History of Delaware : 1609-1888, Part 39

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : L. J. Richards
Number of Pages: 776

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ingenuousness and to the character which Penn had established among his contemporaries for up- rightne-s and fair and square dealing. It is pathetic to read, in the records of the Swiss Mennonites, how, after they had decided to emigrate, "they returned to the Palatinate to seek their wives and children, who are scattered everywhere in Switzer- land, in Alsace, and in the Palatinate, and they know not where they are to be found."

Thus the movement into Pennsylvania and the three lower counties began, a strange gathering of a strange people, much suffering, capable of much enduring. Of the Germans themselves one of their own preachers1 wrote : " They were naturally very rugged people, who could endure much hard- ships ; they wore long and unshaven beards, disor- dered clothing, great shoes, which were heavily hammered with iron and large nails; they had lived in the mountains of Switzerland, far from cities and towns, with little intercourse with other men ; their speech is rude and uncouth, and they have difficulty in understanding any one who does not speak just their way ; they are very zeal- ons to serve God with prayer and reading and in other ways, and very innocent in all their doings as lambs and doves." The Quakers, too, bore proof in their looks of the double annealing of fanaticism and persecution. They wore strange garbs, had unworldly manners and customs, and many of them had erpped ears and slit noses, and were gaunt and hollow-eyed from long confine- ment in jails and prison-houses. The influence of George Fox's suit of leather clothes was still felt among them. They were chiefly of the plebeian classes, the true English democracy, yeomen, tinkers, tradesmen, mechanies, retail shopmen of the cities and towns ; scarcely one of the gentry and very few of the university people and educated classes. From Wales, however, the Thomases, Rees, and Griffiths came, with red, freckled faces, shaggy beards and pedigrees dating back to Adam. Persecution had destroyed their hitherto nncon- querable devotion to their own mountains, but they took their pedigrees with them in emigrating, and settling on a tract of bills and quaking mosses, where the soil recommended itself much less to them than the face of the country, they sought to feel at home by giving to the new localities names which recalled the places from which they had banished themselves.

Such were the emigrants who sailed-mostly from London and Bristol-to help build up Penn's asylum in the wilderness. The voyage was tedi- ous, and could seldom be made in less than two months. The vessels in which they sailed were ill appointed and crowded. Yet at least fifteen thousand persons, men, women and children, took this voyage between 1681 and 1700. The average

1 Lanrens Hendriks, of Nimeguen.

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

passage-money was, allowing for children, about seventy shillings per head ; so the emigrants ex- pended $50,000 in this one way. Their purchases of land eost them $25,000 more ; the average pur- chases were about $6 for each head of family; quit-rents one shilling sixpence. The general cost of emigration is set forth in a pamphlet of 1682, republished by the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and attributed to Penn, and he must have directed the publication, though it is anonymous. In this pamphlet it is suggested that a man with £100 in pieces-of-eight may pay his own way and his family's by judicious speculation. The " ad- vance in money " -- i. e., the difference between specie value in London and on the Delaware-is thirty per cent., on goods the advance is fifty per cent., and this pamphlet supposes that these advances will pay the cost of emigration. The figures are too liberal'; however, they give us an idea of what the expenses were which a family had to incur. They are as follows :

£ .. d.

For five persons-man and wife, two servants and a child of ten-passage-money 22 10 0

For a ton of goods-freight (each taking out a chest without charge for freight) .. 2 0 0

Ship's surgeon, 2s. (d. per head ... 12 6

Four gallons of brandy, 24 lbs. sugar. 1

0 0

Clotbes for servant (G shirts, 2 waistroata, a summer and win- ter suit, hat, 2 pair shoes, under-clothing, ete ) 12 0

Cost of building a house. 1.5 0

Stock for farm 24 10 0

Year's provisions for family. 16 16 €

Total £96 00 (0

This, it will be observed, on a favorable, one- sided showing, is £20 per capita. for man, woman, child and servant, outside of the cost of land. If we allow £10 additional for cost of land. transpor- tation and other extras, leaving out clothes for the family, we shall have £30 a head as the cost of immigration and one year's keep until the land begins to produce crops. It thus appears that the early immigrants into Pennsylvania and the three lower counties must have expended at least £450 .- 000 in getting there in the cheapest way. The actual cost was probably more than double that amount. Inaletter written by Edward Jones. "Chirurgeon," from " Skoolkill River," Aug. 26 1682. to John ap Thomas, founder of the first Welsh settlement, we have some particulars of a voyage across the ocean at that time. . Thomas and sixteen others had bought a five-thousand-acre tract of Penn. The rest sailed from Liverpool, but Thomas was ill, and not able to come. Hence the letter, which is published in a memoir of " John ap Thomas and his friends," in the Pennsylvania Magazine, vol. iv. The voyage took more than eleven weeks.

