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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01145 3088
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THE MAKING OF PENNSYLVANIA EIGHTH EDITION
LAKE ERIE
Mass
12º -
N Y.
Conn.
oWyoming
41º
Conn Claim
Long Island
Vat
Pittsburgh
Harrisburg
-Md. Claim
Philadelphia
Mason and Diron Line
New Castle
Baltimore
Oncorral Southern Boundary of Penna.
39º
390.
Md
Cape Henlopen
False Cape
.
38°
Point
HUMANTY TANIA, DAYINDARY DISPUTES
N.J.
400
THE MAKING OF PENNSYLVANIA
AN ANALYSIS OF THE ELEMENTS OF THE POPULATION AND THE FORMATIVE INFLUENCES THAT CREATED ONE OF THE GREATEST OF THE AMERICAN STATES
BY SYDNEY GEORGE FISHER
AUTHOR OF "PENNSYLVANIA : COLONY AND COMMONWEALTH"
888
PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1908.
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
1318874
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
THE exhaustion of the first edition of this work within such a short time, and the numerous and sometimes lively criticisms which have been brought to my attention, seem to show that Pennsylvanians are, after all, more interested in their history than was generally supposed. They are, at least, not entirely indifferent.
A new chapter has been added called "Results," dealing in a general way with some of the consequences which have flowed from the miscellaneous character of the population and the tendency of some of the elements to form little colonies of their own. I have also taken this opportunity to go over the whole work and make any corrections or changes which the various criticisms I have received have suggested.
Since the first edition was published, another volume, entitled "Pennsylvania : Colony and Commonwealth," has been printed, and is now ready to be given to the public.
PHILADELPHIA, November, 1896.
Pijpen 1.28
PREFACE
MOST of the English Colonies in America were founded by people of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, and each colony had usually a religion of its own, with comparatively little intermixture of other faiths. Virginia and the New England colonies were particularly pure in their people and religion, and the history of each of them is the simple story of a people of one language, nation, and religion, thoroughly homogeneous, and always acting as a unit. But Pennsylvania was altogether different, and no other colony had such a mixture of languages, nationalities, and religions. Dutch, Swedes, English, Germans, Scotch-Irish, Welsh; Quakers, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Reformed, Mennonites, Tunk- ers, and Moravians, all had a share in creating it.
Many of these divisions led a more or less distinct life of their own in colonial times, some of them wishing to found a colony for themselves within the province ; and they all acted and reacted on each other, changed sides in politics, and produced movements and counter-cur- rents which make the history of the State extremely varied and interesting, and at the same time rather difficult to trace.
The present volume deals with each of these divisions in detail, describes their motives and characteristics, and shows, with more or less completeness, the part each
I
iii
Preface
played in making the State. It is an analysis of our original population, and without this analysis it is impos- sible to have an intelligent understanding of our history. We must break up our people into their original elements before we can know who and what they were, and how they worked together. This analysis once mastered, much that is obscure in the politics and history of the State becomes very plain.
Most of the sects that founded our commonwealth were conspicuous for their freedom from the Middle Age dogmas, and their extreme advancement in the line of the Reformation; and the Quakers were the most advanced of them all. The people of the other colonies belonged usually to more conservative forms of religion, were less liberal in their opinions, and, in some instances, as in New England, indulged in the conservatism of religious persecution. The effect of this liberalism on the growth of Pennsylvania, in the system of laws, the early development of science, medi- cine, the mechanic arts, and manufacturing, is fully treated in a separate chapter.
It has also been found necessary to describe with some detail three important controversies, carried on for many years, which are part of the making of the State, because they threatened to affect very seriously our boundaries and size. The Connecticut claim, as it was called, was a claim by the Colony of Connecticut to the whole northern half of Pennsylvania. The dispute lasted nearly fifty years, and at times assumed the proportions of actual warfare and bloodshed. Connecticut was at first, and indeed for a long time, successful in asserting her title. She settled a portion of the disputed territory,
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Preface
and thus added to our population another incongruous element, which lived separate from the rest of the com- monwealth and still maintains its own traditions and pride of history.
