USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > Chester > Historical sketch of Chester, on Delaware > Part 2
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Chester, in 1645-'46, was a place of such insignificance that An- dreas Hudde, an agent of the Dutch, who was sent by Governor Kieft, as a spy, to learn the condition and number of the Swedes on the Delaware river, as well as to ascertain the strength, armament and military force of the latter, makes no mention of it in his re- port to his superior officer. It is even doubtful, whether, at that time, Joran Keen had erected a house on his land, inasmuch as in the " Rulla," dated by Printz at " Kihrstina " (Christiana,) June 20, 1644, the statement appears that Upland was a tobacco planta- tion, as already mentioned. Between the years 1646 and 1648, a considerable settlement must have been made at this point, for in Hudde's interview with the Passyunk Indians, in that year, they spoke of Upland, among other places, in the possession of the Swedes, and charge the latter with having stolen the land from
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
them, while in Campanius' account of New Sweden, " Mecopo- nacka," or Upland, is mentioned in the year 1648, (the date of the elder Campanius' return to Sweden,) " as an unfortified place, but some houses were built there. It was situated between Fort Chris- tina, (near Wilmington) and New Gottenburg-Tinicum-but nearer the latter. There was a fort built there some time after its settlement. It is good even land along the river shore."
Ebeling, in his History of Pennsylvania, says that about 1650 there were two Swedish and Finnish settlements in this vicinity, called Upland and Finland-the former afterwards received the name of Chester ; " none of these settlements, however, were of in- portance, not even excepting Upland, which was made the chief place of a judicial district by the Dutch in 1668."
The Indian name of the site of the present City of Chester was Mecoponacka ; the Swedish, Upland ; the Dutch, Oplandt ; and the English, Chester and Upland indifferently until the former entirely absorbed the latter in designating the borough, about the middle of the last century. The proper Indian name of Chester creek was Meechoppenackhan, according to Heckewelder, in his " Indian Names," which signified the large potato stream, " or the stream along which large potatoes grow." This was corrupted into Maco- panachan, Macopanackhan, and finally into Mecopanacha. The In- dian tribe which owned the land whereon Chester stands, according to John Hill Martin, was the Okchockings, and were subsequently removed by the order of William Penn, in 1702, to " the tract in Chester county, formerly laid out to Griffy Jones, but now vacant." Many of the Indians were soon reduced to menial servitude by the European settlers, and previous to 1657 negro slaves had been brought to the colony and used as laborers.
In the year 1655, the Swedish power on the Delaware ceased, when, in September of that year, Peter Stuyvesant, the redoubtable Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam, appeared off Fort Cassimer -- near the present Wilmington -- with seven vessels carrying about six hundred soldiers, and compelled the fort to capitulate on the 11th of that month. The wonderful deeds of arms performed on that occasion are duly heralded in the philosophical history of the late Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, but, for our purpose, it is necessary merely to state that the whole Swedish provinces along the Dela-
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Chester before the Arrival of Wm. Penn, 1644-1682.
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ware fell with that fortress, and Upland, among the others, passed into the ownership of the Dutch. The conquerors were the veriest wantons in their victory. They killed the cattle, goats, swine and poultry of the Swedish settlers, broke open their houses, and robbed them of all they had that was valuable. Rysingh, the Swedish Governor, in his letter to Stuyvesant, particularly mentions the plundering of Upland, as well as other hamlets further up the riv- er, and at Tinicum, he says, " they robbed Mr Papegoya's wife " (daughter of Governor Printz) " of all she had." It should be re- membered that the Swedes, before the arrival of Penn, always set- tled near the tide water, and their usual means of communication and transportation was by boats. Indeed, it is recorded that they would come from New Castle to Tinicum in this way to attend di- vine service on Sundays, when the Dominie preached at the latter church, and as they rarely traveled by land, no highways were ne- cessary from settlement to settlement other than the Indian trails through the forests, which, owing to the latter's habit of firing the woodlands every Fall, was free from under-brush.