" And in all this time we wanted neither meat, drink or water, though several hog-heads of water ran out. Our selinaty allowance of beer was three prints a day for each whole head and a quait of wit r. 3 biskedd (biscuits) a day & sometimes more. We had in about half hundred of tasked, one harrell of leore, one hogshed of water, the quantity for each whole head, & 3 bartelliot beefe for the whole num- ber-40-and we havlofr to come ashore. A great many could eat little or no beefe, though it was good. Butter and cheese eats well nyon ye

BPA. Ye remainder of our cheese & butter is little or no worster. . & three 18 at und, per pound here, if not more. We have ont r. spare, Iont it is well y' we have it, for here is little or no corn ti' begin to sow their corn, they have plenty of it ... Ve name of Iss is called now Withro; here is a crowd of people striving for jet land, for ye town lot is not divided, A therefore we are forced to tt. ye Country lots. We had much ador to get a grant of it, Int. itt for 3 days attendance, beside some more of miles we therfed we brought it to pass I hope it will planer thee and the rest converted, for it hath most rare timber. I have not seen the like us, these parts."

Mr. Jones also states that the rate for surveyi! one hundred acres was twenty shillings-ha'f much as the price of the land. At this 1 ;;. Jones Thomas and company had to pay €50 t. : surveying their tract of five thousand aeres.

It will be noticed that the face of the count: pleased Dr. Jones, and he is satisfied with il. land selected by him. All the early immigran ... and colonists were pleased with the new land, ani enthusiastic in regard to its beauty and its promi- of produetiveness. Penn is not more so than ti .. least prosperous of his followers. Indeed, it is 1 lovely country to day, and in its wild, virgin beauty must have had a rare charm and attraction. for the ocean-weary first settlers. They all writ about it in the same warm strain Thus, for in- stance, let us quote from the letter written in 1680 to his brother by Mahlon Stacey, who built the first mill on the site of the city of Trenton. Stacey was a man of good education and family. He had traveled much in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. where he made a great fortune and became a lead- ing citizen, his children intermarrying with the best people in the two colonies. The letter, which we quote from Gen. Davis' " History of Buck- County," says that

" It is a country that produces all things for the sustenance of mat. ++ a plentiful manner . . . I have traveled through most of the seit! ! places, and some that are not, and find the country very apt to ansa the expectations of the diligent. I have seen orchards laden with tri . to admiration, planted by the Swelles, their very limbs turn to po with the weight, and most delicious to the taste and lovely to bele !! I have seen an apple tree from a pippin kernel yield a barrel of curi . . cider, and peaches in such plenty that some people took their carti prach gathering. I could not but smile at the sight of it. They .it- 4 a delicate fruit, and bang almost like our onions that are tied on foto I have seen and known this summer forty bushels of bolted wheat hy vested from one sown. We have from the tinte ealled May to Mul. ... mas girat stores of very good wild fruits, as strawberries, cranht fles and hutchleberries, which are much like bilberries in England, Innit : sweeter: the cranberries mitch like cherues for color and lugtress, y hi ' may be kept till fruit comes in ag.un An excellent sauce is made .' them for venison, turkey and great fowl ; they are better to make tal'. than either cherries or gooseberries : the linhaus bring them to . houses in great plenty. My brother Robert had as many cheirn . t . year as would have loaded several carts From what I have offsets. .. ' is my judgment that finit trees destroy themselves by the very weight ! their fruit. As for venison and fowl we have great plenty ; we he brought home to our house by the lidtand seven of eight that bitch of a day, aml sometimes put by as many, having no occasion for them consin Revels and I, with some of my men, went last Third month y . the river to catch herrings, for at that time they came in great shee . into the shallows. We had no het, but, after the Indian fashion. mad. round penfold about two yards over and a first high, but left a gap . thể tỉnh to go i at, and made a bish to lay in the gap to keep the t .

