History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Part 53

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

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John Quandril, of Ridley, weaver, recorde a negro man, Jack, aged 60, a elave for life.

John Crozer, executor of the eetete of John Knowles, late of the town- ship of Ridley, deceased, recorde a negro man, Scipio, 24; a negro woman, Pathena, 41 ; a negro girl, Fanny, aged about 14; a negro girl, Tabitha, 11; and a negro girl, Jane, aged 8, all elaves for life.

Isaac Hendrickson, of Ridley, farmer, records a negro man, Tone, 40; a negro woman, Nance, 36; a negro boy, Frank, 12; a negro girl, Bett, 10 ; a negro boy, Tone, 7; a negro boy, Joe, 5 ; a negro girl, Pol, 3; and a negro girl. Dine, aged 6 mouthe, all slavee for life.

Morton Morton, of Ridley, yeomao, recorde a negro man, Cæsar, 28; a negro woman, Liz, 30; a negro boy, Annias, 8 years and 7 monthe ; and a negro boy, Samuel, aged 8 years and 7 months; a mulatto boy, John, aged 6 years and 4 months; and a mulatto boy, Jacob, aged 6 years end 4 months (Mr. Morton may possibly have had a pair of twine in his household); a mulatto girl, Sarah, 3 years and 3 months; and a mulatto boy, Peter, 1 year and 10 monthe, all slaves for life.

Lewie Trimble, of Ridley, yeoman, recorde a mulatto woman, Peg, 23; and a negro girl, Liz, 13, all elaves for life.

John Worrall, of Ridley, yeoman, recorde a mulatto servant boy, Philip Brown, aged 3 years and 9 months, until he shall attuin the age of 31 years.

Harvey Lewis, of Ridley, yeoman, records a negro eervant-man, James,

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REDEMPTIONERS AND SLAVERY IN DELAWARE COUNTY.

21, and a negro servant-woman, Hanoah, 16, notil they shall have attained the age of 31 years.

Thomas Cheyney, Esq., of Thornbury, records a negro girl, Lizey, 9, nnd a negro boy, Isaac, aged 6 years, slaves for life.

Joshua Way, of Thornbury, yeoman, reports a negro woman, Phillis, 21 years, a slave for life.

Mark Wilcox, of Concord, paper-maker, records a negro man, Prince, 55; a negro man, Cæsar, 25; a negro woman, Pagg, 30 ; a negro boy, Luke, 8; a negro boy, Tim, 8; and s negro girl, Suck, aged 3, all slaves for life.

Mark Wilcox, of Concord, executor of the estate of Thomas Wil- cox, late of the same towoship, deceased, recorda a negro girl, Luce, aged 14 years, a slave for life.

John Jerman, of Newtown, yeoman, records a negro woman, Venus, aged 32, a slave for life.

Jonathan Hunter, of Edgmont, yeoman, recorda a negro woman, Phillis, 30; a negro lad, Paddy, 10; a negro boy, Samson ; a negro girl, Prude, 6; and a negro girl, Phillia, aged 3 years, all alavea for life.

Iu addition to the foregoing list the following per- sons made returns of slaves, but the residences of the owners are not given, hence I cannot designate how many, if any, were residents in the territory now com- prising Delaware County :

Thomas May, four slaves; John Cuthbert, one; James Boyd, two; John Vanlasey, four ; James Mc- Cainent, two; George Boyd, one; Capt. Thomas Wiley, one; Catherine Kelso, one; Robert Carry, one; Thomas Scott, one; William Steel, two.

Under the provisions of the foregoing act, after the creation of Delaware County, the following births of negro children of slaves belonging to the persons whose names are given are recorded :

Jen. 28, 1794, Adam Deibl, of Tiuicum, grazier, negro female child, Naocy Norria, boro Sept. 24, 1794.

April 29, 1794, William Burns, of Marcus Hook, inn-keeper, two negro children,-first, female osmed Flora, born 14th day of February, 3794; second, male named Coff, born 16th day of March, 1794.

Jan. 6, 1795, Israel Elliott, Esq., af Tinicum, grazier, female negro child named Phebe, daughter of Dinah McCormick, born 10th day of September, 1794.

Nov. 12, 1796, Israel Elliott, Esq., of Tinicum, grazier, female negro child named Elizabeth, daughter of Dinah McCormick.

In 1799, Elizabeth Evans, of Aston, was assessed for one woman slave valued at two hundred and fifty dollars.

