History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with genealogical and biographical sketches, Part 67

Author: Futhey, John Smith, 1820-1888; Cope, Gilbert, 1840-1928
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia, L. H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1162

USA > Pennsylvania > Chester County > History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with genealogical and biographical sketches > Part 67

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10 00

From Simon Iladley, a ewe & lamb, grindstone & spools. 1 17 9

From Daniel Thompson, 16 b. wheat 5 4 0

2 50

From Benjamin Mason, 12 lasts

0 12 0

From Benjamin Hutton, 14 b. oats.

1 15 0

From Jeremiah Starr, 7 sheep ..

5 12 0

From John Chambers, by Wm. Price, 4 sheep. 2 50

From Thos. McGee, 20 yds. linen, sheet, 2 table cloths, wallet,

9lbs tow yarn, 4 pewter dishes, 10 plates, 2 porringers, & a pint.

6 3 2

From David Hoopes, 3 sheep.

From George Mason, 7 b. wheat

245

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES.

1. By James Williamson, Londongrove, 12th mo. 1780 to 5th mo. 1781.

From Riobard Flower, a clock .. £ s. d. 5 0 0

From James Greenfield, a oow, 296 outs tow yarn ... 9 4 8

From Samuel Sharp, & heifer ..

5 0 0

From David Moore, 2 heifers, and a ton of hay. 10 10 0 From Jonathan Lindley, 2 y. cattle, coverlet, blanket, & sheet

9 5 6

From Jacob Lindley, 16 c. of hay.

4 0

From James Lindley, 2 bridles, leather, a collar, saddle-bags, & a buokskin.

4 5 8

From Thomas Millhouse, 4 sheep, & 18 b. oats

5 5 0

From James Way, 2 cows, a blanket & sheet. 11 17 6

From John Jackson, 4 b. of rye, 42 of oats, & 15 of flaxseed

9 18 0

From Thomas Flower, 4 yds. linen.

From Joshna Pusey, about 7 c. of flour, 4 casks, & a cow .....

0 11 0 11 12 0 From Eph. Wilson, 22 b. oats, 4 of rye, & 7} of oorn .. 5 0 0 From William Allen, a cow.

From William Chandler, Jr., 74 b. of oats, & 10 of corn 2 13 9

From David Harlan, 3 y. oattle .. 0 0 6

From Jacob Woods, a cow & 3 sheep .. 6 15 0 From Francis Wilkinson, 15 b. corn, 8 of wheat, & 2} of rye 7 18 5 9 2 6

From Joseph Richardson, a horse & blind bridle.

From Josiah Lamborn, a cow, & heifer.

7 0 0

From George Passmore, Jr., 20 b. corn 3 10 0

From Thos. Wood, a heifer, & 5 shcep. 0 0 6

From Henry Hayes, a cow, and a bull.

7 0 0

From Stephen Cook, a large cow. 7 10 0

From Francie Lamborn, a mare, 5 sheep, & an ox chain ..... 28 7 0

From John Pusey, 2 milch cows, & 3 y. cattle. 18 0 0

From Lewis Pusey, 6 o. of flour, & 5 b. wheat. 7 0 0

From Hannah Miller, 2 milch cows. 10 10 0

2. By William Thompson, Londongrove, for Remainders.

From Jonathan Lindley, 2 blankets.

£ 8. d. 1 16 0

From David Moore, 154 b. corn

2 12 6

From Eliz. Greenfeld, 2 blankets, & coverlet (for son) ..

2 10 0

From Jacob Halliday, & cow .. 5 10 0

From Joshua Pusey, 3} c. of flour. 3 0 3

5 0

From William Allen, a large cow

6 15 0

From William Chandler, Jr., 10 b. corn

1 15 0

From David Harlan, 3 y. cattle ..

8 10 0 1 8 0

From Henry Hayes, 2 y. cattle 3 10 0

From Stephen Cook, ebout 2 tons of hay 4 10 0 5 00

From Francis Lamborn, a cow ..

