History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Part 55

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

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In 1705 the constantly-increasing flocks of sheep caused the wolves to venture nearer the settlement to prey on those domestic animals; hence, in 1705, the law was changed, so that if any person would under- take as an occupation to kill wolves, devoting three days at least in each week to that pursuit, and enter- ing into recognizance at the County Courts to that effect, such person was entitled to receive twenty-five shillings for every head he brought in. This was not extravagant when we remember that at Germantown as late as 1724 wolves were reported as often heard howling at nights, while in 1707 they approached so closely to the settled parts of Philadelphia as to render the raising of sheep a precarious business.

By the act of March 20, 1724/5, the Assembly pro- vides the following rewards for killing wolves and red foxes: For every grown dog or hitch wolf, 15s .; for every wolf puppy or whelp, 78. 6d .; for every old red fox, 2s., and for every young red fox or whelp, 18. I do not know whether the reward for killing foxes was ever repealed, for the accounts in the commis- sioner's office at Media show that on Second month 12, 1791, James Jones was paid 138. 6d. for fox scalps. These animals were v. ry numerous in the last century, for William Mode, heretofore mentioned, stated that in his early days foxes carried off their poultry, and "on one occasion a man threshing espied one in the evening coming towards the barn, lay in ambush with a club, with which he knocked it over and killed it."1 The smaller animals, such as squir- rels, raccoons, and "that strange animal the ‘pos- sum,'" as Gabriel Thomas calls them, "she having a false belly to swallow her young ones, by which means she preserves them from danger when anything comes to disturb them," were numerous. In the year 1749, we are told by Kalm, six hundred and forty thousand black and gray squirrels were shot, the bounty paid in the several counties that year amount- ing to eight thousand pounds at three pence a head. The drain was so great on the county treasuries that the premium was reduced one-half. Great numbers of pheasants and partridges were found in all sections of the county, while wild turkeys in winter were often seen in flocks in the corn and buckwheat-fields feed- ing, and Mr. Worrall could well remember when there were great quantities of wild turkeys. The latter re- lated that he once saw a flight of pigeons which lasted two days. "They flew in such immense flocks as to obscure for a considerable time the rays of the sun. Thomas Coburn, Caleb Harrison, and Peter Heston went out at night in Martin's Bottom, and they told him (Worrall) that when they were in the woods where the pigeons roosted the noise was so great that they could not hear each other speak. On viewing the place the next morning, they found large limbs of the trees broken off from the immense weight and pressure of the lodgers." About the time of Penn's coming the wild pigeons flew in such masses " that the air was sometimes darkened," and, flying low, great numbers were knocked down with sticks by those per- sons who had no firearms. The birds not imme- diately used were salted down for future consumption.

The act of 1700, offering a reward for killing black- birds and crows, states in its preamble that "by the innumerable quantities of blackbirds and crows that continually haunt in this province and territories, to the great prejudice, hurt, and annoyance of the in- habitants thereof, being very destructive to all sorts of corn and grain that is raised therein, so that people's labor is much destroyed thereby," a reward of three

1 Statement of William Mode in 1824, Village Record, West Chester, Pa.

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

pence per dozen for blackbirds and three pence for every crow killed was offered out of the public fund, the party killing the birds being required to produce their heads before the proper officer in each county, and by the act of March 20, 1724/5, the person claim- ing the reward for killing crows was required to bring not less than six at one time to the nearest justice, who should "see their bill cut off," after which the magistrate was authorized to give an order for the re- ward on the county treasurer.

In 1748, Peter Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, records that the old residents stated that the number of birds was then diminishing; that in the days of the early settlers the water was covered by all kinds of water- fowl, and that ahout 1688 it was no unusual thing for a single person to kill seventy or eighty ducks of a morning, while an old Swede, then ninety years old, told Kalm that he had killed thirty-three ducks at one shot. Capt. Heinricks, of the Hessian troops, how- ever, who could see nothing agreeable in our country, says that "like the products of the earth, animals too are only half developed. A hare, a partridge, a pea- cock, etc., is only half grown. Wild game tastes like ordinary meat."

In early times swans were said to abound on the Delaware, but it is a circumstance to which William Whitehead, in his interesting sketch of Chester, di- rected general attention, that at that time " we do not hear of the more modern rail- and reed-birds, which now afford profit and pleasure to the sportsman in the fall season." It has always been a question among ornithologists as to the locality where the rail-bird breeds, hut in 1876 James Pierce picked up an un- fledged rail-bird on Chester Island whose feathers were not sufficiently grown to enable it to fly, which inci- dent furnished strong evidence that the birds breed on the marshes and meadows along the Delaware, a proposition which had been stoutly maintained by some well-informed persons and as earnestly denied by others.

