Note 3 — Chapter I

This estate of Robert Morris, who died the year before Cuming’s tour, was purchased in 1770, and had formed part of the manor of Springetsbury. It is now within Fairmount Park. Morris, known as the “financier of the American Revolution,” was an Englishman who, emigrating to Pennsylvania in 1747, became a prominent merchant of Philadelphia. After serving as a delegate to the Continental Congress, and signing the Declaration of Independence, he was assigned the difficult task of procuring funds for the war. To his support was due the maintenance of an army in the field during the disastrous years of 1776 and 1777; while his chief accomplishment was financing the campaign that led to the battle of Yorktown. After retiring from the superintendency of finance in 1784, Morris served in the Pennsylvania legislature (1786), the Constitutional Convention (1787), and the United States Senate (1789-95), declining the position of Secretary of the Treasury in Washington’s cabinet. In later life his affairs became involved, and he spent four years (1798-1802) in a debtor’s prison. See Sumner, Robert Morris (New York, 1892).—Ed.