From Jobn Pusey, & cow 6 10 0

6 From Hannab Miller, a cow 00

From Joseph Pyle, a mare ..

12 0 0

3. By Francis Williamson, Londongrove.

£ 8. d.

From William Jackson, 10 b. of wheat ..

3 50

From Richard Flower, a cow

5 10 0

From Jacob Halliday, a cow, & lI b. of corn. 7 8 6

From David Moore, 15 c. of hay, a coverlet, & blanket .. 5

5 6

From James Miller, a bull

0 0

From James Lindley, a desk, stove & pipe, & iron stand. 15

0 0

From John Jackson, a coverlet, & 2 blankets

4 10 0

From James Greenfield, 3 y. cattle, & 2 blankets 6 5 0

From James Way, a heifer, and 3 bbs. of cider. 6 0 4

From Thos. Millhouse, 3 y. caltlc.

5 10 0

From Joseph Moore, 32 lbs. bacon, 14 of beef, 132 cuts of tow yarn, & a table cloth. 2 11 4 From Joshua Pusey, a cow, 2 coverlets, & 2 blankets 8 17 6

From Ephm. Wileon, 6 b. rye, coverlet, blanket, 60 cuts tow yarn.

5 5 0

From William Allen, 19 b. oats, & 11 of corn

4 8 9

From Wm. Chandler, Jr. 224 b. of corn ..

3 18 9

From Jacob Woods, a bull, 10 b. of oats, a ton of hay 8 5 0

From David Harlan, a cow, & 11 b. buckwheat.

8 5 3

From Francis Wilkinson, 22} yds. of fine linen

4 10 0

From Juel Morton, a bat.

0 16 0

From Jos. Richardson, a cow, 2 hats, pr. boots, & blanket. 8 0 6

From Josiah Lamborn, a cow, and 5 sheep.

8 10 0

From George Passmore, Jr., a heifer, & 3 c. of flour 6 14 0

From Thos. Wood, a cow, 2 blankets, 12} doz. yarn

7 6

From Stephen Cook, 15 b. of corn.

2 12 6

From Francis Lamborn, a coverlet, and blanket. 2 0 0

From William Chandler, a cow 6 0 0

From John Pusey, a colt, & a cow. 19 0 0

From Lewis Puscy, & heifer, and 3 c. of flour. 5 9 0

From Hannah Miller, a coverlet, 2 blankets, I ton of hay .. 7 0 0

In a memorial to the Legislature, dated 12th month, 1781, and signed on behalf thereof by Joshua Brown, Benjamin Mason, Wm. Swayne, Joshua Pusey, Richard Barnard, Isaac Coates, Amos Davis, Samuel Cope, Wm. Lamborn, they furnished a specimen of the sufferings of Friends since the beginning of last year, that is, within two years :

"From Abia Taylor, six horse creatures, nine cattle, six- teen sheep, two swine, a feather bed, two casks of flour, one hundred and twenty-five bushele of wheat, and twenty of corn, rye, and buck wheat. 234 1 6

" From John Hoopes, Jr., four horse creatures, a yoke of oxen, seventeen other cattle, thirty sbeep, six swine, a watch, and five sides of leather. 233 15 0"

They then summarized the statement thus :

"Within one of our monthly meetings, hath been taken since the year 1777, from about one hundred and twenty families, property to the amount of £6108 198. 11d .- rated at such prices as such articles would generally have sold for."

. Making, on an average, for each family, many of whom were in straitened circumstances, an annual distraint amounting to £25 8s. 8d.

But legislative redress of wrongs is often slow to come. Not till eight years after did the Assembly establish a Board of Appeals, and then only prospective and not retro- gressive.