It is worthy of record that a gentleman in Ches- ter in 1851 caught a white blue-bird, an albino, its plumage being of snowy whiteness.

Of our fishes, William Penn, in his "Further Ac- count of the Province of Pennsylvania," published iu 1685, refers to the fact that "mighty whales roll upon the coast near the month of the Bay of Delaware." A century and a quarter after he wrote this, in 1809, a clever-sized whale was caught in the Delaware, near Chester. Watson informs us that it "became a sub- ject of good speculation," and was exhibited at Phila- delphia and elsewhere. "Thomas Pryor, who pur- chased it, made money by it, and in reference to his gains was called 'Whale Pryor.' The jaws were so distended as to receive therein an arm-chair, in which the visitors sat." In April, 1833, near Chester, three seals were seen, and one of them was caught in a shad- seine, and kept on exhibition. Previous to this, on Jan. 21, 1824, a seal was shot in the Delaware, near

Repaupo, by Jonas Steelman, a resident of New Jer- sey, and occasionally sharks of the man-eating species have been seen or caught in the river above Chester. On Aug. 4, 1851, William Haines, Henry Post, and George Ennis caught a shark in a seine while fishing for catfish near the Lazaretto. It measured nine feet in length and five feet across the fins. In August, 1876, Captain Smith, while fishing for herring, saw a shark in the river just above Chester.

William Penn, in the pamphlet mentioned, states that "sturgeons play continually in our rivers in summer," and it is said could be counted by dozens at a time, leaping into the air and endangering the boats, while of shad, which he tells us are called "alloes" in France, by the Jews "allice," and by "our ignorant shad,"1 " are excellent fish, and of the bigness of our largest carp. They are so plentiful that Capt. Smyth's overseer at the Skulkil drew 600 and odd at one draught; 300 is no wonder, 100 familiarly. They are excellent Pickeled or smok'd as well as boyld fresh. They are caught by nets only." He also informns us that six shad or rock were sold for twelve pence, and salt fish at three farthings a pound. The rock-fish Penn stated were somewhat larger and rounder than the shad, while he mentioned a whiter fish, little inferior in relish to the English mullet, which were plentiful, and the herring, he tells us, "swarm in such shoals that it is hardly creditable. In little creeks they almost shovel them up in their tubs." There is among the lesser fry " the catfish or flathead, lamprey eale, trout, perch, black and white smelt, sunfish, etc." The eels in former time must have been monstrously large, for, as late as 1830, one measuring nearly six feet in length and of proportionate girth was reported as having been caught off the mouth of Chester Creek, which was a giant as compared with that captured by Capt. Peter Boon, in June, 1869, which was over three feet in length and weighed ten pounds.

Locusts were known in early days, and in 1749, Kalm alludes to them as returning every seventeen years, showing that even then the peculiar interval of time between their coming in great numbers had been noted. The first mentioned, however, of locusts, so far as I have seen, is recorded in Clay's "Swedish Annals," as follows :

" In May, 1715, a multitude of locusts came out of the ground every- where, even on the solid roads. They wera wholly covered with a shell, and it seemed very wonderful that they could with this penetrate the hard earth. Having come out of the earth, they crept out of the shells, flew away, sat dowo oo the trees, and made a peculiar noise until even- ing. Being spread over the country in such quoibers, the coise they made was so loud that the cow-bells could scarcely be heard in the woods. They pierced the hark on the branches of the trees, and depos- ited their eggs in the openings. Many apprehended that the trees

1 It is stated that the timid oature of these fish gave it the name of shad. The early settlers noticed that the overhangiog of trees on the river or streams frequented hy this fish, casting a shade upoo the water, frightened them, aod hence from this peculiarity they were called shadow-fish, or the fish that is frightened at a shadow, aod io time the first part of the word alone came to be used as the name of the fish.

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DELAWARE COUNTY CLIMATE.

would wither io consequence of this, but no symptome of it was ob- served next year. Hoga and poultry fed oo theo. Even the Indians did eat them, especially when they first came, boiling them a little. This made it probable that they were of the same kind with those eaten by John the Baptist. They did not continue long, but died in the month of June."

