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 69
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He was born at Philadelphia the 26th of August, 1723-son of Israel, and grandson of Phineas Pemberton, one of the early and distinguished settlers of Pennsylvania.
His education was conducted at the Friends' school. From his youth he was distinguished for diligence, integrity and benevolence. In 1745 he travelled to Carolina, and in 1748 he visited Europe and travelled much in England. On his return he engaged extensively in commerce, in which he received successful returns, and always by prescribed rules of the most punctilious probity-some instances of which are remembered to his honor. He was an ardent agent in all measures of decided good. He was a liberal contributor and useful manager of the Pennsylvania Hospital-an active member in the Friendly association for preserving peace with the Indians-one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. He was a lead- ing member of his own religious society-always loved and always respected. He was averse to war, and to our revolutionary movements, because he was a Friend, and besides this, he did not suppose that dif- ferences could only be settled by arms. The consequence was, venera- b.e and peace-loving as he looks in his portrait, he was included in the sixteen or seventeen other citizens of Philadelphia who were banished to Virginia in 1777, " to keep the peace." There he spent a couple
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of years and wrote out a journal, some of which has been published in the Friends' Miscellany, volume 7. He died, a patriarch, at Phila- delphia, February, 1809, in his 87th year-almost the last of the race of the " cocked hats" and certainly one of the very best pictorial illustrations of by-gone times and primitive men.
The Rev. Jacob Duche
He was the son of a respectable merchant of the same name, and grandson of Andrew Duché, a worthy Huguenot, who fled from France and came to this country with William Penn.
The reverend subject of this notice, Jacob Duché, was born about the year 1740. He was educated in the Philadelphia College, where he often distinguished himself. He was a good orator, and a ready ver- sifier. In time he studied theology-went to England for holy orders, and after his return became an assistant and afterwards, in 1755, a rector in Christ Church and St. Peter's. As a preacher he enjoyed great popularity. His appearance and manners were imposing -- his voice was full and musical-his elocution uncommonly graceful, and his sermons oratorical.
But what made his name and fame most conspicuous was his at- tempt, by letter to General Washington, to bring him over to the British side in the Revolution! It was of course an abortive effort, and had the effect to drive himself away, by flight, from his country and home,-so that he remained abroad-in England, till after the peace : then he returned and died among us, repentant and humbled at the course he had taken. His conduct was not so much the result of defection as discouragement. He had at the beginning of the struggle set out as an ardent whig-he had preached on public occa- sions sermons full of patriotic ardour, and had been elected chaplain of the American Congress, in July, 1776 : and while he held this of- fice he had appropriated his salary to the relief of the families whose members had been slain in battle. But alarmed and terrified, at length, by the increasing gloom and despondency of the period, when the British marched successfully through the Jerseys, and at length occupied Philadelphia, he forsook his former principles and bias,- went over to the stronger side, and then wrote his well known letter to General Washington, to urge him to make the same peace for himself and country !
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Aged Persons
AGED PERSONS.
" The hands of yore That danced our infancy upon their knee And told our marvelling boyhood, legends' store, Of their strange ventures, happ'd by land and sea,- How they are blotted from the things that be !"
THERE is something grateful, and perhaps sublime, in contemplat- ing instances of prolonged life,-to see persons escaped the nume- rous ills of life unscathed. They stand like venerable oaks, steadfast among the minor trees, e'en wondered at because they fell no sooner. We instinctively regard them as a privileged order, especially when they bear their years with vigour, " like a lusty winter," they being alone able to preserve unbroken the link which binds us to the re- motest past. While they remain, they serve to strangely diminish our conceptions of time past, which never seems fully gone while any of its proper generation remains among us.
These thoughts will be illustrated and sustained by introducing to consideration the names and persons who have been the familiars of the present generation, and yet saw and conversed with Penn, the founder, and his primitive cotemporaries! How such conceptions stride over time! All the long, long years of our nation seem dimi- nished to a narrow span !- For instance :
Samuel R. Fisher, a merchant, late in this city, in his 84th year, told me he well remembered to have seen, at Kendall Meeting, James Wilson, a public Friend, who said he perfectly remembered seeing both George Fox, the founder of Friends, and William Penn, the founder of our city !