The controversies with Maryland and Virginia about our southern and western boundaries added no new element to our population, but they were quite serious. The dispute with Maryland lasted over seventy years, and several times resulted in bloodshed. If the Lords Baltimore had been successful in maintaining their claim, the Maryland line would have passed just north of Philadelphia, and that city would have no longer belonged to Pennsylvania. If the Virginia claim had been successful, the western boundary of our State would have been east of Pittsburg.
If the Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia contro- versies had all gone against us, we should have been reduced to an insignificant strip of land containing neither Philadelphia nor Pittsburg. The successful resist- ance to these attacks, which aimed to strip us of the positions and land that have made us the second State of the Union, is certainly as much a part of our making as the characteristics of our original population.
In order to reveal the Pennsylvanians as they lived and moved in provincial days, it has been necessary to handle with some detail and considerable frankness the numer- ous religious opinions which for nearly a hundred years were seething and conflicting, especially among the Germans. To have omitted these details, or to have ignored their sharp differences and peculiarities, would have been to conceal the true life of the people.
Religious opinion had a strange intensity in those
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Preface
times. I do not mean that men are now less religious. On the contrary, I think, in the best sense of the word, they are more so, and that there is more pure faith in God and love for man than there ever was, except among the Christians of the first century. But in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries men were just coming through the Reformation, were just learning to think for themselves, and they were full of controversial religion and religious aggressiveness. Religion then controlled a man's political opinions and his whole conduct in un- religious matters in a way which no one now living has seen.
It is impossible to describe this condition of affairs in Pennsylvania without discussing numerous phases of thought which were very dear and holy to good men long since dead, and are still dear to the living. I am compelled to be fair; to be critical, and yet not blindly critical. But I cannot, of course, see and feel in every faith as its followers see and feel. I am writing history, not advocacy, and to give the condition of all the divi- sions necessarily involves a certain coldness and impar- tiality to each, which, without this explanation, might appear to arise from religious indifference or scepticism.
An exhaustive citation of authorities would be unsuited to the scope and intention of the book; but I have thought it well to call attention to some of the more important, so far as they seemed likely to be of interest or use to the general reader. In some of the chapters the principal authorities are mentioned in the text, and in others a foot-note at the end contains them.
PHILADELPHIA, April, 1896.
vi
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE DUTCH, THE SWEDES, AND THE DUKE OF YORK
7
CHAPTER II.
THE ORIGIN OF THE QUAKERS
33
CHAPTER III.
QUAKER TRAITS
41
CHAPTER IV.
THE GERMANS
70
CHAPTER V.
THE MORAVIANS
I34
CHAPTER VI.
THE SCOTCH-IRISH AND THE PRESBYTERIANS
156
CHAPTER VII.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND MEN
187
THE WELSH
CHAPTER VIII.
vii 202
Contents
CHAPTER IX.
PAGE
THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE AND THE MECHANIC ARTS 209
CHAPTER X.
THE CONNECTICUT INVASION
237
CHAPTER XI.
THE BOUNDARY DISPUTES WITH MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA . .
318
CHAPTER XII.
RESULTS
355
THE MAKING OF PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER I.
THE DUTCH, THE SWEDES, AND THE DUKE OF YORK.
IT is the custom to consider the history of Pennsyl- vania as beginning with the early settlements on Dela- ware Bay, for the reason that some of these ancient people extended their habitations for a few miles within the present limits of our State, and also because any title the Dutch had to the land on the river included part of our present territory.
The early settlers were first of all the Dutch, who, beginning in the year 1623, occupied the shores of the Delaware for fifteen years. After them came the Swedes, who held the country for seventeen years. The Dutch reconquered the country and held it for nine years, when the English took it and, under the Duke of York, held it until the arrival of Penn and the Quakers in 1682.
The Dutch were the first Europeans who attempted to occupy Pennsylvania. Any right they may have had to it, as well as their right to New York, was acquired by the discoveries of Henry Hudson, who was an English- man in their employ. Hudson belonged to a family of
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The Making of Pennsylvania
explorers. They were all interested in the Muscovy Company, an organization founded in 1555 and devoted to discovering a path for commerce to China by going around either the northern extremity of Europe or the northern extremity of America. Hudson made several voyages for this purpose under the direction of the Eng- lish nation before he entered the service of the Dutch.