In the early days flies were more abundant than in our times, and during the occupation of Philadelphia the flies were very annoying to the residents of that city. "You cannot conceive," wrote Capt. John Heinricks, in 1778, "of the superabundant swarms of flies."1 If flies attracted attention, certain it is that the early settlers, as well as all subsequent Eu- ropean visitors, were much surprised and interested in our phosphorescent beetles, or, as more commonly called, fire-flies. Thomas Moore has used these in- sects with effect in one of his most admired ballads. The origin of our common bees has long been a mooted question, because the Indians always declared that they were unknown in this country until the advent of Europeans, and termed them " the white man's fly." " Bees," writes Gabriel Thomas, in 1698, " thrive and multiply exceedingly in these parts. The Swedes often get great stores of them in the woods, where they are free for anybody. Honey (and choice, too) is sold in the Capital City for five pence per pound. Wax is also plentiful, cheap, and considerable com- merce." That nocturnal pest, the mosquito, was general in the early time, and, within the recollec- tion of the writer, in the vicinity of Chester they were more numerous thirty years ago than at the present day. They were certainly abundant in the early days of Swedish sway on the Delaware, for we learn that shortly after Governor Printz built Fort Elsinborg, near the mouth of Salem Creek, Cam- panius records " At last within a few years it was de- molished by the Swedes themselves, who could not live there on account of the great numbers of mos- chetoes. After they left it they used to call it Myg- genborg,-that is to say, Moscheto Fort."

CHAPTER XXIV.

DELAWARE COUNTY CLIMATE, TOGETHER WITH NOTICES OF REMARKABLE WEATHER.

IN 1633 it is recorded that De Vries was frozen up in Wyngaert's Kill from January 17th to February 3d, and that he did not return to Swansdale until the 20th of February. The Dutch colonists "did not imagine that we had been frozen up in the river, as no pilot or astrologer could conceive that in the latitude from the thirty-eighth and a half to the thirty-ninth such rapid running rivers could freeze." Governor Printz states in the early days of the colony, that the " winter

is sometimes as sharp that I have never felt it more severe in the Northern parts of Sweden." 2

The winter of 1657 is the first record of in- tensely cold weather we find in the annals of this colony, for the Delaware River was frozen in one night so that a deer could run over it, which, the In- dians stated, had not occurred within the memory of their oldest living person, nor was there any tradition of it ever happening before that time. On Jan. 14, 1660, William Beekman wrote, “We are bravely blockaded by frost, but we are not affraid of it, as we are, on the contrary, well provisioned." And on the 25th of the same month he records, "Two days ago the ice broke up, so that we shall shortly have free water."3 The winter of 1681 was also remarkable for its severity, for on the 11th of December the river was closed in one night so that all navigation was inter- rupted, while the succeeding winter, that of 1682, was very mild, scarcely any ice forming, to be followed the next year with intense cold. In that year William Penn, in a letter to Lord North, says, "The weather often changeth without notice, and is constant almost in its inconstancy !" while a writer in 1684 says,4 " The air is generally clear and agreeable. The summer is longer and warmer, and the winter shorter and some- times colder than in England." The latter statement was certainly true of the winter of 1697-98, when the river was frozen so solidly that wagon-loads of hay were repeatedly dragged across the Delaware at Chris- tiana.

The summer of 1699 was extremely warm, and the winter of 1704 was so cold that snow fell over a yard in depth, the deepest on record, and birds, deer, and other animals perished, unable to find sustenance. The winter of 1700 was very mild, while in February, 1714, flowers were seen in the woods near Philadel- phia. The summer of 1724 was known as "the hot summer," which certainly must have been true of 1730, when eight persons dropped dead in the streets of Philadelphia in one day ; while the winter of that year was bitterly cold, and the summer of 1734 was so warm that many men in the harvest-fields died, and great numbers of birds were found dead, owing to the heat. In the winter of 1739-40, when the cold was so intense in Europe, snow fell to a depth of three feet ; the tops of the fences were covered, and sleds passed over them in every direction on the hard crust. The Delaware was frozen over until the 15th of March.

The suffering among the exposed settlers in Lancas- ter County, then on the borders of civilization, was extreme, the Pennsylvania Gazette recording that they were compelled to subsist on the deer which had died, and it was no unusual event to find ten or twelve of those creatures lying within a comparatively short distance of a spring, while great numbers of squirrels

1 Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. i. p. 41.