Often, too, I have seen and conversed with the late venerable Charles Thomson, the secretary of the first Congress, who often spoke of his being curious to find out, and to converse with the primitive settlers, which still remained in his youth.
Every person who has been familiar with Dr. Franklin, who died in 1790, and saw Philadelphia from the year 1723, had the chance of hearing him tell of his seeing and conversing with numerous first set- tlers. Still better was their chance who knew old Hutton, who died in 1793, at the prolonged age of 108 years, and had seen Penn in his second visit to Philadelphia, in 1700,-and better still were the means of those now alive, who knew old Drinker, who died as late as the year 1782, at the age of 102 years, and had seen Philadelphia, where he was born, in 1680, even at the time of the primitive land- ing and settlement in caves! Nor were they alone in this rare op portunity, for there was also the still rarer instance of old black Alice, who died as late as the year 1802, and might have been readily seen by me,-she then being 116 years of age, with a sound memory to. the last, distinctly remembered William Penn, whose pipe she often
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lighted, (to use her own words,) and Thomas Story, James Logan, and several other personages of fame in our annals. The late Mrs. Logan has told me, that much of her known affection for the recitals of the olden time were generated in her youth, by her frequent con- versations with old Deborah Claypole, who lived to the age of 95 years, and had seen all the primitive race of the city,-knew Penn- knew the place of his cottage in Lætitia court, when the whole area was tangled with a luxurious growth of blackberries. Her regrets now are, that she did not avail herself more of the recollections of such a chronicle, than she then did. The common inconsideracy of youth was the cause.
It may amuse and interest to extend the list a little further, to wit : The late aged Sarah Shoemaker, who died in 1825 at the age of 95 years, told me she often had conversed with aged persons in her young days, who had seen and talked with Penn and his compa- nions. In May, 1824, I conversed with Israel Reynolds, Esq., of Nottingham, Maryland, then in his 66th year, a hale and newly mar ried man, who told me he often saw and conversed with his grand- father, Henry Reynolds, a public Friend, who lived to be 94 years of age, and had been familiar with Penn, both in Philadelphia and in England; he had also cultivated corn in the city near the Dock creek, and caught fish there.
Mrs. Hannah Speakman,who died in 1833, aged 80 years, has told me that she has often talked with aged persons who saw or conversed with Penn, but being then in giddy youth, she made no advantage of her means to have inquired. Her grandfather, Townsend, whom she had seen, had come out with Penn, the founder.
But now all those who still remain, who have seen or talked with black Alice, with Drinker, with Hutton, with John Key, the first born, are fast receding from the things that be. What they can re late of their communications must be told quickly, or it is gone !
" Gone ! glimmering through the dream of things that were."
We shall now pursue the more direct object of this article, in giv ing the names and personal notices of those instances of grandevity which have occasionally occurred among us,-of those who,
" Like a clock, worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still !"
1727 .- This year dies Grace Townsend, aged 98 years, well known. among the first settlers, and who lived many years on the property nigh the Chesnut street bridge over Dock creek, at the Broad Axe Inn.
1730-January 5, died at Philadelphia, Mary Broadway, aged 100 years, a noted midwife ; her constitution wore well to the last, and she could read without spectacles.
1731-May 19, John Evet, aged 100, was interred in Christ
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Church ground. He had seen King Charles the First's head held up by the executioner, being then about 16 years old.
1739-May 30, Richard Buffington, of the parish of Chester, a pa- triarch indeed, had assembled in his own house 115 persons of his own descendants, consisting of children, and grand and great grand- children, he being then in his 85th year, in good health, and doubt- less in fine spirits among so many of his own race. His eldest son, then present at 60 years of age, was said to have been the first Eng- lishman born in Pennsylvania region, and appears to have been three or four years older than the first born of Philadelphia, or than Ema- nuel Grubb, the first born of the province.
Speaking of this great collection of children in one house, reminds one of a more extended race, in the same year, being the case of Mrs. Maria Hazard, of South Kingston, New England, and mother of the governor ; she died in 1739, at the age of 100 years, and could count up 500 children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren ; 205 of them were then alive. A grandaugh- ter of hers had already been a grandmother 15 years! Probably, this instance of Rhode Island fruitfulness may match against the world.
