( Originally Published 1900 ) One of the romances of Fairmount
Park is attached to the little stone cottage, with overhanging
roof, down by the Schuylkill River bank, where tradition says
that the Irish poet, Tom Moore, briefly dwelt when he visited
Philadelphia in the summer of 1804. This cottage tradition may
be a myth, but the poet when here composed an ode to the cottage
and to the Schuylkill, which is as attractive as the bewitching
river scene itself. The famous ballad begins : "I knew by the
smoke that so gracefully curled Tom Moore's letters written at
that time generally showed dislike for much that he saw on his
American journey, but he seems to have found better things at
Philadelphia, and was delighted with the Quaker hospitality. His
ode to the Schuylkill shows that its beauties impressed him, and
gives evidence of his regard for the people : "Alone by the
Schuylkill, a wanderer roved, "The stranger is goneóbut he will
not forget, The Schuylkill River is the chief tributary of the
Delaware, an Al