The act of Assembly, March 29, 1798, provided for the registration of all children born of slaves within six months after their birth, declaring that only chil- dren thus registered could legally be held as slaves until the age of twenty-eight years. Under its pro- visions the following births are recorded :

Feb. 27, 1799, Mark Wilcox, Esq., of Concord, negro male child named Charles Gibson, son of Susanna Gibson, horn 2d day of September, 1798.

July 2, 1806, William Anderson, of Chester, male mulatto bastard child named Francis, horn 17th day of February last.

Sept. 22, 1809, Mary Calhoun, female negro child named Margaret Reddon, born 5th day of April last.

The foregoing is the last record of the birth of a slave-child in Delaware County.

Among the records of the county will be found a paper executed by the heirs of Isaac Levis, of Mid- dletown, under date of Aug. 4, 1801, setting forth that the decedents owned " a negro boy named John, now about twenty-three years of age, and it being appre- hended that the heirs may have some claim on the

said negro," they release all rights they may have to his person or services.

In the same year, August 1st, Israel Elliott, Esq., of Tinicum, being the owner of "negro Primus Neid," a slave for life,-then in his twenty-eighth year,-" in consideration of his Integrity, honesty and upright- ness. .. during his servitude" manumitted "Primus," requiring all "the Lieged people of the United States of America" to recognize his late slave as a free man.

The return of deaf and dumb and slaves in each township in the State in 1829 shows one slave in Delaware County, held in Chester.1 The census of 1790 showed fifty slaves in Delaware County ; that of 1800, seven, while in 1810 not one was returned. In 1820 there was one, and in 1830 the number had swollen to two.

The last notice of the effete system of slavery, so far as the official records of the county are concerned, will be found on file in the office of the prothonotary, at Media, whereby Elizabeth H. Price, of Cecil County, Md., under date of Nov. 15, 1830, in consid- eration of one hundred and ten dollars, " released from slavery, manumitted and set free, Rasin Garnett, being under forty-five years of age, of a healthy con- stitution, sound in mind and body, and capable by labor to procure to him sufficient food and raiment, with other requisite necessaries of life."

The old colonial law which authorized the appre- hension and imprisonment of negro or white persons suspected of being runaway slaves or servants was continued in practice until the beginning of this century.

The record of the Court of Quarter Sessions shows that on Jan. 27, 1795, "Negro Jacob committed on suspicion of being a runaway, there appearing no claimant, he was, on motion, discharged from his confinement," while on "Jan. 27, 1801, Lewis Thoston, a prisoner charged with being a runaway servant," was discharged by proclamation.

I have not learned who was the last slave owned in the county of Delaware, but I know that in 1828 " Aunt Sallie" died at Lamokin Hall, in the borough of Chester. She had been the slave of John Flower, formerly of Marcus Hook and Chester, who moved to Philadelphia during the Revolutionary war, where he became a prominent and wealthy merchant. He had manumitted Sallie many years before his death (which occurred in 1824), but she refused to leave her owner's house, where she tyrannized over the ser- vants and regulated his diet, telling him what he could and could not have for dinner. Her supreme contempt was bestowed on "the poor niggers of no family." By the will of her master the interest of several thousand dollars was to be used for her sup- port for the remainder of her life. She declared that she was the daughter of a negro king, and had been purchased by the captain of a slaver from the tribe

· I Hazard's Register, vol. iv. p. 376.

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

that had captured her in war. After her master's death she refused to live with any of her race, but came to Chester, to the house of Richard Flower, the brother of her late owner, where she insisted on re- maining, because, as she declared, she " was one of de family."

John Hill Martin says, "John Crosby (the judge) owned the last two negro slaves in Delaware County, 'Old Aunt Rose' and her husband, 'Sampson.' After they were freed by law, this ancient couple lived in an old log cabin on the left-hand side of the road running from the old Queen's road, northwest from near Jacob Hewes' residence, below Leiperville, then called Rid- ley, to 'Crosby's mill.' They died at an extreme old age." 1

