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. II > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72
In going to the city there was a thick woods on the south-west side of the turnpike below Naglee's hill-where Skerrett's house now stands, called Logan's swamp and woods. The road then went on the low ground to the south-westward of said hill and house. At Penn's creek, (or Three-mile run, now Albanus Logan's place,) and at the opposite side on Norris' place, began a deep and lofty wood, which extended on both sides of the road nearly into the suburbs, and from thence the woods continued many miles up the Delaware. There was then no inlet into the city but by the Front street road. The Second and Third streets were not then formed.
On the 20th of October, 1746, a great public fair was held at Ger- mantown.
In 1762, the Paxton boys, from near Lancaster, halted at the market square, preparatory to their intended invasion of Philadelphia,
35
1507836
Pennsylvania Inland .- Germantown.
to kill the friendly Indians sheltered there ; they yielded to negotia- tion and went home. There were several hundred of them.
Rittenhouse, the celebrated philosopher, as well as Godfrey, the inventor of Hadley's quadrant, were of the neighbourhood of Ger mantown. Captain Miller, who was basely killed at Fort Washing ton, after its surrender, was of Germantown.
The old road of Germantown continued in a line with the first bank of Germantown, (to the south-west of the present,) ran near the poor house, by S. Harvey's, up through R. Haines' low lands, and came out by the Concord school house, by the Washington, or Abington lane. Some of the logs now lie sound under ground, back of Justice Johnson's, on which the road ran by the swamp.
The quantity of Indian arrow heads, spears, and hatchets, all of flint and stone, and attached to wooden or withe handles, still ploughed up in the fields, is great. I have seen some of a heap of two hundred together, in a circle of the size of a bushel ; some of them, strange to tell, are those taken from chalk beds, and not at all like the flint of our country.
The creek on which Wm. L. Fisher's mill stands is the head of Frankford creek, and was called by the Indians Wingohocking. The creek at Albanus Logan's, called Penn's creek, was called Tu- manaramaming, and goes out at the upper end of Kensington.
Anthony Johnson, who died in 1823, aged 78, saw, when a lad, a large bear come across the road in daytime from Chew's ground, then a wood ; he has seen abundance of wild turkeys, and has often heard the wolves howl at night near his father's house; the one re- built at the corner of S. Harvey's lane. The woods then came up near the house. He has seen several deer in the woods, but they were fast going off when he was young. Near the same house, when the old road passed in the swamp behind it, his father told him he once saw six wolves in daytime.
After James Logan's house was built, in 1728, at Stenton, a bear of large size came and leaped over the garden fence.
Jacob Keyser, now 88, tells me that he and others pursued and killed a small bear, about sixty-five years ago, on one of the back lots ; it was, however, then matter of surprise and sport.
Mr. K. remembers that a Mr. Axe, in his time, killed a bear on Samuel Johnson's place, not far from the Wissahiccon. Foxes and rackoons were then quite plenty.
Only about fifty years ago a flock of six wild turkeys came to Enoch Rittenhouse's mill, and remained about there till his family shot the whole of them ; and in the winter of 1832 they shot a lynx there.
In 1721 a bear was killed in Germantown, and so published, and two more nearer to Philadelphia.
In the house of Reuben Haines, built by Dirk Johnson, a chief and his twenty Indians have been sheltered and entertained.
Anthony Johnson, when a boy, has seen near two hundred In-
he nia,
d d, S, e. d.
t
er.
1
A
36
Pennsylvania Inland .- Germantown.
dians at a time on the present John Johnson's place, in a woods on the hollow adjoining to the wheelwright's shop. They would remain there a week at a time, to make and sell baskets, ladles, fiddles, &c He used to remain hours with them and see their feats of agility. They would go over fences without touching them, in nearly a hori- zontal attitude, and yet alight on their nimble feet. They would also do much at shooting of marks. One Edward Keimer imitated them so closely as to execute all their exploits. Beaver and beaver dams A. Johnson has often seen.
The earliest settlers used to make good linens and vend them in Philadelphia. They were also distinguished, even till modern times, for their fabric of Germantown stockings. This fact induced the Bank of Germantown to adopt a seal, with such a loom upon it. The linen sellers and weavers used to stand with the goods for sale on the edge of the pavement in Market street, on the north side, near to Second street corner. The cheapness of imported stockings is now ruining their business.
