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 65
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I perceive by William Penn's letter of 1684, to his steward, J. H., that he thus speaks of James Claypole, whom he had made register,
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lo wit : " Tell me how he does; watch over him, his wife and fami- ly," &c. Penn also speaks of sending to his lot near the creek for red gravel, to form his garden walks at Pennsbury, if they found none nearer.
Hannah Griffeths,
A maiden lady of the Society of Friends, died in 1817, at the ad- vanced age of ninety-one years-born and bred in Philadelphia- was a very fine poetess. She wrote only fugitive pieces. I have seen several in MS., in the possession of her cousin, Mrs. Deborah Logan. Her satires were very keen and spirited; she was a very humane and pious woman. Had she written for fame, and made her productions public, she might have been allured to write more. She wrote a keen satire on the celebrated Meschianza ; she was a gran- daughter of Isaac Norris, and a great grandaughter of Thomas Lloyd. The goodness of her heart was very great, her wit lively and ever ready, and her talents of a high order; but her modesty and aversion to display always caused her to seek the shade.
The French Neutrals,
Were numerous French families transported from Acadia, in Nova Scotia, and distributed in the colonies, as a measure of state policy, the readier to make the new population there of English character and loyalty. The American general, who had orders to execute it, deemed it an unfeeling and rigorous command. These poor people became completely dispirited ; they used to weep over the story of their wrongs, and described the comfortable settlements and farms, from which they had been dragged, with very bitter regret. The humane and pious Anthony Benezet was their kind friend, and did whatever he could to ameliorate their situation. He educated many of their daughters. His charities to them were constant and unre- mitting.
For further particulars of this cruel business of the removal of these poor, inoffensive people, see Walsh's Appeal, Part I., p. 88.
The part which came to Philadelphia were provided with quar- ters in a long range of one-story wooden houses, built on the north side of Pine street, and extending from Fifth to Sixth street. Mr. Samuel Powell, the owner, who originally bought the whole square for £50, permitted the houses to be tenanted rent free, after the neutrals left them. As he never made any repairs, they fell into ruins about sixty years ago. The last of them remembered, at the corner of Sixth street, got overturned by a pair of timber wheels. At one time mean plays were shown in them, such as Mr. Punch ex hibits. Those neutrals remained there several years, showing very little disposition to amalgamate and settle with our society, or at- tempting any good for themselves. They made a French town in
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the midst of our society, and were content to live spiritless and poor. Finally they made themselves burdensome ; so that the authorities, to awaken them to more sensibility, determined, in the year 1757, to have their children bound out by the overseers of the poor, alleging, as their reason, that the parents had lived long enough at the public expense. It soon after occurred that they all went off in a body, to the banks of the Mississippi, near New Orleans, where their descend- ants may be still found, under the general name of Acadians, an easy, gentle, happy, but lowly people.
Lieutenant Bruluman,
Of the British American army, a Philadelphian by birth, was executed at Philadelphia in the year 1760, for the murder of Mr. Scull. The case was a strange one, and excited great interest at the time. The Lieutenant had gotten a wish to die, and instead of helping himself " with a bare bodkin," he coveted to have it done by another, and therefore hit upon the expedient of killing some one. He sallied forth with his gun, to take the first good subject he should fancy ; he met Doctor Cadwallader, (grandfather of the late General C.) and intended him as his victim; but the doctor, who had re- markably courteous manners, saluted him so gently and kindly as he drew near, that his will was subdued, and he, pursuing his way out High street, came to the bowling green at the Centre square,- there he saw Scull playing ; and as he and his company were about to retire into the inn to play billiards, he deliberately took his aim and killed him; he then calmly gave himself up, with the explana- tion above expressed. Some persons have since thought he might have been acquitted in the present day, as a case of mona insanity.
Colonel Frank Richardson
Was a person of great personal beauty and address, born of Quaker parentage at Chester. As he grew up, and mixed with the British officers in Philadelphia, he acquired a passion for their profession,- went to London, got a commission, and became at length a Colonel of the king's life guards. This was about the year 1770.
