USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the olden time; being a collection of the memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 63
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I have seen in the hands of the late Benjamin Lehman of Germantown, a curious autograph letter of Count Zinzendorf to Frederick Fende, (i. e. Vende,) being the same which was also pub- lished in Bradford's Mercury, No. 1214, on the 14th of August, 1743, together with one to Mr. Neuman. These letters of 1741-2, are ad- dressed to parents who complained to the Count of his taking off their young and maiden daughters to Germany as members of his congregation. The MS. letter which I have mentioned above is dated Philadelphia, December 26th, 1742, and reads in extract trans- lation thus : "To the cooper, F. Vende, in Germantown-I take you both-man and wife-to be notorious children of the devil,* and you, the woman, to be a twofold child of hell. Yet I would have your damnation as tolerable as possible. The laws provide against such unreasonable parents, and will not suffer you to keep your daughter against her consent. Yet you may vex her soul. If that
* They bore excellent moral characters ; and he used to preach in their house, where now J. Bowman's house is.
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sevenfold devil which possesseth you will permit-then consider and leave your daughter peaceably with the congregation," &c. To Neu- man, he wrote, " In case you die without forcing your daughter away, your former sin shall be forgiven you, but if you resume your murdering spirit against her soul, by her consent or not, I recall my peace, and you I leave to the devil, and the curse of your child, thereby lost, shall rest on you till she is redeemed-Amen !" This is really very curious supremacy as well as theology. Miss Lehman and Miss Vende, much against the will of their families, went off to Germany.
Kalm, the Swedish traveller, here in 1748, says, " his uncommon behaviour here persuaded many Englishmen of rank that he was dis- ordered in his head."
A MS. letter of James Logan of the year 1743, written in confi- dential frankness to a friend, speaks of the Count as follows, to wit: - " I have had frequent intercourse with him, and heartily wish I could say any thing concerning him to satisfaction ; but his conduct lost him all credit here, being now only regarded by his own few Mora- vians. He sent to the Friend's Meeting a letter signed Anne the El- der, written in an odd French style, which it was difficult to put into any consistent meaning or sense. About the same time he framed an instrument of resignation of all his honours and dignities to some relative. This was done in Latin, but still more odd than his French -in some parts carrying a show of elegance, but in other parts mere nonsense ; in other places plain enough, and in others perfectly un- intelligible. This he desired of me to put into English. As I could not, he had it printed as it was, and invited the governor and all who understood Latin to meet him. Several met, when he read off his instrument, giving each of them a printed copy ; but after all this pa- rade, he withdrew his papers and himself too, saying, on reflection, he must first advise with some of his friends in Germany. This conduct much astonished the company, who generally concluded him insane. He has lately been visiting the Iroquois. In short, he ap- pears a mere knight-errant in religion, scarce less than Don Quixote was in chivalry !" Other facts of his singular behaviour are men- tioned by Logan. I have preserved some other facts respecting his strange conduct in Germantown. Very wild notions are imputed to him too, and told in detail by Rimius, of Prussia, who printed a book of it in London in 1753. The decree of George III. as Elector of Hanover against them, and which induced them to come to Pennsyl- vania, see in Pennsylvania Journal of the 20th of December, 1750.
Bethlehem, where the Count settled his sect, was said to have re- ceived its name from his purpose of adding all the other names of the Holy Land. Secretary Peters' MS. Jetter to the Penn family says, " The Count desired to name his villages after all the names in the Holy Land, and to settle there ten thousand people on sixteen miles square of land.
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Bradford Family.
William Bradford was the first printer who settled in this colony- (Pa.) He was the son of William and Anne Bradford, of Leicester, England, at which place he was born. He served his apprenticeship in London with Andrew Sowles, printer, in Grace Church street, and married his daughter Elizabeth. Sowles was intimately acquainted with George Fox, the founder of the English sect of Quakers. Sowles was one of his sect, and printed for the society. Bradford adopted the principles of the Quakers, and was among the first emi- grants from England to Pennsylvania in 1682, and landed at the spot where Philadelphia was soon after laid out, before a house was built. The next year his wife arrived.
