History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Part 47

Author: Ashmead, Henry Graham, 1838-1920
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1150

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For the carpeuter's work for such a House, I snd my £ d. servauts assisting him, together with his Diet.

7 00

For a Barn of the same Building and Dimensions.

5 00

For Nails und other things to finish Both 3 10

" The lower floor is the Ground, the upper Clubboard. This may seem a mean way of Building, hut 'tis sufficient and safest for ordinary be- ginners." (Direction to such persons as are inclined to America, 1682, Penn. Mag. of Hist., vol. iv. p. 334.)

2 Vice-Director Alrichs, under date of Sept. 1, 1657, wrote to Stuyve- sant from New Castle, and among other things states, " Since ST Corne- lius Hogeboom, a brick-maker, has arrived here, and his son and broth- er's son are living at Fort Orange (Albany) or on the road to Mrs.

180

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

that date at Burlington and Philadelphia, the wealth- ier classes employed that material for building pur- poses. The houses then erected were generally large and roomy, giving the inmates almost all the comforts, so far as the buildings were concerned, then known to the mother-country. The old Porter house in Chester, built by David Lloyd thirty-nine years after Penn first landed in Pennsylvania, was an imposing structure even to the hour of the explosion which de- stroyed it, and affords to the present generation the opportunity to learn with what stability the buildings were constructed in the early time.

Early Schools .- The settlers were not unmindful of intellectual training, and in the act of March 10, 1683, which set forth that "to the end that the Poor, as well as the Rich, may be instructed in good and commendable learning, which is to be preferred above wealth," is given the first outline of the public-school system which promises to be in the future, as it has been in the past, the anchor of safety to the nation in times of public peril. It is difficult to determine when the first school was established in our county, but certain it is that at the middle of the last century there were quite a number scattered throughout the territory now included within our boundaries. These structures were generally of logs, and the urchins sat on frames fashioned in every case from the side slabs from the saw-mills, while books were scarce. Townsend Ward' describes the manner of teaching practiced towards the end of the last century by no less a person than Alexander Wilson. "His scholars were instructed in the mode of those days, which has become so obsolete now that the very first steps in it are a puzzle to the adult. The alphabet in the form of a cross was called the Christ Cross Row. Each vowel had to be sounded 'by itself,' when it was reached, and the word 'by itself' repeated. The rapidity of pronunciation, however, soon turned 'by itself' into 'bisself,' so the anxious urchin rushed through his alphabet in this way, ' A, bisself a, B, C, D, E bisselfe, F, G, H, I bisselfi, etc. He ended with a z as now, but called it izard, and the flourish at the end, Ampeisand, he called Ann pussy Ann."

In a letter2 dated Chester township, Tenth month, 1725, from Richard Park to his sister, Mary Valen- tine, then in Ireland, the writer states that " Uncle Nicholas Kooper lives very well, he rents a Planta- tion & teaches School and his man doe his Planta- tion work," which is the first mention of a peda- gogue by name since Evans Petterson, in 1672. The schoolmaster of that day was a local despot; the chil-

Hutter's, therefore he goes there to visit the same and to speak (with them), also to see if he can persuade them to come with him." Alriche urges Stuyvesant tn uee his influence to have Hogeboom locate on the Delaware, (Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. vii. p. 516.) May 14, 1659, Alriche etafee that Cornelis Herperts de Jager had "established in the country near hear a hrick-kiln and employed 4 persone at it." (1b., p. 561.)

1 " A Walk to Darby," Penna. Mag. of History, vol. lii. p. 258.

2 Penna. Mag. of History, vol. v. p. 351.

dren were under his absolute sway from the time they left their homes until they returned thereto again in the afternoon. His sceptre was the birch, and often would he wield his emblem of power to the discom- fiture of the unhappy lad who had aroused his wrath.