Susanna Wright
Was usually called a " celebrated" or an " extraordinary" woman in her "day and generation." She was a woman of rare endow- ment of mind-had a fine genius, and a virtuous and excellent heart. She made herself honoured and beloved wherever she went, or her communications were known. She came with her parents from England when she was about 17 years of age; they settled some time at Chester, much beloved, and then removed up to "Wright's Ferry, now Columbia, on the Susquehanna, in the year
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1726. At that time the country was all a forest, and the Indians all around them as neighbours ; so that the family were all there in the midst of the alarm of the Indian massacre by the Paxtang boys.
She wrote poetry with a ready facility ; her epistolary correspond- ence was very superior. She was indeed the most literary lady of the province, without sacrificing a single domestic duty to its pursuit. Her nursery of silkworms surpassed all others, and at one time she had 60 yards of silk mantua of her own production.
David I. Dove
Came to this country in 1758-9. He became a teacher of the languages in the Academy. He was made chiefly conspicuous for the part he took in the politics of the day, and by the caustic and satirical poetry he wrote to traduce his political enemies. Although he never obtained and perhaps never sought any office himself, yet he seemed only in his best element when active in the commotions around him ; he promoted the caricatures, and wrote some of the poetry for them, which were published in his time, and was himself caricatured in turn.
The late Judge R. Peters, who had been his Latin pupil, said of him, " he was a sarcastical and ill-tempered doggereliser, and was called Dove ironically-for his temper was that of a hawk, and his pen was the beak of a falcon pouncing on innocent prey."
At one time he opened a private academy in Germantown-in the house now Chancellor's, and there used a rare manner in sending for truant boys, by a committee who carried a lighted lantern-a sad exposure for a juvenile culprit !
Joseph Galloway
Was a lawyer of talents and wealth, of Philadelphia, a speaker of the Assembly, who took the royal side in the Revolution-joined the British when in Philadelphia, and became the general superin- tendent of the city under their sanction. He was at first favourable to some show of resistance, but never to independence or arms. His estates became confiscate ; he joined the British at New York, became secretary to the commander-in-chief, and finally settled in London. There he wrote and published against his patron, Sir William Howe, as having lost the conquest of our country by his love of entertain- ment and pleasure, rather than the sturdy self-denial of arms. Galloway owned and dwelt in the house now the Schuylkill Bank, at the south-east corner of High and Sixth streets. He had an only daughter, whom he found about to elope with a gentleman, after -. wards Judge Griffin, whom, for that reason, he shot at in his own house.
VOL. I-3 V
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The Rev. Morgan Edwards,
Minister to the First Baptist church, arrived in this country in the year 1758. In 1770, he published a history of the Baptists of Penn- sylvania-a work which is made curiously instructive as history, be- cause it is chiefly limited to their proper civil history, their first set- tlements in various parts of the country. On these points it contains facts to be found nowhere else. His book embraces notices of all those Germans, &c., who used adult baptism as essential parts of their system. He thus gives the history of George Keith's schism- an account of the Tunkers and Mennonists, &c.
The same gentleman became himself a curiosity of our city. President Smith, of Princeton college, has noticed the aberrations of his mind in his Nassau Lectures. Edwards was persuaded he was foretold the precise time of his death. He announced it from his pulpit, and took a solemn leave of all his people. His general sanity and correct mental deportment created a great confidence in very many people. At the time his house was crowded-all on tiptoe of expectation ; every moment was watched. He himself breathed with great concern and anxiety, thinking each action of his lungs his last ; but a good constitution surmounted the power of his ima- gination, and he could not die! Could a better subject be devised for the exercise of the painter's skill, as a work, showing the strongest workings of the human mind, both in the sufferer and in the be- holders-properly forming two pictures :- the first that of anxious credulity in all; and the latter, their disappointment and mortifica- tion ! He lived twenty years afterwards ; and the delusion made him so unpopular that he withdrew into the country. A good lesson to those who lean to supposed divine impressions, without the balance of right reason, and the written testimony of revelation.
Dusimitiere
Was a collector of the scraps and fragments of our history. He was a Swiss-French gentleman, who wrote and spoke our language readily, and being without family, and his mind turned to the curi- osities of literature and the facts of natural history, he spent much time in forming collections. He has left five volumes quarto, in the City Library, of his curious MSS. and rare fugitive printed papers. To be properly explored and usefully improved would require a mind as peculiar as his own. As he advanced in life he became more needy, and occupied himself, when he could, in drawing portraits and pictures in water colours. He lived in Philadelphia before and about the time of the Revolution ; and before that in New York and the West Indies. I have preserved an autograph letter of his in my MS. Annals in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 306, of the year 1766.
