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 65
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* This Newby brought out many half-pence of 1680, which were called Patrick money, and some of them are now preserved by Joseph O. Cooper in Newton.
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and in a short time it grew and increased-unto which Wm. Cooper and family that lived at the Poynte, resorted ; and some times the meeting was kept at his house, where he had been set- tled some time before. We had then zeal and fervency of spirit, although we had some dread of the Indians as a salvage people, nevertheless, ye Lord turned them to be serviceable to us, and to be very loving and kinde. Let then the rising generation con sider that the settlement of this country was directed upon an impuise, by the spirit of God's people; not so much for their ease and tranquillity, as for their posterity, and that the wilder- ness being planted with a good seed, might grow and increase. But should not these purposes of the good husbandman come to pass, then they themselves shall suffer loss. These facts I have thought good thus to leave behind, as one having had knowledge of these things from the beginning .*
[The aforesaid Thomas Sharp was a surveyor and clerk of court, the same who laid out and surveyed the old "Town of Gloucester," and so called at the time, (1689,) and the place pre- viously Hermaomissing and Arwames by the Indians, and Nassau by the Dutch and Swedes. There was once there a chalybeate spring, much visited by Philadelphians, where they also regaled on strawberries.]
" At yon salubrious fount to sip, Immured in darksome shade, Around whose sides magnolias bloom, Whose silver blossoms deck the gloom, And scent the spicy glade."
[Vide Rev. Nathaniel Evans' poems.
Thomas Sharp's name is often seen in Isaac Mickle's Remi- niscences of Old Gloucester, (an interesting little work.) It was from this family of Sharps, that we have derived the Elsinborough grape, near Salem.
Becket's notices of Lewis Town and the adjacent country of Delaware as done from 1727 to 1743.
Having been favored in the year 1838 to peruse a MS. book of 190 pages, as written by the Rev. Wm. Becket, church mission- ary at Lewis Town, from 1727 to 1743, being his notices of sun- dries, his letters, his poetical compositions, &c., I take there. from the following items.] He went from London to Lewis Town in 1721, was born in Cheshire.]
He proposes that the Society for Foreign Missions in London, should apply to the crown to procure the grant of the lands in the three lower counties, comprising 200,000 acres, inasmuch,
* Thomas Sharp's letter above, is preserved as a just counter-part to the letter of Richard Townsend, a public friend, who wrote and described incidents at Philadelphia, in the early settlement. Let them live side by side for posterity.
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as they were not included in the grants to Pennsylvania or Maryland, although the two proprietors were then contending for it in London. "Sundry persons who have present titles from one or the other, are uneasy, and would willingly have the Church for their landlord, as a majority of the people are of the Church of England. With such means of money at command, support might be raised for a suffragan, much wanted here."
He demurs to marriage licenses being equally in the hands of the Presbyterians as well as in the Church-saying it was an innovation first introduced by Gov. Sir George Wm. Keith, to improve his desperate fortune.
His parish comprised the whole county of Sussex-having four churches, and having service every Sabbath alternately, The first was built in 1707 at Cedar Creek. St. Peter's at Lewis Town was erected in 1722,* chiefly by gifts made in Phila- delphia. The first settlers were generally churchmen from England-some few were Dutch. "Since then, the Scotch Irish came into Sussex, have two meeting-houses, and are very bigotted."
The proportion of inhabitants in Sussex in 1728, were 1,075 of church people, 600 of Presbyterians, and 75 of Quakers ; making together 1,750 souls, the whole estimated population. In Lewis there were 58 families. The negroes in Sussex were 241. School-houses were usually built of logs, done in ons day' by all the neighbourhood, by the side of a wood.
Mr. Becket wrote poetry very readily, and left several exam- ples. It was his practice to ride on horseback fifty miles a week, to visit the churches and people.
The early prevalence of Church of England doctrine in Sussex, -not much altered till the time of Whitefield, tended much to preserve there "the love of Church and State" among a majority of the people, even down to the time of the Revolutionary war That event produced many Tories, so-called, who were never- theless very well meaning and respectable people. They aimed to live neutral, but being sometimes persecuted, they would sometimes leave their homes, and take refuge in the Black Swamp, and had considerable sufferings there.
Earliest Iron Trade and Furnaces, Pennsylvania.
