USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. II > Part 11
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This, however, was done by an act of 1724, which remained in force. On May 26, 1719, the Act of May 31, 1718, was confirmed by the Regents of Great Britain.
Following proposal by Keith, after hearing of the Crown's repeal of the laws of 1715 for courts, the As- sembly resolved that the Governor be desired to open and hold a Court of Equity for the Province with the assistance of such of his Council as he should think fit, except those who had heard the same case in an inferior court. The Council adopted the suggestion, and, at the Governor's desire, established that as often as he should sit in Chancery he should be attended by all the Councillors in or near Philadelphia, and that there should be no decree made but by him as Chancellor with the concurrence of two at least of the six eldest Councillors, and that any one of the six might be em- ployed by him as Master in Chancery. Accordingly, on Aug. 25, 1720, this court was established. Keith had not been prepared for the profession of law, nor had any of the six eldest Councillors. We shall see that the Court lasted under this and the next Lieutenant until 1736. It was the only separate equity tribunal which ever existed in Pennsylvania, the courts of law before and since being authorized to exercise equity jurisdic- tion, and some kinds of equitable relief being secured through a method of using common law forms, but the foreclosure of mortgages being by a proceeding under the Act of 1705 upon the common law writ of scire facias.
In the Lower Counties also, the aforesaid law as to crimes was in substance enacted; and the Court of Chancery had jurisdiction.
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CHAPTER XIX.
THE IRISH AND THEIR KIRK.
The Southern Indians-Few whites west of the lower Pequea before 1719-Plight of the Indians on the lower Susquehanna and near the Potomac -Great quit claim by the Delawares-Pennsyl- vania Indians told not to aid the Five Nations- Arrival of the Scotch-Irish-The Tennent family -William Tennent Jr.'s vision-Origin and re- ligion of the new immigrants, and prevailing cause for leaving Ireland - Pennsylvania government wishes its Indians not to die off-The Cayuga claim to the Susquehanna-Pennsylvania raises a militia -The Irish sent to Donegal for defence-Keith makes peace for the Pennsylvania Indians with those of Virginia-The Five Nations become rea- sonable-Pennsylvania coerces whites offending Indians-A Seneca killed-Treaty of Albany- Ratification of Virginia's proposals-Overwhelm- ing continuation of Irish immigration-Provides the rural free labor, and protects the Penn bound- ary claim-New Presbyterian places of worship and congregations-Theological and ecclesiastical attitude and influence of Scotch and Irish minis- ters-Synods of 1733 and 1734 take up question of personal religion-Hemphill-Further exami- nation of those ordained in Ireland sine titulo- Question of college education-New Brunswick Presbytery is established, and disobeys the Synod -Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent oppose majority of Presbyterian ministers-The split into "Old Side" and "New Side"-The academy in Chester County, afterwards at Newark, Delaware.
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The homes of the Shawnees, Ganawese, Delawares, and Mingoes on the slopes of the lower Susquehanna, and their hunting-grounds over the crest towards the Potomac, lay between the country proper of the Five Nations and that of the Southern Indians, so as to be unsafe during the wars between those rivals. At the southernmost end of the British possessions was the powerful tribe known to us as the Cherokees, of Iro- quoian stock, who, calling themselves Tsalegi or Tsaragi, have been identified with the Alligewi, men- tioned in the tradition of the Lenni Lenape as driven by the latter from Pennsylvania. The great mountain range of the Alleghanies perpetuates the name of these early owners. Between, however, this tribe in its XVIIIth Century location and the Potomac were the Southern Indians with whom we are now concerned. They were mostly of a different stock than Iroquoian or Algonquian, being now called Siouan after their kindred the Sioux, and, while all called Tuteloes by the Iroquois, were mainly in two great tribes, the Cataw- bas and the Tuteloes proper with the latter's close kindred the Saponi.
On the aforesaid frontier of Pennsylvania, we hear of no injuries at first to the persons or property of white men, of whom, besides those trading with the Indians, only a few stragglers were seating themselves as far west as the lower Pequea before 1719. Most of these pioneers had previously lived in the more thickly settled part of the dominion, and most appear to have been Quakers. The earliest warrant affecting the region in question issued in a decidedly Scotch name, and perhaps for a Scotch Irishman, was dated 4 mo. 12, 1717, for surveying 200 acres at Conestoga for Colum Macnair, or, as the Penn accounts call his sur- name, Macquare, late of West Jersey.