There is not much in his books respecting Pennsylvania, being
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only about half of one of his volumes. He has about fifty pages concerning the revolt of the Pennsylvania line, and most of the pa- pers are original. Bound up in his book are autographs of distin- guished personages-such as Hume, Smollet, Gray, &c. His first volume is about the West India islands, with drawings neatly exe- cuted ; sometimes he gives caricatures. He gives letters respecting the change of the post office from British to colonial, and how Mr. Goddard travelled as agent to collect subscriptions. [An account of the original post office may be gathered from Douglass.] There is also a strange account called " Life and character of a strange he- monster lately arrived in London from America,"-intended probably to satirize one of our public functionaries. There are also minutes of the Congress convention-some intercepted letters-a brief ac- count of Pennsylvania, by Lewis Evans-a deed from under the Duke of York to the Swensons for Philadelphia. His whole collec- tions, on the whole, may be deemed the curious gleanings of a curi- ous mind, and among some rubbish may be found, some day, some useful and unexpected elucidations of difficult points in our history.
Robert Proud.
I ought to feel and express respect for a fellow annalist who has preceded me. I felt a natural desire to become acquainted with the personal history of a gentleman and scholar, who gave so much of his time to seeking out the early history of our state. Without his diligence and procurement, much that we now know must have been lost.
He was born in Yorkshire, England, the 10th of May, 1728. His father was a farmer, who rented an old mansion house and a large farm, called Wood End, from the Talbot family. He received his education under a Mr. David Hall, a man well versed in the lan- guages, and with whom he maintained for many years "a friendly and agreeable correspondence."
" In his young days, (he says,) he had a strong inclination for learn- ing, virtue and true wisdom, before or in preference to all mere worldly considerations." Thus expressing, as I understand him, a lively religious sense, at this early age, of what " the true riches" consisted. Wherefore, says he, " I afterwards rejected on that ac- count those things, when I had it in my power to have appeared in a much superior character and station in the world, than I am since known to be in."
About the year 1750 he went to London, and became an inmate and preceptor in the families of Sylvanus and Timothy Bevan-gen- tlemen, of the Society of Friends, of fortune, and the former distin- guished for his skill in carving (as a skilful amateur) the only like- ness from which we have the busts of Penn, the founder. While with this family, and from his intimacy with Doctor Fothergill, (his kinsman,) he turned his leisure time to the study of medicine, in
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which he made much proficiency ; but to which, as he said, he took afterwards strong disgust, from its opening to him "a very glaring view of the chief causes of those diseases, (not to say vices,) which occasioned the greatest emoluments to the profession of medicine." There was something in his mind of moody melancholy against the world, for he did not like " the hurry of much employment, or the crowds of large cities ;" and as to money, so useful to all, he deemed the aim at riches " as the most despicable of worldly objects." He was therefore soon ripe to put in practice his project of seeking fewer friends, and more retirement in the American wilds. He therefore came, in 1759, among us, and lived long enough and needy enough to see that a better provision for his comforts would not have dimi- nished any of his religious enjoyments. Samuel Preston, Esq., an aged gentleman lately living, says disappointed love was the moving cause of R. Proud's demurs to the commonly received affections to life, that he had told him as much as that "the wind had always blown in his face, that he was mortified in love in England, and frustrated in some projects of business here"-ills enough, with the lasting loss of a desired mate, to make "earth's bright hopes" look dreary to him.
In 1761, he became teacher of the Greek and Latin languages in the Friend's academy. There he continued till the time of our Re- volution, when he entered into an unfortunate concern with his brother, losing, as he said, " by the confusion and the iniquities of the times." The non-success was imputable to his high tory feelings not permitting him to deal in any way to avail himself of the chances of the times. At the time of the peace he again resumed his school. Besides the Latin and Greek which he taught, he had considerable acquaintance with the French and the Hebrew. He relinquished his duties as a teacher in 1790 or '91, and lived very retired in the family of Samuel Clark, till the year 1813, when he died at the age of 86 years.
