Excerpted from Northern Liberties: The Story of a Philadelphia
River Ward, recently published by the History Press) With our
electoral system bogged down by special interest cash and
corporate influence, perhaps it’s useful to recall how much our
democratic institutions have changed. Voting in 1806, the year
depicted in this watercolor, a free male –black or white (for
the African American right to vote wasn’t rescinded until
1838)–living in the Northern Liberties, could go to
Commissioners’ Hall, at Second and Fairmount, to place his
ballot. The Northern Liberties, of course, was the sixth largest
city in the nation until 1820 and a top tier city until it was
consolidated with the rest of the county of Philadelphia in
1854. Commissioners’ Hall was inside the Northern Liberties Town
House, with its market shed in the back taking up the center of
the broad road. Here was the office of the mayor, police
headquarters, and other government officials. The Town House was
built in 1796–97. The brick building, 24 fee