ANN HEAD WARDER went back to England in July 1787 and returned to live permanently in the United States in October 1788. She describes the house she and her family were to occupy.

10 mo. 5th.—. . . . The house pleased me, being exceedingly convenient, though larger than I wished, it having four rooms on a floor—Kitchen, counting house and two parlors on the first floor, eight bedrooms and two garrets. Many handy closets. A small yard and beyond it another grass plot, good stable and chaise house, so that I see every prospect of our being comfortable. . . .

10 mo. 11th.—Went to market, at six o’clock to procure provisions towards housekeeping. . . . The difference in prices of things here and London is striking. . . . After breakfast purchased hand [?and] irons, to use for burning wood, all the chimneys being too low for stoves; some glass ware &c.

10 mo. 14th.—Arose early and sent off the balance of our things at mother’s, and after breakfast went to our house. We had for dinner a rump of beef, apple pie and vegetables. My husband seemed to think he had not for a long time eat a sweeter morsel, and I also felt comfortable, but not so much as hope to be when things are more settled. Only one bed up so the children had to sleep on the floor in the same room with us.

10th mo. 27th.—Today at dinner I entertained by fellow passengers. We had roast turkey, a tongue laid in mashed potatoes, whip’d sallybubs, oyster pie, boiled leg of pork, bread pudding and tarts. We had an early dish of tea for the old folks who left escorted by my husband.

Ann Warder lived in Philadelphia until her death in 1829. She and her husband had ten children, seven of whom lived to adulthood. Thanks to her we have an idea of what life in Philadelphia was like in the years 1786-88.

“Extracts from the Diary of Mrs. Ann Warder,” 62-63, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XVII, 1893, No. 1.

During her stay in Philadelphia in 1786-87 ANN HEAD WARDER described in her diary a sight that didn’t seem to disturb her very much.

3 mo. 30th. [1787]—The convicts here have recently been condemned to hard labor instead of execution, and now clean the streets. They have an iron collar around their neck and waist to which a long chain is fashioned and at the end a heavy ball. As they proceed with their work this is taken up and thrown before them. Their clothing is a mixture of dark blue and brown stuff; their heads shaved; they wear parti colored woolen caps, so that an attempt to escape would early be discovered. A guard accompanies each gang. At first the prisoners were much averse to this shameful exposure, and preferred death to it. Two things I think need regulating, suffering people to talk to them, and to prevent their receiving money.

As the states began to limit the number of crimes that warranted the death penalty they were faced with an increase in convicted criminals. Confining them in jails where they would often work at hard labor was one option. There was another: an experiment in Pennsylvania that involved both shaming and hard labor which were thought to be reformative. The Wheelbarrow Law was enacted in 1786; it required convicts to labor in the streets during the day, just as described by Ann Warder, and be housed in jails at night. Although the law was copied by other states it was soon deemed a failure. Fights broke out among the convicts and/or with the public; passersby jeered or cheered them.

In 1790, an addition to the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia was built based on a concept put forward by Quakers. Prisoners were housed in individual cells—formerly they had lived together in large rooms—where, in basically solitary confinement, they were expected to reflect on their crimes and repent. It was the first state penitentiary (from the Latin, meaning remorse or penitence) in the country, shown in the illustration in 1800.

“Extracts from the Diary of Mrs. Ann Warder,” 61, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XVII, 1893, No. 1. For information about the Philadelphia treatment of convicts see Wheelbarrow Law. For information about the “reform” in Pennsylvania’s prison system see HERE. The illustration can be found HERE.

Among the events ANN HEAD WARDER attended during her visit to the United States in 1786-87 was a Quaker wedding. The diary entry is dated 1 mo. 9th, which in the Quaker notation means first month, that is January, on the 9th day. The year was 1787.

A dull wet morning and bad prospect for Elliston Perot’s wedding guests. . . . On entering [the meeting house] found most of the wedding company present, among whom I sat. Cousin Betsy Roberts first said a few words, then honest Robert Willis, soon after which Betsy appeared in supplication and William Savery followed with a long and fine testimony. The bride and groom performed, the latter exceedingly well, and the former very bad. Meeting closed early when the couple signed the certificate, the woman taking upon her her husband’s name. We then proceeded to Elliston’s house but a short distance from the meeting, where about forty-eight friends were assembled. We were ushered up stairs where cake and wine were served, and Joey Sansom in helping with two decanters of Bitters, and glasses on a waiter, spilt the wine over his sister’s wedding garments, much to his embarrassment. The next disaster was, that some of the fresh paint [on the chairs] ruined a number of gowns. At two o’clock we were summoned to dinner and all were seated at a horse-shoe shaped table . . . except . . . the groomsmen [who] waited on us. . . . We had an abundant entertainment—almost every thing that the season produced. After dinner we adjourned up stairs, and chatted away the afternoon, the young folks innocently cheerful and the old ones not less so. Tea was made in another room and sent to us. At nine o’clock we were called to supper, after which the guests prepared to return to their homes.

A lot of eating and drinking and visiting. I attended my niece’s Quaker wedding. The bride and groom signed the certificate as did all of the people who were present. An official document as well as a wonderful remembrance.