Professor Kalm, who visited Germantown in 1748, says : " The inhabitants were so numerous, that the street was always full."
Old Mr. W., in 1718 or '20, shot a stout deer between German- town and Philadelphia, and the rifle he used is now in possession of his grandson.
John Seelig predicted men's lives when requested, by the rules of nativities ; and he had a mysterious cane, or rod, which he com- manded to be cast into the Schuylkill in his last sickness, and which, as the tradition goes, exploded therein ! Kelpius too kept his diary by noting the signs of the Zodiac.
Doctor Witt left all his property to strangers by the name of Warmer, saying, they had been kind to him on his arrival, in be- stowing him a hat in place of his, lost on shipboard.
The tombstone of C. F. Post, the missionary and interpreter, so often named in Proud's history, is in the lower burying ground. He died in 1785, aged 75 years.
The Germantown newspaper, by C. Sower, was printed but once a quarter, and began in the year 1739 ; and what was curious, he cast his own types and made his own ink! It eventually was printed monthly, but from and after the yea- 1744, it was printed every week, under the title of the "Germantown Gazette," by C. Sower, Jr., and was not discontinued till some time in the war. A copy of these papers would be a kind gift to the Germantown Library. Sower published first in the United States a quarto Bible, in German.
Germantown was a place of great interest during the war of the revolution, and at the celebrated battle there. It occurred on the morning of the 4th of October, 1777. The main body of the Bri- tish army, under Gens. Howe, Grey, Grant and Agnew, were attack ed by the Americans in the following order : Washington, with the division of Sullivan and Wayne, flanked by Gen. Thomas Con- way's briga le, entered the town by Chestnut hill road. Gen. Arm.
37
Pennsylvania Inland .- Germantown.
strong, with the Pennsylvania militia, attacked the left and rear, near Schuylkill. The division of Generals Greene and Stephens, flanked by Gen. M'Dougall's brigade, were to enter by taking a circuit at the market house, and attack the right wing, and the militia of Mary- land and Jersey, under Generals Smallwood and Freeman, were to march by the old York road and fall upon the rear of the right. General Sterling, with Generals Nash and Maxwell's brigade, formed a corps of reserve. Admirably as this attack was planned, it failed, from those fortuitous events in warfare, over which Gen. Washing- ton had no possible control. Lieut. Col. Musgrave, of the British army, as the Americans advanced, threw himself, with six compa- nies of the 40th regiment, into Chew's large stone house, which stood full in front of the main body of the Americans. Musgrave, before the battle, encamped back of Chew's house in excellent huts, and Col. Webster's regiment (33d) lay back of John Johnson's in huts also ; they were as regular and neat as a town. Gen. Read, it has been said, was for pushing on immediately, and was opposed by Gen. Knox as against military rule, to leave an enemy in a fort in the rear. Any how, in attempting to induce the surrender of Lieut. Col. Mus- grave, the precious moments were lost, and gave Generals Grey, Grant, and Agnew, (who dwelt in Germantown,) time to come up with a re- inforcement. Much blame, too, was attached to Gen. S.'s division, who was said to have been intoxicated, and to have so far miscon ceived and broken his orders as to have been afterwards tried and broken. The morning was exceedingly foggy, which would have greatly favoured the Americans, had not those, as well as part of Greene's column, remained thus inactive. Col. Mathews, of Greene's column, attacked with great spirit and routed the parties opposed to him, and took one hundred and ten prisoners ; but, through the fog, he lost sight of his brigade, and was himself taken prisoner with his whole regiment, (on P. Kelley's hill) and his prisoners released. Greene and Stephens' division, formed the last column of the retreat- ing Americans. Count Pulaski's cavalry covered their rear. Wash- ington retreated to Skippack creek-his loss amounted to one hun- dred and fifty-two killed, and five hundred and twenty-one wounded, upwards of four hundred were made prisoners, amongst whom were fifty-four officers.
The cannon which assailed Chew's house were planted in front of the present John Johnson's house ; Chew's house was so battered that it took four or five carpenters a whole winter to repair and replace the fractures. The front door which was replaced was filled with shot holes-it is still preserved there.
