Free previewStop 7 of Philadelphia Walking Tour: Independence Hall to Elfreth's Alley
The Blacksmith Who Married Into a Street
You're standing on Elfreth's Alley, a narrow lane running between Front and Second Streets. The Elfreth's Alley Museum sits at numbers 124 and 126, and it preserves the 18th-century home of a pair of dressmakers. Now look down the lane: small brick houses shoulder to shoulder, and cobblestones under your feet. There are 32 houses here, and people have been living on this street for about three hundred years.
This street wasn't in William Penn's plan for Philadelphia. It began with a handshake between neighbors. Around 1703, two men who lived on Front Street, Arthur Wells and John Gilbert, agreed to open an alley through to Second Street. Wells gave five feet of land from the south side. Gilbert, who owned the land on the north, gave ten. Wells died soon after, so the lane became Gilbert's Alley.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 7 of Philadelphia Walking Tour: Independence Hall to Elfreth's Alley (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