These were begun as early as 1715. Exportations were made in 1717. Some jealousy was thereby excited in the mother country, so that in 1719 a bill was introduced into Parliament to prevent the erection of rolling and slitting mills,-but was then rejected. In 1750, however, such an act was passed; but allow
* There was a still earlier congregation at Lewis Town,-one which appears of record as early as 1707.
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ing the exportation of pig metal to England, free of duties. Pig metal exported in 1750, was 3,425 tons, and 390 tons of bar iron. The cheapness of wood and labour here, gave great advantage to the American furnaces,-which they thus enjoyed from 1750 to the period of the Revolution.
The first built furnace of Pennsylvania, was that of Colebrooke Dale, (Berks Co.,) built in 1720, by Jas. Lewis and Anthony Morris, of Philadelphia. The Reading furnace was built in 1730, and the Warwick in 1736. The Cornwall furnace in Lebanon county, was built in 1741-2, by Peter Grubb, and greatly en- riched all the owners. In 1798 it became the property of Robt. Coleman, who also acquired a great estate thereby. The price of pig iron at this place in 1780, was £300 Continental money, and in 1785 was £6 10 shillings, Pennsylvania currency or $174. The Mount Vernon furnace erected in 1800, by Henry B. Grubb, produced 50 tons a week. The Mount Hope furnace, built by Peter Grubb in 1786, yielded about 900 tons of pig metal per annum.
Red Bank, and the War of the Revolution.
Job Whitall, who lived at Red Bank, in a large brick house fronting the river, (next below the redoubt where Count Donop fell,) kept a MS. Diary, from the year 1775 to 95, wherein he noted daily events, relating to himself. From that book I have made sundry extracts, hereinafter given, which may serve to show some of the incidents of the war at and near his place in 1777-8. A large cannon ball went through his house, while his wife was spinning. She then took the wheel and herself into the cellar.
1777. 10th Month, 22d. This day pleasant and fair-he and his father hung the gate-then finished the stacks. Then got up horses and wagon, and loaded their goods, to move them, -because the English troops (in the river) were coming nearer. Himself, wife and children, after eating dinner, went off to uncle David Cooper's [near Woodbury.] Cooper sent his wagon to aid in moving the goods. They drove away 21 head of cattle. The people in the Fort drove away from father and I, 47 sheep, into the Fort.
10th Month, 23d. The Americans filled the house at his father's, so that we were forced to move out, and we took loads of goods to John Murdocks, in Woodbury, [three miles off.]
25th. The soldiers pressed his mare, by order of Col. Greene. 26th. We haul away the wheat and grain,-then fill four rooms with goods, locked up.
27th. These rooms the soldiers broke open, and took away some potatoes.
11th Month, 1st. The soldiers took his mare and four loads
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of rye-he gets off' some of his horses. His neighbours assist to carry some of his produce, hay, &c.
4th. The soldiers press his oxen, as they were in the act of hauling away. The soldiers went to his uncle David Cooper's and there pressed J. Whitall's sorrel.
7th. He and family went to Woodbury meeting (of Friends,) found it was in use as an hospital for sick soldiers; but Friends held a solid, satisfactory meeting out of doors. The militia soldiers were quartered at Gibbs' house, and filled it. Paid for beef then at one shilling and sixpence per pound.
9th. The soldiers at Woodbury steal some of Whitall's pigs- in meeting time, while the family is at meeting.
10th. He goes to "the Bank," (his homestead,) and gets a load out of his cellar. Now he moves again, (from Murdock's, in Woodbury,) to Gibbs' for safety.
15th. He went over to his house at Red Bank, to bring away a load, but there was so much firing there, that nothing was done by him. To-day he killed his fat cow, and in the night the soldiers came and pillaged a part of it.
16th. We held our meeting at Mark Miller's house.
21st. Hestaid at home to-day, because of the English soldiers, then arrived there. They took his two mares both with foal, and while the army was passing by, they came and took their bread, pies, milk, cheese, dishes, cups, spoons,-also their shirts, sheets, blankets, &c., then drove out the cattle from the brick shed, all of which, however, came back again, save one ox.
22d. The soldiers took one of his pigs, and cut and hacked others. A great number of soldiers went by to-day, partly peaceable, they only took some gears and some potatoes.