A cousin of mine, who was intimate with Gen. Washington's aid- de-camp, told me that he told him he had never heard the general utter an oath, but on that day, when he seemed deeply mortified and indignant, he expressed an execration at General S- as a drunken rascal.
The daughter of Benjamin Marshal, Esq., at whose house General
4
,
38
Pennsylvania Inland .- Germantown.
Washington stopped after the battle, told me he reached there in the evening, and would only take a dish of tea, and pulling out the half of a biscuit, assured the family the other half was all the food he had taken since the preceding day.
The general opinion then was, that but for the delay at Chew's house, our army must have been victorious, and we should have been sufficiently avenged for our losses the preceding month at the battle of Brandywine, and would have probably caused the British to evacuate Philadelphia. But Gen. Wilkinson, in his late memoirs, who has described minutely the battle therein, and was but a few years ago here on the spot, examining the whole ground, has pub- lished his entire conviction that it was a kind providence, which overruled the disaster for our good: for had we been successful and pushed on for the city, Gen. Howe was coming on with a force suffi- cient to have captured or destroyed the whole American army. He states, that Washington relied on information from a deserter, that Howe intended a movement of his troops towards Fort Mifflin, which, unknown to Gen. Washington, he had countermanded, and so enabled him to come out in full force. See Appendix, p. 554.
There were as many as twenty thousand British, &c., in and about the town under Gen. Howe. He was a fine large man, and looked considerably like Gen. Washington: he lived some time at Logan's, and also in the present Samuel Morris' house ; he walked abroad in plain clothes in a very unassuming manner. Gen. Grant occupied the house now Michael Staiger's, near the lane. The artillery lay on the high ground in rear of the poor house; two regi- ments of Highlanders half a mile in the rear of Reuben Haines' house : and the Hessians lay on the Ridge Hill above Peter Robe- son's, near the road; all the infantry were on the commons about where J. Price's seat now is.
In the time of the battle Gen. Howe came as far as the market square, and stayed there giving his commands. Gen. Agnew rode on at the head of his men, and when he came as far as the wall of the Mennonist grave yard, he was shot by Hans P. Boyer, who lay in ambush, and took deliberate aim at his star on the breast: he fell from his fine horse, and was carried to Mr. Wister's house, where lie died in his front parlour. He was a very civil and gentlemanly man. The man who killed him was not an enlisted soldier, and died not long since in the poor house.
At that same place is a rising hill, at which the severest of the firing and battle was waged, except what occurred so disastrously for us at Chew's house. The British advanced no farther than the said hill on the road, until after the retreat.
Several have told me, who saw the dead and dying after the action, lying on the ground, that some in their last moments were quite in- sane: but all who could speak were in great thirst from anguish, &c. In Samuel Keyser's garden many bodies were lying: and in the rear of Justice Johnson's, Gen. Morgan of the rifle corps came up
39
Pennsylvania Inland .- Germantown.
with a small body after the action was supposed to be closed, and very daringly and unexpectedly killed nineteen Hessians and an officer, all of whom were buried there, save the officer, who was next day removed to the city. Boys were suffered to get very near the combatants on the flanks. Benjamin Lehman was one, who has told me, there was no order nor ranks after the first fire, and soon every face was as black as negroes' about the mouth and cheeks, from biting off the cartridges; British officers, especially aids-de-camp, rode at full rate up and down through the men, with entire uncon- cern as to running over them. The ranks, however, gave way.
When the British burned seventeen houses at one time, between Philadelphia and Germantown, in retaliation for some aggressions made, they said, by Col. Ayres, from some of those houses, they ordered Stenton house to be included : two men came to execute it, they told the housekeeper there, to take out her private things-while they went to the barn for straw to fire it. A British officer rode up, inquiring for deserters; with much presence of mind she said they had just gone to the barn to hide themselves in the straw-off he went, crying, " Come out you rascals, and run before me back to camp!" In vain they protested, and alleged their commissions; and thus Logan's venerable house was spared. This house was built in 1727-8, by James Logan, secretary for Penn, and in which he re- sided; it was a palace-like structure in that day, and was surprisingly well built. Gen. Howe stayed part of his time there.
A fence of cedar boards is now standing in Peter Keyser's yard, which was very much perforated with musket bullets in the time of the battle.
On the 19th of October, the British army removed from German- town to Philadelphia, as a more convenient place for the reduction of Fort Island.
