USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, comprising a historical sketch of the county > Part 6
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49
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
CHAPTER V.
PENN'S WORK -INTER -COLONIAL WARS AND ASSOCIATORS - ACADIAN EXILES.
PENN'S WORK.
The Puritan swept King Philip and his tribes from the face of the earth, and extended New England to the Hudson. The Cavalier crushed Powhattan's thirty-tribe confedera- tion, and carried westward his line of settle- ments in Virginia and the Carolinas to the Blue Ridge mountains ; but Penn, by treaties, secured at a trifling cost the peaceable posses- sion of his province to the Susquehanna river, while his rivals won their lands by a great loss of life and an immense expenditure of wealth. Theirs was the old story of conquest and sub- jugation. His was the new lesson of pur- chase, peace and prosperity.
William Penn established his colony upon the broad principles of Christian charity and constitutional freedom, and a powerful and prosperous State grew up as the success of his experiment, which had been pronounced impracticable and visionary by all the philos- ophers and statesmen of his age. The only defect in his magnificent scheme of govern- ment was, that while he provided for universal suffrage, he did not provide for universal free- dom by prohibiting human servitude within the bounds of his great province. But in all probability, if Penn had lived to have seen the evils of slavery that grew with its extension, he would have been the first to demand the emancipation of the slave.
William Penn returned to England in 1684, and five years later was deprived of his pro- prietary rights, because he was suspected of adherence to the fortunes of James, who had been driven from the throne by William, Prince of Orange. His province was restored to him in 1694, and in 1699 he revisited his American colony. He remained two years,
oppose a parliamentary proposition to abolish all proprietary governments in America. He never returned, being prostrated, in 1712, by a paralytic disorder that terminated his life on July 30, 1718, when he was in the seventy- fourth year of his age.
Time in his flight has numbered over two centuries since William Penn set foot on the present great and populous State of Pennsyl- vania, and the results of his work on the Dela- ware are truthfully given on the tablet in Independence Hall, on which is inscribed, "William Penn, born in London, October 14th, 1644, laid the foundations of universal liberty A. D. 1682, in the privileges he then accorded the emigrants to Pennsylvania, and thus enabled their descendants to make the colony the Keystone State of the Federal Union in 1789."
INTER-COLONIAL WARS.
In the colonial history of this country there were four great wars, known by the name of the Inter-colonial wars :
I. King Williams' war, 1689-1697.
II. Queen Anne's war, 1702-1713.
III. King George's war, 1744-1749.
IV. French and Indian war, 1754-1763.
During these wars, while the northern bor- ders of New York and the New England States were ravaged by fire and sword, and while the Virginia and Maryland frontier was raided by Indian war parties, the settlers of south- eastern Pennsylvania suffered no molestation and felt no alarm of invasion until 1747 and 1748, during which years French and Spanish war vessels threatened the towns along the Delaware.
From 1718 up to 1747 there were but few events of importance in the history of Chester county beyond a proposed removal of the Provincial capital to Chester, the enlistment of redemptioners, and the raising of troops for a Canadian expedition.
In J728 several members of the general and then was suddenly called to England to ' assembly were rudely insulted in Philadelphia
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OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
and obtained the passage of a resolution re- questing the governor and council to select another town in the State for a capital. The council recommended Chester "if the house on further experience shall continue in the sentiments," which it seems they did not, as likely this move on their part frightened into respectful behavior those Philadelphians or others who had offered the insults. In 1739 James Mather, in the borough of Chester, and Henry Hockley and Henry and Lazarus Fin- ney, in the county, enlisted fifty-eight re- demption servants for an English expedition, that sailed to ravage the Spanish settlements in the West Indies. For the time of these re- demptioners the loan office, in 1741. paid £515 IIS. 9d. In 1746 the crown ordered four hundred men to be raised in Pennsylvania to take part in an expedition for the conquest of Canada. One of the four companies raised in this State was Capt. John Shannon's. It was recruited in New Castle and Chester counties along the Delaware, lay at Chester for some time, and then went into cantonment at Albany, New York, where it remained near a year, and suffered severely a part of the time for clothing and provisions.
In 1747 a French privateer entered Dela- ware bay and captured several vessels, and the next year the Spanish privateer St. Mich- ael, carrying twenty-two guns and a crew of one hundred and sixty men, not only entered the bay, but came up the river as high as New Castle. The tide and a calm being against the St. Michael, she went down the river and lay for some time in the bay, where she re- mained for a short time and captured several vessels.
ASSOCIATORS.