Household Duties of the Women .- At home the matron and her growing daughter had their daily rou- tine of labor, which, beginning oftentimes long before daybreak, extended into the night until the old saw,

" A men'e work is from eun to sun, But a woman's work ie never done,"

was often proved a truth. Her household duties were severe and varied, demanding some knowledge of medicine sufficient to open a vein in a case of emer- gency, or the preparation of certain infallible reme- dies to cure intermitting, remitting, and bilious fevers and children's disorders, composed of the most nau- seating herbs, simmered to a sickening decoction, which was doled out to the unfortunate patients in generous potation. With the exception of her husband's Sun- day coat, which was the one, carefully preserved, that he had worn at his wedding, the mother had to make all the garments worn by the father and boys from the flax and wool; all the bedding and household linen had to be made at home, as well as the beds, which required that a goodly flock of geese be kept to supply the feathers, which had to be steamed and cured for that purpose; the poultry came under the supervision of the women, as did also the care of the young calves ; cheese and butter had to be made for the market; frequently, too, the gardening for the family table was left to the care of the females of the household, and the gathering and drying of herbs always was a part of their duty. In the butchering season pork and salt meat must be cured sufficiently for the whole year, sausage and lard made for the winter. These were extra matters just thrown in to fill out the odds and ends of the matron's tinie, for the duties mentioned did not include the every-day work of cooking, milking, carrying water, scrubbing, darning, and for the first twenty odd years of her married life to still the crying babe or nurse it, and often then, as she hushed the sobbing child asleep, her busy fingers plied the knitting-needles, so that not a moment of her time should be idled away, and the weekly washing and ironing, nor yet the day set apart for dipping candles, which entered into the domestic economy with the regularity of the annual county taxes. It was an interesting and intellectual occupation on candle day, when several huge kettles filled with melted tallow were suspended from the crane over the blazing logs, while at the opposite side of the kitchen two or more long poles, about two feet apart, stretched their full length from one chair-seat to another, the abutments on which the ends of the rods rested. Across these poles were pendent strands of tow at designated distances, for at the time of which I now write candle-wick bad not been invented.

181

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

Near these poles were great kettles containing melted tallow, which floated on the top of hot water, and into the kettles the women would dip the strands of tow and hang them, each in its place, on the stick to dry. Before the proper amount of tallow was depos- ited by this slow process on the wick-for the thicker the candle the more brilliant the light-the weary dipper would walk many a mile before her work was finished. After the candles were made they had to be carried on the poles to a dry, sunny spot in the garret, where they could harden and become thoroughly dry. The good wife, however, had to see that the best room was sprinkled with clean white sand, and it was a mat- ter of pride to draw varions figures thereupon with the broom. The high-backed walnut, and (after the intro- duction of the wood as appropriate for furniture during Queen Anne's reign) mahogany chair and tables were waxed and polisbed till they reflected like a mirror. In every house there were the warming-pans of brass, which must be kept scoured and hung in easy reach, so that they could be used to take the chill off the sheets in bedrooms that were as cold "as Greenland's icy mountains." And when flax was prepared for spin- ning the matron sat early and late ; particularly dur- ing the long winter evenings the humming noise of the big wheel was constantly heard.

To be sure, the lads and lasses of that day had their merry-making, although their sports to us seem some- what like hard work. Flax-pulling, when the boys and girls pulled along together and bound it into small sheaves, was regarded as fun, while the " husk- ing" parties at night were looked forward to with great expectations and much preparations ; quilting and carpet-ball sociables-the latter after the Revo- lution, when people discovered that from rags a strong, serviceable covering for floors could be made -were much in vogue, and were concluded usually with dancing and boisterons games.

Evening Amusements .- Usually at night, when the winter evening meal was ended and the room had been put to rights, the family would assemble round the open-mouthed fireplace in the kitchen, where on the hearth the massive andirons sustained a crackling mass of hickory-wood, lapped by the flaming tongues as the blaze " went roaring up the chimney wide." Along the heavy, unplastered joists of the floor above, darkened with age and smoke, from iron hooks were suspended a goodly number of portly hams, dried beef, long ropes of onions, and dried apples. On the deal table, without a cover, a tallow candle shed a dim, uncertain light around the apartment, and often the black and crisped wick required to be snuffed, while not unfrequently a thief would get in the can- dle, and the tallow on one side would run to the base of the stick in a rivulet of melted grease. In one of the angles of the room a large corner cupboard af- forded through its glass doors glimpses of an array of blue china which at this day would have been the idol of the collection craze, and an eight-day clock in

a tall mahogany case ticked in the chilly hall, while the moon moving along the opening in the dial, represented usually by a cherub's face, plump and florid-cheeked, told the farmer when and when not to plant his crops. Around the cheery fire the family, seated on hard, uncushioned chairs, gathered, the fe- males spinning, or perchance Miss-in-her-teens, who had paid a visit to her relatives in the city, would be busily employed working in crewel geometrical fig- ures of a dog, sheep, or other fabulous animal or plant, the like of which never existed "in the heav- ens above, the earth below, or the waters under the earth." The hunting- or watch-dog, curled close to the fire, dozed as his owner smoked, talked of the weather, the crops, the state of the market, his or others' stock, or laid out the next day's work. "