He had turned his mind to the collection of some facts of our his- tory before our Revolution, but it was only on his resignation of his school, in 1790-1, that he fully devoted his mind, at the request of some Friends, to the accomplishment of his task, which he ushered into the world, in 1797-8, deeming it, as he said, " a laborious and important work." In a pecuniary point of view, this, like his other projects, was also a failure. It realized no profits.
I quote from his biographer (C. W. Thomson) thus, to wit: Of his history-" as a succinct collection of historical facts, it undoubtedly deserves the most respectful attention; but its style is too dry, and its diction too inelegant ever to render it a classical work. It is exactly that stately old-fashioned article, that its author himself was." Feelingly I can appreciate his further remark, when he adds, " He who has never undertaken so arduous a task, knows little of the persevering patience it requires to thus go before and gather up the segregated materials, or to sort, select and arrange the scattered
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fragn ents of broken facts, the body and essence of such a composi tion."
" He was in person tall -- his nose of the Roman order, and over- hung with most impending brows-his head covered with a curled gray wig, and surmounted with the half-cocked patriarchal hat, and in his hand a long ivory-headed cane. He possessed gentleness and kindness of manner in society, and in his school he was mild, com- manding and affectionate."
I am indebted to J. P. Norris, Esq., one of his executors, and once one of his pupils, for access to several of his private papers, which will help to a better illustration of his character.
He says in his written memoranda-" Before and after this time, (1790,) I was frequently in a very infirm state of health, notwith- standing which I revised and published my History of Pennsylvania, though imperfect and deficient; the necessary and authentic mate- rials being very defective, and my declining health not permitting me to finish it entirely to my mind, and I had reason to apprehend, if it was not then published, nothing of the kind so complete, even with all its defects, would be likely to be published at all; and which publication, though the best extant of the kind, as a true and faithful record, was not patronised as I expected, not even by the offspring and lineal successors of the first and early settlers, and for whose sake it was particularly undertaken by me-to my great loss and disap- pointment. A performance intended both for public and private in- formation and benefit, and to prevent future publishing and farther spreading false accounts or misrepresentations. My former friends and acquaintance, (except some of my quondam pupils,) being nearly gone, removed, or deceased, and their successors become more and more strangers, unacquainted with and alien to me, renders my final removal or departure from my present state of existence so much the more welcome and desirable-
Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pass away.
" For which I am now waiting, and thus according to the words of the aged person, I may say, 'Few and evil have been the years of my life,' yet in part according to my desire, I seem not to have so much anxiety and concern about the conclusion and consequence thereof, as I have had at times for the propriety of my future con- duct, and advancement in the way of truth and righteousness in said state, so as to insure the continued favour of a sensible enjoyment of the divine presence and preservation while here, in order for a happy futurity and 'eternal life."
In publishing his History of Pennsylvania, he was aided by seve- ral of his former pupils, who, under the name of a loan, advanced a sum sufficient for the purpose. He left a number of MSS., princi- rally poetry, of which he was fond ; and being what was called a
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tory, allusions are often made in many of them to the conduct of the colonists, which are pretty severe. I add one or two as a speci- men, though his translation of Makin's Latin poems may give a pretty good idea of what was his talent. Well versed in the Latin and Greek languages, and with the authors who wrote in them, read- ing and translating parts of them was his solace and comfort in the evening of life.
He suffered much in his circumstances by the paper money, espe- cially by that issued by the provincial government prior to the Revo- lution, and as he had no doubt of the issue of the contest, he thought Great Britain would make it all good, and therefore retained it in his hands, till it became worse than nothing. In fact, he was never calculated for the storms and turmoil of life, but rather for the retire- ment of the academic grove, in converse with Plato, Seneca, Socrates, and other ancient worthies.
He died in 1813, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. He left nine of his former pupils his executors, viz .: O. Jones, Mier Fisher, Dr. Parke, J. P. Norris, B. R. Morgan, Dr. James, Joshua Ash, Joseph Sansom, and J. E. Cresson ; all of whom renounced but B. R. Morgan, Esq., and J. P. Norris, who at the request of the others un- dertook the office.
