USA > Pennsylvania > Northampton County > History of Northampton County [Pennsylvania] and the grand valley of the Lehigh, Volume I > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54
21
THE ABORIGINES
leader would let the hand of one of his partners go, keeping hold of the other. He would then spring forward and turn around several times, by which he would draw the whole company around, so as to be enclosed by them. When they stood close together they then disengaged themselves as suddenly, yet keeping their hold of each other's hands during all the different revolutions and changes in the dance, which, as they explained, represented the chain of friendship. A song made purposely for this solemnity was sung by the warriors at all the war dances held before or after a campaign, and was dreadful to behold; the air of anger and fury employed on these occasions made a spectator shudder.
When hunting, the Indian would not walk leisurely and come suddenly upon the game, but run with such great swiftness and perseverance that he even would weary the deer, and often follow it for ten or more miles from home, and, after dispatching it, carry the burden without the least thought of the consequences. An Indian would think nothing of dragging a deer of one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds weight home, through a considerable tract of forest, at least he affected not to feel its weight. Even when he showed exhaustion, he would go all day without eating, and then gratify his hunger by gluttonously consuming great quantities of meat. The consequences of these irregularities were visible among the aged.
The women generally carried heavy loads on their heads and back of the neck, fastened in place by a band around the forehead; in this manner they would carry more than a hundred weight. This caused frequent pains and stiffness of the neck and back; most all the old women were subject to this affliction.
The most common diseases among the Indians were pleurisy, weakness and pains in the stomach and breast, consumption, rheumatism, diarrhea, ague and inflammatory fevers. Smallpox was introduced by the Europeans, and was one of the principal causes of dislike toward them; this disease they dreaded more than any others, as owing to their unsanitary mode of exist- ence they were easy subjects to its ravages.
The Indians were, in general, bad nurses; as long as a man could eat, they would not own to illness; and would never pronounce his case danger- ous until he had entirely lost his appetite. If a patient became sore from long lying, they would put him upon a bed of straw or hay, near a fire. A thin soup of pounded corn and water, without salt or grease of any kind, was the common diet for the sick; those who did not approve of this diet ate and drank what they pleased, though dangerously ill.
Their general remedy for all disorders, small or great, was a sweat; for this purpose they had in every town an oven, situated at some distance from the dwellings, built either of stakes and boards, covered with sod, or dug in the side of a hill, and heated with some red-hot stones. Into this the patient crept, naked, and the heat soon threw him into such a profuse sweat that it fell from him in large drops; as soon as he found himself too hot he would creep out, and immediately plunge into the river, where he remained about one minute, then retired again to the oven. Having performed this opera- tion three times successively, he smoked his pipe with composure, and in many cases the cure was complete.
22
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY
Their medicine men, on great pow-pows, used sorcery along with medi- cine as a means of inspiring the patients. If the invalid failed to recover, the cause was assigned to some other cause, or blame attached to some great uncontrollable circumstance. One great fault of these physicians was that they knew not how to proportion the strength of their medicine to that of the patient's constitution. External injuries they treated successfully, and were well skilled in healing bruises and wounds. They were perfect in the treatment of fractures and dislocations; if an Indian dislocated his foot or knee when hunting alone, he would creep to a tree and tie his strap to it, fasten the other to the dislocated leg, and, lying on his back, continue to pull until it was reduced. In burning and chilblains they used a decoction of beech leaves as a speedy cure. A warm poultice made of the flour of Indian corn was laid upon all boils until they became ripe, when they were opened with a lance. In letting blood, a small piece of flint or glass was fastened to a wooden handle, and placed upon the vein; this they would strike till the blood gushed out. Teeth were extracted with a common pincers or a string. Rheumatism was considered by them to be an external disorder, and there- fore they prescribed nothing inwardly, but treated the affected parts. In cupping, they would make small incisions on the skin with a knife, upon which they would place a small calabash, and for a lamp used a piece of lighted birch-bark; some would occasionally take medicine inwardly and effected a radical cure. Bathing and sweating were considered the most powerful remedies. When taking medicine inwardly, if a decoction of two or three different roots failed to make a cure, they would resort to a com- position of some twenty various sorts. The bark of the white walnut applied to parts of the body when suffering from pain would effect a cure; applied to the temples, cured headache; a strong decoction of it used warm on a fresh wound kept down the swelling, and often two days' application of a healing lotion made from the root of sarsaparilla effected a cure.
