Local History and the Tempest Powder Horn

The Tempest Powder Horn is engraved with the names of five Tempests: Robert Tempest, Robert Tempest II, Robert Tempest III, James R. Tempest, and Robert Tempest IV. In terms of physical location there are two places that stand out as being important to the Tempest’s story. The first is the land on the northwest corner of Fifth and Walnut. Currently this land is the park ground behind Independence Hall, formerly, the State House Yard. Before then it was the residence of Robert Tempest and family. The second important location is the Slate Roof House, or William Penn’s Mansion. When Robert Tempest IV donated the Tempest Powder Horn to the city he donated it along with the wainscoting from the Slate Roof House. The Slate Roof House was Robert Tempest III’s workplace for over fifty years. Both of these locations were demolished within the Tempest family's lifetime.

I went to both of these locations, initially to sketch them there, but being rained out, I ended up taking pictures. The pictures I printed on plain copy paper and transferred to velum drawing paper. I then drew ghost images of the buildings that have since disappeared. 

The first location I visited was the corner of Fifth and Walnut. 

Tempest House Ghost, northwest corner of Fifth and Walnut, park behind Independence Hall, mixed media

In April of 1743 Robert Tempest was a plush-weaver in Philadelphia who had recently moved his business to Strawberry Alley. A few months after moving shop, Robert Tempest married Rachel Hinds at Christ Church. Rachel’s father, Robert Hinds, worked as a bricklayer on the State House and later acquired two lots on the corner of Fifth and Walnut that backed up to the State House Wall. In 1746 Robert Hinds gifted these two lots, and the three houses he built on them, to his daughter and her husband. Rachel gave birth to their son, Robert Tempest II on Christmas day that year.[1]

In 1760 the Pennsylvania Assembly began the process of acquiring the lots that extended to Walnut Street and on the 10^th of September 1762, the Assembly trustees purchased the Tempest’s land for £1400. The Tempests continued to live at Fifth and Walnut, paying rent to the Assembly through 1764, the first date that appears on the horn and the year the year I suspect Robert Tempest passed away. By the 1770s the Pennsylvania assembly cleared the square around the State House, leaving no trace of the Tempest’s home.[2]

Close up view of the square around the State House (later Independence Square). The map on the left is from 1762. This map depicts buildings in the shaded regions. L is the State House, the thin line to the below of L is the State House Wall and the building on the corner of Fifth and Walnut (lower right of the square) is the Tempest’s home. Map created by Nicholas Scull. Source:  Philadelphia GeoHistory Network, http://www.philageohistory.org/rdic-images/view-image.cfm/FF-Maps_1762. The map on the right is from 1796 and depicts the square around the State House clear. Map created by John Hills. Source: Philadelphia GeoHistory Network, http://www.philageohistory.org/rdic-images/view-image.cfm/237-MP-019

Visiting this location today, the square looks as if it has always been an open park space. For the building that I drew I looked at a variety of colonial prints of Philadelphia. I chose simple, standard architectural features. I am guessing that the house is a double by deduction, but really I do not know what the building looked like. I do know that this location was the first home of the powder horn.

The second location I visited is the Welcome Park, formerly the site of the Slate Roof House.

Slate Roof House Ghost, currently Welcome Park, corner of 2nd and Sansom (formerly Norris Alley), mixed media

Robert Tempest III was the grandson of Robert Tempest. At 25 Robert Tempest III went into business as a jeweler and silversmith with Joseph Marshall. Marshal and Tempest set up shop in the Norris Alley wing of the Slate Roof House in 1813. They remained there until approximately 1865, when the house was no longer usable. It was demolished in 1867.[3]

Steroeview titled Slate roof house, 2nd &Sansom, photographed by John Moran in 1864. The bottom is a close up of the stereoview that shows a very faint sign for “Marshall and Tempest” above the doorway on the left wing of the building.Source: Free Library of Philadelphia Historic Images of Philadelphia Collection, libwww.freelibrary.org/hip/ecw.cfm?ItemID=pdc100025

In addition to being a craftsman Robert Tempest III was an active volunteer with the Hibernia Fire Engine Company, eventually becoming President of that organization in 1851, and was a Director of the Union Burial Ground Society in Southwark. Both Robert Tempest III and the first Robert Tempest were craftsmen who also dedicated their time to the city, one as a constable, and the other as a fireman. For Robert Tempest III, the powder horn that his family owned since colonial times was an important link to the past and to his grandfather. I believe that Robert Tempest III was responsible for engraving the names of his father and grandfather along with their death dates, the newer silver and brass modifications to the horn, and for continuing the tradition by engraving it for his son, James. The yearning to hold tightly to a vision of Philadelphia that was quickly fading could have been the catalyst for Robert Tempest III to modify the horn and directly connect himself to a colonial past. That Robert Tempest III’s business occupied the former residence of William Penn further displays the desire to connect with the past.[4]

The Welcome Park today is a quiet, lonely feeling open square. There is a historical narrative along the south wall of the park relaying William Penn's story, but very little afterward. For my ghost house I used later images of the house after different additions had been made in the nineteenth century instead of the model version in the middle of the park. My main reference image was from 1854, courtesy of the Library Company found here.

Though the destruction of both of these places destroyed important pieces of the Tempest's family history, neither was premature. The first Robert Tempest had passed away before the assembly cleared his home. Robert Tempest III was 78 and no longer working at the time the Slate Roof House was demolished. Once Robert Tempest III modified the horn, he established a precedent for succeeding generation to do the same. Robert Tempest IV inherited the horn after his father James Tempest passed away suddenly.  In 1899, Robert Tempest IV broke the precedent and gifted the horn to the city. By 1907 he had left Philadelphia altogether. Why Robert Tempest IV left the city, breaking the family’s connection to local history is another chapter in the story of the Tempest Powder Horn.

Notes:

[1] For Robert Tempest's occupation and location see The Pennsylvania Gazette, April 21, 1743, page 4; For marriage documents see Pennsylvania Archives, Series 2, Volume VIII, Marriage Record of Christ Church, Philadelphia.1709-1806, 133; for information about their home at Fifth and Walnut see Charles H. Browning, “The State House Yard, and Who Owned it First after William Penn,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 40, no. 1 (1916): 85-103.

[2] For purchase of land see Browning, 101; For rent documents see Pennsylvania Archives, Series 8, Volume VII, Votes of Assembly 1767, 6047; also see Charlene Mires, Independence Hall in American Memory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 10.

[3] Westcott, Thompson, The Historic Mansions and Buildings of Philadelphia: With Some Notice of Their Owners and Occupants (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1877) for Slate Roof House see 37-55, for Tempest see 55. http://books.google.com/books?id=PTUWAAAAYAAJ&pg

[4] For involvement in Union Burial Ground Society see Public Ledger, December 8, 1842, page 2. For involvement with Hibernia Fire Engine Company see “City Items,” North American, February 24, 1851, page 1.