Perchance, when a neighbor dropped in, the con- versation would relate to the social happenings of the vicinity, or at intervals of that great world, the city, but it usually drifted into recollections of the old people, narrations of hunting adventures, and marvelous tales of witches, goblins, and haunted places. The old people would relate traditionary stories of Margaret Mattson, the witch of Ridley Creek, and her divers ill-doings; they would tell how it was recorded by Hesselius, the Swedish priest, that in the early time of the settlement rain fell on a par- ticular black oak for fifteen days, while not a drop of moisture touched the other trees in the neighborhood ; and how a captain of a certain ship, noted for his pro- fanity and crimes, while sailing up the Delaware, was seized bodily by the devil, who hurled him into the river, where he was drowned, in full sight of many lookers-on.1 But, strange as it may seem, no stories of men suddenly and mysteriously changed into wolves, the were-wolf of Swedish folk-lore, seem ever to have taken root in this soil. There would be, however, narration of the terrible and supernat- ural. It would be told how Blackbeard, the pirate, used to anchor his vessel off Marcus Hook, where, at the house of a Swedish woman whose name, Mar- garet, he transformed into Marcus, because of the locality of her dwelling, he and his crew held mad revels there, and the expression "Discord Lane" be- came so connected with the town's story that it has ever since been preserved as the title of one of its streets. So, too, would they describe the Bloody Tree, near Chester, on the King's Highway, whose leaves were spotted with gore, and from whose branches, if a twig was cut or broken off, oozed a sap-like blood,2-the indelible mark of a brutal, un-

1 Acrelins, " History of New Sweden," pp. 279-80.

2 This story is really of Maryland origin, and was transplanted høre. 88 such narratives are usually transitory io character. The legend of the " Bloody Holly-Bush" is as follows: "There is also a legend current among the old citizens of Elk Neck, which may properly be called the legend of the 'Bloody Holly-Bush,' which originated from a murder committed on the Ferry farm while it was occupied by Hans Rudolph, the proprietor of the ferry. Rudolph had a negro slave, who for some reason was confined in jail at the point, and who made his escape and

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

atoned murder that nature would not permit to be | effaced. Sometimes a swaggering braggart would declare that as he rode along the White Horse level, on the Queen's Highway, througli Ridley, he had en- countered the ghost of Luke Nethermarke, who, abont the middle of the last century, in galloping his horse at night amid the storm and the darkness as he hastened homeward, rode into a tree which had been blown down by the gale and was killed ; while others would tell the story of the phantom sentinel, who, when an English vessel of war was lying off Tinicum during the British occupation of Philadelphia, was stationed to walk post over one of the boats sent ashore with a foraging party, was shot and killed by the Whigs in the neighborhood, and whose spectre annually re- appears on the anniversary of the night on which he was slain. Sometimes the tradition was of Moggey,1 who refused to rest quietly in her grave ; of the phan- tom white steed and rider, who dashed semi-occa- sionally on dark and stormy nights through the streets of Chester; of the murdered peddler at Munday's Run, who showed the ragged cut in his brawny throat; or the slain woman who made the archway of the old granary at Chester a spot to be avoided after dusk; while the mere school-lads in the vicinity of Chester would tell of the evil spirit, a caco-demon,2 who inhabited the cellar of the old school house at Welsh and Fifth Streets.

