Before the Civil War, the landing was once the scene of an anti-slavery drama. Abolitionist Quaker Passmore Williams boarded a ship bound for Nicaragua to rescue slave Jane Johnson and her children.
Still farther back, in August 1787, inventor John Fitch launched the world’s first steamship from Vine Street. Fitch was inspired by a dream in which Indians were chasing him in a long canoe. And so his steamship had not a paddlewheel, but 12 steam-driven paddles.
And finally, in the 1700s the Vine Street Landing was one of two landings for public use (the other was Dock Street). We know because William Penn himself makes mention of it in his 1701 municipal charter.
Sources:
Philadelphia and its Environs, 1872.
Nash, Gary, “First City: Philadelphia and the Forging of Historical Memory.” 2001.