None of Proud's name or family remain among us. He died a bachelor, and, as he called himself, " a decayed gentleman." He was full six feet high-rather slender. In winter he wore a drab cloak, which gave to his personal appearance the similitude of one in West's Indian treaty picture. His brother, who was once here, a single man, went back to England.
I here add two specimens of his poetry, which also show his tory feelings, vexed with the ardour of the times, to wit :
FORBIDDEN FRUIT.
The source of human misery-A reflection. Philadelphia, 1775.
Forbidden fruit's in every state The source of human wo; Forbidden fruit our fathers ate And sadly found it so.
Forbidden fruit's rebellion's cause, In ev'ry sense and time : Forbidden fruit's the fatal growth Of ev'ry age and clime.
Forbidden fruit's New England's choice ; She claims it as her due ; Forbidden fruit, with heart and voice. The colonies pursue.
Forbidden fruit our parents chose Instead of life and peace ; Forbidden fruit to be the choice Of men will never cease.
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THE CONTRAST.
(" Refused a place in the newspaper, Philadelphia, 1775-the printer not daring to insert it at that time of much boasted liberty.")
No greater bliss doth God on man bestow,
Than sacred peace ; from which all blessings flow :
In peace the city reaps the merchant's gains, In peace flows plenty from the rural plains ;
In peace through foreign lands the stranger may Fearless and safely travel on his way.
No greater curse invades the world below, Than civil war, the source of ev'ry wo
In war the city wastes in dire distress; In war the rural plains, a wilderness ; In war, the road, the city and the plain
Are scenes of wo, of blood and dying men. Nulla salus bello .- VIRG.
I also add a little of his poetry concerning his age and country, the autographs of which may be seen, by the curious, on page 346 of my MS. Annals, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, to wit :
Now seventy-seven years at last Of my declining life are past ; Painful and weak my body's grown, My flesh is wasted to the bone. As ev'ry other thing we see, Which hath beginning, so must we Dissolve into the state we were Before our present being here; From which 'tis plain to ev'ry eye, Men die to live, and live to die.
" Ubi amicus, ibi patria."-MARTIAL. Where my friend is, there is my country.
You ask me when I shall again My country see, my native plain ? 'Tis not alone the soil nor air, Where I was born, I most prefer ; Among my friends, where'er I come, There is my country, there my home.
Charles Thomson.
This venerable, pious and meritorious public servant, whose name is associated with all the leading measures of the war of Independ- ence, came from Ireland to this country in his boyhood, at only ten years of age. His father was a respectable man, a widower, emigrat- ing to this country, but was so preyed upon by sickness at sea, as to die when just within sight of our capes; there young Thomson and
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his brother had to endure the appalling sight of seeing their honoured parent cast into the deep-a prey to voracious fishes, and themselves, as orphans, exposed to the neglect or wiles of man. The captain, in the opinion of the lads, was unfaithful, and took possession of their father's property to their exclusion. They were landed at Newcastle, among strangers; but for a time were placed by the cap- tain with the family of a blacksmith. There Charles Thomson greatly endeared himself to the family-so much so, that they thought of getting him bound to them, and to be brought up to the trade .* He chanced to overhear them speaking on this design one night, and determining, from the vigour of his mind, that he should devote him- self to better business, he arose in the night and made his escape with his little all packed upon his back. As he trudged the road, not knowing whither he went, it was his chance or providence in the case, to be overtaken by a travelling lady of the neighbourhood, who, entering into conversation with him, asked him " what he would like to be in future life." He promptly answered, he should like to be a scholar, or to gain his support by his mind and pen. This so much pleased her that she took him home and placed him at school. He was afterwards, as I have understood, aided in his education by his bro- ther, who was older than himself. Through him he was educated by that classical scholar, the Rev. Dr. Allison, who taught at Thunder hill. Grateful for the help of this brother, he in after life rewarded the favour by making him the gift of a farm not far from Newcastle. The son of that brother, (a very gentlemanly man,) my friend and correspondent, John Thomson, Esq., now dwells at Newark, in Delaware, and has possession of all the MSS. of his uncle, Charles Thomson. With him dwells Charles Thomson's sister, an ancient maiden lady, who came out to this country some years ago. Charles Thomson himself, although many years married, never had any children to live.
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