During the years 1747 and 1748 Chester county had a voluntary military association, called into existence by alarms of invasion on the seaboard, which was a part of the " As- sociators" that was thoroughly organized throughout the inhabited part of the province. The "Associators " were Pennsylvania's great -1
training school for the Revolutionary war. The " Associators" were organized by volun- tary effort, because the assembly would not pass any effective military law. Chester county had two associate regiments, whose officers were :
Colonels. -- William Moore, Andrew Mc- Dowell.
Lieutenant-colonels. - Samuel Flower, John Frew.
Majors. - John Mather, John Miller.
Captains.
David Parry. John Mather.
Roger Hunt.
James Hunter.
George Aston.
John Miller ._
William McKnight.
William Clinton.
Moses Dickey.
Thomas Hubbert, jr.
Richard Richison.
George Leggitt.
Andrew McDowell.
Job Ruston.
John McCall.
William Bell.
George Taylor.
Joseph Wilson.
James Graham.
Henry Glassford.
Robert Grace.
William Boyd.
Hugh Kilpatrick.
William Reed.
John Williamson.
William Porter.
Lieutenants.
Isaac Davis. James Mather.
Guyon Moore.
Charles Moore.
Robert Morrell.
George Bentley.
Robert Anderson.
Morris Thomas.
John Boyd.
John Rees.
John Cuthbert.
Thomas Leggitt.
John Cunningham.
Joseph Smith.
John Culbertson.
Robert McMullen.
John Vaughan.
James Cochran.
Robert Allison. . -
William Darlington. John Kent.
John Culbertson.
William Buchanan.
Thomas Hope.
James McMakin.
Robert Mackey.
Ensigns.
Nathaniel Davis.
James Montgomery.
William Little.
John Hambright.
Edward Pearce.
George Mccullough.
Samuel Love.
James Scott.
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Robert Awl.
Anthony Prichard.
Francis Gardner.
Archibald Young.
Jacob Free.
James Dysart.
William Cumming.
Rowland Parry.
John Johnson.
Joseph Parke.
Joseph Talbot.
John Emmitt.
Benj. Weatherby.
John Donald.
Thomas Brown.
Thomas Clarke.
William Carr.
John Smith.
In the fall of 1748 a general sickness, that was a true pleurisy, prevailed in the county, and of those who were attacked with it, but few recovered.
Three years later, in 1751, a parliamentary act was passed to correct the calendar then in use, and by its provisions Wednesday, Septem- ber 2, 1751, was to be followed Thursday Sep- tember 14, 1751. Pennsylvania accepted this change, as also did Chester Monthly Meet- ing of the Friends, who also provided that Jan- nary should be the first month of the year in- stead of March, as they had computed time from 1682 according to the 35th section of the great law, passed in that year, which read as follows :
"35. And Beit further enacted by the au- thority aforesaid, that the dayes of the Week and ye months of the year shall be called as in Scripture & not by Heathen names (as are vul- garly used) as the first, Second, and third days of ye Week, and first, second, and third months of ye year, and beginning with ye Day called Sunday and the month called March."
During the first of the two Inter-colonial wars Chester county had been called on for neither men nor means. In the last years of the third war her citizens had been alarmed by the threatened capture of her sea-board towns, and when the fourth or French and Indian war had been fairly commenced in the western part of the province some apprehension was felt on the Delaware. In 1755 Chester was one of the four eastern counties called on for sixty wagons for the use of Braddock's army in its march on Fort Du Quesne, and after the fatal battle of the Monongahela, two companies
were hastily raised in the county by Captains Isaac Wayne and George Aston, and marched into Northampton county to guard the frontier families there from expected Indian attacks.
In 1758 Gen. John Forbes captured Fort Du Quesne, and in his army were three companies that contained Chester county men. Captain West's, Haslet's and Singleton's. Capt. John Haslet was of New Castle county, and in his company were the following men from Chester county : Peter Allen, William Boggs, James Brieslin, Edward Gallagher, Thomas Harvey, John McAfee, James Thomas, and Samuel White. In Capt. John Singleton's company were many Chester county men, and of those from the borough of Chester were: Samuel Armitage, William Bevard, David Coupland, ThomasCallican, ThomasConnolly, JohnCross, Johan Cruthers, Hugh Davis, William Foster, William Henry (drummer ), William Kennedy, Terence Kealy, John Long, Edward McSorley, Patrick Roe, John Richeson, John Shannon, Edward Sheppard, and David Way.