Sometimes the stories would relate to money buried along the shores of the Delaware and its tributary streams by pirates, who had slain a comrade or a captive that the murdered man should gnard the blood-stained treasure ever from all save the hands of those who had sold themselves to perdition for the accursed gold. I can remember as a lad how some of the old people told me as a truth the adventures of three men from the neighborhood of Chester, who strove to obtain a hidden treasure buried on the river-shore on Laws' or Jeffery's farm (I do not remember the exact location) ; how they dug in silence until the top of a large iron box thickly covered with bosses was uncovered; how one of the men in the exuberance of his joy spoke, and the box sank out of sight, amid heavy thunder, which growled and muttered overhead, and strange

swam across the river, and procured a gun and hid himself beside a log about & mile from the old ferry-house. His master, while hunting for him, approached bis place of concealment and shot him, his blood be- spattering the green leaves of a holly-bush near where he stood. The leaves of a holly-bush still growing there are flecked with crimson spota, as is alleged, from some supernatural cause. There is no doubt of the red spots being on the leaves of the holly-bush, but they are caused by some peculiarity of the soil in which it grows."-Johnson's History of Cecil County, Md., p. 200.

1 " The site of Knowlton, up to the year 1800, was a perfect wilder- ness. Near the head gates of the mill there was formerly the mark of a grave the occupant of which tradition named Moggey, and from that circumstance the crossing of the creek was named Moggey's Ford. As Muggey had the reputation of making her appearance occasionally, it required no little courage in the traveler in early timee to cross the ford at night."-Dr. Smith's History of Delaware County, p. 399.

2 Sketches of Public Schools of Chester, by W. B. Broomall, Delaware County Republican.

lights which flashed and danced through the darkness as the disappointed men hastened away. This was only one of the number of narratives of treasure-dig- gers in various locations, while along Chester and Ship Creek, Darby and Marens Hook Creeks, many places were designated where treasures had been buried. The belief in witchcraft had not died out absolutely thirty years ago, for a case occurred in this county wherein charms were used to thwart the evil eye of an old woman, whom it was believed had cast a spell over the cattle of a person of the same township; and the myth of the divining rod was accepted as true by many persons. Samnel Breck, as late as 1820, states that Alexander Wilson, a Quaker preacher, was noted as possessing " the gift of finding water with a divin- ing rod."ª

Snake stories then as now were much relished by the rustic populace, and awakened general interest. William Moraley+ relates that "In a Wond near a Place called Ophoginomy (Appoqninimink, New Cas- tle Co., Del.), I espied a Snake lying in a Pathway ; endeavoring to shnn it by going out of the Road, I accidentally trod upon another, which immediately twined itself about my Right Leg and squeezed it so hard that I was afraid it would have broken. After I had stood sometime, expecting to be bit, the snake dropped npon the Ground and I came off unhurt. I viewed it and found I had tread upon the Head, which prevented its Biting. I look'd npon this as a Mercy, and return'd Thanks to the Author of Good for my Deliverance. It was a Horn Snake, Six Foot Long."

The latter statement, of course, brings Moraley's adventure within the line of snake stories, for most persons of the present day would believe he saw a unicorn, if he said so, as readily as they do that he saw a horn (?) snake. But Capt. Heinrichs, of the Yager Corps, in 1778,5 writing from Philadelphia to friends in Germany, records a snake story that filis the measure to overflowing. He says, "There is nothing more terrible than the big rattlesnake, which is from twelve to sixteen feet long, and which, as it is believed here, kills at its glance. A countryman in my quar- ters lost a relative of his in this way some years ago. He had gone hunting, and seeing a bear standing still, aimed at and shot it; scarcely had he reached the bear when he too was obliged to stand motionless, remaining thus awhile, fell and died; all this was caused by a rattlesnake, which was perched in a high tree."

Marriages .- Governor Printz recognizes the Bib- lical injunction in his report for 16476 to the West India Company, wherein he set forth the wants in the infant colony of certain skilled labor, adding, " All these are of great necessity here, and, above all, a

3 Breck's " Recollections," p. 303.

4 "The Voyages and Adventuree of William Moraley," written by himself. Newcsetle (England), 1743.

6 Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. i. p. 43.

6 Ib., vol. vil. p. 276.

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good number of unmarried women for our unmarried freemen and others;" but whether this request was complied with by the home authorities does not appear, so far as I have ascertained. After the territory had passed into the ownership of the English crown, and subsequently under Penn's, we learn that spinsters were one of the rarities of the province, for quaint old Gabriel Thomas informs us that "old maids were not to be met with, for all commonly marry before they are twenty years of age."