23d. The soldiers took some of his hay, slung on their horses, and also took ten sheep.
24th. A warm pleasant day. The English soldiers all moved off in the morning from Woodbury. He walked to the camp ground-found there his big kettle, and the hide of his brown ox. He then walked to Woodbury, and found that they had opened his smoke-house, and taken five flitches. They also had used of his boards a thousand feet, and burned two or three thousand of his staves.
27th. Observes a northern light and records its appearance.
30th. Goes to Friends meeting, then held again, for the first time, in the meeting house.
12th Month, 15th. He goes over to Red Bank to spread and gather flax, being a residue left by the soldiers, who had before used some of it for tents.
1778. 2d Month, 10th. Went to "youths' meeting" a+ Woodbury-a great gathering, and many public Friends, and 2 very grateful time there to many.
4th Month, 20th. He moves back to Red Bank,
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back his cattle, after an absence, and precarious living, for up wards of six months.
The place of Job Whitall, now held by his grandson Louis Whitall, is an old family homestead of ninety acres held upwards of a century. It was first settled there by Henry Treadwell, in 1683; after sixteen years, was bought by the ancestor James Whitall, and there used as his farm. The brick house was built there in 1748. Col. Franklin Davenport, of Woodbury, said that all of Col. Greene's command were black men. The present owner, Louis Whitall, has the scull of Count Donop; he took me to his grave-sunken, and marked with a coarse stone, inscribed with his name, when killed, &c .; he also led me over the remains of the old redoubt. It was, at the time, in an apple orchard; which was cut down to make room. There are remains of two breastworks-the first one was on too large a scale to man it, and they therefore made a smaller one within the other, on one side of it. The outer fosse is still a deep ditch, and all the premises are now all overgrown with tall and thick set pines, and some other trees. The monument is placed some dis- tance northward from the redoubt, on the line of the next land owner, as the Whitalls did not wish it on their ground, because of predatory companies visiting the ground, and using their melons and fruits, &c.
[I visited the place and took the above notes and memoranda, the 26th and 27th of June, 1847.]
Whitall's house was used as an hospital after the battle, to amputate the wounded. Mrs. Whitall, was a character, and being present when they complained of heavy foot-falls on the floor, said they must not complain, who had brought it on them- selves! She was, however, kind-hearted and useful to them. One night, while seated at sewing or knitting, she saw the lower limbs of a thief, going up stairs, she followed up immediately- found him under the bed, ordered him out, led him by the collar down stairs, and slapped his face and bid him begone.
Our Advancement and Prosperity.
Being remarks induced by the perusal of Macaulay's England, Vol. 1, Chap. 3d.
However we, of this age, may smile at the rustic simplicity of the past-so often set forth in the present work, we are only to read such a book as Macaulay's England, at the time that Penn- sylvania began to be settled, to perceive how like the early set- tlers here, was the condition of the home country which they had left. Macaulay's extended 3d chapter, is replete with notices of all such leading changes of men and things there, as these Annals of our country have aimed to note and observe here. He re- marks very justly that "we must never forget that the country
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then, was a very d fferent country from that in which we now live."
We here give a summary of facts, for example, to wit. "The Army and Navy, then, were small neglected concerns. The sheep, oxen, and horses, were diminutive. They had no race horses, as now. Their manufactories were few. Agriculture was ill understood, and little practised :- they had few gardens and flowers. Coal and salt mines were not worked. The roads were bad. Stages were few; going only two or three times a week to principal towns. The chief land carriage was with pack horses. Their country gentlemen and gentry made few or no visits to London. London itself, was coarse and grotesque in its buildings of wood and plaster. They had only small gazettes of weekly publication; and the mass of the people had no reading but in the form of ballads. There were no political readers-no free discussion; and very few who were able to read and write. Few books were printed and read. The people were coarse and cruel in their sports. The country clergy were ill paid, and little regarded. Few humane and charitable institutions existed. The poor were ill paid,-but four to seven shillings per week, and their comforts generally neglected. They had no hospitals for their sickness. The Post-office was but little used, and mer- chants lived in confined closes, &c. They were without libraries. Philosophy, medicine, chemistry, mechanics, were studied by very few. The elegant places now about London, were then rude uncultivated commons, having in many locations, heaths, fens, and morasses. Highwaymen then beset most of the roads ; and travellers went mostly on horseback.