In 1759 Gen. John Stanwick was ordered to build Fort Pitt on the ruins of Fort Du Quesne, and was to receive a certain number of soldiers and teams from Pennsylvania. Chester county was required to furnish sixty- four wagons and two hundred and fifty-six horses, for which a certain rate of compensa- tion was to be paid the owners. The county furnished no inconsiderable part of these teams, although Stanwick wrote that Chester, as well as Bucks county, had only given him nominal assistance in wagons and horses. Of the Chester county men in Stanwick's army, we have the names of seventeen, who served in the following companies : Capt. John Mather, junior's', Capt. Robert Boyd's, Capt. James Armstrong's, and Capt. Jacob Richardson's. In Captain Mather's company were: John Gorsel, Evan Jones, Jacob Kirgan, and Hugh Wallace. In Captain Boyd's company were : James Campbell, James Darragh, Samuel Fillson, James Hamilton, George Matthews, Robert Sandford, John Small, John Travers,
51
OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
and John Willson. In Captain Armstrong's company were : William Moore and James Parr. In Captain Richardson's company was William Cassiday.
ACADIAN EXILES.
From 1755 to 1761, a subject that deeply interested the citizens of Chester county was that of the maintenance of a certain number of the Acadian exiles, whose wrongs and suffer- ings have been immortalized in Longfellow's "Evangeline." The ancestors of these Aca . dian exiles, or French neutrals, from Nova Scotia, had become conditional subjects of Great Britain when their country was con- quered by the English in 1713. The Acadians were not to be required to take up arms against France, but in 1755, because a few of them were found in arms in the cause of the French, Governor Lawrence demanded that the whole Acadian population, over seven thousand in number, take an unconditional oath of allegi- ance to the British monarchy, which they re- fused to do, as it was a violation of the treaty of 1713. Governor Lawrence then confiscated their real cstate, burned their houses, and transported them to different parts of the British North American colonies, instead of sending them to France, where they asked to be sent.
Five hundred of these poor Acadians were sent to Pennsylvania, where they suffered greatly, in the different counties in which they were placed. Nathaniel Pennock, Nathaniel Grubb, and John Hannum were the commis- sioners named to distribute the Acadians sent to Chester county, where but one family was located in each township. Having little or no means of their own, these injured people be- came a charge upon the public, and, to add to their distress, in 1757 the assembly passed an act to bind out their children, which they bitterly opposed, as they were principally Catholics and did not wish their children placed under the influence of those of a dif- ferent religious belief. In 1761 it was found
that the support of these exiles had cost Penn- sylvania seven thousand pounds from the time they had been landed up to that year. After 1761 they soon became self-supporting, and were no longer a burden to the province.
CHAPTER VI.
BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION - QUAK- ER NEUTRALITY - BATTLE OF BRANDY- WINE - BRITISH RAVAGES - COUNTY SEAT REMOVAL TO WEST CHESTER.
BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
The story of the Revolution has been told too often to need repetition on these pages. The whig element of population in Chester county was very active in the beginning of the Revolutionary struggle in urging the province to resistance of the tyrannical measures of the British ministry.
Chester was selected as the first point on the Delaware where a customs officer was stationed to board vessels and enforce the due observ- ance of the revenue laws. In 1771 a confiscated schooner was taken by force from the customs officer, and on Christmas, 1773, the tea ship Polly, following another ship, came to anchor at Chester, as no pilot would dare to run her up to that place on account of the excited con- dition of the people along the Delaware. The Polly went from Chester to Philadelphia, where the people refused to allow her cargo of tea to be landed, and the vessel had to return to Lon- don with her duty bearing tea, whose selling price would have been cheaper than that of the untaxed article then sold in Pennsylvania, but this reduction mattered nothing as the people were opposing taxation without representation, which principle was involved in the landing and sale of the tea at any price however reduced.
On June 18, 1774, a meeting was held at Philadelphia, and a call for a continental Con- gress was advocated. On June 28th, a circular
52
.
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
letter was issued by a committee appointed by that meeting, for county delegates to meet in Philadelphia on July 15th. This letter was sent to Francis Richardson, Elisha Price and Henry Hayes, of Chester county, who on July 4th is- sued a call to the voters of the county to meet at the court house on the 13th, "to choose a number of our best and wisest men as a com- mittee for this county " to meet the delegates from other counties to consider the affairs of the province. The meeting on the 13th passed resolutions pledging due faith to King George III., condemning parliament for shutting the port of Boston, demanding the free use of their own property: asserted the protection of the lib- erties of America as a duty due to their poster- ity, calling for a congress of deputies, recom- mending the purchase of no merchandise brought from Great Britain under restrictions, and recommending generons contributions to the suffering brethren at Boston. The meeting appointed the following persons, or a majority of them, as the committee from Chester county to the Philadelphia convention of delegates : Francis Richardson, Elisha Price, John Hart, Anthony Wayne, John Sellers, Hugh Lloyd, William Montgomery, Francis Johnston, Wil- liam Parker, Richard Riley, Thomas Hockley, Robert Mendenhall and John Fleming. Of this committee, Francis Richardson, Elisha Price, John Hart, Anthony Wayne, Hugh Lloyd. John Sellers, Francis Johnston and Richard Riley attended the Philadelphia meeting of county delegates, which asked the general as- sembly to appoint delegates to the Continental Congress then in session. Elisha Price was a member of the committee which presented this petition to the general assembly that acted favorably on the same and promptly appointed eight delegates, two of whom, John Morton and Charles Humphreys, were residents of the present territory of Delaware county.
