When his ship finally arrived in the Delaware river, the welcome Kosciuszko received was no less enthusiastic than his sendoff at Bristol. Here is how Philadelphia's Gazette told it:
When the fever had subsided toward the end of November, 1797, Kosciuszko wrote Dr. Rush asking aid in finding lodgings in Philadelphia which would be inexpensive. Niemcewicz was sent ahead to make the search, and his book tells about it:
Not knowing a soul, I roamed the streets a little like Benjamin Franklin...
with his loaf of bread under his arm. With the help of Dr. Rush I found
a lodging as small, as remote, and as cheap as my instructions directed.
The place selected was the small brick house at Third and Pine streets which a widow, Mrs. Ann Relf, conducted as a rooming house "where students and a few others shared common lodging." The dwelling had been put up by Joseph Few, master builder, who bought the lot in 1774. He was a member of The Carpenters' Company of the City and County of Philadelphia, the group which offered its new meeting hall for the sessions of the First Continental Congress that same year. The house was insured in 1775 by The Philadelphia Contributionship the insurance company which Benjamin Franklin helped found.
Kosciuszko, Niemcewicz and the servant moved in on November 29, 1797.
The back bedroom on the second floor of Mrs. Relf's house was the best
which the rooming house provided; the invalid Kosciuszko was established
there. The windows faced south, affording sunshine and a pleasant view
of the handsome brick edifice of St. Peter's Church across Pine Street.
There was a small parlor adjoining. Kosciuszko filled both rooms with
his belongings including the chest of silver from Bristol and an extensive
array of military cooking and serving utensils.
The lodging house soon became one of the busiest places in the young nation's
capital, attracting a constant flow of Federal, State and City officials
as well as old Army friends and well-wishers. Travelers in Philadelphia
were regularly taken to Third and Pine to see and meet "that illustrious
defender of the rights of Mankind". One of them, the French exile,
Moreau de Saint-Mery wrote:
I again called upon General Kosciuszko. Seven or eight
of us went to see him on the same day... Those who visited him found him
either in bed or stretched out on a couch like a sick man. His lodging
was a bedroom with a little antechamber before it; and since his bed and
couch left no room for more then two or three people, only two or three
of us could see him at a given time...
Among the numerous callers were three banished French princes, the eldest
of whom, Louis Phillipe, was later to become "Citizen King"
of his nation.
Another notable taken by his hosts to meet Kosciuszko was the colorful
Indian Chief Little Turtle, who had come to Philadelphia to negotiate
tribal boundaries with the Federal Government. He presented the Polish
soldier with a ceremonial tomahawk ornamented in silver. He in turn was
much taken with the spectacles he noticed in Kosciuszko's room, and received
them as a gift.
Julian Niemcewicz wrote that "in the last beautiful days of March,
the visits of the young ladies to Gl. (General Kosciuszko) increased."
They were truly flowers appearing at the first puff
of the zephyr. All came in order to have him paint them.
It is impossible to see a greater number of beautiful women than those
one meets in Philadelphia, superb complexion, beautiful eyes, beautiful
hair, beautiful teeth. They are not figuratively but literally flowers;
they have their brilliance and their life span. A women of 26 is already
faded, but on the other hand at 14 she is formed.
One of the attractive teenagers whose likeness was drawn by Kosciuszko
was Lucetta Pollock, the daughter of a distinguished veteran of the Revolution.
She died in her twentieth year, but Kosciuszko's sketch of her was kept
by a friend of the family, banker-historian John F. Watson. When he wrote
his Watson's Annals, a widely-consulted book of miscellany about early
Philadelphia, he mounted it in the manuscript copy which is still preserved
at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
The visitor who came most often to Kosciuszko's Philadelphia residence and became his closest American friend was Thomas Jefferson, Vice President of the United States. Jefferson wrote within a few weeks after Kosciuszko settled in the house at Third and Pine:
I see him often. He is as pure a son of liberty, as I have ever known, and of that liberty which is to go to all, and not to the few or rich alone.
Jefferson and Kosciuszko were nearly the same age, alike in personal
philosophy and political views. In Philadelphia they saw each other almost
daily; after Kosciuszko returned to Europe they corresponded for nearly
twenty years. Jefferson helped his friend obtain from Congress nearly
$19,000 in overdue pay for his war service. Kosciuszko left the money
in Philadelphia for investment by Jefferson's banker, John Barnes. Once
when Jefferson needed funds, he borrowed $4500 of Kosciuszko's money.
Later Jefferson saved Kosciuszko's investments by ordering a timely sale
of bank stock which later became worthless.
Kosciuszko secretly planned to go to France at first opportunity. Polish
exiles were organizing legions to join France in fighting against Poland's
old enemies. Although crippled, Kosciuszko felt he could help his country.
The Vice President helped him obtain a passport under a fictitious name
and arrange a secret journey to Paris by a circuitous route. Jefferson
for his part, thought that Kosciuszko might be able to lessen some of
the tension which had brought the United States and France to the brink
of war.
"Jefferson considered that I would be the most effective intermediary in bringing an accord with France," Kosciuszko said some years later, "so I accepted the mission even if without official authorization."
Kosciuszko gave Jefferson a power of attorney and a memorandum in his imperfect English requesting the Vice President to draft a will for him and to be his executor. The original memorandum Kosciuszko wrote is in the Jefferson papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. It became widely acclaimed as evidence of his humanity:
I beg Mr. Jefferson that in case I should die without will or testament he should bye out of my money so many Negroes and free them, that the restant sum should be sufficient to give them education and provide for their maintenance.
Kosciuszko gave Thomas Jefferson a bearskin and a valuable sable fur which he had brought with him from Russia. Among the Jefferson papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston are two letters from Kosciuszko with detailed instructions for care of the furs. Historians and biographers have frequently commented upon the favorite fur-trimmed greatcoat which Jefferson wore much of the rest of his life. The fur appears in a portrait of Jefferson painted by Rembrandt Peale in 1805. The original is at the New York Historical Society, with a copy at Monticello in Virginia.
When Thomas Sully in 1821 did the only full-length portrait of Jefferson made during his lifetime, the long fur-trimmed coat was featured and may be seen today in the painting at the library at West Point. When Rudulph Evans produced his great statue for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, he also chose to portray the long coat and the fur from Thaddeus Kosciuszko
On May 4, 1798, Thomas Jefferson was the Society's president and chaired a meeting in this building - less than half a mile from Kosciuszko's room at Third and Pine. Niemcewicz attended that meeting and heard Jefferson read a paper describing a new design for the mould board of a plow. Not until he returned to the house did Neimcewicz learn that Kosciuszko planned to leave for France that very night.
At 4 A.M., it is related in Niemcewicz's book, Thomas Jefferson arrived at the house at Third and Pine in "a covered carriage". Kosciuszko was helped inside and Jefferson accompanied him to New Castle, Delaware, where a ship was ready to sail for Europe. Jefferson helped spread the word that Kosciuszko had gone "to take the waters in Virginia". The secret was kept in Philadelphia until September when French newspapers were received announcing his arrival in Paris.