" Report for 1647, Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. vii. p. 272.

3 Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. vii. pp. 619, 628.

4 Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. vi. p. 312.

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

and birds were frozen to death. The horses, cows, and other domestic animals exposed in the woods without shelter perished. In many instances the stags and does fed at the hay-ricks with the cattle and became domesticated.

On the 17th of March, 1760, the Gazette informs us, occurred "the greatest fall of snow ever known since the settlement." The roads in every direction were closed. The majority of the members of the Assembly were unable to get to Philadelphia, the snow, it is recorded, being in some places seven feet deep. Dec. 31, 1764, the river was frozen over in a night, and in 1770 the river closed on December 18th, and remained so until Jan. 18, 1771.

Capt. John Heinricks, of the Hessian Yager Corps, in his letter from Philadelphia in the early part of the year 1778, states, in reference to our climate and seasons, "The cold in winter and the heat in summer is quite moderate, but the thunder-storms in summer and the damp reeking air in spring and autumn are unendurable. In summer mists fall and wet every- thing, and then in the afternoon there is a thunder- storm. And in winter, when the trees are frosted in the morning it rains in the afternoon. Such phe- nomena are common here." I

This officer of one of the crack regiments of the mercenary troops, in his comfortable quarters on the Schuylkill, might thus complacently write of the moderate cold of that winter, but the ill clad and ill fed Continental troops at Valley Forge, as they clus- tered about the camp-fires, record a different impres- sion of the weather, although Capt. John Moutressor, of the British army, states in his diary, under date of March 14, 1778, " Weather very warm for the season ; Layloche and Gooseberry leaves starting," while on the 17th of the same month he mentions, " Fine weather; frogs croaking in swamps, indicating spring." 2

The summer of 1778 was intensely warm, while the winter of 1779-80 was bitterly cold, the Delaware re- maining for three months closed. At Philadelphia an ox was roasted on the river, and the ground was frozen to the depth of five feet.

The strength of the ice can be imagined when we remember that that winter the British army crossed from New York to Paulus Hook, drawing their can- non and wagons as on the solid earth. The winter of 1784 was very cold, and on Feb. 6, 1788, the ther- mometer registered three degrees below zero. The midsummer of 1789 was very warm, but in August the weather was so cool that fires had to be lighted in houses for the comfort of the inmates. Jan. 2, 1790, the air and water were so warm that boys bathed in the river, while in the following winter the thermometer was five degrees below zero.

The winter of 1801-2 was milder than any which had preceded it since 1700, which it very much resem- bled, and Watson records that shad were in market on

the 17th of February, 1802, while the early winter of 1805 was so mild that farmers plowed their land until within a few days of Christmas, but the new year ushered in intensely cold weather, while February of 1807 was extremely cold, extending even to the South- ern Gulf States. On the 19th of February, 1810, the mercury at eight o'clock in the morning registered seven degrees below zero. The year 1816 is known as "the year without a summer," and it was equally remarkable in that respect in Europe as on this con- tinent. Frost and snow were common in every month of the year. June was the coldest ever known in this latitude. Snow fell in Vermont to the depth of ten inches; in Maine, seven ; in Massachusetts and Cen- tral New York, three inches. Fruit and vegetation was scarce and did not fully mature.

On the 20th of July, 1824, a noticeable storm of rain and hail is recorded as having occurred at Chester. Jan. 19, 1827, the Delaware was frozen over at Chester, and up to that date that winter no snow had fallen, nor did it snow until some time after the river had closed.' The winter of 1824 was so mild that on the 9th of February a shad was caught at Bombay Hook.

On Friday evening, Jan. 12, 1831, one of the most severe snow-falls on record in this vicinity occurred. The storm continued all of the next day. The result was that the mail and stages were much impeded for three days on the roads from Philadelphia to Wil- mington, but the cross-roads leading westward from the river were blocked with snow nearly to the tops of the fences, and in that condition was almost every road in the county. On Monday, Jan. 15, 1831, court began in Chester, and the juries and witnesses found their way across the fields, a few on horseback, but mostly ou foot. The president judge did not arrive, and on Wednesday the associate judges, who trans- acted some business, adjourned the court.3 During the winter of 1833-34 the river was closed, and Theo- doric and Hamilton Porter drove a pair of horses in a sleigh from Chester to the navy-yard, Philadelphia, on the ice, and returned in the same manner. On May 7, 1846, the snow fell for two days, blocking up the roads so that access to Chester by the highways was interrupted for several days. Trains on the Phil- adelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad could not run for two days because of the great drifts, and during that time no mail passed north or south over that road.

