Philadelphia Timeline, 1871

1871

• January 3. The Board of Commissioners of the Paid Fire Department meet and organize.
• January 10. Rudolph Stein, of the firm of Stein & Jones, a well known printing firm, corner Hudson alley and Chestnut Street, dies suddenly.
• January 22. The cabinet works of P.P. Weiss & Co., 622 North Twenty-fourth Street, destroyed by fire.
• February 2. The Kensington Bank, Beach Street, below Laurel, entered by pretended policemen, and its vault robbed of bonds and cash to the amount of $100,000.
• March 3. Opening of the Northern Dispensary with appropriate ceremonies.
• March 15. The Paid Fire Department of the city goes into operation.
• March 24. Mass meeting of citizens at Academy of Music to advocate the abolishment of the Public Building Commission.
• March 30. the soldiers and sailors (colored) hold a meeting and parade in honor of the anniversary of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.
• May 15. German peace celebration; procession nine miles long; various trades and occupations in line.
• May 16. The German peace celebration continued, Picnic at the new Philadelphia Schuetzen Park, Indian Queen Lane.
• May 27. Keystone Marble Works, market Street near Twentieth, damaged by fire; loss $65,000.
• Warehouse of Malone & Co., 1126-28 Washington Ave., destroyed by fire.
• June 5. Saw-mill of Stanley & Neber, Marshall Street, below Girard Avenue, destroyed by fire. Also about forty other buildings. Loss, $150,000.
• June 15. Cornerstone of new building of University of Pennsylvania, Thirty-fourth and Locust Streets, laid with impressive ceremonies.
• June 15. Dedication of the New Methodist Episcopal Home for the Aged and Infirm, Lehigh Ave. and 13th St.
• June 23. Gillingham & Garrison's saw-mill, Richmond and Norris Streets, destroyed by fire. Loss, $40,000
• June 24. Monument to the memory of William B, Schneider, late Grand Tyler, Masonic fraternity, dedicated at Mt. Moriah Cemetery.
• July 11. Pattern-shop of I.P. Morris & Co., Port Richmond, struck by lightning and destroyed by fire; loss, $55,000.
• July 17. Three boys, Cornelius Ryan, Samuel Glass and William Galvin, drowned in a brick pond at Seventeenth and Reed Streets.
• August 28. Celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Philadelphia Schuetzen-Verein (Rifle Club) at the park of the association, Indian Queen Lane.
• Six hundred kegs of powder, found on board a canal-boat on the Delaware, seized.
• September 22. Lincoln Monument at Fairmont Park unveiled and dedicated.
• September 24. Cornerstone laid of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Michael, Trenton Ave. and Cumberland Street.
• September 29, Jessup & Moore's paper warehouse, 524 North Street, destroyed by fire; loss, $200,000.
• Jacob Schoenning's morocco factory, Randolph Street below Oxford, destroyed by fire; $90,000.
• October 10. An election riot occurs in the fourth and Fifth Wards. Isaiah Chase and Octavius V. Catto, both colored, are shot and , and about seventeen men are wounded.
• October 13. Mass meeting at National Hall to give expression to the feeling in regard to the murder of Major Octavius V. Catto, Principal of the Institute for Colored Youth.
• October 15. Meeting held and collections taken up for the relief of the sufferers of the Chicago fire. Nearly $500,000 collected.
• October 17. Old brick church building, Second Street above Poplar, used as an opera house by Samuel S. Sandford's Minstrels, destroyed by fire.
• October 18. Parker & Macphilimy's planning-mill, Sixteenth and Fitzwater Streets, destroyed by fire.
• October 20. Defalcation announced of City Treasurer, Joseph F. Marcer, in the sum of $478,000. This defalcation was caused by the failure of Chas. F. Yerkes, Jr., & Co., brokers, to whom the City Treasurer, contrary to law, had loaned the public money.
• October 21. Planing-mill of Wm. Barth, Trenton Ave. and Adams Street, destroyed by fire; loss, $11,000.
• October 28. Charles F. Yerkes, Jr., broker for the City Treasurer, held in $50,000 bail to answer the charge of embezzlement, and $30,000 on the charge of larceny as bailee.
• November 1. The grand jury presents bills of indictment against Joseph F. Marcer, City Treasurer, and William F. Yerkes, Jr.
• November 4. Phosphate works of Watson & Clark, near the Point Breeze Gas works, destroyed by fire; loss, $150,000.
• December 4. Reception of Grand Duke Alexis of Russia. Grand ball at the Academy of Music, in the evening.
• December 5. Charles F. Yerkes, Jr., charged with embezzlement of funds belonging to the City of Philadelphia, sentenced to pay a fine of $500 and undergo an imprisonment of four years and nine months.
• December 6. Joseph F. Marcer, City Treasurer, sentenced to an imprisonment of four years and nine months in the Eastern Penitentiary and to pay a fine of $300,000.00. Pardoned September 27, 1872.
• December 19. Fourth National Bank, Arch Street below Fifth, stopped payment and failed.
• December 25. Steam frigate Chattanooga sunk at League Island.