in. When this was done we took two long liches and thed thar fa - together, and went to at a stone's cast alova nur said pinfull ; the hauling these birch bonghs down the stream, we drove thousands 1. 1 ys, and an ninhy got into our trap as it wontd hold. Then we lr_in throw them on shore as fast as three or four of ns conld bag twa : three at a time Atter thuis manher in half in honr we could have ph a three-bu-hel sick with as fine herring as ever I saw. . . . As to 1 ... and pork, there is a great plenty of it and cheap; al-o gomel sheep 1

common grass of the country freds beef very fat. . . . We have glemt

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MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

plenty of must sorts of fishes that ever I saw in England, besides several wirts that are not known there, as rock, catfish, shad, sheepdie ul, and surgeon; and lowly are as plenty -dur ka, gerne, turkeys, pheasants, partridges and many other sorts Indeed the country, take it as a wilderness, is a brave country, though no ple + will please all There Is ste barren land, and more wood than sunto wonbl have njom their Fand ; neither will the country produce corn without Labor, nor is cattle got without something to buy them, mer bread with ploness, el-o it would be a brase country indeed. I question not but all would then give it a good word. For my part I like it so well I never had the least thought of returning to England except un account of trade."

"I wonder at our Yorkshire people," says Stacey, in another letter of the same date, " that they had rather live in servitude, work hard all the year, and not be threepence better at the year's end, than to stir out of the chimney-corner and transport themselves to a place where. with the like pains, in two or three years they might know better things I live as well to my content and in as great plenty as ever I did, and in a far more likely way to get an estate."

Judge John Holme, in his so called poem on " the flourishing State of Pennsylvania," written in 1696, seems to have tried to set the views of Stacey to music. True there is not much tune nor rhythm in the verse, but the Pennsylvania writer of Georgies has a shrewd eye for a catalogue, and he would have shone as an auctioneer. He sings the goodness of the soil, the cheapnes, of the land, the trees so abundant in variety that seareely any man can name them all, the fruits and nuts, mulberries, hazelnuts, strawberries, and " plumbs," " which pleaseth those well who to eat them comes," the orchards, cherries so plentiful that the planters bring them to town in boats (these are the Swedes, of course), peaches so plenty the people cannot eat half of them, apples, pears and quinces,

" And fruit-trees do grow so fast in this gronnd That we begin with cider to abound."

The fields and gardens rejoice in the variety as well as the abundance of their products; in the woods are found " wax berries, elkermi-, turmer- iek and sarsifrax ;" the maple trunks trickle with sugar, and our author tells how to boil it ; he gives the names of fish, flesh and fowls, including whales and sturgeons.

The Englishman of that day was still untamed. He had a passion, inherited from his Anglo-Saxon forbears, for the woods and streams, for outdoor life and the adventures which attend it. He had not forgotten that he was only a generation or two younger than Robin Hood and Will Scarlet, and he could not be persuaded that the poacher was a criminal. All the emigration advertise- ments, circulars, and prospectuses sought to profit by this passion in presenting the natural charms of America in the most seductive style. While the Spanish enli-ting officers worked by the spell of the magic word " gold ""' and the canny Amster- d'un merchant talked "beaver" and " barter" and "cent. per cent.," the English solicitors for colonists and laborers never ceased to dwell upon

the normal attractions of the bright new land, the adventures it offered, and the easy freedom to be enjoyed there. Thus in advocating his West Jer- sey settlements John Fenwick wrote in this way :