"WHEREAS, it hath bcen represented that gross abuses have been committed in levying and collecting militia fines, and as such abuses may still be continued, Be it enacted, etc., That the commissioners of the several counties, or any two of them, shall have power to receive all appeals, and to give relief and grant exonerations as justice and humanity may require." (Passed March 27, 1789.)

YE OLDEN TIME COSTUME.

Eli K. Price writes :

"I much desire that the history of Chester County may carry into the future a graphic view of what have been the characteristics of that good body of Friends who inhabited it since the time of William Penn. I see them, in my mind, back to the beginning of this cen- tury. Then the oldest men were in the costume Benjamin West painted them in the likenesses of his parents and others, and in his picture of the treaty with the Indians under the elm at Shacka- maxon, and as William Penn stands in front of the Pennsylvania Hospital, but as taller men, for William Penn evidently derived bis figure to a considerable extent from his Dutch mother. The dress was a body coat of ample material, with standing collar, cut single- breasted, with one row of buttons covered with the same cloth, one row of button- holes, the front of the coat being slightly curved, and the whole falling to the knees; with waistcoat in proportion, with pockets parting below where the buttoning ceased, and so deep as partly to cover the lap, tbe openings covered by a flap, all of drab color; then came the small clothes, buckled at the knees; and often they wore buckled shoes, but on going out on horseback the high fair-top boots were essential. The person was covered with a genuine broadbrim, not rolled up nor standing out horizontally, but inclined upward on three sides at an angle of forty-five degrees, and in a few instances in the city looped up higher. But by the end of the first quarter of this century signs of the leveling tendency of republi- canism had set in ; the colors of the cloth became darker, end the dignity of the small clothes and fair-top boots were sunk in the trowsers. And what a let down was that! But the diminuant pro- cess has continued. The brim is now narrower, the crown of the hat bigher; the coat is out from a smaller pattern, is fitted closer to the body, is more trim, but looks not so venerable."

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES.

The province of Pennsylvania was early attractive to emigrants from other countries. It was recommended by its free government, by the character of its fundamental laws, its fertile soil, salubrious and temperate climate, its adaptation to a rural population, with advantages for trade, commerce, and manufactures.

These emigrants were from various parts of Europe. They were not homogeneous, but were diversified by their origin, religious principles, habits, and language. This

From Ephraim Wilson, 18 b. of oats.

From Francis Wilkinson, 8 b. of corn.

5 10 0

£ 8. d.

246

HISTORY OF CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

diversity, arising from their different nationalities, divided them into three distinctly marked classes, whose separation was maintained unbroken for many generations, and is not yet effaced.

It is a singular fact that the white races in Pennsylvania are remarkably unmixed, and retain their original character beyond that of any State in the Union. These distinctly marked races are the English, the German, and the Scotch and Scotch-Irish. Emigrants from other countries con- tributed to swell the population. Among the choicest of the early settlers were the Swedes, the Welsh, the Hugue- nots, the Hollanders, and the Swiss; but their numbers were small compared with those of the races just men- tioned, and their peculiar characteristics, through admixture with the people of other nationalities and the mellowing influence of time, are scarcely recognizable.

The associates and followers of Penn, known as Friends, who were mainly of English descent, were among the first emigrants, and settled chiefly in Philadelphia and the country near it, embracing what is now Delaware County, the eastern and central portions of Chester County, and the southern parts of Bucks and Montgomery Counties. They were an orderly, industrious, and law-abiding people, culti- vating peace with all men.

The Germans, who came in large numbers, were of dif- ferent denominations of Christians, principally Lutheran and German Reformed, with some Mennonites, Dunkers, Moravians, Amish, and others. They were orderly, indus- trious, and frugal farmers, peaceful and honest in their re- lations and dealings,-a people that emphatically minded their own business, and made continual accessions to their wealth.

The third race were the Scotch and Scotch-Irish, who constituted a considerable portion of the carly settlers of Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia.