The year 1838, Dr. Smith records, " was remarkable on account of a great drought that prevailed through- out a large extent of country, embracing Delaware County. From about the Ist of July till nearly the 1st of October, no rain fell except a few very slight showers. The earth became parched and vegetation dried up. All the later crops failed, and, what added greatly to the injurious effects of the drought, myriads of grasshoppers made their appearance and vora-

1 Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. i. p. 41. 2 Ib., vol. vi. p. 197.

8 Hazard's Register, vol. vii. p. 248.

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THE COURT, BENCH, AND BAR OF DELAWARE COUNTY.

ciously devoured nearly every green blade of grass that had survived to the period of their advent. Even the blades and ears of Indian corn were greatly injured in many places. Cattle suffered much for want of pasture, and many persons were obliged to feed them on hay during the months of August and September, or upon corn cut from the field." ]

The winter of 1855 was remarkable. Up to March 16th the weather was comparatively mild, but on that date the cold was so intense that the Delaware was closed, and many persons living in this neighborhood crossed over the river on foot and in sleighs. On the night of March 6, 1858, the Delaware was frozen solidly in one night, the preceding winter months having been so mild that no ice had formed until the middle of February. The steamer " Keystone State," from Savannah, on the evening of March 5th, had to lay to at the pier at Chester, where she was compelled to discharge her cargo and transport it the remainder of the distance by rail.

On Sunday, Jan. 7, 1866, a cold wave visited Ches- ter, increasing until by Monday morning the ther- mometer was ten degrees below zero, and nothing to compare to it had been known for thirty odd years. Even now it is recalled as the "cold Monday."

On the 20th and 21st of March, 1868, the most vio- lent snow-storm known in the neighborhood for a quarter of a century occurred. The trains on the railroad were delayed several hours, no mail reaching Chester on Saturday, March 21st, until after mnid-day, while the roads throughout the county were impass- able by reason of the drifts.

The winter of 1872-73 was cold, while that of 1873- 74 was mild. But the following year, 1874-75, was intensely cold. On February 10th the river was sol- idly frozen, and many persons walked from Chester piers to the bar on the ice, and the day previous the thermometer stood at two degrees below zero. The winter of 1876-77 was mild, while that of 1880 was cold, and, taking the mean temperature, it is said to have been the coldest winter since 1856. The streams leading into the Delaware were frozen six inches in thickness, and the depth of snow estimated at one foot to sixteen iuches on a level.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE COURT, BENCH, AND BAR OF DELAWARE COUNTY.

BEYOND the possibility of refutation, it can be asserted that at Tinicum, in the present county of Delaware, justice was first dispensed within the limits of the State of Pennsylvania, and in all probabilities this remark will hold good as to the entire Delaware

River territory. Crude and capricious doubtless was the code of laws administered by Governor Printz, who was required, in obedience to the instructions given him, to "decide all controversies according to the laws, customs, and usages of Sweden," and in these matters he was expected to "adopt and follow all the laudable manners, customs, and usages of the Kingdom of Sweden."3 This was certainly a task more difficult to perform than to require, for the codi- fication of all the Swedish statutes, manners, and cus- toms had then but recently been made,2 hence it is no wonder that his Excellency the Governor of New Sweden, who, in 1647, reported "the whole number of men, women, boys and girls and children now living here is 138 souls,"+ occasionally, even in the sparsely-settled colony, found himself face to face with nice points of law which his military education furnished him no precedents to meet, and particularly was his position embarrassing because he was ex- pected to maintain a sharp outlook for the interest of the company, which would necessarily compel him to act in the dual capacity of plaintiff and judge in the same case. Under the circumstances we can understand why he says, " Again, I have several times solicited a learued and able man . . . to administer justice and attend to the law business, sometimes very intricate cases occurring, in which it is difficult, and never ought to be that one and the same person appear in the court as plaintiff as well as judge."5 The Governor was clothed with civil aud criminal jurisdiction; he was especially directed to enforce obedience and order, and could punish great offenders not only with imprisonment but even with death, "according to the crime;" in the latter cases, however, execution could only be done " according to the ordi- nances and legal forms, and after having sufficiently considered and examined the affair with the most noted persons, such as the most prudent assessors of justice that he can find and consult in this country." 6

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History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Part 55

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