cupied by His Majesty's forces during the fall, winter, and spring of 1777-1778, at the request of Sir William Howe, he assumed charge of the city's civil affairs along with his friend and neighbour, Joseph Galloway. In consequence of their attitude and action, the State Legislature, then sitting at Lancaster, declared him and other prominent citizens guilty of high treason and all their property forfeited to the State unless they surrendered themselves by the twentieth day of April following. This Shoemaker did not do and, with his stepson, William Rawle, left for New York, in June, a few days before the British forces evacuated Philadelphia.

Directly the Revolutionary authorities returned to the city, they directed strenuous measures of confiscation against the Loyalists and Mr. Shoemaker's property was among the first to claim their notice. The Act of Attainder provided that after twelve months the real estate of the attainted persons should be sold and that in the meanwhile the president or the vice-president and Supreme Executive Council might rent out the said estates for a time not exceeding two years, paying the taxes and other expenses and managing them until they should be sold in the manner thereinafter directed. In their excess of vindictive zeal the agents of the State seized Laurel Hill, disregarding the fact that it did not belong to Mr. Shoemaker, but to his wife, and did not therefore come within their purview, and allowed the President of the State, General Joseph Reed, to occupy the premises.

The diaries kept and exchanged by the separated members of the Rawle and Shoemaker families during this period throw much interesting light upon what was going

on here and in New York, and make it quite plain that the lot of the Loyalist families and sympathisers who remained in Philadelphia was not one of unalloyed bliss. A chronicle of the annoyances and indignities to which they were subjected by the authorities and the rowdyism they suffered at the hands of the baser sort would fill a volume. Several extracts from Anna Rawle's diary which she wrote for the information of her mother, then in New York, in the latter part of October, 1781, when tidings of Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown had reached Philadelphia and were received with acclamations of joy, show the plight of quiet and inoffensive neutrals and Loyalists because they did not choose to illuminate their houses in honour of an event they honestly regarded as a disaster.

October 25.-Fifth Day.-I suppose, dear Mammy, thee would not have imagined this house to be illuminated last night, but it was. A mob surrounded it, broke the shutters and the glass of the windows, and were coming in, none but forlorn women here. We for a time listened for their attacks in fear and trembling till, finding them grow more loud and violent, not knowing what to do, we ran into the yard. Warm Whigs of one side, and Hartley's of the other (who were treated even worse than we), rendered it impossible for us to escape that way. We had not been there many minutes before we were drove back by the sight of two men climbing the fence. We thought the mob were coming in thro' there, but it proved to be Coburn and Bob Shewell, who called to us not to be frightened, and fixed lights up at the windows, which pacified the mob, and after three huzzas they moved off. A number of men came in afterwards to see us. French and J. B. nailed boards up at the broken pannels, or it would not have been safe to have gone to bed. Coburn and Shewell were really very kind; had it not been for believe the house would have been pulled down.

them I really

Even the firm

Uncle Fisher was obliged to submit to have his windows illuminated, for they had pickaxes and iron bars with which they had done considerable injury to his house. In short it was the most alarming scene I ever remember. For two hours we had the disagreeable noise of stones banging about, glass crashing, and the tumultuous voices of a large body of men, as they were a long time at the different houses in the neighbourhood. At last they were victorious, and it was one general illumination throughout the town. As we had not the pleasure of seeing any of the gentlemen in the house, nor the furniture cut up, and goods stolen, nor been beat, nor pistols pointed at our breasts, we may count our sufferings slight compared to many others. Mr. Gibbs was obliged to make his escape over a fence, and while his wife was endeavouring to shield him from the rage of one of the men, she received a violent bruise in the breast, and a blow in the face which made her nose bleed. Ben. Shoemaker was here this morning; tho' exceedingly threatened he says he came off with the loss of four panes of glass. Some Whig friends put candles in the windows which made his peace with the mob, and they retired. John Drinker has lost half the goods out of his shop and been beat by them; in short the sufferings of those they pleased to style Tories would fill a volume and shake the credulity of those who were not here on that memorable night, and to-day Philadelphia makes an uncommon appearance, which ought to cover the Whigs with eternal confusion. J. Head has

nothing left whole in his parlour. Uncle Penington lost a good deal of window glass. . . . The Drinkers and Walns make heavy complaints of the Carolinians in their neighbourhood. Walns' pickles were thrown about the streets and barrells of sugar stolen.

Strange as it may now seem, the ruffianly behaviour of this rabble crew appears to have been condoned, and even to some extent concurred in, by those that would not

naturally be expected to countenance such doings. Highly respectable people among the Whigs told Mrs. Galloway and others, who had sustained much loss through the animosity of the mob, that they were “ sorry for her furniture but not for her windows "-a rather peculiar and inconsistent distinction to draw. Though brimful of partisan bias and hot prejudice, Miss Rawle's account of the activities of several of the Whig ladies of the city in behalf of the army a little prior to this, is too amusing, as seen by Loyalist eyes, to omit:

But of all absurdities the ladies going about for money exceeded everything; they were so extremely importunate that people were obliged to give them something to get rid of them. Mrs. Beech [Bache] and the set with her, came to our door the morning after thee went, and turned back again. The reason she gave to a person who told me was that she did not chuse to face Mrs. S. or her daughters.

H[annah] Thompson, Mrs. [Robert] Morris, Mrs. [James] Wilson, and a number of very genteel women, paraded about streets in this manner, some carrying ink stands, nor did they let the meanest ale house escape. The gentlemen also were honoured with their visits. Bob Wharton declares he was never so teased in his life. They reminded him of the extreme rudeness of refusing anything to the fair, but he was inexorable and pleaded want of money, and the heavy taxes, so at length they left him, after threatening to hand his name down to posterity with infamy.

In February, 1782, Mr. Shoemaker's life-interest in his wife's estate at Laurel Hill was sold by the State agents to Major James Parr, an extensive investor in confiscated lands. Parr almost immediately thereafter leased the place to the French minister, the Chevalier de

la Luzerne, who will ever remain famous for the magnificent celebration he gave at his town house in honour of the birthday of the Dauphin. As he was so lavish in his entertainment, we may well believe that Laurel Hill during his occupancy was the scene of much social gaiety. It was certainly the scene of much good dining. The chevalier, of course, had his French cook and the French cook, to be sure, had his truffle-dog and the truffle-dog, forsooth, was fain to follow the occupation for which he had been bred. That sagacious animal, to his everlasting credit be it said, did what no botanist had ever done before or has ever succeeded in doing since. He dug for truffles on the lawn of Laurel Hill and found them! Could we now secure others of his breed we might add a new article to our native food supply.

After the peace, when the zeal against the Loyalists had in some measure abated, the authorities viewed the matter more calmly and saw that the title was still vested in Mrs. Shoemaker. Pursuant to some negotiations with Major Parr and his tenant, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, the estate was restored to its rightful owners, who returned after an absence of five years. In 1828, William Rawle, as trustee under his mother's will, sold Laurel Hill to Doctor Philip Syng Physick, reference to whom is made elsewhere, and from him the estate passed to his descendants, the Randolphs, who retained it till the city bought it for a part of Fairmount Park in 1869. After being let out for divers uses by the park commissioners the house was at last put in the care of the Colonial Dames of America, who now maintain it in good order and there hold stated meetings.