Chester County was settled by these three distinctly- marked races, and their peculiarities are seen in their de- scendants at the present day, and are readily recognizable by those familiar with them. The American people have become so used to the admixture of foreign elements as not readily to notice peculiarities that are not conspicuous, but the student of character can trace them still.

A fourth race, the Welsh, settled some portions of the eastern and northern sections of the county, giving Welsh names to several townships ; but their descendants are not so distinctly marked, although their surnames are yet very common in the townships settled by them. The people of this blood were among the best who established themselves in the county, and for intelligence and enterprise were not excelled by any.

The Scotch-Irish were largely the ancestors of the Pres- byterians of the present day, and before proceeding to give a history of the churches of that denomination a brief account will be given of the race and its peculiarities. And this is the more appropriate as, beyond the fact that they came from the north of Ireland, there is much ignorance with regard to their history, which is yet one full of interest.

During the Irish rebellions in the reign of Elizabeth, the province of Ulster, embracing the northern counties of Ire- land, was reduced to the lowest extremity of poverty and

wretchedness, and its moral and religions state was scarcely less deplorable than its civil. Soon after the accession of James I., his quarrels with the Roman Catholics of that province led to a conspiracy against the British authority. O'Neill and O'Donnell, two Irish lords, who had been cre- ated earls by the English government,-the former the Earl of Tyrone, and the latter the Earl of Tyrconnel,-arranged a plot against the government. Its detection led these chief conspirators to fly the country, leaving their extensive es- tates-about 500,000 acres-at the mercy of the king, who only wanted a pretext for taking possession. A second in- surrection soon gave occasion for another large forfeiture, and nearly six entire counties in the province of Ulster were confiscated and subjected to the disposal of the crown. But it was a territory which showed the effects of a long series of lawless disturbances. It was almost depopulated, its resources wasted, and the cultivation of the soil, in a great measure, abandoned. The state of society-such as existed-was in keeping with the physical aspect of the country.

It became the favorite project with the king to repeople those counties with a Protestant population, who would be disposed to the arts of peace and industry, the better to preserve order, to establish more firmly the British rule, and to introduce a higher state of cultivation into that por- tion of his domains. To promote this object liberal offers of land were made, and other inducements held out in Eng- land and Scotland for colonists to occupy this wide and va- cant territory. This was about the year 1610. The project was eagerly embraced, companies and colonies were formed, and individuals without organization were tempted to par- take of the advantageons offers of the government. A London company-among the first to enter upon this new acquisition-established itself at Derry, and gave such character to the place as to cause it to be known and called the city of Londonderry.

The principal emigration, however, was from Scotland. Its coast is within twenty miles of the county of Antrim, in Ireland, and across this strait flowed from the northcast a large population distinguished for thrift, industry, and endurance, and bringing with them their Presbyterianism and rigid adherence to the Westminster standards. They settled principally in the counties of Down, Londonderry, and Antrim, and have given a peculiar and elevated char- acter to that portion of the Emerald Isle.

This was the first Protestant population that was intro- duced into Ireland, and the Presbyterians of Scotland, who thus furnished the largest element, have maintained their ascendency to the present day against the persevering ef- forts of the government church on the one hand and the Romanists, by whom they were surrounded, on the other. The first Presbyterian Church established in Ireland was in the county of Antrim in 1613.

The province, in consequence of this influx of popula- tion, greatly revived, and continued for some years to ad- vance in prosperity. The towns were replenished with in- habitants, the lands were cleared, and houses erected throughout the country.

But it was a day in which the throne of Britain was governed by bigotry and despotism. Persecutions of an

247

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES.

oppressive nature began in Ulster in 1661, and every ex- pedient short of utter extirpation was tried to break down the attachment of the people to their Presbyterian polity ; but, as is always the case, these persecutions only attached the people the stronger to their faith. Many ministers were deposed and forced to return to Scotland.

