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Philly resident replaces missing Pa. historic marker … because the museum commission wouldn’t
Jim Logue didn’t take no for an answer. After the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission chose not to replace a missing Francis Daniel Pastorius historic marker at his address, he put up his own, with the original’s words. Photo by Jim Murphy, author of “Real Philly History, Real Fast.”
When Jim Logue moved to his new home on the 500 block of South Front Street in 2018, he had no idea a famous person once lived there.
But after buying a signed copy of my book, “Real Philly History, Real Fast” at a meeting of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides on May 11, 2022, he quickly realized Francis Daniel Pastorius, a renowned German educator, lawyer and author, was a past owner of his property.
He also learned that a 28-by-48-inch beautiful bronze historical marker, created by eminent Philadelphia architect Paul Philippe Cret and made by the Bureau Brothers of Philadelphia, was placed at a house on 502 S. Front Street Oct. 25, 1924, by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC).
But my book said the plaque was missing. No one knew where it was. And they still don’t.
[Note: A photo from the 1924 unveiling says the marker is at 502 S. Front Street. But it shows the plaque on the north side of Naudain Street. Jim’s house is on Front Street … on the south side of nearby Lombard Street. Whatever location is correct, Jim’s plaque is very close to the spot on the original bank or “riverbank” where Pastorius and his German friends lived. And it is at the right address: 502 S. Front Street.]
A “cave” on a sea wall or high bluff
Pastorius’ home was really a cave dug into or on the sea wall along the Delaware River. Author and fellow tour guide Harry Kyriakodis, in “Philadelphia’s Lost Waterfront,” says the caves were about three feet in depth, and about the same height above ground.
“The local Delaware Indians had long used such hollows by the river for temporary winter shelter,” Kyriakodis explains. “The roofs were made of layers of limbs or logs covered with sod or bark and thatched with straw or river rushes.” Most also had chimneys made of stones mixed with mortar.
Pastorius and his friends from Crefield, Germany, lived in “an elaborate cave” near today’s Front and Lombard Street that he described as “only thirty feet long, and fifteen broad” that could accommodate 20 persons. Kyriakodis called it “spacious.”
Beside a window made of oiled paper, Pastorius “dug a cellar seven feet deep, twelve feet wide, and twenty long, on the Delaware stream.”
A big surprise
On May 29, 2022, Jim Logue emailed me. “Jim: I started reading your book this weekend. It’s great! I got a big surprise when I got to Francis Daniel Pastorius. I live at 502 South Front Street! What do you think it would take to get a blue and yellow marker installed in front of our house? Jim Logue.”
On May 31, he wrote me back. He discovered an online application on the PHMC website for new markers. Problem was, the deadline was the next day and he needed copies of some source material I used in my book.
I sent him what I had right away. After locking the door at work the next day, so he wouldn’t be disturbed, Jim completed the application in a few hours and sent it off.
Good news and then …
On December 16, 2022, Jim got word that his application was approved. Three days later, that changed. The panel decided to officially retire the original plaque and create new, more relevant text about Pastorius in Germantown, where he settled with many of his German colleagues.
Unhappy but unbowed, Jim decided to put up a new plaque of his own … using the same words as the original plaque. And that’s just what he did, with the help of his daughter, Briana.
The plaque copy:
FRANCIS DANIEL PASTORIUS
FOUNDER OF GERMANTOWN
1651–1719
BUILT HERE IN 1683
ON A LOT 102 FEET FRONT
A DUGOUT
HIS FIRST AMERICAN HOME
IN WHICH, OCTOBER 25, 1683
THE THIRTEEN ORIGINAL SETTLERS
OF GERMANTOWN
DREW LOTS FOR THEIR NEW HOMES.
HE PLACED OVER THE DOOR
THIS INSCRIPTION:
“PARVA DOMUS
SED AMICA BONIS.
PROCUL ESTE PROPHANI”
“A LITTLE HOUSE
BUT A FRIEND TO THE GOOD;
KEEP AWAY, YE PROFANE”
AT WHICH HIS GUEST
WILLIAM PENN LAUGHED
Jim did not include these lines:
Marked by
The Pennsylvania Historical Commission
And The Site and Relic Society of Germantown
1924
Briana gave the plaque to Jim as a unique Christmas gift. She also found Franklin Bronze Plaques from Franklin, Pa., a supplier they both liked. The company worked closely with Jim and Briana to get the plaque made with the correct language, a process that took about four months.
I didn’t know Jim was putting up his own plaque
I didn’t know any of this was going on. But on June 11, 2024, Jim emailed me a photo of his new plaque. And I think it looks great.
“I love this city and its history,” says Jim, who volunteers as a docent at the Union League of Philadelphia.
He comes by that love for history honestly. His dad was an avid reader who would finish a book about World War II or the Civil War, and say to Jim: “Read this. I want to discuss it with you.”
So Jim’s love of history is probably no surprise.
I’m just glad he decided to take history into his own hands and put up a plaque that had gone missing.
Now people who pass his house will know what famous person once lived there along the Delaware River.
Interesting Oddities
The Delaware Indians told early Quakers the holes along the riverbank were first made by muskrats. Humans then enlarged them.
Kyriakodis says there was a tidal flat along the western bank of the Delaware River. Above it, between 10 and 50 feet high, was a “sheer embankment bluff.” The top of that bluff later became Front Street.
Some of the basements on Front Street houses between Vine and Callowhill Street may be part of those old riverbank caves, he says. “Today’s residents use these chambers as storage closets, wine cellars and exercise rooms.”
Disclaimer:
Almost everything I know about Front Street and these caves comes from either taking tours with Kyriakodis … or from his book, “Philadelphia’s Lost Waterfront.”
Harry is “the expert” on much of historic Philadelphia. Besides having an extraordinary personal library of Philadelphia books, Harry has written many fascinating articles for Hidden City Philadelphia. They are definitely worth checking out. Amazingly, one talks about an idea to send small boys through pneumatic tubes. I’m glad that experiment never took place.
Fast Facts
Name: Francis Daniel Pastorius
Address: 502 South Front Street
Claim to Fame: This noted Founder of Germantown once lived here in a cave along the riverbank. In 1688, he helped write the first protest against slavery in the U.S., says the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Some Sources:
https://blog.phillyhistory.org/index.php/page/24/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Daniel_Pastorius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Philippe_Cret
https://m.philaplace.org/story/1191/
https://explorepahistory.com/odocument.php?docId=1-4-2C6
https://hiddencityphila.org/2014/04/pneumatic-philadelphia/
https://philly.newspapers.com/article/the-philadelphia-inquirer/143072197/
https://phillyandstuff.blogspot.com/2017/11/francis-daniel-cave-marker-502-south.html
https://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/p/Pastorius0475.html
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41945379.pdf
Kyriakodis, Harry, “Philadelphia’s Lot Waterfront,” Charleston, SC: the History Press, 2011.
Murphy, Jim, “Real Philly History, Real Fast,” Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2021.
This plaque copy is the same as on the original one created by Paul Philippe Cret in 1924. Photo by Jim Murphy.