The Indians of the region suffered not merely as neutrals might have done, but as allies of the Five
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Nations; for, when the warriors of the latter passed through the tributaries' villages, and appealed to the savages' passion for fighting, or reproached the younger men for want of spirit, recruits were obtained. Not these alone met with casualities, but the non-com- batants at home were thus confounded by the enemy with the nations that had sent out the expeditions. By the disgraceful policy of enlisting Indians against Indians, the Five Nations were induced to take up the hatchet in alliance with the government of Virginia against the Catawbas. After the Lieutenant-Gover- nor of that colony, Alexander Spotswood, had entered into peace negotiations with the Catawbas, an advanced body of Mohawks and Senecas, ignorant of this, and bent upon revenging a murder of ambassadors, at- tacked near Fort Christianna in Virginia, on April 10, 1717, some Catawbas who had surrendered their fire- arms, and given hostages. Six Catawbas were killed, and two carried off to the Mohawk country. Soon afterwards, an innocent Pennsylvania Indian, son of Owechela, the Delaware, while hunting beyond the furthermost branch of the Potomac, was murdered and decapitated by Virginia Indians accompanying a small troop of Virginia horsemen. This took place while Keith was on the ocean, coming to take the government of Pennsylvania. It is not asserted, but it would ap- pear, that the cavalcade was the escort of Capt. Christopher Smith, who had been sent to the Five Nations by Lieut. Gov. Spotswood to inquire into the attack upon the disarmed Catawbas, to recover the prisoners, and to ask for an embassy to come to Vir- ginia to make a treaty of peace. The Pennsylvania Indians about the Conestoga sent word to Philadel- phia, not certain of the nationality of the white horse- men, and therefore alarmed at the possibility of de- struction by an adverse European nation. The Min- goes, for the others, told Lieutenant-Governor Keith,
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who met them at Conestoga on July 18, 1717, that, if such whites were English, they, the Mingoes, Dela- wares, Shawnees, and Ganawese, would inquire no further.
To Conestoga then also repaired Capt. Smith, who was on his way homeward, having received at Albany the promise of the Five Nations not to attack the Vir- ginians or their friends, but having to report objection by the Five Nations to any treaty of peace being made elsewhere than at Albany. He had heard that Shaw- nees were participants in the attack upon the Cataw- bas, and he now asked to be allowed to treat with the Shawnees represented at Conestoga. Keith was told by the Shawnees in attendance that six Shawnees, who lived much higher up the Susquehanna, had been with the attacking party, but had stopped at a creek, and knew nothing until the Iroquois, eighteen in number, had returned with prisoners; nor did the Shawnees know anything about certain other hostilities com- mitted in Virginia, and the only prisoner they had be- longing to any tribe in amity with Virginia was a Catawba taken as a small lad, who had forgotten his native language, but who would be returned, if the King of the Catawbas would come, and make peace. Keith told Capt. Smith that he did not think it neces- sary or useful that anybody should treat with the Indians except the Governors of the provinces to which they respectively belonged; however, he would attempt to make any reasonable treaty for the benefit of the Indians of Virginia that Governor Spotswood would suggest. Keith reminded the chiefs that all the colonies from New England to South Carolina, both inclusive, were subject to the great King and Emperor of the English, so when any of these colonies made a treaty of friendship with Indians, it was made for the benefit of all the colonies, and of all the Indians in league with any of them. Accordingly, he explained,
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that any injury done to the Indians who were in friend- ship with another English colony, was a breach of the friendship with Pennsylvania; while, if any injury were done by other Indians to those of Pennsylvania, its government would seek for satisfaction from the colony to which those Indians belonged. A few pres- ents were given to the chiefs at the meeting, who one by one then took Gov. Keith by the hand, in testimony of agreement to observe former friendship with the government, and not to molest any English govern- ment, or to make war upon Indians in friendship there- with, but, in all cases of danger, to advise with the government of Pennsylvania; and, if any mischief were done by Indians to the English, or vice versa, for both parties to meet in good will for acknowledgment of mis- take and satisfaction for wrong. This handshaking of the sachems was sincere on their part, was consistent with the behavior of the Ganawese before and after- wards, and represented the feeling of the majority of the members of the other tribes connected with the Province, but, of course, was not enough to keep every individual savage from yielding to the temptation of bloodshed and booty, or to the threatening reproaches of the mighty northern warriors, claiming vassals.