Very little is known about him. He appears to have had a house in London, and rather a large family. He was one of those Englishmen, as numerous three hun- dred years ago as now, who are willing to sacrifice every- thing and endure everything for the sake of sailing unknown seas and exploring unknown lands. He was a rough, intelligent, daring navigator. Many of the observations of latitude which he took are almost as ac- curate as those of modern times, and he penetrated far towards the pole. He was by no means overscrupulous in dealing with inferior races. When he landed at Port- land, Maine, he had no hesitation in driving the Indians from their village and robbing them of their property. " We took the spoyle of them," his log-book says in its sturdy English, " as they would have done of us."
The way in which he happened to discover the Dela- ware was somewhat curious. The Dutch had employed him to try once more to discover the route to China by going to the northeast around the northern end of Europe. He attempted it, but was driven back by the ice. If he had followed his instructions, he would have returned home; for he had no authority to attempt any- thing except to find the northeast passage. But just before he left Holland, he had received a letter from Cap- tain John Smith, of Virginia, also a great explorer, telling
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The Dutch and the Swedes
him that there was a passage through the land a little way north of Virginia, which probably led to the Pacific Ocean.
Smith had evidently been told by the Indians of Del- aware Bay, and, not having explored it, supposed it might be the passage long sought by every one. Hud- son decided to disregard his instructions from Holland and follow out the suggestion of Smith. He bore away for the coast of America, and made the land somewhere near Portland, Maine, where he robbed the Indians. He explored the coast of New England, getting as far south as Cape Cod. Then he stood out to sea, and went far southward to Virginia, so as to begin his work from the starting-point Smith had mentioned. He made the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and speaks of it in his log-book as the place of the English settlements. He saw Cape Charles at the mouth of the bay, and described it very accurately, calling it Dry Cape. He then began to work carefully northward along the shore, looking into every inlet and bay, passing by Chincoteague, and describing the general appearance of the coast as we know it to-day. It is rather remarkable that he escaped the dangerous shoals. His vessel was a small one, called the Halve- Maan, or Half-Moon, of about eighty tons' burden, with from fifteen to twenty Dutch and English sailors. She was probably about the size of one of our ordinary two- masted coasting schooners, but square-rigged, low in the bows and high-turreted astern.
His arrival at Cape Henlopen and Delaware Bay is announced in his log-book by the statement that the land suddenly turned to the west and northwest. He could see Cape May on the opposite side of the bay, and
9
The Making of Pennsylvania
he took its latitude, varying only three minutes from the most accurate observations of modern times. He had not proceeded far, however, when he became entangled in those shoals which still extend up and down the very middle of the bay. Indeed, he got aground before he was fairly within the bay, and apparently upon that shoal which is now known to extend southward from Cape Henlopen and is called the Hen and Chickens.
Large vessels now usually pass outside of this shoal. But Hudson, without the local knowledge of the modern coaster, attempted to go inside of it, and was caught on it at some point close to the cape. This is evident from an entry which the mate, Robert Juet, made in the log- book. "On a sudden," he says, "we came into three fathoms ; then we bore up, and had but 10 feet water, and joined to the point." But the tide was rising, and they were soon off; and the mate says, "As soon as we were over, we had 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 fathoms ;" which shows that they had passed into the deep water, now marked on the sailing charts as directly north of the shoal and in front of the cape. They turned into the bay and passed close to the spot where the Breakwater now is, and where the fleets of merchant vessels seek shelter from storms.
But soon they were again in trouble. "The bay," Juet says, "we found shoal, and had sight of beaches and dry sand." Probably they encountered shoals near what are now known as the Shears, close to the cape, and also perhaps Brown's shoal and the Brandywine, which lie near the main channel. The navigation of these waters is now regulated by an elaborate system of buoys and colored range lights. But Hudson and
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The Dutch and the Swedes
his mate, surrounded by what seemed to be endless sand and forests, were utterly bewildered; and they described their difficulties in language so natural and sailor-like, that we feel as if we must have known those two burly Englishmen, now nearly three hundred years in their graves.