After the war of 1812, when the system of servile labor, which previous to that struggle had grown into almost general disfavor in the Southern States, was found to be a source of enormous wealth in raising cotton, the acreage devoted to the cultivation of that staple increased rapidly, so that slaves more than doubled in price, while the demand exceeded largely the supply. To meet this want arose a class of des- perate, lawless men who made the kidnapping of free negroes in the Northern States and spiriting them away to the sunny South a regular trade, having des- ignated stations, hiding-places, and accomplices in the nefarious business. Although Delaware County was on the border, very few attempts, so far as I have learned, were made to kidnap negroes within our ter- ritory. The first case I find occurred on Sunday, Jan. 7, 1835. John Paschall, a farmer, residing on the highway leading from the West Chester road to Darby, in the evening of that day was foddering his cattle in the baru, assisted by a black boy about twelve years old. When Paschall returned to the house he missed the lad, and diligent search was im- mediately made for the boy, which was continued during the greater part of the night without success. Shortly before noon the day following the boy re- turned, and related that two men, one of them a negro, had seized and tied him in the barn, after which they put him in a wagon and carried him to a house in Chester, where his captors and the people in the house drank until they became grossly intoxicated. While they were in that condition the lad managed to get a knife from his pocket, and with his teeth opened it. Then cutting the cords which bound his hands and feet, he escaped from the window, fled to the woods, where he remained all night, and made his way to his master's house the next day.

On Sunday, Aug. 12, 1844, the quiet of Chester was broken by a hue and cry in pursuit of four colored men who had, it was said, murdered George Sharp, of Wilmington, Del., at the "Practical Farmer," about seven miles distant. A number of horsemen and foot- men joined in the chase. Within a mile of Darby

three of the fugitives were overtaken, and brought to the jail at Chester. The truth appeared the next day. No murder was committed, but in attempting to arrest one of the colored men as a fugitive slave a struggle took place, and the man broke from the grasp of Sharp, who fell to earth. The latter had died of heart-dis- ease. The three men were, however, held in custody ; but on Wednesday, the 28th, when the owner of the slave came to claim him, it was found that they all had escaped. The incarcerated men had taken the pump-handle and spear, and had tied them together, and with their blankets had made a rope, with which they scaled the prison-yard walls, and decamped. They were never recaptured.

In August, 1852, a colored camp-meeting was held at Cartertown, where it was noticed that a negro from Delaware, in company with two worthless white men, had been acting in such a way as to excite suspicion that his intention was to kidnap some of the colored persons present. A committee was appointed to watch his movements, and, being convinced that his purpose was as mentioned, he was taken into the woods, where he was strapped to a tree and "beaten with many stripes." When released he fled hastily away, never to show himself again in the neighborhood.

On the evening of the 25th of January, 1853, Rich- ard Neal, a colored man in shackles, was brought in a carriage to Chester, and the intelligence that he was so detained spread, creating unnsual excitement in the ancient borough. It soon became known that the man was charged by one Capt. Mayo, of Anne Aruudle County, Md., with having excited his wife and children, slaves of Capt. Mayo, to run away. Neal was a freeman, but had been arrested on a requi- sition from the Governor of Maryland, and Capt. Mayo proposed to take the prisoner to that State in the midnight train. While awaiting the cars here a habeas corpus was served on the officers, which the Marylanders at first were disposed to resist, drawing their pistols and swearing they would not recognize the writ. Townsend Sharpless, conspicuons by his height and a light-colored overcoat he wore, coolly held the writ, and defied the angry men to disobey the order of the court. Neal was finally placed in the lock-up, where he remained all night. The following morning several hundred persons, residents of Ches- ter and the neighborhood, assembled at the depot, determined that the law should be carried out. When the south-bound train stopped, an officer got off and read a warrant commanding the appearance of Col. Mayo and his party in Philadelphia to answer the writ. The whistle sounded, and the train at length started on its way to Baltimore, amid the shouts of the populace. The officers then removed the shackles from the prisoner, and he was taken to Philadelphia. It was subsequently learned that Neal had formerly been a slave, had been manumitted, and had married a slave of Col. Mayo. He afterwards came to Philadelphia, where he was employed by

1 History of Chester, p. 213.

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AGRICULTURE, WITH A BRIEF MENTION OF OUR DOMESTIC ANIMALS.

Townsend Sharpless as a coachman. During the io- terval he strove to raise money to purchase the free- dom of his family, but his wife, before he had suc- ceeded in gathering the sum required, ran away, got to Baltimore, where she was captured and sold to a planter-

" Way down South, in the land of cotton."

The story of the unfortunate negro became known, several parties were warmly interested in his behalf, and three thousand dollars was raised, his family pur- chased, and brought to Philadelphia, where they were living when he was arrested. As soon as the true facts were made known to Governor Bigler, he re- called his approval of the requisition.

CHAPTER XXII.

