History & local legend
The Merchants' Exchange Building in Philadelphia's Old City is the setting of Michael McMahon's story about Jack Osteen, a blind singer who fed the horses outside between engagements. One of those horses belonged to a trader named Harold Thorn.
In McMahon's telling, Thorn had just suffered a financial loss when Osteen accidentally stepped on his foot. Thorn attacked the singer with his walking stick and killed him. Thorn's horse then struck its owner down. Afterward, the animal would allow itself to be tied only at the spot where Osteen had stood.
The legend continues with sightings on the Exchange's curved portico. On late autumn evenings or in the hours before dawn, a man in nineteenth-century clothing supposedly appears there. Witnesses hear hoofbeats, and the figure disappears.
