50

upon streets designated as they are now, by name; the
controversies thrashed out, pro and con, the reasons
why street signs should be painted, and the cost sub-
scribed for, by interested citizens, and why numbers
should be placed on houses for purposes of identifica-
tion by strangers, tradesmen and others.

Pechin's partnership with Hyer apparently came to
an early termination. Reverend James Jones Wilmer
became Pechin's partner in the spring of 1796, in the
publication of the Eagle of Freedom.

Wilmer was the youngest son of Simon and Mary
Price Wilmer of Kent County of the Eastern Shore of
Maryland. He was educated in England at Saint Paul's
School, London, and later at Oxford. In 1773 he was
ordained in England at the recommendation of Governor
Robert Eden, and was licensed for the Diocese of Mary-
land. Between 1779 and 1789 ho was rector of four
Maryland parishes, three of then in Kent County. He
was in England in 1790 and 1791. When he returned he
became the loader of a group which founded the first
New Church (Swedenborgian) Society in America. Wilmer
served as minister of the New Jerusalem Church in

Baltimore for a timej but after a year or two attempted
to support his family by his pen, and by conducting a
succession of schools in different sections of Maryland.⁷⁵
78 Dictionary of American biography, v. 20, p.313-314