The Dutch found their conquest a costly one, and earnest were their efforts to govern the territory without bringing on a collision between the conquered and the conquerors. To this end they or- dered that all the Swedes should gather themselves together in vil- lages, at several designated points, one of which was Upland. The Swedes, however, seemed to quietly neglect to obey this order, and rightly so, for it would have compelled them to have abandoned many of their homesteads and improvements absolutely. Al- though Stuyvesant believed that the Swedes, in their dislike of the Dutch, were anxious that England might acquire the Province, and had for that reason issued the order alluded to, William Beek- man, the Lieutenant-Governor, did not attempt to compel compli- ance with this mandate of " Hard-Kopping Piet."
The settlement of the territory was tardy, not more than seven- teen hundred Europeans, all told, are believed to have been on the Delaware river in the year 1659. The number of inhabitants at this place could not have exceeded a hundred souls. Dr. Smith thinks that Upland was at this time the most considerable settle- ment in the Province, which afterwards became Pennsylvania, and that Hendrick Huygens, the Dutch Commissioner, four years later
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
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had taken up his residence here, because he reported to Vice Di- rector Beekman, in the year 1663, " a horrid deed " that was com- mitted at this place by a Finn, namel Jan Hendrickson, against "the honest Juriaen Kuys Sneart, whom he had cruelly beaten." The letter of Huygens, in which he alludes to the violent assault upon " the pious Juriaen Snewit,"-Jurian Keen-snohuitt, (snow white) " a man who has never irritated a child even," by " a miscreant " of Upland, is dated at " Tinnackunk, 29th M'ch, 1663." The desperado, it seemed, had made an assault on Joran Keen, previous to the one mentioned, and had threatened his life ; but the good- hearted Swede had promised to overlook it, if he, Hendrickson, made no further trouble. He did, however, and the evidence on the trial shows that the Finn was a terror to the people of Upland. The judges banished Hendrickson from the jurisdiction of the Court, and he seems to have removed to the vicinity of New Cas- tle, where he was afterwards connected with acts of violence and disorder.
In September, 1664, Col. Richard Nicolls captured New Amster- dam, and, of course, the dependencies on the Delaware river passed into the ownership of the English without further resistance-an event which was welcomed by the Swedes and Finns with manifes- tations of pleasure. Near the close of the year 1669, an attempt at " insurrection" was made by Marcus Jacobson, alias " John Binckton," &c., but popularly known to the people as the " Long Finn, or Swede," which name was given him because of his lofty stature. He was an adventurer who represented himself to be a son of the noted Swedish General, Conneugsmark. It is the gene- ral opinion of historians that his intention was to bring about a general insurrection of the dissatisfied settlers against the authority of Great Britain, and the re-establishment of the Swedish power on the Delaware. His chief associate in this effort was Henry Coleman, a Finn, who was a wealthy man, as wealth was then re- garded, and Mrs. Pappegoya and the Reverend Laurence Lock, both looked kindly on the enterprise. Captain Carre, having in- formed Governor Lovelace, the then English Governor, of the brewing rebellion, he was instructed to have the "Long Finn" and his associates arrested, which was done. The leader was put in
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Chester before the arrival of Wm. Penn, 1644-1682.
irons, while the others were bound over to answer the charge to be made against them when required to do so.
Henry Coleman, however, fled to the Indians, with whom he had much influence, abandoning his property absolutely. What became of him after his flight is unknown. The "Long Finn" was tried at New Castle, December 6, 1669, and, as was to be expected, he was found guilty, but, by order of the Governor, the death penalty was not enforced, because "many would suffer if the rigor of the law should be extended, and among them divers simple and ignorant people; it is thought fit and ordered that the said 'Long Finn' shall be publicly and severely whipped, and stigmatized or branded in the face with the letter 'R ;' with an inscription written in great letters and put upon his breast ; that he receive that punishment for attempted rebellion ; after which he be secured until he can be sent and sold to the Barbadoes or some other of the remoter plan- tations." On the 28th of January, following, he was placed on board the ship "Fort Albany," to be transported and sold at the Barbadoes, in accordance with his sentence, which had been an- nounced to the Commissioners to try the case, before the hearing by the Governor in New York. Coleman's property was forfeited to His Majesty, the King, while the others implicated in his at- tempted disturbances, were fined in the discretion of the Court.