From the premises, we of this country, cannot but perceive, that our progress in improvement, preceding the period of our Revolutionary war, much surpassed the time of the two Charles' and Cromwell's governments. A result which we should be inclined to impute to our self-movements, and self-inspired impulses, impelling to all that was useful and ameliorating. As Americans, let us consider !
Old Congress and First Prayer.
John Adams has given in a letter of Sept., 1774, at Phila., his graphic description of the cause and manner of the first prayer in the then First Congress. Writing to a friend, he says " When the Congress met, Mr. Cushing motioned that it should be opened with prayer. It was opposed by Mr. Jay and Mr Rutledge, because we were so divided in religious sentiment -- Some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anna-Baptists, some Presbyterians, and some Congregationalists, that we could not join in the same worship. Mr. Samuel Adams rose and said that "he was no bigot, and could hear prayer from any gentle.
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man of piety and virtue, who was at the same time a friend to his country-that he was a stranger in Philadelphia, but had heard that Parson Duché deserved that character and therefore he moved that he, an Episcopalian clergyman, might be desired to read prayers before the Congress to-morrow morning." The motion was affirmed. Mr. Randolph, our President, waited on him-he appeared with his clerk, and in pontificals, read several prayers, and then read the order of Psalms for the 7th September a part of which was the 35th psalm. You must remember, this was the next morning, after we had heard the rumours of the horrible cannonade of Boston. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that psalm to be read on that morning! After this, Mr. Duché, unexpectedly to every body, struck out in extempo- rary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present. I must confess, I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pro- nounced-done with such fervour-such ardour-such correct- ness and pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, for Congress, for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, especially the town of Boston. It had an excellent effect upon every body here. I must beg you to read that psalm, to wit: "Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive against me-stand up for my help-say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt-and my tongue shall speak of thy praise evermore." If there is any faith in the sortes Biblica, it would be thought providential. The whole scene and crisis-was enough to melt a heart of stone. I saw the tears gush into the eyes of the old, grave, pacific Quakers.
Congress, and Seat of Government at Princeton, July, 1783.
The Rev. Ashbel Green, in writing to his father-says : " We have the gentlemen of the Congress for fellow-students, they, however, exercising by themselves in the library. We are made now alive and bustling; the quiet of the village is broken up- carriages and wagons and chairs, now rattle every where; oranges, pine-apples, and lemons, and other luxuries, are all the cry now. They have had a great public dinner, at 6 o'clock, having present sundry foreign ministers. In the evening, sky- rockets and fireworks. The papers, brought by the Congress, filled six wagons."
My Annals-a picture of Colonial Times.
I have sometimes said, and still oftener thought, that my Annals should afford interest abroad-even in Europe, itself, as showing the early domestic and homebred history of our Anglo- Saucon race, destined perchance, with Britons at home, to anglify
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under Providence, the other nations of the globe! I see some of my thoughts, lately, well expressed in the London Christian Examiner-to wit: "Trace the principles and institutions of the Pilgrims in their development, operation and results. Not only ' the little one has become a thousand, and the small one a great one,' but those institutions, civil and sacred, have found through- out a congenial soil. In these stand the glory of America ; under any other dynasty that country could never have risen. On her present position we must look with intense interest. Her whole history is interwoven with the fate of Europe -- America holds no common place. Her conduct and influence in morals and reli- gion, is in unison and co-operation with that of Britain, and is destined to change the whole aspect of society every where. The superstitions and errors of ages are melting away. In her future progress she is destined, in common with Britain, to carry along with her the destiny of the species. The world is not only to receive a new language, a new philosophy, a new religion ; but to take its entire type and impression from these two nations. In moral power and resources, America not ony rivals, but far exceeds the European States, England alone excepted. No force can crush the sympathy that already exists and is continually augmenting, between Europe and the New World. We are deeply interested in the progress of her power and greatness; for she is descended from ancestors who, like the Father of the faithful, for the sake of truth, went to a land which they knew not; and like the children of Abraham, have truth in their keep- ing-in common with us; and are destined to carry it by their commerce and British principles of civilization, to the end of the earth." [Are not Britons, then, peculiarly interested in examin- ing those traces of our domestic history, those pictures of our rise, progress, and advancement to present greatness, which have been pictorially drawn from facts, such as I have traced and recorded ? Let Britons examine and consider ! Americans too, of whatever State, and however distant from Philadelphia, or New York, have adirect interest in such recitals as I have aimed to preserve, as being a picture of those Colonial days, when we as Colonists were all of homogenous character, and in each and every Colony, presented an honest, frugal, contented, and home- bred race.]