The war was continued by the Five Nations. In alarm at the arrival of five hundred braves at the upper part of the Susquehanna, Spotswood visited Governor Hunter at New York in the Fall of 1717, accompanied by Keith, but refused to bring a deputation to Albany for a meeting with the Indians, unless it should be pre- viously arranged for the treaty to stipulate that the Indians north of the Potomac should not cross that river, or go east of the mountains to the south of it. The five hundred had promised to turn off to the west, and fight a tribe six hundred miles from the English settlements, but, instead of doing this, proceeded to the Catawba country, and carried on a long campaign. In
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the following Spring, certain Pennsylvania Indians, among whom was Civility, the Conestoga war captain, were intending to follow the war path, but, upon re- ceiving a letter from Keith, desisted. The Indians at Conestoga expressed a willingness to move away, but the Pennsylvania officials, to keep them near, persuaded them to remain, and ran a line around the land they occupied, excluding all whites but John Cartlidge, who was to be caretaker, and fencing the Indians' corn fields. Civility with other Conestogas, also Methawen- nah, chief of the Shawnees above Conestoga, George, sent to represent the Ganawese, and Checohinican, who had moved from the Brandywine to the Susque- hanna, came in June. They presented their new King, under name of Oneshanayan, and called attention to the great quantity of rum brought by persons with no fixed settlements, and gave notice of an intention to hunt the following Winter towards the Potomac, if agreeable to the Pennsylvania government. They asked that lines be also placed at the distance of four miles from the Susquehanna River around the Shawnee and Ganawese settlements. This was probably done.
At this time, the Delawares had an idea that the lands bought from them, or rather from their ances- tors, had never been paid for. Accordingly in Sep- tember, 1718, Sassoonan, the King, and Metashichay, Aiyamackan, Gheltypeneeman, and Opekasset, chiefs, came down to Philadelphia, and made demand. The old deeds were shown to them, with the other receipts signed, and a couple of guns and some coats, blankets,
and kettles were presented, and the visitors acknowl- edged themselves mistaken, and executed a release, dated Sep. 17, 1718, of all the lands owned by their ancestors and predecessors between the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers from Duck Creek to "the moun- tains on this side Lechay." Lieutenant-Governor Keith and some of his Councillors and some Indians,
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including Sam, a son of Essepenaike (see chapter on the Red Neighbours), witnessed the signatures: and when Pokehais and Pepawmamen, also parties to the release, appeared, and made their marks to it, Logan was one of the witnesses.
Some members of the tribes represented at the meet- ing in June, at least some Shawnees, took up the hatchet: to those shamed or cajoled into doing so, it mat- tered not that their tribes had been formerly in friend- ship with the Southern Indians, particularly the Tute- loes, and that lately nine belts of wampum had come for a continuance of the league. It is inferable from John French's speech at Conestoga in June, 1719, that some Pennsylvania Indians had rather recently been guilty of, or spectators of, torturing a prisoner to death. In the Spring of 1719, near the head of the Potomac, southern Indians, apparently Tuteloes, killed ten Min- goes, who may have been innocent hunters, and two Shawnees, who had gone to fight. The terrified Indians on the Susquehanna sent a letter to Philadel- phia, acknowledging mistakes and errors, and promis- ing to obey the Governor. The five hundred Iroquois returning home, after threats to come back in greater force, a body of them stopped at Conoy Town in Penn- sylvania on May 20, 1719, exhibiting fifteen natives of Virginia, whom they were carrying away as prisoners, and refusing the request of Cartlidge for their release. The declaration was made that a free passage through the English plantations to and fro was expected for warlike purposes by the Five Nations. Col. French was sent to Conestoga, and communicated an offer from the Lieutenant-Governor to notify all the English Governors and, through them, the Indians connected with them, that the Pennsylvania Indians would be peaceable, and a further offer to have the aggressors in the matter of the killing of the Mingoes and Shaw- nees forbidden to act so any more. At the same time,
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the Pennsylvania Indians were told that they must have nothing to do with the Five Nations going to war, or returning, and must not even entertain any of the chiefs, and must notify the Governor of Pennsylvania of any prisoner, for the putting of such to death would not be tolerated. Civility and Canatowa, Queen of the Mingoes, Sevana, King of the Shawnees, Wightomina, King of the Delawares, and Wininchack, King of the Canawages (Conewagoes, or Ganawese), declared agreement to this, and that they would advise their young people ever to be mindful of it.