After the battle, the British surgeons made use of Reuben Haines' hall as a room for amputating and other hospital operations requiring prompt care ; the Americans who were wounded were carried to the hill where Thomas Armatt's house is, and were there temporarily attended by surgeons, previously to being sent to the hospital in the city.
Capt. Turner of North Carolina, and Major Irvine, and six men, were all buried in one grave, at the N. E. corner of the burying ground by the school house. We have set them a stone there.
On the north-east side of Three-mile run (Fox Chase Inn now) was a wood in the time of the war. In it were thirty Oneida Indians, and one hundred of Morgan's riflemen, who raised a warwhoop and frightened Lord Carthcart when in a conference with M'Lane.
A British picket lay in the present yard of Philip Weaver, and several were shot and buried there. The most advanced picket stood at Mount Airy, and was wounded there.
Gen. Agnew and Col. Bird, of the British army, are both buried in the lower burying ground, side by side, next to Mrs. Lamb's grave
10
Pennsylvania Inland .- Germantown.
stone, (south-west side of it,) at ten feet from Rapp's wall, in a line with the south-west end of his stable. Gen. Agnew showed great kindness to old Mrs. Sommers. Col. Bird died in Bringhurst's big house, and said to the woman there, " woman, pray for me, I leave a widow and four children." The late Mr. Burrill, whose father was grave-digger, told me he saw them buried there. They now have a stone.
When the British were in Germantown, they took up all the fences and made the rails into huts, by cutting down all the buck- wheat, putting it on the rails, and ground over that. No fences remained. Gen. Howe lived a part of his time at the house now S. B. Morris', so said B. Lehman. B. Lehman was an apprentice to Mr. Knorr, a carpenter, and went to the city with half a calf on his shoulder, for which he got quickly 2s. 6d., metal money, per pound, he also sold his old hen for 1 dollar! He saw there men come stealthily from Skippack, with butter carried on their backs in boxes, which they sold at 5s. There were woods all along the township line to near the city, and they could steal their way through them. Lehman was out two months in the militia draft, but never in battle, he got 200 dollars paper money ; for 100 dollars he bought a sleigh ride, and for the other 100 dollars a pair of shoes! Samuel Widdes, in Germantown, used to go to the city with a wheelbarrow to take therein apples and pears, which he sold high. Lehman, and all the other boys, went to meeting in tow trowsers and shirts, without jackets or shoes. What homely days! At that time, and during all the war, all business was at a stand. Not a house was roofed or mended in Germantown in five or six years. Most persons who had any substance lived in part on what they could procure on loan. The people, pretty generally, were mentally averse to the war-equal, certainly, to two-thirds of the population of the place who felt as if they had any thing to lose by the contest. So several have told me.
Mrs. Bruner, who died in Germantown, in 1835, at the age of 80, the wife of a blacksmith, in respectable circumstances, had been the mother of twelve children, and kept her house with such a family more than sixty years of her life without ever having had any hired help. She had done all her own work and done it well ; and very often, in her younger days, she had sat down every night, after her house work was done, to make leather gloves for pay as a seamstress. She was but a specimen of many of her day, who looked to such industry as a means to acquire a small estate at the end of a long life. Industry became so habitual to both husband and wife, that they knew not, in time, how to rest when idle. The family was pious, benevolent and kind. When shall we see such people among the moderns?
The trustees of the Academy of Germantown, in the year 1793, had applications from the State, and United States, to rent their academy for their use. It was thereupon resolved by the trustees, on the 26th October, 1793, that they would take measures to accom
41
Pennsylvania Inland .- Germantown.
modate the Congress of the United States, at their next session, with the use of the same, for the sum of 300 dollars. Only think of such a school-house, of eighty by fifty feet, being seriously purposed for the use of the American congress. The congress was then so small ; it is now so great.