The Indians were remarkably skilled in curing the bite of venomous serpents, and had a medicine peculiarly adapted to the bite of each species. For example : The leaf of the rattlesnake root was the most efficacious remedy against the bite of the rattlesnake. It is remarkable that this herb should grow in profusion just where this reptile abounds, and that it acquired its greatest perfection at the time when the bite of the rattler is the most dangerous. The Indians were so well convinced of the certainty of this antidote, that many would suffer themselves to be bitten for a drink of rum. The leaves they chewed, and immediately applied to the wound, and either some of the juice or a little fat or butter swallowed at the same time. This occasioned a parching thirst, but the patient refrained from drinking to more readily effect a cure.
The bark of the ash was chewed for toothache; the flower of the tulip tree, when full grown, was used for ague; also, the bark of the roots was good for internal use in fever and ague. Dogwood was used by these Indians the same as the European used Peruvian bark. The laurel was used for special purposes medicinally, the leaves for one ailment, the roots for another, and the wood itself was compounded into a cordial beneficial for aiding digestion. A tea was made from the sassafras, and the elderberry when in
23
THE ABORIGINES
blossom was used for reducing inflammation by rubbing into the afflicted parts. They drank saffron tea, also made a salve from the cream of the marshmallow; wintergreen berries were used in winter for stomach dis- orders, and liverwort, for consumptives, was very beneficial. Pokeberry roots applied to the feet and hands were used as a stimulant in fevers ; jalap was used as a purgative, and the roots roasted and applied hot to the soles of the feet in severe cases of rheumatism. Ipecac was used not only as an emetic, but also as an antidote against the bite of serpents. Sarsaparilla was their blood elixir ; bloodroot was also an emetic; snakeroot an antidote for snake bites ; ginseng was used the same as by all European and Oriental nations; fusel oil (petroleum) was used for smallpox by bathing in pools of water wherein the oil abounded, also as a liniment for external use; it was extracted from the water by boiling when reduced to the consistency of paste; it was sold to the white settlers and used in their fat lamps for light- ing purposes, the same as lard was used.
The Indians were adepts in concocting poisons, and they had one for slow effect which caused death in about three months; another that would cause a lingering illness for a year or more, but could not be removed by any means whatever; a third species of poison that was effective in a few hours, but could be prevented by a timely emetic.
Immediately after the death of an Indian, the corpse was dressed in a new suit, with the face of the shirt painted red, and laid upon a mat or skin in the middle of the hut or cottage; the arms and effects of the deceased were then piled up near the body. In the evening, soon after sunset, and in the morning before daybreak, the female relations and friends assembled around the corpse and mourned over it. Their lamentations were loud in proportion to the love and esteem they bore to the deceased, or to his rank, or the pains he suffered in dying; and they were repeated daily till the interment.
The burying places were some distance from the dwelling; the graves were generally dug by old women, as the young people abhor this kind of work. They used to line the inside of the grave with the bark of trees, and when the corpse was let down they placed some pieces of wood across, which were again covered with bark and then the earth thrown in, to fill up the grave. It was customary to place a tobacco pouch, knife, tinder-box, tobacco and pipe, bow and arrows, gun, powder and shot, skins and cloth for clothes, paint, a quantity of corn, dried berries, kettle, hatchet, some articles of fur- niture, into the grave, supposing that the departed spirits would have the same wants and occupation in the land of souls.
