, within the city bureaucracy, with the collection of garbage.
As I looked further, I learned that street paving was also associated with the creation and maintenance of the city’s fledgling sewers. A 1769 ordinance put these tasks in the hands of commissioners, who would meet from time to time
“respecting the best method and manner of paving and keeping clean such of the streets and public lanes and alleys of the said city, as are within the inhabited and settled parts thereof; and of amending and repairing the common sewers of the said city already made; and of making, amending and repairing such as shall hereafter be made, for discharging and carrying off the water into the river; and of making, amending and repairing the public streets, roads and highways, within the said city, leading from any of the public roads in the country to the paved and regulated parts of the said streets; and contract with any person or persons for sand, stone, gravel, or any other materials, convenient and necessary for the uses and purposes aforesaid; and to contract, agree with, and hire such a number of pavers and workmen, as they shall judge necessary and proper to be employed, from time to time, in and about the premises…”
My guess is that paved streets served as de facto storm water channels during rain (as they do today) and thus had to be considered as part of the whole sewer system. It’s also possible that building and repairing streets and sewers utilized similar skill sets and materials.
Speaking of materials, I still hadn’t learned anything about what these early paved streets were made of. I decided to check out a very different sort of source, William Russell Birch’s Views of Philadelphia (ca. 1800). These engravings depict various locations around Philadelphia and typically include streets in front of whatever the main scene is. For instance, in Birch’s depiction of the Alms House, it seems that Spruce Street—at least this part of it—was still unpaved. There are clear visual ruts from cart wheels and possibly some muddy portions.
Alms House in Spruce Street Philadelphia, drawn, engraved & published by W. Birch & Son, from the digital collections of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Birch’s depiction of the Second Presbyterian Church, which once sat on the Northeast corner of 3rd and Arch, however, gives us a much clearer picture of what a paved street at the end of the 18th century would would like.
Arch Street, with the Second Presbyterian Church, drawn, engraved & published by W. Birch & Son, from the digital collections of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Whereas many other Birch engravings reduce the street surface to ambiguous squiggly lines, this particular view is pretty unambiguous—these are cobblestones, smooth stones very likely from the banks of the Delaware River. If you view this image on the Library Company of Philadelphia’s website, you can zoom pretty far in and see the detail in this engraving!
Just a few years after Birch’s Views, another entry in the city’s record books gives us another piece of information about the process of paving streets in early Philadelphia. An appropriations ordinance in 1807 lists, among other expenses, the cost of repairing streets:
1. For the purchase of paving stones, repairing old pavements, and paving such new ones as may be directed, $9,000
2. For repairing unpaved streets, and carrying off stagnant waters, [$]2,000.
While this broad appropriation, in isolation, doesn’t give us a sense of the scale of paving in the city, it does suggest that the city was investing in paved streets, especially in contrast to the funds allocated for repairing unpaved streets, of which there must have still been many.
In this initial foray into learning about Philadelphia’s early paved streets, I didn’t learn much for sure other than that Philadelphia did have some paved streets at least by 1765 and that at least part of Arch Street was paved by 1799, but I certainly have some reference points for future research! If you know other things about Philadelphia’s paving history or have resources that might be helpful, send me a note at info@elfrethsalley.org.
-TM