The state of marriages soon became the subject of legal enactment, which, under the Duke of York laws, was not to be entered into unless the bans had been asked in the church three several days, or a special license had been procured, and the marriage must be registered. If there was no church or meeting-house in the locality where the parties lived, notice must be given by posting the names on the door of the con- stable's house, and on those of two of the overseers of the poor. The legal age for females was as now,- twenty-one years,-excepting in cases when the par- ents were dead, when it was eighteen years.

Among the laws agreed upon in England by Penn before he came to the province were the following regulating marriages :

" That all marriages (not forbidden by the law of God, as to the nearness of blond and affinity by mar- riage) shall be encouraged ; but the parents or guar- dians shall be first consulted, and the marriage shall be published before it be solemnized, and it shall be solemnized by taking one another as husband and wife before credible witnesses, and a certificate of the whole, under the hands of parties and witnesses, shall be brought to the proper Register of the county, and shall be registered in his office."

whatever damages the master could prove he had suf- fered by the act, and where a free woman married a bonded servant man, she was subject to make pay- ment to her husband's master for the damage her marriage had occasioned the latter, the sum to be assessed by the justices.

Robert Wade, a good man and true, who lived up to the law, and so far as was in his power insisted that others should do so, at the court held first and second days of first week, Tenth month, 1684, presented Joseph Cookson " for taking a wife contrary to the good and wholesome Laws of this Province," and the court ordered that Cookson should find security for ten pounds.

At the court held 3d day of Tenth month, 1685, a case was tried that showed that practical jokes were played in early times which, as now, resulted to the disadvantage of some person. The circumstances in the instance mentioned were briefly these : Matthew Risley was at the public-house of Henry Hollings- worth, on Edgmont Avenue, Second Street, Chester, when a company "came from Maryland to the inn. Some of the latter knew Risley, and the conversation turned on marriage, when one of the Marylanders asked Risley whether he could marry a couple now ?" to which interrogation he replied, "Yes, for twenty pounds ;" but afterwards said that he would do it for two pieces of eight. The former then stated "she was an heiress." Risley, however, declared that for a pot of beer he would clear them even if she was an heiress. Thereupon the Marylanders called for two pots of beer and gave them to Risley, who told the woman she must get up very early in the morning and mount the horse first, and then take the man she desired for her husband up behind her on the horse. If she did this he promises "to clear them all." The arrangement, however, seemed not to meet their ap-

To prevent clandestine marriages, the person per- forming the ceremony in violation of law, by the act of March 10, 1683, was fined twenty pounds, while | proval, but they earnestly insisted on being married the parties married were fined ten pounds. Under that night. Whereupon Risley " went and got a Bible, and so proceeded as far as they thought they could well let him, and then one of the company untied a morning gown, as the man had on, and so he dis- covered him to be a man and not a woman that he was marrying." This circumstance coming to the ears of the grand jury, that body presented Risley, who, at the next court, on being arraigned, acknowl- edged the facts as herein stated, whereupon the court sentenced him to receive thirteen lashes, pay the costs and be for the term discharged. The clerk records (the only instance I find where such an entry is made), "which said number of lashes were laid on his bare back." Under what law this corporal punishment was inflicted I have failed to learn. the administration of Governor Fletcher the notice of an intended marriage must be posted on the meet- ing- or court-house door one full month before the ceremony was performed, and when solemnized it must be in the presence of at least twelve persons. By the act of 1693 a justice of the peace was required to be present at every marriage, and the certificate must be signed by twelve persons who were present on the occasion. This requirement was, however, not applicable to parties who were married according to the form of the Church of England. The act of 1700 imposed a fine of five pounds on all persons pres- ent at a clandestine marriage, and they were also liable to pay to the party aggrieved all damages that they may have sustained by reason of such marriage. At the December court in the previous year the grand jury presented " Edward Beyer and Jeane Col- lett for being unlawfully married about the 13 of the 7th month last 1697." The defendant, Edward Beyer, " came into Court and proffered a petition and de- | clared it was thro' ignorance, and the Court, consider- Under this law a servant who married without the consent of his or her master being first bad thereto was compelled to serve one year after the expiration of his or her indentured term, and if a free man mar- ried a bonded servant woman, he was required to pay

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History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Part 47

Author: Ashmead, Henry Graham, 1838-1920 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1150

Author: Ashmead, Henry Graham, 1838-1920
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1150