Howell also owned the Crooked Billet Tavern and its dock, which is detailed in "Plan of the City of Philadelphia and its Environs (Showing the Improved Parts)," published in 1797.

In 1752, when Issac Norris was selecting a man to build the first clock for the State House, known now as Independence Hall, he chose Thomas Stretch, the son of his old friend and fellow council member, to do the job.

By mid-1753, the clock had been installed in the State House attic, but six years were to elapse before Thomas Stretch received any pay for it.

[9] The $159,000 replica included a 14-foot copy of the clock case atop a 40-foot soapstone column, just the way it looked during the American Revolutionary War.

The only major concession in modernism: the clock, with an eight-foot dial painted red-brown and Persian blue, is powered by electricity rather than wooden works and weights.

That she had not been so successful in locating many of the clocks made by Thomas Stretch is attributed to the fact that they have reached the hands of dealers and been scattered across the country.

[15] Stretch was one of the founders of Pennsylvania Hospital and a member of the Union Fire Company, also known as Benjamin Franklin's Bucket Brigade.

[18] The founders of the social club known as Schuylkill Fishing Company numbered twenty, each of whom was either then or later prominent in Philadelphia's business and civic life.

In 1747, they resolved to build a "Court House" for the meetings of the Governor, Assembly, and colonists, on the slope facing the river, amid the stately walnut trees, some of which furnished the timber.

In 1748, its members built their first Court House near Philadelphia, on the west side of the Schuylkill River where Girard Avenue Bridge now crosses.

[20][21] With much mock formality and discipline, the Schuylkill Fishing Company pursued its piscatorial and fowling interests, upon the success of which depended their meals.

Something of the flavor of the Colony's procedures may be sensed in a proclamation issued by Governor Stretch on September 29, 1744, "the twelfth year of my Government".

Evidently in an effort to encourage his colonists to promote game for the year's final meeting on October 4, Stretch called to their attention by Proclamation: Colony of Schuylkill, ss.

Whereas great quantities of rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, partridges, and others of the game and kind have presumed to infest the coasts and territories of the Schuylkill in a wild, bold and ungovernable manner; these are therefore to authorize and require you, or any of you, to make diligent search for said rabbits, squirrels, partridges and others of the game kind, in all suspected places where they may be found, and bring the respective bodies of so many as you shall find, before the Justices, etc., at a general court to be held on Thursday, the fourth day of October next, there to be proceeded against, as by the said court shall be adjudged; and for your or any of you are so doing, this shall be your sufficient warrant.