At what place he first settled is rather uncertain ; but it was, as he expresses it, " near Philadelphia." As the general assembly was holden at Chester, and this borough became, for a time, a place of conse- quence, it is probable that Bradford resided there until Philadelphia assumed the appearance of a city ; he might, however, have set up his press at Burlington, which is but eighteen miles distant from Philadelphia, and was then the capital of New Jersey ; or even at Kensington, then a small village. The first work printed by Brad- ford, which has reached us with a date, is " An Almanac for the year of the Christian account 1687, particularly respecting the meridian and latitude of Burlington, but may indifferently serve all places adjacent. By Daniel Leeds, student in agriculture. Printed and sold by William Bradford, near Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, pro Anno 1687."
In 1689, Bradford lived in the city. A quarto pamphlet by George Keith, respecting the New England churches, printed by Bradford in Philadelphia in that year, is the oldest book I have seen, printed in the city.
In the year 1692, much contention prevailed among the Quakers in Philadelphia, and Bradford took an active part in the quarrel. George Keith, by birth a Scotchman, a man of good abilities and well educated, was surveyor general in New Jersey ; and the Society of Friends in this city employed him in 1689, as the superintendent of their schools. Keith, having attended this duty nearly two years, became a public speaker in their religious assemblies ; but being, as the Quakers asserted, of a turbulent and overbearing spirit, he gave them much trouble ; they forbade him speaking as a teacher or mini- ster in their meetings ; this, and some other irritating circumstances, caused a division among the Friends, and the parties were greatly nostile to each other. Bradford was of the party which was attached to Keith, and supported him ; their opponents were the majority. Among them were the Lieutenant Governor Lloyd, and most of the Quaker magistrates. Keith and Thomas Budd wrote against the majority, and Bradford published their writings.
Keith was condemned in the city meetings, but he appealed to the
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general meeting of the Friends ; and, in order that his case might be generally known and understood, he wrote an address to the Quakers, which he caused to be printed, and copies of it to be dispersed among the Friends, previous to their general meeting. This conduct was highly resented by his opponents; the address was denominated sedi- tious, and Bradford was arrested and imprisoned for printing it. The sheriff seized a form containing four quarto pages of the types of the address ; he also took into his custody a quantity of paper, and a number of books, which were in Bradford's shop, with all the copies of the address which he could find. The civil authority took up the business ; and as Keith and Bradford stated the facts, they who op- posed them in the religious assemblies, condemned and imprisoned them by civil process-the judges of the courts being the leading characters in the meetings. Several of Keith's party were appre- hended and imprisoned with Bradford ; and, among them, Thomas Budd and John Macomb. The offence of the latter consisted in his having two copies of the address, which he gave to two friends in compliance with their request.
The following was the warrant for committing Bradford and Ma- comb :
" Whereas William Bradford, printer, and John Macomb, tailor, being brought before us upon an information of publishing, uttering and spreading a malicious and seditions paper, entitled, an Appeal from the twenty-eight judges* to the Spirit of the Truth, &c. Tend- ing to the disturbance of the peace and the subversion of the present government, and the said persons being required to give securitie to answer it at the next court, but they refused so to do. These are therefore by the King and Queen's authoritie and in our proprietary's name, to require you to take into your custody the bodies of Wil- liam Bradford and John Macomb, and them safely keep till they shall be discharged by due course of law. Whereof fail not at your peril ; and for your so doing, this shall be your sufficient war- rant. Given under our hands and seals this 24th of August, 1692.
" These to John White, Sheriff of Philadelphia, or his deputies." Signed by Arthur Cook and four others.
The day after the imprisonment of Bradford and his friends, a " Private Sessions," as it was called, of the county court was holden by six Justices, all Quakers, who, to put a just complexion on their proceedings, requested the attendance of two magistrates who were not Quakers.