"If there be any terrestrial happiness to be had by any People, especidly of any interior rank, it must certainly br here Hero any one may tau mich himself with land, and live Rent fire, je, with such a quantity of Land, that he may wrang lamself with walking over his Fields of Corn, and all sorts of Gran, and let Ins Stock amount to colle humulreds ; he needs not fear their want of Pasture in the summer or Folder in the Winter, the Wirels affording sutherent muydy, where you lave Grass as Ingh as a Man's Knees, nav. as his Waste, interlu ed with Pra Vines and other Weeds that Cattell much debght in, as much as a Man can pass through . and these Woods also every Mile and halt mile are furnished with fresh Ponds, Brooks, or River-, where all sutts of cattell, during the heat of the Day, do quench their thuist and Cool themselves. These Brooks and Rivers bring Invitroned of each side with several sorts of Trees and Grape-Yours, Arbor-like interchanging places, aud crossing these Rivers, do shade and shelter them from the scorching beans of the Sun sach as by their utmost labors can scarcely get a laving may here procure Inheritance of Lands and Posses- sions, stock themselves with all sorts of Cattle, enjoy the benefit of them while they live and leave them to their Children when they die Here you need not trouble the shambles for Meat, nor Bakersand Brewers for Beer and Bread, nor run to A Linen-Diaper for a supply, every one making their own Lineu and a great part of their Woollen Cloth for their ordmary wearing. And how prodigal rif I may say, hath Nature been to furnish this Country with all sorts of Wild Beasts and Fowl, which every one heth an interest in and may Hunt at his pleasure, where. besides the pleasure in Hunting, he may furnish his House with excellent fat Vemwon, Turkies, Heese, Heath-hens, Cranes, Swans, Ducks, Pigeons, and the like ; and, wearted with that, he may go a Fishing, where the Rivers are so furnished that he may supply himself with Fish before he can leave off the Recreation. Here one may Travel by Land upon the same Continent hundreds of Miles, and pass through Towns and Villages, and never hear the least complaint for want nor hear any ask him for a farthing. Here one may lodge in the Fields and Woods travel from one end of the Country to another, with as much greurity as if he were lock't within his own Chamher ; and if one chance to meet with an Indian Town, they shall give him the best Entertainment they have, and upon bis desire direct him on his Way. But that which adds hapqquness to all the rest is the healthfulness of the Place, where many People in twenty years' time never know what Sickness is ; where they look upon it as a great Mortality if two or three die out of a Town in a year Stump. Bestiles the sweetness of the Air, the Country itself sends forth such a fragrant smell that it may be perceived at Sea before they can make the Land , No evil Fog or Vapor duth any sooner appear but a North-West or Westerly Wind immediately dissolves it and drives it away. Moreover, you shall scaren see a Houve but the South side is begirt with Flives of Bees, which increase after an incredible manner : so that if there be any terrestrial Canaan, 'tis surely here, where the land floweth with Milk and Honey."

This is the tenor of all the Maryland invitations to immigration likewise, and Penn follows the model closely. His letter to the Society of Free Traders in 1683 has already been mentioned, and also his proposals for colonists. In December, 1685, he issued a " Further Account of Pennsyl- vania," a supplement to the letter of 1683. He says that ninety vessels had sailed with passengers, not one of them meeting with any miscarriage. They had taken out seven thousand two hundred persons. "Houses over their heads and Garden- plots, eoverts for their cattle, an increase of stock, and several inclosures in Corn, especially the first comers, and I may say of some poor men was the beginning of an Estate, the difference of labor- ing for themselves and for others, of an Inheri- tance and a Rack Ivse being never better under- stood." The soil had produced beyond expecta- tions, yielding corn from thirty to sixty fold ; three preks of wheat sowed an aere ; all English root crops thrive ; low lands were excellent for rope, hemp and flax ; cattle find abundant food in the

164

HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

woods ; English grass seed takes well and yields have begun to reward our Labors by abound fatting hay ; all sorts of English fruits have taken " mighty well ;" good wine may be made from na- tive grapes ; the coast and bay abound in whales, the rivers in delicate fish ; and provisions were abundant and cheap, in proof of which he gives a price current. Penn concludes by quoting an en- couraging letter he had received from Robert Tur- ner.

In 1687, Penn published another pamphlet, con-

Nº 3879

Ten Shillings

Wis Andersen Will often Shillinge current Money of America, according to the Art of Parliament, made in I the Sixth Year of the late Queen Anne. For Afceruiming the Races of foreign Coins in the Plantations, due from the Province of Pemplumis, to the Pot- feffor therest, Thail be id Value equal to Money, and fhali be accepted accordingly by the Provin- cial Treafurer, County Trea. furers and che Truffeestor the General Loan-Office of the Province of Pemnylonis, in all Publick Payments, and for any Fond at any Timein any of the faid Treatacies and Loin. Office.

Dated in FLHadelphis the Second Day of April, in the Yearof Our Lord, One Then- fand feven Randred and Twenty Three, by Order of the Governor End Gede- ral Affembly.

Ten Shillings

MERCYJUSTIF

anth Morris

PROVINCIAL CURRENCY.

taining a letter from Dr. More, " with passages out of several letters from Persons of Good Credit, re- lating to the State and Improvement of the Prov- ince of Pennsilvania." In 1691 again he printed a third pamphlet, containing "Some Letters and an Abstract of Letters from Pennsylvania " Dr. More takes pains to show the plenty and prosperity which surround the people of the province. " Our lands have been grateful to us," he says, " and