“Extracts from the Diary of Mrs. Ann Warder,” 58-59, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XVII, 1893, No. 1. The Quaker wedding dress illustrated, dated 1809, is from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The dress is beautiful in its simplicity, no added adornments or decorations as was the Quaker custom.

ANN HEAD WARDER continued her rounds of visiting family and friends in and around Philadelphia when she traveled to the United States with her husband John in 1786. A Quaker, she frequently remarked on behavior or practices she considered inappropriate or different from what she was used to in England.

9th mo. 26th.—. . . . At 8 o’clock went to meeting again. Sammy Emlen came in and began in public testimony—that he met some girls walking the streets and asked after their families and was told “they are pretty well, thank you.” This introduced some close doctrine respecting not keeping to the plain language, which indeed it seems as if the young folks have almost forgotten here. . . .

9th mo, 29th.—[A]t meeting friend Nicholas Wain stood up and reprobated with much solemnity the practice of young people being suffered to intermix with improper company, which indeed is carried to an abominable extent in some parts of the country.

10th mo. 8th.—Went to the Market street meeting which was very thin. . . . The women today commenced to wear winter clothing, though to me it is far from being cold. I however, put on a cloak not to appear singular, for some had long ones down to their toes, but no hoods, a lay collar instead which would look very disagreeable to me but for the cape to their bonnet hiding the neck. Blacks are more worn here than with us—no brown except cloth.

12th mo. 2d.—. . . . Jerry, Lydia and Sally invited to dine with Dr. Hutchinson and wife, which as they had been married by a priest would be hardly orthodox with us, but here much too many make no distinction, paying them just the same respect. . . . I think the evil consequences of mixed marriages are reduced in the view of some young minds, who perhaps become entangled in this improper way at some of these places. . . . In the evening sister M____ came in when we had a long conversation on this subject, to which dress was introduced, when I warmly reprobated the too general practice of people here making such figures in the morning and when out such a show you scarcely know them.

12th mo. 6th.—. . . . [A]fter dinner . . . out sleighing, which I found much more agreeable than expected. We met several parties starting out as we returned. This pastime is abused; large parties collect and riotly go together to taverns where they sup and return at all hours of the night.

In the next post Ann Warder attends a Quaker wedding.

“Extracts from the Diary of Mrs. Ann Warder” 52, 53, 56, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XVII, 1893, No. 1.

ANN HEAD WARDER accompanied her husband John to the United States in 1786 and spent much of her time visiting relatives in and around Philadelphia. She described some of them to her sister Elizabeth in England. Cousin Sukey she reported “is married to a butcher, (a profession Friends follow here), who is remarkably short, fat and a good tempered man and everything about the house so plainly indicated a happy connection that I felt truly comforted.”
Of her sister-in-law Emlen “whose husband has been away several weeks,” she suggested that “it might be happy if he would never come home again, though perhaps she don’t think so.”

On a visit to John Clifford and his wife who were “esteemed by some the superior Male and Female for understanding in the city,” she said of John:

[he] is a stout, good tempered looking man; his wife a little woman but a great talker, has much affectation in her manner which is disagreeable at first acquaintance and she has the reputation for wearing the breeches, but whether deserved I cannot tell. But one thing I observed, it was necessary that somebody should take the petticoat.”

Ann sampled watermelon that she had for the first time “about which the natives of this country talk much . . . which in hot weather tastes like sweetened snow.”

She attended one funeral and observed another, that of a black man.

7th mo.22d.—The intelligence of the death of Robert Valentine at first was rather a shock to me, and I felt a particular inclination to attend his funeral. . . . [A foursome set out, stayed at an inn on the way.]
7 mo. 23d.—At four o’clock we were aroused and got up just as day was breaking. We had twelve miles to go which we accomplished before seven. . . . [Sammy and I] sat in the room with the corpse, whose features looked just as when alive—he was laid in one of his own shirts with a sheet first put into the coffin, which looked much more natural and comfortable than our woolen except his having no cap on, that I never remember seeing before. . . . [They departed for the meeting leaving] the multitude, not less . . . than five hundred mostly on horseback. . . . I never saw the like, full half appeared to be women who are here very shiftable [able to get around easily] if they have a good creature,—which is what all in this part of the country call horses,—they ride by themselves with a safeguard which when done with is tied to the saddle and the horse hooked to a rail, standing all meeting time almost as still as their riders sit. The carrying of the corpse I did not like, as it was only corded on to a thing like the bottom part of a single horse chaise, which is the general mode here when the distance is too far for shoulder [carriers] except that a box in the shape of a coffin is fixed and the corpse slipped in. The burying ground adjoined the meeting house and dear Robert with solemnity was interred, and after standing a few minutes at the grave we all went in. . . . We had a very long but comfortable meeting, and several Friends spoke. . . .

8th mo. 8th.—After meeting went to Aunt Emlen’s to drink tea and while there was called to see a black’s burial, who is reputed to have conducted himself with great reputation and was a man of some consequence. Six men walked first, then the corpse was carried by four of the most agreeable looking negroes I ever saw, being well dressed and appeared to be like men of property. Next followed fifty women, in couples, then one hundred and sixty men, then ninety-six more women, and about forty of our Friends brought up the rear, which would look very singular with us, but is common here for them to attend all church buryings.

“Extracts from the Diary of Mrs. Ann Warder” 458-61, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XVII, 1893, No. 1.