This court assembled, it seems, for the purpose of convicting Keith, Budd, and their connexions, of seditious conduct ; but the two ma- gistrates who were not Quakers, if we credit Keith and Bradford, re- probated the measure, and refused to have any concern in it, declaring,
ยท " Twenty-eight," meaning those who condemned Keith, in what he called " their spiritual court "
......
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that the whole transaction was a mere dispute among the Quakers respecting their religion, in which the government had no concern. They, however, advised that Keith and others accused should be sent for, and allowed to defend themselves, and affirmed that if any thing like sedition appeared in their practice, they would join heart and hand in their prosecution. To this the Quaker magistrates would not consent, and the others in consequence left the court. The court then, as is stated in a pamphlet,* " proceeded in their work, and as they judged George Keith in their spiritual court with- out all hearing or trial, so in like manner they prosecuted him in their temporal court without all hearing." The pamphlet further states that " one of the judges declared that the court could judge of matter of fact without evidence, and therefore, without more to do, proclaimed George Keith by the common cryer, in the market place, to be a seditious person, and an enemy to the King and Queen's go- vernment."
Bradford and Macomb, who had been imprisoned, appeared at this court, and requested that they might be brought to trial ; pleading that it was very injurious to them and their families to remain in confinement. They claimed, as free-born English subjects, the rights secured by Magna Charta, among which was the prompt ad- ministration of justice ; and Bradford, in particular, desired that his trial might then take place, " because, not only his person was re- strained, but his working tools, and the paper and books from his shop were taken from him, and without these he could not work and maintain his family."
Soon after this session of the court, Bradford was, by some indul- gence, released from his confinement. It is said, that in the exami- nation of the 'frame,' the jury not being acquainted with reading backwards, attempted to raise it from the plank on which it was placed, and to put it in a more favorable situation for inspection ; and that one of them, assisting with his cane, pushed against the bottom of the types as the form was placed perpendicularly, when, like magic, this evidence against Bradford instantly vanished, the types fell from the frame, or chase, as it is termed by printers, formed a confused heap, and prevented further investigation.
Bradford having incurred the displeasure of the dominant party in Pennsylvania, and receiving encouragement to settle in New York, he, in 1693, removed to that city ; but it is supposed he had a con- cern in the press which was continued in Philadelphia, by Reinier Johnson, from that time until Andrew Bradford took charge of it in 1712.
* This pamphlet is entitled, "New England Spirit of persecution transmitted to Penn- sylvania, and the Pretended Quaker found Persecuting the True Christian Quaker, in the Tryal of Peter Boss, George Keith, Thomas Budd and William Bradford, at the Sessyons held at Philadelphia, the Ninth, Tenth, and Twelfth days of December, 1692 Giving an account of the most Arbitrary Proceedings of that Court."
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Bradford continued to print for the government of New York, and during thirty years was the only printer in the province.
On the 16th of October, 1725, he began the publication of the first newspaper printed in that colony.
He continued his residence in that city, and enjoyed a long life, without experiencing sickness or the usual infirmities of age. Seve- ral years before his death he retired from business, and lived with his son William in Hanover Square.
On the morning of the day which closed his life, he walked over a great part of the city. He died May 23d, 1752, aged ninety-four. The New York Gazette, which announced his death on the Monday following, mentions that "he came to America seventy years ago : was printer to the government upwards of fifty years; and was a man of great sobriety and industry ; a real friend to the poor and needy, and kind and affable to all. His temperance was exceedingly conspicuous ; and he was almost a stranger to sickness all his life. He had left off business several years past, and being quite worn out with old age and labour, his lamp of life went out for want of oil." There is at Trinity church, N. Y., a grave stone, inscribed to the memory of himself and wife, making himself ninety-two years of age, and his wife Elizabeth, who died in 1731, sixty-eight years of age.
The whole of the curious trial he encountered at Philadelphia in 1692, before the court of justice, (all Friends like himself,) may be seen in Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, vol. 2, page 55.
In 1702, William Bradford is spoken of in Samuel Bonas' Journal, as having combined with George Keith to have said Bonas prosecuted and imprisoned on Long Island. Bonas says he was dispossessed of his place as printer for Friends, and was disowned because of his contentions among them at Philadelphia.
