Bard of Tower Hall

BARD OF TOWER HALL”—Pen-name of Lewis Dela, who was a clothing salesman in the store of Colonel Joseph M. Bennett at 518 Market Street, which, owing to its massive granite front, which pyramided into a Gothic tower, was named “Tower Hall.” In 1857, Dela wrote, in a pleasing doggerel, an advertisement, which through its novelty and human interest, attracted attention. He had a lively, entertaining style of versifying, and for nearly thirty years “turned out” daily, except Sundays, a Tower Hall advertisement in verse. They all were signed “By the Bard of Tower Hall,” and gained a sort of celebrity for the clothing house, which had the reputation of “keeping a poet.” The advertisements, in those days, appeared on the front page of the Public Ledger. A good many persons were of the opinion that Colonel Bennett was the poet, but he denied the “soft impeachment.”