The Continental Congress of 1774 recom- mended that the importation of all English goods should be prohibited, and that no article should be exported to that country after 1776
unless parliament should repeal the obnoxious law against which the American people com- plained. On December 20, 1774, a meeting was held at the Chester county court house, which gave their approval to the measure rec- ommended by the Continental Congress, and appointed a large committee to act for the county in the furtherance of the congressional recommendation.
During the year 1774 the people of Chester county contributed liberally to the fund that was raised in the colonies for the relief of the necessities of the people of Massachusetts, occasioned by the enforcement of the Boston port bill.
On the 23d of January, 1775, the Provincial Convention met at Philadelphia, and the del- egates present from Chester county were : An- thony Wayne, Hugh Lloyd, Richard Thomas, Francis Johnston, Samuel Fairlamb, Lewis Davis, William Montgomery, Joseph Mus- grave, Joshua Evans, and Persifor Frazer. This body recommended to the assembly the passage of a law prohibiting the future impor- tation of slaves.
The Chester county delegates returned home and held a meeting at the house of Richard Cheyney in the interests of the abolition of slavery, and appointed another meeting at David Coupland's for May 31st, but ere that time arrived the news of Concord and Lex- ington had set the land aflame, and the prophecy of Patrick Henry had become his- tory. The minions of Lord North's minis- try- against the better sense of the people of England -- had provoked the colonies to armed resistance. The news of Lexington was the call to arms in Pennsylvania, and Anthony Wayne was foremost in Chester county in raising troops and arming them. The assembly appointed a committee of safety, of which Anthony Wayne, Benjamin Barthol- omew, Francis Johnston, and Richard Riley were the members from Chester county. Rifles and ammunition were scarce, yet the arming of the troops went forward as rapidly as pos-
53
OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
sible, and of the four rows of vaisseaux-de- frise thrown across the Delaware river, at the suggestion of Dr. Franklin, one was sunk within the present territory of Delaware county, and extended across the main channel of the river, opposite the upper end of Hog island. Richard Riley urged the placing of a line of obstructions across the river at Marcus Hook, a movement that Wayne warmly com- mended, but it was never done.
In September, 1775, the committee of Ches- ter county, of which Anthony Wayne was chairman, met, and notwithstanding the po- litical tendency of the people was toward in- dependence, yet they issued a disclaimer of any idea of separation from the mother coun- try. Some members of this committee should have been politicians enough not to issue such a paper. Wayne, however, might be excused, as Ashmead sums up his political and military capacity finely when he says, " Wayne, who was an admirable soldier, but a wretched pol- itician."
On January 2, 1776, Wayne was appointed colonel of the Fourth Pennsylvania battalion, five hundred and sixty strong, which rendez- voused at Chester, and then marched to New York. Soon after Wayne's departure, Col. Samuel Miles arrived near Chester with a regi- ment of one thousand riflemen, to harass the British if they attempted to come up the Dela- ware river toward Philadelphia.
Powder mills were started up through the county, and there is record of five battalions of militia in the county, having one thousand eight hundred and thirty firearms, and com- manded as follows :
First battalion, Col. James Moore. Second battalion, Col. Thomas Hockley. Third battalion, Col. Hugh Lloyd.
Fourth battalion, Col. William Montgomery. Fifth battalion, Col. Richard Thomas.
As the months of April and May passed, public affairs were rapidly shaping themselves toward the separation of the Thirteen Colonies from the mother country.
On the 18th of June, 1776, a provincial con- ference was held in Philadelphia, to which Chester county sent as delegates : Col. Rich- ard Thomas, Maj. William Evans, Col. Thomas Hockley, Maj. Caleb Davis, Elisha Price, Samuel Fairlamb, Capt. Thomas Levis, Col. William Montgomery, Col. Hugh Lloyd, Rich- ard Riley, Col. Evan Evans, Col. Lewis Gro- now, and Maj. Sketchley Morton. This con- ference provided for an election of members to a proposed constitutional convention, and adjourned on the 18th, after all the delegates had declared their "willingness to concur in a vote of the Congress declaring the United Col- onies free and independent states."