Andrew Bradford, his son, began " the Weekly Mercury," the first city gazette, in 1719, in conjunction with John Copson. In 1725, he was arraigned before the Council, concerning a late pam- phlet, entitled "Some Remedies proposed for restoring the sunk credit of the province ;" and also for printing a certain paragraph in his Mercury of the second of January. The Governor informed him he must not thereafter publish any thing relating to affairs of this go- vernment without permission from him or his Secretary ; to which he promising submission, the subject was dismissed. About this time he held the place of Postmaster. The father (William) and the son (Andrew) are thus spoken of in Keimer's poetic effusion of the year 1734, saying-
" In Penn's wooden country Type feels no disaster, The Printers grow rich ; one is made their Post Master; His father, a Printer, is paid for his work, And wallows in plenty, just now, at New York, Though quite past his labour, and old as my Grannum, The Government pays him, pounds sixty per annum."
Andrew Bradford died 23d November, 1742.
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About the year 1754, William Bradford, probably the son of An- drew, with whom he was once a partner in the Mercury, opened " the London Coffee House," for the first time, at the south-west corner of High and Front streets. The peculiar terms under which he engaged to manage it as a place for the refreshing beverage of coffee, served up daily from a "hissing urn," and the after terms of 1780, by his successor Gifford Dally, to keep it without games, or sales on the Sabbath, &c., may be seen under the article " Old Lon- don Coffee House." The same William had, however, then a Gazette under publication, called the "Pennsylvania Journal," begun directly after the death of his father, Andrew, in 1742. In 1766, he united to his imprint the name of his son Thomas Bradford, lately alive at the age of 88. William Bradford lived till the year 1791, leaving his paper in the hands of his son Thomas, who finally merged it into the " True American," a daily paper of modern times.
In the year 1757, an " American Magazine" was started by Wil- liam Bradford, to continue monthly, but it was soon discontinued, probably for want of sufficient support.
The sons of Thomas Bradford also became printers and publish- ers, thus continuing this ancient family in the line of printers and publishers, even to the present day.
The Hudson Family.
Mrs. Deborah Logan told me that she was informed by one of tne daughters of the Hudson family of Philadelphia, which came here from Jamaica at the time of the first settlement, that they were the kinsfolk of the celebrated Captain Henry Hudson, the discoverer of our country. That lady was respectable and intelligent, and if now alive would be past one hundred years of age. Her brother, Samuel Hudson, was the last male of the family, the descendants by the female line are now respectable members of society. A table of family descent is now in possession of William Howell, a de- scendant. The original William Hudson, who first came here, had been an Episcopal clergyman, and became a Friend by convince- ment; while he lived he was honoured with several offices. The house which he built and dwelt in, in Philadelphia, was of very respectable and venerable appearance, having a brick portico before the door, and a court yard on Third street, and another as an outlet in Chestnut street-thus placing his house on the premises now of Charles C. Watson, near the corner of Third and Chestnut streets ; he had property also on the line of Hudson's alley, which gave rise to that name.
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John Bartram.
John Bartram was a most accurate observer of nature, and one of the first botanists this country ever produced, a self-taught genius, whom Linnaeus called " the greatest natural botanist in the world." He seated himself on the bank of the Schuylkill, below Gray's Fer- ry, where he built a comfortable stone house and formed his botanic garden, in which there still remain some of the most rare and curi- ous specimens of our plants and trees, collected by him in Florida, Canada, &c. The garden is still kept up with much skill by Colonel Carr, who married his grandaughter, and is always worthy of a visit. He enjoyed, for many years preceding the Revolution, a salary as botanist to the royal family of England.
In the year 1741, a subscription was made, to enable him to travel through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, to observe and collect plants and fossils.
In 1729, James Logan, in a letter to his friend in England, thus writes respecting him, saying, " Please to procure me Parkinson's Herbal; I shall make it a present to a worthy person, worthy of a heavier purse than fortune has yet allowed him. John Bartram has a genius perfectly well turned for botany ; no man in these parts is so capable of serving you, but none can worse bear the loss of his time without a due consideration."