The tide, however, presently changed. Persecutions ceased in Ireland, and the scene was transferred to Scotland. The latter Stuarts, Charles II. and James II., blind to the dictates of justice and humanity, pursued a system of measures best calculated to wean from their support their Presbyterian subjects, who were bound by national preju- dice and had been most devoted to their kingly cause, and to whose assistance Charles II. owed his restoration to the throne. Sir James Grahame, better known as Claverhouse, was sent to Scotland with his dragoons upon the mistaken mission of compelling the Presbyterians to conform in their religious worship to that of the establishment, and from 1670 until the accession of William and Mary, the Presby- terians of Scotland worshiped in hidden places, and at the peril of their lives.

Worn out with the unequal contest, these persistent and enduring Presbyterians, having suffered to the extreme of cruelty and oppression, abandoned the land of their birth and sought an asylum among their countrymen who had preceded them in the secure retreats of Ulster ; and thither they escaped as best they could, some crossing the narrow sea in open boats. They carried their household gods with them, and their religious peculiarities became more dear in their land of exile for the dangers and sorrows through which they had borne them.

This is the race-composed of various tribes, flowing from different parts of Scotland-which furnished the pop- ulation in the north of Ireland familiarly known as the Scotch-Irish. This term, Scotch-Irish, does not denote an admixture of the Scotch and Irish races. The one did not intermarry with the other. The Scotch were princi- pally Saxon in blood and Presbyterian in religion ; the na- tive Irish, Celtic in blood and Roman Catholic in religion ; and these were elements which could not very readily coalesce. Hence the races are as distinet in Ireland at the present day, after the lapse of two centuries and a half, as when the Scoteh first took up their abode in that island. They were called Scotch-Irish simply from the circumstance that they were the descendants of Scots who had taken up their residence in the north of Ireland. In language, habits, tastes, education, history, religion, capacity, manner of life, and general appearance they have always been distinct from the Irish, and so distinet that a stranger traveling in Ireland can pick out the Scoteh communities with his eye.

It may be observed that the term "Seotch-Irish," although expressive, is purely American. In Ireland it is not used. There, in contradistinction to the native or Celtic Irish, they are called Scotch.

These people, by their industry, frugality, and skill, made the region into which they thus moved compara- tively a rich and flourishing country. They improved ag- riculture and introduced manufactures, and by the excel- lence and high reputation of their productions, attracted trade and commerce to their markets.

The government, however, soon began to recognize them in the shape of taxes and embarrassing regulations upon their industry and trade. These restrictions, together with an extravagant advance in rents by landlords whose long leases had now expired, occasioned much distress, and the people were brought to a state of degrading subjection to England, and many of them reduced to comparative poverty.

Their patience was at length exhausted, and these ener- getic and self-willed Scotch-Irish, animated by the same spirit which subsequently moved the American mind in the days of the Revolution, determined no longer to endure these oppressive measures, and they sought by another change of residence to find a freer field for the exercise of their industry and skill, and for the enjoyment of their religion.

Ireland was not the home of their ancestors, it was en- deared to them by no traditions, and numbers of them de- termined to quit it and seek in the American wilds a better home than they had in the old world.

Accordingly, about the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury they commeneed to emigrate to the American colonies in large numbers. The spirit of emigration, fostered no doubt by the glowing accounts sent home by their countrymen who had preceded them, seized these people to such an extent that it threatened almost a total depopulation. Suclı multitudes of husbandmen, laborers, and manufacturers flocked over the Atlantic that the landlords began to be alarmed, and to eon- cert ways and means fer preventing the growing evil. Scarce a ship sailed for the colonies that was not crowded with men, women, and children. They came for a time principally to Pennsylvania, although some of them settled in New England, and others found their way to the Caro- linas. It is stated by Proud, in his " History of Pennsyl- vania," that by the year 1729, 6000 Scotch-Irish had come to that colony, and that before the middle of the century nearly 12,000 arrived annually for several years. In September, 1736, alone, 1000 families sailed from Belfast on account of the difficulty of renewing their leases.