In proximity to these Indians there probably came in that Summer, and there undoubtedly settled no later than the Fall of 1719, members of that great race, which, spreading from Pennsylvania over "the South- West," may be said with a varying degree of accuracy to have given to the United States three things of dif- ferent value, viz: whiskey, the Presbyterian Church, and independence of Great Britain. The account books of the agents of the Penns show that by 9mo. 6, 1719, James Mitchell had taken 500 acres near Susquehanna, George Steward 200 acres, Arthur Park 300 acres, and Patrick Campbell 100 acres, and that Steward, as soon afterwards as 11mo. 6, paid half the cost of his purchase. As far as known, these four came directly from Ireland, not having settled in any other part of America, and they were probably the most substantial of a large number of Ulstermen who disembarked at Philadelphia or, more probably, New Castle in that year, some of whom advanced into the forest, others worked for planters nearer the ports, and some doubt- less were among the "people lately come from Ireland settled about the branches of Elk River," mentioned in the records of New Castle Presbytery for 1720. James Galbreith (Galbraith) "late of Ireland" is charged in 1720 for 100 acres to be laid out near Susquehanna.
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Although we may date the large and continuous im- migration as beginning in 1719, there were already per- sons of the same birthplace, ancestry, and religion east of the Pequea: so that the entire region west of the Brandywine in dispute between the Lords Baltimore and the Penns, and ultimately yielded to the latter, may be called the American cradle of the race. Charles A. Hanna, in his voluminous work The Scotch-Irish or the Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America, tells of some Scotch-Irish, who had settled under Maryland title, organizing in 1708 the Presby- terian congregation known as "Head of Christina," with house of worship in the little point of land until recently between the eastern line of Maryland and the curve of Delaware. At the shipping ports, or in the towns, there were some Scotch-Irish engaged in mer- cantile or mechanical career : but we are concerned only with the agriculturists, remaining a people by itself.
A family generally resident at the older settlements, but which has been to Presbyterianism almost what the Muhlenbergs have been to Lutheranism, came to Phila- delphia in September, 1718. The Rev. William Tennent had been born in Ireland in 1673, made deacon by the Bp. of Down in 1704, and priest in 1706, and, after being, it is said, chaplain to a nobleman, had lost or failed to get a church living, because, as is indefi- nitely stated, Tennent "could not conscientiously con- form to the terms imposed on the clergy of that king -. dom." Tennent had married, before taking orders, a daughter of Rev. Gilbert Kennedy, then deceased, who had been ejected from a charge at Girvan, Ayrshire, had become minister at Dundonald, Ireland, and been imprisoned by Bp. Boyle of Down. On the mother's side, Tennent was a cousin of James Logan of Phila- delphia, and, possibly for that reason, sought occupa- tion there, bringing over wife and children, and being hospitably received by Logan. Tennent applied to the
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Presbyterian Synod to be received as a minister of that denomination. His reasons for separating from the Church which had ordained him being asked in writing, he gave as the chief that the Church of Ireland connived "at Arminian doctrines." In this connec- tion, we recall the description of that Church's mother or elder sister, the Church of England, as having a Romish liturgy, a Calvinistic theology, and an Arminian clergy. Tennent was admitted by the Pres- byterians on Sep. 17, 1718, and, with much pointedness, seriously exhorted to remain steadfast. After labor- ing in the province of New York, he, in 1721, began to preach at Bensalem, the Dutch settlement, from which he was called in 1726 to Neshaminy. On going there, he began to give instruction in classics and theology not only to his sons, but also to others who wished to enter the ministry. Logan in 1728 presented to him fifty acres of land not far from the present Hartsville for a residence; and, within a few steps from the dwelling house, Tennent built a log school house for this higher education.
He and his sons, the latter at least having under- gone a great concern for their salvation, and feel- ing a great assurance, were working to convict of a sense of sin, and of dependence on God's mercy, before the arrival of Whitefield. Gilbert, the eldest, was min- ister at New Brunswick. John, the third, died in 1732, minister of a congregation of Scotchmen at Freehold. Charles, the fourth, was minister at White Clay. Wil- liam, the second son, who succeeded John at Freehold, had a singular experience of the same nature as Dr. De Benneville's (see chapter on the Germans). Ten- nent's was told by him to certain persons whose testi- mony is given in Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander's Biographical Sketches of the Founder and Principal Alumni of the Log College. Overstudy had brought young Tennent near a dying condition, when, becoming
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alarmed as to his soul, he fainted, while talking with his oldest brother, and was supposed dead. The funeral was about to take place, when the physician noticed some sign of life. When, a second time, prep- arations had been made for a funeral, Tennent opened his eyes, gave a groan, and again apparently expired. This was repeated, but in an hour or so he completely revived; yet it was only after months that he was physically well, and then with total forgetfulness of the past, so that he began his studies over again. Suddenly his memory returned. His statement was,-and of this he never lost memory,-that, while conversing with his brother, he found himself, as he thought, in heaven, and saw, not God in shape, but glory unspeakable, and multitudes before it, singing, until some one said "You must go back." While asking "Lord, must I go back?" Tennent found himself again in the world.