Hector St. John, of Carlisle, has left a picturesque description of things seen and observed of John Bartram and his garden, &c., as they appeared on a visit made to him before the Revolution. There Mr. Bartram, with his visiter, his family and slaves, all sat down to one large table, well stored with wholesome fare. The blacks were placed at the foot-the guest near the host; there was kindness froin the master to them, and in return they gave him affection and fidelity. The whole group and manner reminds one of the patri archal manner of the Old Testament. Some whom he freed stil chose to remain with him until their death. Bartram described his low grounds as at first a putrid swampy soil, which he succeeded to reclaim by draining and ditching .* Although he was a Friend he had a picture of family arms, which he preserved as a memorial of his forefather's having been French. In this visit he particularly speaks of noticing the abundance of red clover sowed in his upland fields-an improvement in agriculture, since thought to have not been so early cultivated among us. He spoke of his first passion for the study of botany, as excited by his contemplating a simple daisy, as he rested from his ploughing, under a tree; then it was he first thought it
* This was then deemed a novel experiment, the first then made in our country. He also led waters from higher grounds through his higher lands which were before worth less ; and in both cases succeeded to form artificial grass pastures, by means now com mon enough,-but then deemed wonderful.
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much his shame to have been so long the means of destroying many flowers and plants, without ever before stopping to consider their nature and uses. This thought, thus originated, often revived, until at last it inspired real efforts to study their character, &c., both from observation and reading.
John Bartram was born in the year 1701, in Chester county, in Pennsylvania, being of the second line of descent from his grand- father, John Bartram, who, with his family, came from Derbyshire, England, with the adherents of the justly famed William Penn, pro- prietor, when he established the colony, and founded the city of Philadelphia, Anno Domini 1682.
Thus being born in a newly settled country, at so vast a distance from the old world, the seat of arts and sciences, it cannot be sup- posed that he could have acquired great advantage from the aids of literature; having acquired, however, the best instruction that coun- try schools at that early time could afford, and at every possible op- portunity, by associating with the most learned and respectable charac- ters, with difficulty he obtained the rudiments of the learned languages which he studied with extraordinary application and success. He had a very early inclination and relish for the study of the Materia Medica and Surgery, and acquired so much knowledge in these sciences as to administer great relief to the indigent and distressed. And as the vegetable kingdom afforded him most of his medicines, it seems extremely probable this might have excited a desire and pointed out to him the necessity of the study of botany. Although bred a husbandman and cultivator, as the principal means of providing sub- sistence for supporting a large family, yet he pursued his studies as a philosopher, being attentive to the economy of nature and observant of her most minute operations. When ploughing and sowing his fields, or mowing the meadows, his inquisitive mind was exercised in contemplating the vegetable system, and of animated nature.
He was perhaps the first Anglo-American who imagined the design, or at least carried into operation a botanic garden for the reception of American vegetables as well as exotics, and for travelling for the dis- covery and acquisition of them. He purchased a convenient place on the banks of the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, where, after build- ing a house of hewn stone with his own hands, he laid out a large gar- den, containing six or seven acres of ground, that comprehended a variety of soils and situations, and soon replenished it with a variety of curious and beautiful vegetables, the fruits of his distant excur- sions ; but though highly gratified and delighted with beholding the success of his labours, yet his benevolent mind contemplated more extensive plans, which was to communicate his discoveries and col- lections to Europe and other parts of the earth, that the whole world might participate in his enjoyments. Fortunate in the society and friendship of many literary and eminent characters of America, namely, Dr. B. Franklin, Dr. Colden, J. Logan, Esq., and several others, who, observing his genius and industry, liberally assisted him
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in establishing a correspondence with the great men of science in England, particularly P. Collinson, whose intimate friendship and correspondence continued unabated nearly fifty years, and termina.ed only with life, through whose patronage and philosophy his collec- tions, relating to Natural History, Physiological and Philosophical investigations, were communicated to men of science in Europe, and annually laid before their Societies, of which he was in fellow- ship.
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