At a meeting of the Chester county com- mittee, held at Richard Cheyney's house, in Downington, July 1, 1776, the following ap- pointments were made in the battalion of the Chester County Flying Camp, which was or- ganized that day :
Captains-Joseph Gardner, Samuel Wal- lace, Samuel Culbinson, James Boyline, John McDowell, John Shaw, Matthew Boyd, and John Beaton.
First Lieutenants-William Henry, Andrew Dunwoody, Thomas Henry, Benjamin Cul- binson, Samuel Lindsay, Allen Cuningham, Joseph Strawbridge, and Joseph Bartholomew.
Second Lieutenants-Robert Filson, William Lockard, Thomas Davis, Samuel Hamill, Jere- miah Cloud, Joseph Wherry, David Curry and Alexander McCarragher.
Ensigns-William Cunningham, JohnGrard- trensher, John Filling, Andrew Curry, Thomas James, Lazarus Finney, Archibald Desart, and John Llewellyn.
The field-officers appointed were Col. Wil- liam Montgomery, Lieut .- Col. Thomas Bull, and Maj. John Bartholomew.
On July 4, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence came up for adoption or rejec- tion, it was sanctioned by the vote of every colony and of the Pennsylvania members pres- ent that day, Benjamin Franklin, John Mor- ton and James Wilson voted in the affirmative
4a
54
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
and Thomas Willing and Charles Humphreys in the negative.
John Morton and Charles Humphreys were from what is now Delaware county.
QUAKER NEUTRALITY.
The contest for violated rights had now passed into a war for separation and independ- ence. This change in the nature of the great struggle led to the division of the people of Chester county into three classes: whigs, torys and neutrals. The nentrals comprised the Qnakers, or Friends, who, true to their principles of non-resistance, were perfectly passive as a people throughout the Revolu- tionary war, yet they advocated the colonial side until arms were taken up, and then con- tributed of their means to relieve the wants of those who suffered in the struggle.
Smith, in speaking of the neutral course of the Quakers, or Friends, in the Revolutionary struggle, says : " When it became necessary to resort to ' carnal weapons' the Quakers, who had before been active, withdrew from the controversy, and a very large majority of the Society assumed and maintained a position of passive neutrality throughout the war. Still there was a considerable number who openly advocated a resort to arms. Even within the limits of this little county (Delaware), one hundred and ten young men were disowned by the Society for having entered the military service in defense of their conntry. Doubtless the Society furnished its proportion of tories, but the number was greatly exaggerated at the time by those unacquainted with Quakerism. Such persons construed their (Quaker) testi- monies against war, and their dealings with members who participated in it, as indirectly favoring the enemy. Their refusal to pay taxes exclusively levied for war purposes, was especially viewed in this light."
Many of the younger Quakers were in favor of the Colonial canse, but the older members were for a passive course and circulated ex- tensively a "testimony " against war, which
was claimed to have "exerted an influence against the patriots, and gave aid and comfort to the enemy."
BATTLE OF BRANDYWINE.
The military events in Chester county from the Declaration of Independence up to the battle of the Brandywine, while not of great importance, yet were of unusual interest to its residents. Shortly after the Declaration all the lead obtainable was gathered up for the army, even the leaden window and clock weights, and in November troops were ordered to rendezvous at Chester, as it was feared that a British fleet might come up the Delaware to capture Philadelphia. During December the reverses of the Continental army caused doubt and almost despair of Colonial snccess, and in Chester county but little could be pnr- chased with Continental money, the Quaker inn-keepers having pulled down their signs on the Lancaster road to avoid receiving Con- gress money. On April 14, 1777, Colonel Smith reported that Chester county then con- tained five thousand men capable of bearing arms, and ten days later Congress ordered fifteen hundred militia to rendezvous on the. Delaware. After one or two false alarms the British fleet entered the Delaware, but finding it hazardous to sail up that river it went to the Chesapeake bay. Washington thereupon broke camp, and on August 24th arrived at Chester, where a considerable body of militia had been gathered. The next day Washington marched to Wilmington, and took position on the east side of Red Clay creek. In the meantime Gen. John Armstrong was placed in command of the militia that was being concentrated at Chester with a view of harrassing the rear of the British army. On September 8th Howe made dispositions to turn Washington's right and cut him off from Philadelphia, but the American commander, detecting the British move, retreated to the high ground at Chadd's ford on the east side of the Brandywine creek.
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