If Hudson had remained another day in the bay and exercised a little more patience he might have found the main channel and worked his way up it. But he and Juet were thoroughly disgusted. It was the 28th of August, 1609. "A hot day," Juet says; and those who have summered at Cape May can readily believe him. They entered the bay at noon and remained in it scarcely six hours. About five in the afternoon they sailed out, and at seven in the evening were safely anchored in the ocean far from the troublesome shoals. Judging by the currents and the bars and sand, they concluded that a great river poured into the bay. If it was the northwest passage it was too shallow to become a very convenient highway for commerce. The much-perplexed Juet entered in the log-book,-" He that will thoroughly discover this great bay must have a small pinnace that will draw but four or five foot water to sound before him."
So they sailed away again up the coast of New Jersey, sounding and observing until the land again trended to the west and northwest, and they entered the harbor of New York. There were no shoals, and they sailed far up the river until satisfied that it was not the course to China.
Hudson never really reached the Delaware River, and was only a few miles within the capes of the bay. But
II
The Making of Pennsylvania
he had done enough to give his employers a vague claim to all the adjacent country. Six hours of tacking and hauling and sailors' oaths and ten lines of Juet's hand- writing in the log-book were enough to give the Dutch an empire of thousands of square miles of territory which may fairly be said to have included a large part of Pennsylvania.
The year after Hudson discovered the Delaware he started again for China by the northwest. He entered and explored Hudson's Bay, which still bears his name. But his crew, Juet among them, mutinied, turned him and his son adrift in a boat, and his adventurous career was closed. Juet soon died of famine, and his body fol- lowed that of his master into the sea.
The Delaware was named from Lord Delaware, who visited the mouth of the bay a year after Hudson, and eight years later made another voyage to the same place, where he met his death. Like Hudson, he was troubled by the sand bars, and reported the bay unnavigable.
Other visitors have given other names. The old maps are very curious. Each of the three nations, Dutch, Swede, and English, that contended for the possession had their own charts and renamed all important points. The Indians called it Pontaxat and Mariskiton. The Swedes called it New Swedeland stream. On some maps it appears as Arasapha; on others as New Port, May, and Godyn's Bay. The Dutch called it Nassau, Prince Hindrick, and sometimes Charles River. But they usually spoke of it as the Zuydt, or South River, as they called the Hudson the North.
The first person who conquered the shoals and really explored the river was a Dutchman, Captain Hendrick-
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The Dutch and the Swedes
son. In the year 1616 he penetrated as far as the Schuylkill, just below the present site of Philadelphia. He had a small yacht, the "Onrust," or "Restless," only forty-five feet long, which had been built at New York after the loss of his larger ship. In using this boat he may have been influenced by Juet's warning that it would require a vessel of light draft to explore thoroughly that great bay.
The first settlement of the Dutch on South River was about the year 1623, shortly after the founding of Mas- sachusetts. The expedition was conducted by Cornelius Mey, who gave his last name to one of the capes of the Delaware and his first name to the other. His last name, with the spelling altered, has stayed where he placed it. But Cape Cornelius is now known as Cape Henlopen. William Penn attempted to rename it after that man in whom he unwisely placed confidence, James II., but fortunately without effect.
The Dutch settlement was called Fort Nassau, and was at Gloucester Point, on the Jersey side of the river, almost opposite the present site of Philadelphia, and now famous for its shad parties. It was under the control of the Dutch West India Company, a powerful organiza- tion of Holland traders who managed for their nation the colonization in America.
They gave the land to patroons, who held it on a feudal tenure, as in New York. But it does not appear that any of these grants extended to Pennsylvania. Of the two that were made one was of the land round Cape Henlopen and the other of land around Cape May. In fact, the Dutch preferred to stay down the bay. They found Fort Nassau too high up and in 1650 abandoned it
13
The Making of Pennsylvania
for Fort Casimir, which, under English rule, became New Castle, now in the State of Delaware. They were traders rather than settlers. Their principal object was the collection of furs, and their actual occupation barely reached Pennsylvania.