Crops of Corn." There was plenty of good Ir pork iu market at two and a half pence per pou: currency ; beef, the same; butter, sixpence ; whe three shillings per bushel; rye at eight gna .. corn, two shillings in country money, and son. for export. Dr. More had got a fine erup wheat on his corn ground by simply harrowing in ; his hop garden was very promising. Arnoldl .. de la Grange had raised one thousand bushels . English grain this year, and Dr. More >av. " Every one here is now persuaded of t fertility of the ground and goodness of r. mate, here being nothing wanting, with it. dustry, that grows in England, and man. delicious things not attainable there ; and w have this common advantage above England that all things grow better and with h .. labour." Penn's steward and gardener ar. represented as writing to him that the peach- trees are broken down with fruit; all th .. plants sent out from England are growing. barn, porch and shed full of corn; seed- sprout in half the time they require in Enz- land ; bulbs and flowers grow apace. David Lloyd writes that " Wheat (as good, I think as any in England) is sold at three shillin _. and sixpence per Bushel Country money and for three shillings ready money (which make- two shillings five pence English sterling . and if God continues his blessing to us, thi- province will certainly be the granary of America."1 James Claypoole writes that he has never seen brighter and better corn than in these parts. The whale fishery wa- considerable ; one company would take sy- eral hundred barrels of oil, useful, with tobacco, skins, and furs for commerce and to bring in small money (of which there is a seareity) for change. John Goodson write, to Penn of the country that " it is in a pros. perons condition beyond what many of our Friends can imagine;" if Penn and hi- family were there " surely your Hearts would be greatly comforted to behold this Wilder- ness Land how it is becoming a fruitful Field and pleasant Garden." Robert Jame- writes to Nathaniel Wilmer : "God prosper his People and their honest Endeavors in the wilderness, and many have cause to Bless and Praise his holy Arm, who in his Love hath spread a Table large unto us, even beyond the expects- tions or belief of many, yea, to the admiration et our Neighboring Colonies. . . . God is amones:

1 "Country money" was produce in barter, such as furs, tal grain, stock, et ?. , at rates established by the courla in cofleeting . etc .; " ready money " was spanish of New England con, which w. - 25 per cent discount in off Ingland. See sumuer, " History of A: ican Currency." The differences are set out in " Madame kt .. .. Journal." According to the above the discount on country mobile? " ... 31 per cent. and on ready money 20 per cent.

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MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

his People and the wilderness is his, and he waters and refreshes it with his moistening Dew, whereby the Barren are becoming pleasant Fields and Gardens of his delight ; blessed be his Name, saith my Soul, and Peace and Happiness to all God's People everywhere."

In 1685 a pamphlet called "Good Order Estab- lished," and giving an account of Pennsylvania, was published by Thomas Budd, a Quaker, who had held office in West Jersey. Budd was a vision- ary, mixed up with Keith's heresy, and wanted to get a bank established in Philadelphia. He built largely in that city, and was a close observer. He pays particular attention to the natural advantages of the country in its soil, climate, products and geographical relations. The days in winter are two hours longer, and in summer two hours shorter than in England, he says, and henee grain and fruits mature more swiftly. He enumerates the wild fowls and fishes, the fruits and garden stuff, and thinks that the Delaware marshes, once drained, would be equal to the meadows of the Thames for wheat, peas, barley, hemp. flax, rape and hops. The French settlers were already grow- ing grapes for wine, and Budd thought that at- tempts should be made to produce rice, anise seed, licorice, madder and woad. He has much to say about the development of manufactures, and he proposes to have a granary built on the Delaware in a fashion which is a curious anticipation of the modern elevator, and he projects a very sen- sible scheme for co-operative farm-work, on the community plan, the land to be eventually divided after it has been fully cleared and im- proved, and the families of the commune have grown up.

In 1698 was published Gabriel Thomes' " His- torical and Geographical Account of the Province and Country of Pennsylvania and West New Jersey in America." This well-known brochure descants in florid and loose terms upon " The rich- ness of the Soil, the sweetness of the Situation, the Wholesomeness of the Air, the Navigable Rivers and others, the prodigious increase of Corn, the flourishing condition of the City of Philadelphia, etc. The strange creatures, as Birds, Beasts, Fishes, and Fowls, with the Several Sorts of Minerals, Purging Waters, and Stones lately dis- covered. The Natives, Aborigines, and their Lan- guage, Religion, Laws and Customs The fir-t Planters, Dutch, Swedes and English, with the number of its inhabitants; as also a Touch upon George Keith's New Religion, in his second change since he left the Quakers ; with a Map of both Counties." The title-page leaves the book but little to say. Gabriel is enthusiastic about pretty much everything. He makes some shrewd remarks, however, as when he says that he has reasons to believe Pennsylvania contains coal,

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History of Delaware : 1609-1888, Part 39

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : L. J. Richards Number of Pages: 776

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : L. J. Richards
Number of Pages: 776