1761-Died, Nicholas Meers, in his 111th year ; he was buried in Friend's ground at Wilmington. He was born in the year 1650, under the government of Cromwell, and about the time of the rise of the society of which he became a member. He lived through eventful periods, had been the subject of ten successive sovereigns, including the two Cromwells. He saw Pennsylvania and Delaware one great forest,-a range for the deer, buffalo, and panther ; and there he lived to see a fruitful field. If those who were conversant with him in his last days, had conversed with him on his recollections of the primitive days of our country, what a treasure of facts might have been set down from his lips! So we often find occasions to la- ment the loss of opportunities with very aged persons, of whom we hear but little until after their death.
" First in the race, they won, and pass'd away !"
1763-Miss Mary Eldrington, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, died at the age of 109 years. "She still looked for a husband, and did not like to be thought old."
1767-Mrs. Lydia Warder died this year, aged 87 years ; she was born in 1680, came out with Penn's colony, had lived in a cave, and had a lively memory of all the incidents of the primitive settlement.
This same year, 1767, was fruitful in passing off the primitive re- mains from among us ; thus showing, that in the deaths of those named in this year, of the first settlers, there were inhabitants lately alive, who must have had good opportunities of making olden time inquiries.
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" Of no distemper, of no blast they died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long,
E'en wonder'd at, because they fell no sooner."
1767-July-Died at Chester county, John Key, aged 85 years, the first-born in Philadelphia, at a cave named Penny Pot, at Vine street; and in August 10, (same year,) died at Brandywine Hundred, Emanuel Grubb, aged 86 years, also born in a cave, by the side of the Delaware river, and the first-born child in the province of English parente. Both these first-borns died near each other, and their deaths, in the same year, was not unlike the coincident deaths of Jefferson and Adams, as the signers of Independence !
1767-Died at Philadelphia, Mrs. Elizabeth Morris, aged 94 years.
1768-September-Died at Philadelphia, Peter Hunt, aged 101 years.
1769-July-Hannah Milner died, aged 101 years; she was the mother of 14 children, grandmother of 82 children, and great grand- mother to 110 children-making 206 children !
1770-This year died Rebecca Coleman, aged 92 years. She came to Philadelphia with the first settlers. Some of her posterity at her death were of the fifth generation. She could recount much of ancient Philadelphia-for she remembered it when it consisted of but three houses, and the other dwellings were caves. Some now alive must remember her conversation, and might even yet commu- nicate something.
1770-January-Died, Sarah Meredith, aged 90 years. She was born in a little log house, where now the city stands, where she con- tinued until she changed her maiden name of Rush to become the wife of David Meredith, and to settle in the Great Valley, in Chester county, 28 miles from Philadelphia-then the frontier settlement, and six miles beyond any neighbours, save Indians, who were then numerous, kind and inoffensive. There she continued all her days ; becoming the mother of 11 children, grandmother to 66, and great grandmother of 31.
1770-June 30th, died at Merion, Jonathan Jones, aged 91 years, having been 90 years in the country, he coming here from Wales, when an infant.
1770-This year died John Ange, at the extraordinary age of 140 years, as declared by himself, and as fully believed by all his neigh- bours, from the opinions of their fathers before them. He was set- tled as a planter between Broad creek and the head of Wicomoco river, in Pennsylvania. He had been blind some years from age. His food was always simple and sparing, and himself of lean habit. He left a son of about 80 years of age a great grandfather, hale, ac- tive and lively, and without gray hairs.
1774-14th of February, died in Bucks county, Mrs. Preston, at the advanced age of 100 years and upwards. She had seen Penn and his colonists at Philadelphia; had acted as his interpreter occa-
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ionally with the Indians. She possessed her memory and under. standing till her last.
1782-17th of November, died Edward Drinker, aged 102 years having been born on the 24th of December, 1680, in a cabin near the corner of Second and Walnut streets-the triangular block When Doctor Franklin was questioned in England to what age we lived in this country, he wittily said, he could not tell until Drinker should die and settle it !
1792-December 20th, died John S. Hutton, aged 109 years, hav- ing been born in 1684 ; he was cheerful, good humoured, and tem- perate all his life. He deemed himself in his prime at 60 years of age. He was very fond of fishing and fowling, and could be seen, when past 80, carrying his duck gun.