AGRICULTURE, WITH A BRIEF MENTION OF OUR DOMESTIC ANIMALS.

GABRIEL THOMAS, the first historian of our State, in his quaint volume published in 1698, in describing the productions, says, " Their sorts of grain are wheat, rye, peas, barley, buckwheat, rice, Indian corn, and beans, with great quantities of hemp and flax, as also several sorts of eating roots, such as turnips, potatoes,1 carrots, parsnips, etc., all of which are produced yearly in greater quanties than in England, those roots being much larger and altogether as sweet, if not more de- licions. Cucumbers, coshaws, artichokes, with many others; most sorts of saladings, besides what grows naturally wild in the country, and that in great plenty ; also as mustard, rne, sage, mint, tansy, worm-wood, penny-royal, and most of the herbs and roots found in the gardens of England."

The corn (wheat) harvest, the same author tells us, was ended before the middle of July, and in most years the yield was twenty and thirty bushels of wheat for every one sown. While another writer, in 1684, re- cords that " the corn of this province, which the In- dians use, increases four hundred for one. It is good for the bealth, put in milk or to make bread." Gabriel Thomas states that there were several farmers, who at that time (prior to 1698) sowed yearly between seventy and eighty acres of wheat each, besides barley, oats,

rye, peas, beans, and other crops, and that it was com- mon to have two harvests in the year,-" the first of English wheat and the second of buck or French wheat."

The labor of the men on the farm in early times was much more arduous than at the beginning of this century, and absolutely appalling when contrasted with that of the present day. Thomas Cheyney, of Thornbury, in July, 1796,2 in describing the laborious manner of life at that time states that "every one that is able to do anything are as busy as nailers. I know many men that are worth thou- sands of pounds that will mow, make hay, reap, and draw hay and grain into their barnes as steady as hirelings, and those that are able, if they do not work, are looked upon with kind of contempt. Here in the country they are slighted and are not company for anybody."

The plow which was in use during the colonial period resemhled in almost every respect those repre- sented in the sculpture on the ruined temples of ancient Egypt, and like those, in most cases, were drawn by oxen. The entire implement was of wood, the mould-board a heavy block of the same material, which was sometimes covered with pieces of iron or the skin of a gar-fish to assist it in shedding the earth. As a whole it was clumsy and defective, hence it is not to be wondered that many of the farms in Delaware County, about the middle of the last cen- tury, after the same crop from the same land had been raised for years withont rotation, and without manure, were deemed so poor and exhausted that their owners sold them to any one who would buy, almost at any price, so that they might emigrate to Lancaster County and "the back woods," where the unbroken mould was so rich that "if tickled with a hoe it yielded an abundant harvest." One of the plows in common use towards the end of the last century is now owned in West Chester, Pa. The wooden mould-board, nearly three feet in length, shod with iron, is very heavy, but shallow; the beam is so low that in use it frequently became choked with grass, stubble, or manure, hence a boy had often to walk by its side all day long and clear it of the rub- bish thus gathered." The English historians claim, and perhaps justly, that James Small, of Berwick- shire, Scotland, in 1785, was the first to introduce the plow with a cast-iron mould-board and a wrought- iron share. That he so introduced these improve- ments may he true, but Townsend Ward and John F. Watson both state that previous to the date given " William Ashmead, of Germantown, made for him- self a plow with a wrought-iron mould instead of the customary board. This great improvement was much admired by Gen. Lafayette, who purchased four of these plows for his estate,-La Grange. The improve-

1 Watson recorda that potatoes " were very slow of reception among ua. It was first introduced from Ireland in 1719 by a colony of Presby- terians settled at Londonderry, in New Hampshire." (Annals of Phila- delphia, vol. ii. p. 420.) The quotation from Thomas' " History of Penn- sylvania," published in London, twenty-one years before the date, according to Watson, when potatoes were first introduced into the Eng- lish American colonies, shows that the latter assertion is not correct. The latter statement of Watson (same volume, page 486-87), that potutoes during his mother's childhood were little esteemed as food, may be literally true, as also the record he made of the remark of Col. A. J. Morris, that in the early days that vegetable was called spanish potatoes, " and were very sbarp and pungent to the throat and smell." He (Col. Morris) said Tench Francis first imported our improved stock, which by frequent cultivation he much improved.