After the ceremony was over, the mother, grandmother and other near relatives retired after sunset, and in the morning arrived early to weep over the grave. This they repeated daily for some time, but gradually less and less, till the mourning was over. Sometimes they would place victuals upon the grave, that the deceased might not suffer hunger. The first degree of mourning in a widow consisted in her sitting down in the ashes, near the fire, and weeping most bitterly ; she would then rise and run to the grave and make loud lamentations, returning again to her seat in the ashes. She would neither eat, drink or sleep, and refused all consolation; after some
24
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY
time she would permit herself to be persuaded to rise, drink some rum, and receive comfort. However, she would observe the second degree of mourn- ing for one whole year, this was to dress without any ornaments, and was herself but seldom. As soon as she appeared decent, combed, hair orna- mented and washed clean, it was considered as a sign that she wished to again marry. The men altered neither their dress or manner of living during the mourning period.
WILLIAM PENN
LAFAYETTE'S READQUARTERS BATTLE OF ERANDY WINE SEPT. IN1777:
BIRTHPLACE OF WILLIAM PENN
CHAPTER II
THE PENNS
William Penn, the first proprietary of Pennsylvania, was a descendant of an ancient and respectable English family. His father, William Penn, was a son of Giles Penn, a merchant and seaman of Bristol, England. The son served an apprenticeship at sea with his father, and was an ambitious, suc- cessful and important personage, who at the age of twenty-two years was a captain in the English navy. He married at that time Margaret, a daughter of John Jasper, a correspondent or resident partner of an important London trading house. Though some historians, from the fact that she was living at Rotterdam at the time of her marriage, have concluded she was partially of Dutch descent, her parentage was strictly English, and her son was a full- blooded thoroughbred Englishman. Samuel Pepys in his "Pepys' Diary," stated that he met her in 1664, and she was "a fat short old Dutchwoman"; the neighborhood gossip credited her with not being a good housekeeper, but Pepys claims that she had more wit and discretion than her husband, and improved on acquaintance, being possessed of a cheerful disposition. The year after his marriage, Captain Penn was made rear admiral of Ireland, two years afterwards admiral of the Straits, and in four years more a "general of the sea" in the Dutch war. This was during Cromwell's time, when young men of energy and ability acquainted with the sea were in line of promotion. The Penns at the time of William's birth lived on Tower Hill, in the parish of St. Catherine, in a court adjoining London Wall. Here they resided in two chambers, fared frugally, and there William was born October 14, 1644.
The battle of Marston Moor was fought in that year. All England was taking sides in the contention between the Parliament and the King. The navy was in sympathy with Parliament, but the personal inclination of Admiral Penn was toward the King and his associates. Cromwell dispatched an expedition to the Spanish West Indies to conquer Cuba, placing Penn in charge of the fleet, and Venables as general of the army. The two com- manders, without conferring with each other, sent secret word to Charles II offering him their ships and soldiers. The King, though he declined the offer, wished them to reserve their affection for His Majesty until a more oppor- tune time. This was the beginning of the friendship between the House of Stuart and the family of Penn, which resulted later in the erection of the colony of Pennsylvania. Admiral Penn on his return from the ill-fated expedition to the West Indies, was imprisoned with his military colleague. He made humble submission to the parties in power, was released, and retired to his estates in Ireland. He still continued his communications with the Royalists, and had rather an obscure share in the Restoration. He secured a seat in Parliament ; and was also the bearer of the welcome message which finally brought Charles II from his exile in Holland to his throne in England. For his part in this pleasant errand he was made a baronet, commissioner
26
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY
of admiralty and governor of Kinsale. At the age of thirty years he was promoted to the highest rank attainable to a sea-going officer, that of vice- admiral of England, inferior only to the Lord High Admiral. In the second Dutch war, at the battle of Lowestoft, he was captain-general of the fleet under the Duke of York (afterwards King James II) ; when the duke with- drew from the command, Penn's service ceased.
On the elder Penn's return to England, he was the foremost naval com- mander of his country ; he continued, however, to be a commissioner of the navy. Thus he had retrieved and improved his fortunes, his personal am- bition was attained, and he associated with persons of rank who were favored by royalty. His death occurred September 16, 1670, and he is buried in the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe. Bristol, England. He was survived by two sons, one of whom died three years after his father's death, and a daughter.