In 1671, the inhabitants along the Delaware were apprehensive that an Indian war was imminent, inasmuch as two whites had been murdered by the savages, and it was generally reported that the Indians were making preparations to massacre all the Europeans settled along the river. The authorities took active measures to prepare for the emergency. Every male that could bear arms be- tween the ages of sixteen and sixty, was instructed to be always provided "with a convenient proportion of powder and bullets," while sale of ammunition to the Indians was interdicted, and no corn or other provision was permitted to be exported. A meeting between the Indian Sachems and the whites was held at Upland, at the house of Peter Rambo-a prominent man of his time-in Octo- ber of that year, and the Indians agreed to bring the murderers to the whites within six days thereafter, that they might be punished for their crime. At any rate they agreed that they would deliver their bodies to the authorities dead or alive. One of the guilty
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
braves escaped from his people and could not be delivered as promised, but the other was captured. It is reported that one of the two Indians who had taken him was a personal friend and was loath to kill his captive, but when the latter learned that the Sach- ems had determined he must die, he requested that their order should be immediatly obeyed. His body was taken to Wiccaco and delivered to the whites who transported it to New Castle, where it was hung in chains. The Sachems faithfully notified the tribes that any of their people who should murder a white person would be similarly dealt with, and with that annunciation the war cloud drifted by.
March 21, 1675, Armgard Papegoya conveyed the estate known as Printzdorp-which included a large part of the now South ward -to Robert Wade. The latter person and his wife, Lydia, are said by Dr. Smith and Martin to have come over to this country in the ship "Griffin," with John Fenwick, in 1675, and were the first mem- bers of the Society of Friends known to reside in Upland. The au- thors cited are wrong in their first statement as to the date of Wade's arrival here, having fallen into that error by a mistaken deduction from the statement of William Edmundson, an eminent minister of the Society of Friends, who in the year 1675 visited Upland, and held a meeting at Wade's house. Both the authors citedl state that Mrs. Papegoya, in all probability built the Essex House, and that Wade purchased from her, or some other person, the estate with the improvements thereon. In this, however, they are mistaken, for Mrs. Papegoya lived at Tinicum until she returned to Sweden, and was so desperately poor from inability to procure farm labor- ers, that the authorities were compelled to assist her with supplies of food. The subsequent fine imposed upon her for her complicity in the "Long Finn's" Rebellion rendered her means even more lim- ited than they were before, and it was impossible that she could have erected a building of the character of the famous Essex House. Martin states that the name of this Robert Wade appears in the list of the passengers in the "Griffin," which arrived in the Dela- ware, 23d of 9th month, (November,) 1675. This we know is in- correct for Wade was in this country long before the date given, while Lydia, his wife, was in England, for letters are extant from him, addressed to his wife, informing her of his purchase of land.
Chester before the Arrival of Wm. Penn, 1644-1682. 13
In the year 1673, the colony of New York and its dependencies on the Delaware was re-captured by the Dutch, but before six months had elapsed the red-crossed banner of St. George waved once more over the territory, never to be supplanted except by the standard of the United States of America. With the con- quest of New York and New Sweden, the charter of the Duke of York revived, and the English authority was re-established in the provinces, with Edmund Andross, Esq., as Governor, under His Royal Highness, James, Duke of York and Albany, with Captain Carre as Commander on the Delaware. It was during the latter's term of office that the "Duke's Book of Lawes" was promulgated. Under this new order of affairs three judicial districts were estab- lished, one of which was at Upland.
On March 4th, 1681, Charles II. signed the Great Charter which conveyed to William Penn the enormous tract of land now known as Pennsylvania, and from that period our early annals become more interesting, for from that time we may date the actual found- ing of this great Commonwealth. Almost immediately thereafter Penn sent his first cousin, William Markham, to the colony as his Deputy Governor. It is presumed that he came over in the ship "John and Sarah," from London, commanded by Henry Smith, which was the first to arrive here after the grant was made to Penn. for previous to June 21, 1681, the new Governor had presented his commission from Penn to the authorities at New York, and had assumed the reins of government on the Delaware. On August 3, 1681, Governor Markham was at Upland, for he not only had appointed his Council, but on the date last mentioned the members took and subscribed to the oath of office. Governor Markham was intrusted by the King with a letter to Lord Baltimore, which stated that his commission authorized him to settle all disputes respecting the boundary of the territory granted to Penn with his neighbors, and inasmuch as the King's letter required that the parties should meet to adjust these boundaries, Lord Baltimore came to Upland, where, during his interview with Markham, it was found by astro- nomical observation that this place was twelve miles south of the parallel of 40 degrees, which was the southern boundary of Penn- sylvania. This fact effectually put an end to the purposes of the meeting, and from it arose the long controversy between the Penns
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
and Lords Baltimore, which was only set at rest by the running of the celebrated "Mason and Dixon line."