1802-This year died Alice, a black woman, aged 116 years. She had known the city from its origin. When she was 115, she tra- velled from Dunk's Ferry to the city, and there told Samuel Coates, and others, of numerous early recollections of the early days. See facts concerning her under her proper name.
1810-Died at Philadelphia, George Warner, aged 99 years. This patriarch was one of many emigrants that came out from Eng- land as farmers and mechanics, in 1726-a time when he saw our city in its green age, when all was young. He often described things as he then found them, and contrasted them with their subsequent changes.
The aged Barbara Niebuhr, a German by binn, who came to this country with some Swedes, is named by Miss Leslie, as known by her in her childhood, as a real centenarian. She had, for all the period of Miss Leslie's girlish days, been a vender of cakes and fruits from a table set in Chestnut street, near the entrance of the Bank of North America. She was so old that she had seen Penn at his land- ing, at the Dock creek mouth! She described Penn as a stout, well- looking man, dressed in dark plain clothes, with a short wig. A few years before her death, (which occurred at her little house in Apple- tree alley,) her white hair all came out and was replaced by a new growth of black hair, as seen by Miss Leslie. The old woman was visited by Dr. Priestley, as a curiosity-and she much pleased him with her intelligent answers to his inquiries, about incidents of the olden time. It was a matter of much self-gratulation to Miss Leslie (in 1838) to say, that she had seen and conversed with a person who had seen Penn !
1823-Died at Philadelphia, Mrs. Mary Elton, at the advanced age of 97 years.
1825 -- Died at Philadelphia, Mrs. Hannah Till, a black woman, who had been cook to General Washington and General La Fayette, in all their campaigns during the war of Independence. The latter at my instance went to see her, at No. 182 South Fourth street, when he was here in 1825, and made her a present to be remembered.
1825-Died at Philadelphia Almshouse, Margaret or Angela Mil VOL. I .- 4 A 51
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let, in the 112th year of her age. She was born and lived in Canada -said she was nearly forty when General Wolfe was slain-remem- bered him well-remembers and tells much of the Indian barbarities.
1825-Billy Brown, a black man, of Frankford, was seen by me in his 93d year of age-he lived about two years afterwards. He was of the African race, taken a prisoner when a lad, leaving his parents and five brethren ; and was two years before reaching the coast and being sold. I found him quite intelligent, his memory good, and himself a pious, good man. He was then the husband of a young wife, by whom he had children, the youngest then 16 years old. What made him most interesting, he had been at Braddock's defeat, as servant to Colonel Brown of the Irish regiment. There he remembered and described to me the conduct of Washington in that action-how he implored Braddock for leave to fight the Indians in their own way, with 300 of his own men, and how he was re- pulsed with disdain .* He was afterwards at the death of General Wolfe, and nea: his person, still with Colonel Brown; thence went to the attack of Havana; thence, at the peace, to Ireland, with his master, who there set him free by a vessel going to Philadelphia. There he was fraudulently conveyed to Virginia and sold-became the slave of one Wiley, who was extremely cruel to him-lost some of his fingers and toes by severe exposure-was bought by General Washington, and was his slave during all the Revolution, at his estate at the Long Meadows. Finally, free at Frankford ; since died, and made happy in a better world.
1825-This year died Isaac Parrish, in his 92d year, a respectable inhabitant of Philadelphia, father of the late Dr. Parrish. It was re- markable concerning him, that although there were 87 signers to his marriage certificate when they passed Meeting, yet both he and his wife survived every one of them. I could never see the aged couple abroad in the streets, without thinking that they who had the best claims to be quite at home, by their familiarity with every nook and corner of the city, were in fact so perplexed and surprised with the daily changes and novelties, as to be among the strangers and won- derers of the city. "The generation to which they had belonged had run away from them !"-Or, as Young strikingly expresses it, to wit :
" My world is dead; A new world rises and new manners reign : The strangers gaze, And I at them,-my neighbour is unknown !"
About this time I saw Miss Sarah Patterson, of Philadelphia, then well, in her 90th year. Robert Paul, an ancient Friend, still going to Pine street Meeting, I saw at the age of 95 years. Thomas Hop- kins, another Friend, going to the same Meeting, I saw and talked with when he was past 90 years.
The detail of Billy's narrative of the defeat, &c., was given by me to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in my MS. book of "Historical Collections," in 1827
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Childhood and its Joys.