Sir William Penn was not a highminded man, and Pepys, in his Diary, stigmatizes him as a "mean fellow." He was, however, a figure of consid- erable importance in English naval history; as admiral and general for Parliament he helped in 1653 to draw up the first code of tactics provided for the navy. It was the base of the Duke of York's "Sailing and Fighting Instructions" which continued for many years to supply the orthodox tactical creed of the navy.
While Sir William Penn had been sailing the high seas and fighting battles with the enemies of England, William Penn, the younger, had been living in quietness, surrounded by the green fields of the country in the village of Wanstead, in Essex county. Here he said his prayers in Wanstead Church, obtaining his education at Chigwell School, where he was brought under strong Puritan influence. He was a child of sensitive temperament, and he had times of spiritual excitement. At the age of twelve years he had the strongest conviction of the being of a God, and that the soul of man was capable of enjoying communication with Him. His father had not re- flected that while he was pursuing his ambitious career, his son was living amongst Puritans and in a Puritan neighborhood. To remedy these youth- ful impressions his father immediately sent his son to Oxford University, where he was entered as a gentleman-commoner of Christ Church at the Michaelmas term of 1660. The boy was intended by his paternal sire to become a successful man of the world and a courtier like his father. On his entrance into Oxford, young Penn found everything in confusion, the Puritan faculty having been replaced by churchmen. This state of affairs was displeasing to the new student, whose sympathies were with the dis- possessed. The churchmen made public exhibitions of their cavalier habits to shock their Puritan neighbors. They amused themselves freely on the Lord's Day, patronized plays and games, tippled, puffed tobacco, swore, and swaggered in all the newest fashions. William, like his father, appreciated pleasant and abundant living, but was not of the disposition to enter into wanton and audacious merrymaking, as he was a gentle, serious, country lad, with a Puritan conscience. During his two years at the University his sober tastes and devout resolutions were strengthened by certain appealing sermons. Oxford was the nursery of enthusiasms and holy causes. Young Penn did not profit by his academical course but by the influences of Thomas
27
THE PENNS
Loe, a Quaker preacher, from whom he received the impulse which deter- mined all of his after life.
The origin of the word "Quaker" is uncertain; some claim it is derived from the fact that the early preachers of the sect trembled as they spoke; others deduce it from the trembling which their speeches compelled in those who heard them. The earnest spirit of these strange people was annoying and displeasing to all their neighbors in the seventeenth century.
William Penn knew what "the inward light" was, and, accordingly, not only went to hear Loe, but was profoundly impressed by what he heard. He was naturally a religious person, by inheritance perhaps from his mother ; he was also naturally of a political mind, by inheritance from his father. The Quaker's dream was a colony across the sea, the Churchmen had a colony in Virginia, the Puritans in Massachusetts. Somewhere in that wide continent of America there must be a place for religious refugees who in England could expect no peace from either Puritans or Churchmen. Penn was listening to Loe when he preached to the students, revealing that George Fox, the first Quaker, was in correspondence with a Quaker brother in America, asking him to confer with the Indians in reference to the purchase of lands. This colonization scheme appealed to Penn; he had an instinctive appreciation of large ideas, imagination and confidence, which made him eager to undertake their execution. It was the spirit of his father that carried him from a lieutenancy in the navy to the position of an honored and influential member of the Court of the Merry Monarch. Young Penn in his enthusiasm absented himself from college prayers and joined with other students attainted with Quakerism, in holding prayer meetings in their own rooms. He assisted in a ritual rebellion, and fell upon the students who appeared in surplices and helped to destroy them.
This incident ended William's collegiate career; he was dismissed from Oxford and never returned. The Admiral was thoroughly incensed at his son's conduct, and on his return to the parental roof he chastised and turned the culprit out of doors. The boy came back, of course, as it was but a brief quarrel, but the father was satisfied that something must be done to rid his son of his queer notions. Accordingly, the young man was sent to France to travel in company of certain persons of rank. He returned to England on August 26, 1664, a gentleman in appearance, and with an inclination to French in his manners and conversation. This continental journey influ- enced the rest of his life; it restrained him from following the absurd singu- larities of his associates. He did become a Quaker, but shunned the leather apparel adopted by George Fox. He wore his hat in the Quaker way, and said "thee" and "thou," but otherwise dressed and acted according to the conventions of polite society. There were, however, Quakers who looked askance at him because he was so different from them, able to speak French, and acquainted with the manners of drawing rooms. During his travels, he attended for some months the Protestant College at Saumer, devoting him- self to the study of primitive Christianity, which Loe told him was to be found the true ideal of the Christian church. Here he acquired an acquaint- ance with the writings of the early Fathers, from which he liked to quote.