They were Protestants, and generally Presbyterians ; few or none of the Catholic Irish came until after the Revolu- tion. The settlement of this latter class in this country is comparatively of modern date.

The " Friends" of Pennsylvania extended a cordial wel- come to the adherents of other doctrines than their own, and so it came to pass that these immigrants turned their steps toward the settlements upon the Delaware.

Extensive emigrations from the northern counties of Ireland were principally made at two distinct periods of time : the first, of which I have been speaking, from about the year 1718 to the middle of the century ; the second, from about 1771 to 1773, although there was a gentle current westward between these two eras.

The cause of this second extensive emigration was some- what similar to that of the first. It is well known that a greater portion of the lands in Ireland are owned by a com- paratively small number of proprietors, who rent them to the farming classes on long leases. In 1771 the leases on an estate in the county of Antrim, the property of the Marquis of Donegal, having expired, the rents were so

248

HISTORY OF CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA;

largely advanced that many of the tenants could not com- ply with the demands, and were deprived of the farms they had occupied. This aroused a spirit of resentment to the oppression of the large landed proprietors, and an imme- diate and extensive emigration to America was the conse- quence. From 1771 to 1773 there sailed from the ports in the north of Ireland nearly 100 vessels, carrying as many as 25,000 passengers, all Presbyterians. This was shortly before the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, and these people, leaving the Old World in such a temper, became a powerful contribution to the cause of liberty and to the separation of the colonies from the mother-country.

These Scotch-Irish emigrants landed principally at New Castle and Philadelphia, and found their way north ward and westward into the eastern and middle counties of Penn- sylvania. From thence one stream followed the great Cumberland Valley into Virginia and North Carolina, and from these colonies passed into Kentucky and Tennessee. Another powerful body went into Western Pennsylvania, and settling on the head-waters of the Ohio, became famous both in civil and ecclesiastical history, and have given to the region around Pittsburgh the name it so well deserves of being the backbone of Presbyterianism.

The first settlement of the Scotch-Irish within the present bounds of Chester County was made about the year 1718. They gradually spread over the whole western portion of the county, from Maryland and Delaware on the south to the chain of hills known as the Welsh Mountain on the north ; and the greater portion of the population of this district of country at the present day are their de- scendants. These early emigrants planted the Presby- terian Churches at Upper Octorara, Fagg's Manor, Brandy- wine Manor, New London, and Oxford, in this county ; and these churches abide in strength to the present day.

This race, in energy, enterprise, intelligence, education, patriotism, religious and moral character, the maintenance of civil and religious liberty, and inflexible resistance to all usurpation in church and State, were not surpassed by any class of settlers in the American colonies. They were a thinking people, strong-minded and capable. The hum- blest of them could take up the great themes of govern- ment and of religion and could talk intelligently about them.

In the struggle for popular rights they were ever found on the side of the people, and the maintenance of freedom in religious worship was with them a cardinal principle.

Pennsylvania owes much of what she is to-day to the fact that so many of these people settled within her bor- ders. Probably not less than five millions of people in America have the blood of these Scotch and Scotch-Irish in their veins, and there is not one of them, man or woman, that is not proud of it, or that would exchange it for any other lineage.

" The first public voice in America for dissolving all con- nection with Great Britain," says Bancroft, " came from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians." A large number of them were signers of the Declaration of Independence, and throughout the Revolution they were devoted to the cause of the country. Such a thing as a Scotch-Irish Tory was unheard of; the race never produced one. It was the

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History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with genealogical and biographical sketches, Part 67

Author: Futhey, John Smith, 1820-1888; Cope, Gilbert, 1840-1928 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia, L. H. Everts Number of Pages: 1162

Author: Futhey, John Smith, 1820-1888; Cope, Gilbert, 1840-1928
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia, L. H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1162