2 Futhey and Cope's "History of Chester Conuty," p. 337. 3 Ib., p. 339.

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

ment was soon adopted by another person, who made the mould-board of cast iron."1 It was fortunate for Ashmead that he did not attempt to introduce his plow into general use, for many years afterwards Charles Newbold, of New Jersey, in the effort to have the agriculturists adopt a cast-iron plow he claimed to have invented, expended thirty thousand dollars in the attempt, and was at length compelled to abandon it, because the farmers were of the opinion that the cast iron poisoned the ground.

The harrow was early introduced, since Gabriel Thomas, in 1698, refers to that implement. "Their ground," he states, " is harrowed with wooden tyned harrows, twice over in a place is sufficient." And in colonial days, as was practiced until about the begin- ning of this century, the harvests were reaped by the sickle, all hands-men, women, and children-la- boring in the fields from sunrise to sunset, with a short interval at noon for rest. The wages then, as contrasted with those at present paid for such work, were very low, but a pint flask of whiskey was always given each hand in the morning. It was severe toil, the position in reaping requiring the bending over of the body, the right arm swinging the sickle, and the left gathering the bunches of grain, which were thrown into heaps and bound into sheaves. The custom previous to the Revolutionary war was for the reaper to take two corn rows, cutting through al- ways in one direction, and then, with his sickle on his shoulder, binding the sheaves as he came back. Twenty-five or thirty dozen was an ordinary day's work, but sometimes a rapid hand would reach forty dozen.

It is not surprising that redemption servants, many of whom had been reared in the cities of the old world, frequently ran away from their masters before the period of their indenture had expired, to avoid the incessant labor which farming then entailed upon them. Scythes were, of course, in use in our earliest annals, but it was not until the beginning of the present century that the cradle, with its many fingers, began to take the place of the sickle and the reaping- hook, and although there were men who predicted that it would never be brought into general use, as was the case in more recent times with the reaping- machine, it soon won its way to popular favor. Every man of middle age can recall, when the harvest was ready for reaping, how all the able-bodied men on the farm, together with several additional hands hired for the occasion, would take their stations, the man at the extreme right starting ahead of the one to his left, and the latter following in order until, with a swinging motion, all at the same time would cut a swath from five to six feet in width from one side of the field to the other, while frequent pauses would be made to sharpen the scythe, the stone for the purpose

being carried in a leather girdle around the waist of the 'reaper. The sound made by the stone on the steel blade would be heard at considerable distance.

In early times, when the bundles were ready to be taken to the barn or stack they were loaded on sleds, and in that manner transported thither. Bishop 2 informs us that in 1750 only the best farmers had carts on their farms, while the most of them used sleds both in summer and winter, a statement cor- roborated by William Worrall, of Ridley, who, speak- ing of the older manners about the middle of the last century, says "there were no carts, much less pleasure carriages. They hauled their grain on sleds to the stacks, where a temporary threshing floor was erected." On these floors the grain was thrashed out by horses, which were driven in a circle, and after the heads were deemed to have been well cleared of the seed the straw was thrown to one side with forks and the grain swept up, ready for another lot of bundles to be unbound and submitted to a like process. In the barns, however, the thrashing was usually done with the flail, and on a still day the sound of the heavy thump of the oaken breaker on the floor, which acted like a drum, could be heard a long way off. In 1770, John Clayton, doubtless of this county, who had in- vented a machine for thrashing wheat, received from the colonial government the exclusive privilege of making and selling this machine within this province.3 This was sixteen years before the thrasher invented for the same purpose by Andrew Meikler, of Scotland, and the one still used in England, was patented. We have no description of Clayton's invention nor of the manner in which it was received by the farmers, who at that time were loath to take hold of new ideas, believing that agriculture was so thoroughly under- stood that nothing, let it promise never so much in saving of time or labor, was worth investigation.

I have been unable to ascertain when the fan was first used to winnow cereals, but in the early days, in all probability, the grain was held in the hand, which was shaken as the contents were permitted to fall through the fingers, so that the breeze might blow the chaff away from the heavy seeds, which fell directly to the ground, in the same manner that many of the aborigines now employ to separate the grain from the chaff. It is known that previous to the Revolution fans were in use in Chester County, al- though the work was not performed as thoroughly as is now done by the modern machines.

In the old colonial days the woodland was brought into condition for tillage by girdling the trees, and two men could thus destroy the forest on twenty or thirty acres in one year. There was little underbruslı, owing to the custom among the Indians, annually in the fall, of setting fire to the grass and leaves in the woods, so that " a cart or wain," we are told by Gabriel Thomas,

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History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Part 53

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