Memoranda of Historical Works concerning our olden time.
The most ancient is that of John de Laet, of Antwerp; a resident of Leyden-himself a scholar-he wrote very accurately from what he heard. He knew personally, Capt. De Vries, and had seen the MS. journals of Hendrick Hudson, Adrian Block, Capt. May, and probably other voyagers to the New Nederlands. He had much enthusiasm for the interests of our New World-he
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formed, probably, the earliest chart of the Delaware. He describes the tribes of Indians, from the Capes to the Falls at Trenton. He published in 1625, and died in 1649.
A translation of the part relating to the New Netherlands has been published in the first volume of the New York series of the New York Historical Collections -- he published in black letter, in Dutch and Latin. Which last was, of course, for the savans of Europe.
The next in order comes the Royal Beauchamp Plantagenet, who published in 1648, his "description of New Albion, made up from his two pamphlets, of 1637 and '42. Though carelessly written, it seems to be the result of an actual residence, by cer- tain English settlers, (among whom was Master Evelyn,) under the grant to Sir Edmond Ployden, his friend .* He had marked out the country for several nobles of his family, and he and his compatriots, for a while held a settlement on the Jersey side of Delaware, somewhere below Red Bank, supposed at Billings- port. But one copy of this most remarkable work is believed to exist, and that is in the Philadelphia Library, [and which is intended to be copied, as a curiosity.]
The "description of New Sweden," by Campanius, may be regarded as the third book in point of order of our antiquities. For although not printed at the time it depicts-yet it contains facts about locations along the Delaware, collected by Thomas Campanius, and Peter Lindstrom, the Engineer, contemporary with Gov. Printz, in 1642 and subsequent. This Campanius was the Swedish clergyman who lived in New Sweden six years. He was born in Stockholm, 1601, from which cause he has been called Thomas Campanius Holm. He made a catechism into the Indian Language, printed in 1696, he died in 1683. The notes which he wrote at Tinicum, were edited by his grandson, also named Thomas Campanius Holm, and published at Stockholm in 1702. It has lately been done into English by Mr. P. S. Duponceau, at the instance of the Historical Society of Pennsyl- vania, and a small copy of Lindstrom's map of the Delaware. accompanies the work, a large chart of 27 inches is also preserved in the Philosophical Society.
The next of the historians and geographers is Adrian Van de: Donck, who bore the honours of Doctor of civil and common law, from the University of Leyden. He enjoys the distinction of being the first lawyer in the New Netherlands, and the first sheriff of Rensselaerwyck. He came out in 1642, and afterwards printed at the Hague in 1653, his "Description of the New Nether. lands." From the second edition of 1656, Mr. Johnson of Brook
* Ployden calls himself Earl Albion, as having land enough here to give him an Earldom! It all went down as to claim and title; but in 1788, we saw in the public papers, a claim to New Jersey and Long Island, as belonging to the Earl of Albion's family-it died away unnoticed.
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lyn, has made his translation. Although in himself a scholar, he preferred to write in his vernacular tongue, the Dutch. His map of 1656, so far as the Delaware is concerned, seems very correct.
In 1655, was published, in Dutch, a work by David Pieterzen de Vries, master of artillery, his " Brief historical and journalized notes of several voyages to the four quarters of the globe." This De Vries is the same person who appeared in command at Fort Nassau, N. J. He was concerned with his friends De Laet and Van Rensselaer in planting colonies in New Netherlands.
A portion of his work has been translated into English for the New York Historical Society, by Mr. Troost, and also some fragments of it have been preserved by Du Simetiere.
In 1698, Gabriel Thomas, published in London "an historical and geographical account of the Province of Pennsylvania and of West New Jersey." The part relative to Pennsylvania, I have given in my Annals. The New Jersey part, I have not seen -- the book is now very scarce, and hard to be obtained-the Jersey part has been reprinted here lately.
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