There was lately alive at St. Thomas, seven miles from Cham bersburg, Pennsylvania, a man named John Hill, who was probably the oldest man then alive in North America, deemed to be 135 or 6 years of age !- he having been a soldier in the time of Queen Anne, and served 28 years. His faculties of body and mind were still good, as good as most men of 60 to 70 years. He was born in England.
CHILDHOOD AND ITS JOYS.
WE cannot but believe that it is a part and parcel of our nature ; wisely appointed by the Creator, of set purpose, that we should fer- vently love the days of our childhood, and delight to look back upon them, through all the wanderings and perplexities of our manhood. It is intended for our good, and purposed to give a moral flow to our affections and thoughts. There we see the innocency and purity of our first career. Most beautifully we are supported in these our thoughts, by a writer in Tait's Magazine. "See," says that Jour- nal, " that young urchin, with red cheeks and flaxen curls, paddling in the runnel that rustles along the hedge side! How he loves to feel the cool water dance over his toes! How eagerly he pounces upon the minnow that darts from beneath the mossy stone before him, or comes flitting down the stream! How he flogs the tall weeds with his stick, and delights in making a puddle of the crystal brooklet ! Observe that pretty black-eyed girl in the blue frock, with the tod- dling youngster by her side! She is making a garden in the dust, with twigs of trees, flowers plucked from the hedge row, white peb- bles, and bits of broken crockery picked up in the lane. And how pleased is little Davie with the contrivance! Now he fetches a stone and stops up a gap in the border; now a blade of grass, or an un- meaning straw, sticking it with profound judgment in the middle of the miniature walk, or exactly in the place where it should not be. With the spirit of mischief he now runs over the laboured work, and destroys their little Eden, trampling under foot its flowrets and its bowers.
" Does not every parent feel the force of this picture ? and does not every reader remember his own delighted participations in scenes like these ?
" Now see him again ! he is astride the grazing ass, supported by his sister. How he kicks and jumps, and opens wide his eyes, and fancies himself going to market! Now he is unsupported ; his sister has withdrawn her arm. How grave, how motionless! His tiny facul- ties seem to be busily questioning the danger. The ass innocently ifts a leg ; Davie's courage fails him ; he makes a comical wry face, and begins to whimper ; and Davie, stretching out his little arm, asks for help !"
Such is the picture fresh from our own recollections and observ
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ances ; as full of nature and ingenuous simplicity as are the dear little creatures whose liknesses are portrayed. The associations it calls up are like the strains of Caryl's music-" sweet and mournful to the soul." As the mind dwells upon it, charmed into a forgetfulness of the present, how does the remembrance of our own childhood spread freshly o'er the thoughts, while the image of the distant scene beams in the fancy as a vision far off, illuminated by a heavenly light ; a glimpse, bright and beautiful, of some " loved island of the blest ;" whence come ethereal notes of harmony, rather felt than heard.
It is something more than poetical phantasy which causes per- sons to revert with feelings of tranquil pleasure to the period of child- hood long gone by, and to regret that it has passed away never to re- turn. The days then of those years are the happiest of our lives ; and for this reason the mind loves to recur to them : they are the happiest of our lives, because the most innocent.
" How sweet to every feeling heart The memory of the past ; To think of days when love and joy Around our hearts were cast ;- To let our thoughts swift take their flight O'er days when life was new --- Roam through the haunts of pleasant youth, Those scenes again renew."
Children may teach us one blessed, one enviable art: the art of being easily happy. Kind nature has given them that useful power of accommodation to circumstances, which compensates for so many external disadvantages; and it is only by injudicious management that it is lost. Give but a moderate portion of food and kindness, and the peasant's child is happier than the lord's: free from ar- tificial wants, unsatiated by indulgence, all nature ministers to his pleasures ; he can carve out felicity from a bit of hazel twig, or fish it successfully in a puddle! I love to hear the boisterous joy of a troop of young urchins whose cheap playthings are nothing more than mud, snow, sticks; or to watch the quiet enjoyment of a half- clothed, half-washed boy, who sits crunching his brown bread and bacon at his father's door. These the gentry may overlook or de- spise, as they dust them in gilded equipages, seeking their pleasures, but they cannot be happier, and seldom as innocent.
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