On his return to England, his father sent him to study law at Lincoln's
28
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY
Inn; it seemed that at last his father had succeeded in his purpose. His legal studies were interrupted by the Great Plague of 1665, and for safety he returned to the green fields of the country, which gave him time to think more seriously of religious matters. This change was marked by his father, who sent him to Ireland, where he resided on his father's estate at Shannan- gary Castle. He so distinguished himself in suppressing a mutiny at Car- rickfergus that the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, offered him a commission in the army. William for a time seriously considered the proposition, and was disposed to accept it. He had the well known portrait of himself painted, the only one from life, clad in steel, with lace at the throat. His dark hair was parted in the center, and hung in cavalier fashion over his shoulders. He looked out of large, clear, questioning eyes, and his hand- some face was strong and serious. Fate, however, intervened. The young cavalier went to Cork on business, there heard that Thomas Loe was in town, and went to hear him expound the Quaker belief. "There is faith," said the preacher, "which is overcome by the world." This was the theme; to Penn it seemed as if every word was spoken out of heaven straight to his soul. In his long contention, the material world had been gaining the ascendency ; the attractions of the material life had outshone the light which had flamed about him in boyhood. Then Loe spoke, and there were no more perplexities ; Penn's choice was definitely made. He was now thoroughly wedded to the Quakers; he attended their meetings, though he still dressed in the gay fashions he had learned in France. He attended a Quaker meeting in Cork, September 3, 1667, and assisted to expel a soldier who had disturbed the meeting; for this offense he was brought before the magistrates and sent to prison. He wrote to the Earl of Orrery, the Lord Lieutenant of Munster, in which he first publicly made a claim for perfect freedom of conscience. That he was immediately released from jail, was on account of his father, and being a protege of the Duke of Ormond. His father recalled him home, and was sorely disappointed that neither France nor Ireland had cured his son from his religious eccentricities. The son used "thee and thou"; would not remove his hat, and declined to enter the pleasant society where his father hoped to see him shine. Though his father offered a reasonable com- promise, the young convert declined to make any change in his customs, or part with the faith of his religious belief; and for the second time the Ad- miral forbade his son the protection of the paternal roof.
Penn was now twenty-four years of age; he was received by the Quakers with open arms. He became a minister of that sect, and at once entered upon controversy and authorship. His first book, "Truth Exalted," was violent and aggressive in the extreme. The same offensive personality is shown in "The Guide Mistaken," a tract written in answer to John Clapham's "Guide to True Religion." His first public discussion was with Thomas Vincent, a London Presbyterian minister, who had reflected on the damnable doctrines of Quakers. Penn at once published "The Sandy Foundation Shaken." In this able tract, orthodox views were so offensively attacked that the Bishop of London had him arrested, and he spent the next seven months in the Tower. The bishop sent him word that he must either recant or die in prison. Penn's answer was that his prison should be his grave
29
THE PENNS
before he would budge a jot. The young author wrote an explanation of his tract, entitled "Innocency With Her Open Face," and also addressed a letter to Lord Arlington, principal Secretary of State. These writings gained him his liberty, the Duke of York interceding for him with the King. While in prison, Penn published the most important of his writings, "No Cross, No Crown." This was an able defense of the Quakers' doctrines and practices, a scathing attack on the loose and unchristian lives of the clergy. The Quakers when he joined them, had no adequate literature expressive of their thoughts. The most of them were intensely earnest, but uneducated; their preachers spoke great truths somewhat incoherently ; Penn gave Quaker theology a systematic and dignified statement.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.