After Penn acquired ownership of the Province he brought the colony into such prominence that the influx of settlers became so great that during the year 1681 twenty-three English ships arrived in the Delaware, and as Upland was the most considerable place within the Province of Pennsylvania, most of them anchored here and disembarked their passengers. So large was the demand thus made upon the hamlet that the new comers were compelled, in many instances, to dig caves in the ground, near the river bank, wherein they took up their abode until they could construct perma- nent habitations. These caves were mere excavations, or cellars in the bank, and were about three feet in depth, while over these openings brush was placed so as to form an arched roof about six feet in the clear, which was covered with sods. In such a cave as this Emanuel Grubb was born, near Upland, in 1683. The suffer- ings of these settlers were great, for it should be remembered that most of them were "not people of low circumstances, but substan- tial livers," and in the work of constructing these rude habitations, women who had been used to all the refinements and comforts of English life at that day were compelled to take part, and aided their husbands and fathers therein, for hired labor was scarce and could hardly be had at any price.
The winter of 1681 was extremely cold, and on the 11th of De- cember, when the ship "Bristol Factor," Rodger Drew, Command- er, came to Chester, the passengers, seeing the small cluster of dwellings, landed near the Essex House, and, as the river was sol- idly frozen over the night following the ship's arrival, the passen- gers were compelled to remain in Upland "all winter."
On September 12, 1682, Deputy Governor Markham presided in person at the Court held on that date at Upland, and the first Grand Jury ever known in Pennsylvania was summoned to attend its ses- sion, while several other important incidents of judicial procedure are for the first time noted in our history in the records of that tribunal.
Penn, who in the meanwhile had been extremely busy with many schemes locking to the advancement of his colonial possessions, at length determined to embark for Pennsylvania, and, on the 30th
Chester before the Arrival of Wmn. Penn, 1644-1682. 15
day of the sixth month, ( August-for the Friends of those days computed the year as beginning on the first of March,) he sailed from Deal in the ship " Welcome," of three hundred tons burthen, Robert Greenaway, Commander, accompanied by about one hun- dred companions, mostly Friends, from Sussex, England. The voyage was lengthy, (small-pox having broken out on the vessel, of which disease thirty of the emigrants died on the passage), and on the 27th day of October, 1682, the " Welcome" stopped at New Castle, where Penn landed, and took possession of the three lower counties, with all the pomp and circumstance usual at that time, in the formal transfer of estates. It is known he stayed at New Castle all night, and the next day the vessel stood up the river and cast anchor off the mouth of Chester creek, opposite the house of Robert Wade, for, as is stated in the manuscript book of Evan Oliver, a passenger on the " Welcome," " We arrived at Uplan in pensilvania in America, ye 28th of ye 8 month, '82."
CHESTER FROM THE ARRIVAL OF WM. PENN TO THE YEAR 1850.
V ERY little is known of the general history of Chester, at the time of the arrival of Penn at this place, October 28, 1682, and a plan of the settled part of the then town would disclose a mere cluster of dwellings near the mouth of Chester creek, and a few houses might have been discerned here and there peeping out from among the forest trees. Certain it is, that the settlement was very small, for in 1702, two decades after Penn's first visit to his colony, Holm tells us " Macoponaca, which is called Chester, was a bare place, without a Fort, but there were some stone houses built there " Doubtless as the sturdy group of emigrants-who gathered at the side of their tall, slender, but graceful, leader, then in his thirty-eighth year-gazed from the deck of the " Welcome " over to the little hamlet of which they had heard so much in " merry England "-three thousand miles away-their hearts sank for a moment when they contrasted the realization with the picture their fancy had drawn of the New World to which they had come. And yet at that time Nature had painted the forests in every variety of rainbow hue. The yellow leaves of the dog-wood, the deep orange of the oak, the maple with its red and golden foliage, the thousand shades which only an American Autumn can disclose. were present, while here and there could be seen among the trees the brilliantly fire-tinted sumach, and the wild creeping vines that entwined then- selves about the trunks of the towering oaks, gorgeous in their chromatic mass of tints, greeting the eyes of the emigrants, while the Delaware-a river the like of which they never before beheld,
PENN COAT OF ARMS.