The circumstance which led to the intended application of the house, grew out of an inquiry made by Gen. Washington, who then resided in Germantown, in the house afterwards for many years the summer residence of the Perot family-now of Samuel B. Morris. In 1793, when Gen. Washington dwelt in Germantown, the town was held as the government place of the state of Pennsylvania and of the United States; and this was because of the necessary retreat of the officers and offices, from the city of Philadelphia, where the, yellow fever was raging with destructive effect. At that time the office of state, &c., of Pennsylvania, was held in the stone house next above B. Lehman's. There you could every day see Governor Mifflin and his secretary of state, A. J. Dallas. The house now the Bank of Germantown was occupied by Thomas Jefferson, as secretary of state of the United States, and by Mr. Randolph, as attorney general. The Bank of the United States was located in the three-storied stone house of Billings, and when its treasure was brought, it was guarded by a troop of horse. Oellers, once cele- brated for his great hotel for the congressmen, in Chestnut, street, had his hotel here, in the house since Clement Bringhurst's ; and, at that house, filled with lodgers, the celebrated Bates, of comic memory, used to hold musical soirees at 50 cents a head, to help to moderate the gloom of the sad times. At that time, the whole town was crowded with strangers and boarders; and especially by numerous French emigrants, escaped from the massacre of St. Domingo.
It was then expected that the next, or future years, might be again visited by yellow fever ; and, therefore, numerous engagements of houses, and purchases of grounds at increased prices were made, to insure a future refuge. In this way, the Banks of North America and of Pennsylvania found a place in the Academy in the next fever, which occurred in 1798.
It ought to be mentioned as a peculiar circumstance connected with Perot's house, before mentioned, that it had been the residence severally of Gen. Howe, the British commander in the war of the revolution, and at the same time, the home of the then youth, Prince William, the late king of England, William IV .; afterwards, in 1793, the residence of Gen. Washington, while President of the United States. Look at its size as then regarded good enough and large enough for a president, in contrast with the present presidential palace at Washington city ! It is thus that we are rapidly growing as a nation from small things to great things !
The French West India residents that were in Germantown, were of various complexions, were dressed in clothing of St. Domingo fashion, presenting a peculiarity of costume; and showing much VOL. II-F 4*
42
Pennsylvania Inland .-- Germantown.
gayety of manners. They filled the streets with French conversation by day-for they were all idlers; and with much of music at night. They were withal great shooters, and killed and eat all manner of birds without discrimination-they saying that crows, swallows, &c. were as good as others, as all depended upon the style of the cooking.
I have seen or known of several officers of the Revolution, who had been in the battle of Germantown, who came again, in advanced age, to revisit the active scenes of their military prowess ; so came Capt. Blakemore and Capt. Slaughter, both of the Virginia regiment ; so Col. Pickering, of New England ; so some of the relatives of Gen. Agnew, who was killed, &c. What scenes for them to remember afresh.
Intimately connected with the fame and reputation of German- town is the now frequently visited stream, the Wissahiccon, made attractive by its still native wildness, and rugged, rocky, woody cha- racter; there is also there, under the name of the " Monastery of the Wissahiccon," a three-storied ancient stone building of an oblong square, situated on high ground, near to a woody, romantic dell, through which the Wissahiccon finds its meandering way. About this house, so secluded and little known to the mass of the people, there have been sundry vague and mysterious reports and traditions of its having been once occupied as a monastery. A name, and purpose of use, sufficiently startling, even now, to the sensibility of sundry protestants.
The place was last owned and occupied by Joshua Garsed-a large manufacturer of flax-thread, twine, &c .- who has shut up many of the windows, which were formerly equal to four to every chamber making two on every front or angle of the square. Those who saw the structure sixty years ago, say that it then had a balcony all around the house at the floor of the second story. The tale told in the early days of the present aged neighbours was, that it once con- tained monks of " the Seventh-day Baptist order," and that they used wooden blocks for pillows [like those at Ephrata,] scallopped out so as to fit the head. Some have also said that they remembered to have seen, near to the house, small pits and hillocks which indicated a former burial place, since turned into cultivation.
With such traditionary data for a starting point, it has become matter of interest to many, who are curious in the history of the past, to learn what further facts we can produce, concerning the pre- mises. If the house should have been built as early as 1708-when Kelpius, the hermit, died " at the Ridge," it may have been con. structed by the forty students from Germany-the Pietists who came out in 1694, with Kelpius, to live a single life in the wilderness ; but if it was built, as is most probable, and as has been said, by Joseph Gorgas, a Tunker-Baptist, who intended it as a branch of the brother- hood established at Ephrata near Lancaster, and to whom he after- wards moved and joined himself,-then he must have built it before the year 1745, when Conrad Matthias, " the last of the Ridge her.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.