The Irish of colonial Pennsylvania, except a few called Papists, were not the old Irish, originally Mile- sian, or even the Norman English, sprung from the Normans within the English Pale, who, in the course of centuries, had largely become "more Irish than the [Milesian] Irish," and who also were Roman Catholics. The race which for many years of the period of these Chronicles poured from Ireland into Pennsylvania, came from Ulster, and, through Ulster, partly from Saxon England, but predominantly from the lowlands of Scotland; so that the more modern term "Scotch- Irish" is more accurate. Some persons of the same race had been converted to Quakerism, and settled in Chester County before their kindred, and are to be distinguished from them, being, by religion and con- temporaneous immigration to Pennsylvania, rather closely united with the English Quakers. Quite a num- ber of the Quakers who came to the shores of the Dela- ware had been residents of Ireland, but either had been born in England, or were the children of those who
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participated in the Cromwellian settlement, or of those who came later from England to engage in trade.
Despite the arbitrary and cruel laws and administra- tive measures to impose upon the inhabitants of Ire- land the worship and ecclesiastical regulations of England, not only had the Pope retained impregnably his hold upon the majority, but the Presbyterian sys- tem, which ultimately triumphed in Scotland, had spread over many of the Protestants. Yet the Church of Ireland established by law, Protestant and Episco- pal, had a large following, from possession of edifices and revenues, and from the influence of the nobility, and of almost all the gentry. In our own day, prior to the disestablishment of this Church, after the long ces- sation of persecution for its benefit, and, to be sure, after the Presbyterians have so largely emigrated, the Episcopalians have numbered, if they do not now, the great plurality among the Protestants. The Rev. George Walker, acclaimed as the hero of London- derry's defence, was a clergyman of the Established Church, and so were eighteen of the other defenders, the Conformist and Non-Conformist refugees using the cathedral at different hours. Similarly, doubtless, attendants of the parish church at Enniskillen, and of neighbouring parish churches, helped to hold that town. Probably there were some Episcopalians among the Irish who came to Pennsylvania, but such, if they settled in those rural parts taken up by their non- Quaker Protestant countrymen, seem to have wor- shipped with them. The great majority of the non- Quaker Irish immigrants, as seems natural to people affiliated so closely with Scotland, were Presbyterians, former adherents of the Synod of Ulster. Their fore- fathers had set up the standard of the Westminster Confession. The Synod had, in 1698, reaffirmed it, unanimously directing that all candidates for the ministry, before being licensed, should subscribe the
THE IRISH AND THEIR KIRK. 601
said Confession; and the Synod had, in 1705, required such a declaration of faith, and a promise to adhere to the doctrine, discipline, and government contained in said Confession from not only future licentiates, but present licentiates who had not subscribed; and this requirement had been at once complied with.
Besides the conditions and events destructive of the general prosperity of Ireland, such as the numerous wars, the drain of money by absentees, and the com- mercial dependence upon England, particularly felt in the shrinking of the woolen trade, there were causes for the emigration of the very classes of the popula- tion which came to America in the latter half of the XVIIth Century and earlier half of the XVIIIth. The island has a hard climate for those poor who till the ground, and look directly to it for a living: there had, in the XVIIth Century, been several risings to mas- sacre all Protestants: and, for a long period before the date closing this history, there was at first coercion of all who dissented from the theologians at the time on top, and afterwards discrimination against all Pres- byterians who had any ambition. The Irish settlers with whom we are concerned, however, had not been driven from the "Old Country" by penal laws concern- ing religion. Hardly any came before those laws were a dead letter, and, almost contemporaneously with the beginning of the great immigration, the Parliament of Ireland formally, by Act of 6 Geo. I, c. 5, relieved Protestants from the requirement under the Act of 2 Eliz. to attend service where the Book of Common Prayer was used. The Act furthermore relieved dis- senters in holy orders or pretended holy orders, and preachers or teachers of dissenting Protestants, from the penalty of £100 for administering the Lord's Supper. The only condition imposed for this tolera- tion did not interfere with the kind of preachers who came to Pennsylvania, viz: that they should not deny
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