Chester from the Arrival of Wm. Penn to the year 1850. 17
spreading nearly three miles to the further shore, shimmered and glistened under the afternoon sun of that October-really Novem- ber day.
How they landed, where they were housed, or how entertained at that time, is not known : we have simply the record that William Penn was received by Robert Wade, at the Essex House. Wade had been nearly ten years settled at Upland, and the fact that he was a member of the Society of Friends, and a personal acquaint- ance in England, was doubtless the reason that Penn accepted his hospitality temporarily, for the dwelling of Robert Wade was not at that time the most pretentious building in the hamlet, since we know that James Sandeland's " Double House" was more spa- cious ; but he being a Churchman, was not drawn towards the Proprietary in the same manner as Wade. I have heard the st.ite- ment made that when a part of the cargo was being discharged from the " Welcome" on that occasion, a large cask or bale feil upon the arm or leg of one of the crew, and injured it so seriously that it became necessary to amputate the limb. It is said that there was but one surgeon at that time in the colony at Upland. The operation of taking off the limb is said to have been per- formed successfully under some trees near the present line of Front street, a short distance east of Essex street, now Concord avenue. The flow of blood was arrested by the application of boiling pitch to the stump of the limb. In doing this the doctor unfortunately dropped some of the pitch on his own clothes which ignited them, and he was burned so severely that he died shortly after, in great agony. This story has been told me several times by intelligent persons, descendants of the English settlers of that day, but I have been unable to find the slightest indication from my researches that the event ever took place as narrated. I be- lieve the story is confused with an incident connected with the second coming of Penn, in 1699, to which I will refer in the pro- gress of the narrative.
Before the year 1682, the present City of Chester was called by its inhabitants Upland, and is referred to in all the records under that title. It received that designation because the greater part of the early Swedish settlers in this neighborhood came from Up- land, a province in Middle Sweden, on the Baltic Sea, and their
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
new home was thus named by reason of their love for the place of their birth, and because the natural appearance of the land here was strikingly similar to that of their fatherland.
Dr. Smith, in referring to the lan ling of Penn, says : " He land- ed at Upland, but the place was to bear that familiar name no more forever. Without reflection, Penn determined that the name . of the place should be changed. Turning round to his friend Pear- son, one of his own Society, who had accompanied him in the ship . " Welcome," he said : ' Providence has brought us here safe. Thou hast been the companion of my perils. What wilt thou that I - should call this place ?' Pearson said, ' Chester,' in remembrance of the city from whence he came. William Penn replied that it should be called Chester, and that when he dividel the land into counties, one of them should be called by the same name. Thus ·for a mere whim, the name of the oldest town; the name of the whole settled part of the Province; the name that would have a place in the affections of a large majority of the inhabitants of the inew Province was effaced to gratify the capriee or vanity of a friend. All great men occasionally do little things."
Although Dr. Smith cites Clarkson's Life of Penn, and Hazard's Annals, in support of this statement, it will not bear investigation. We know that Penn issued his proclamation three weeks after his arrival at Chester, to the several Sheriffs of the counties of Ches- ter, Philadelphia and Bucks, as well as the three Lower Counties, to hold an election for a General Assembly, to convene at " Upland." The original letter of Penn, now in the Historical Society of Penn- ·sylvania, addressed to several gentlemen requesting them to meet him on the following "so-called Thursday, November 2, 1682," is dated "Upland, October 29, 1682," the day after his arrival, clear- ly indicates that he did not change the name of this city, in the dramatic manner tradition has stated. But more conclusive is the fact that in the list of the passengers on the "Welcome," Thomas Pearson's name does not appear, although in Armstrong's list the name of - Pearson is found, to which is added, "supposed to be Robert," a statement that may well be questioned. As this mythi- cal personage is represented to be an eminent member of the So- ciety of Friends, the records of meetings ought to disclose his Christian name, but it has never been found among the list of the
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