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mlord's picture

Watson's Annals of Philadelphia

Submitted by mlord on Wed, 07/10/2013 - 2:39pm.

So, I own the three-volume version of this book, which is crumbling and cumbersome, but filled with scads of (and not always 100% accurate) tales of Philadelphia in the Olde Dayse collected in a book first published in 1830. He pretty much just went around asking old people (who, in the 1820s, might well have recallected pre-revolutionary events) for stories. It's a pretty gridless romp. 

The Watson in question lived from 1779-1860 and published, in addition to the Annals, "Historic Tales of Olden Times, Concerning the Early Settlement and Progress...of Pennsylvania" as well as a similar series on New York. This is, in my experience, a great book to look at because it is impossible to read it systematically. You really get lost in the history. And you experience the first draft of the work of thinking about what is important about place. It's a free ebook on Google.

Some of the mementos and scraps he saved (real physical objects) are in the archive of The Library Company.And there is also an interesting web essay regarding his cabinet of curiosities, or relic box.

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