One of their establishments, called Zwanendal, or Val- ley of the Swans, was, in all probability, near the present site of Lewes at Cape Henlopen. It was soon destroyed. They had set up the arms of Holland painted on a piece of tin. An Indian took it down to make a tobacco-pipe, and for this insult to a great nation was killed. His tribe made short work of the Dutchmen.
The undisturbed possession of the Dutch lasted only fifteen years, or until 1638, when the Swedes appeared. Before the Swedes came the Dutch had penetrated into Pennsylvania to the extent of purchasing from the Indians the valley of the Schuylkill, where they built a fort called Beversrede. The trade in beaver-skins at this point they described as enormous and much more valuable than the whale fishery which they had estab- lished at Cape Henlopen.
It was also about this time that a company of twelve or thirteen adventurers from Connecticut, under the lead of a certain George Holmes, attempted to establish them- selves on the Delaware and drive out the Dutch. They had the temerity to attack Fort Nassau, but were easily made prisoners and sent to New York. Some years afterwards, or about 1640, other attempts were made by Connecticut and two settlements effected, one at Salem, New Jersey, and the other on the Schuylkill in Pennsyl- vania. They claimed the land as English territory and part of Virginia. They bought out the Indian title, and
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The Dutch and the Swedes
to account for their ease in purchasing it related a likely story. A Pequot Indian from New England was in the country and told the Pennsylvania Indians that these Connecticut men were persons of such honest and exemplary lives that, although they had killed many of his tribe and driven him from his home, yet they ought to be given whatever they wanted.
This was the beginning of that spirit of enterprise on the part of the people of Connecticut which had for its object the acquisition of the territory of Pennsylvania. All through the time of the Swedes and Dutch we read of meetings being held in New England, especially at New Haven, church meetings as well as political meet- ings, for the purpose of sending expeditions to the Dela- ware. Scarcely a year passed without negotiations and letters and demands for the land. In 1665 they had so far perfected their plans that they thought their Dela- ware plantations might become larger than the home colony in Connecticut. In that event they had arranged that the governor should be part of the time in Connec- ticut and part of the time on the Delaware, and if the new plantation should grow still larger that he should reside altogether on the Delaware.
They expected much relief in tax rates as well as profit from the enterprise; and the old documents are very amusing in the way in which they mingle these economic considerations with religious zeal. Connecti- cut, we are assured, wanted the Delaware for "the for- warding of the Gospel and the good of posterity therein that they may live under the wings of Christ." * Their
* Hazard's Annals, 174.
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The Making of Pennsylvania
admiration for the beauty and fertility of our State never abated until they had claimed and partly settled the northern half of it, which brought on a long contention lasting until after the Revolution. Their early attempts on the Delaware were, however, easily disposed of by the Dutch and Swedes.
Sweden was not much given to colonization, and it is not likely that her people would have appeared on the Delaware had it not been for peculiar circumstances. She had for some years been living under the guidance of Gustavus Adolphus, her greatest ruler. He had led her to take the unaccustomed part of conqueror, and, in- spired by his genius and enthusiasm, she had waged war with no little success against Russia, Poland, and Aus- tria. Gustavus was an ardent Protestant; and he had joined his forces to those of Germany in the thirty years' war against the Catholic reaction, when his career was cut short by death. Conquests and success had given to both him and his people new ideas which extended out beyond the rocks and fiords of their native land. When, therefore, William Usselinex, a renegade Hol- lander, suggested the formation of a Swedish West India Company for colonization, Gustavus eagerly accepted his plans and afterwards spoke of the enterprise as the brightest jewel of his kingdom.
He never lived to carry out the plans which the ex- perience of Usselinex in the Dutch West India Company had prepared for him. But, after his death, under the reign of Christina, her Prime Minister, Oxenstjerna, sent the first settlers to the Delaware. They arrived in two vessels, the Key of Kalmar and the Griffen, all under command of Peter Minuit, another renegade Dutchman,
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The Dutch and the Swedes
conspicuous in the early history of New York. They settled near the present site of Wilmington, Delaware, calling the place Christina, after their queen, who became remarkable in the annals of royalty for having resigned a throne of which she professed to have become tired.
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