USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume One > Part 13
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The condition of the people in respect to ministry and churches was necessarily poor. There was a church of the Dutch Reformed faith at New Castle, to the charge of which Petrus Tesschenmaker, a young "licensed bachelor in divinity" from Utrecht, was inducted in the autumn of 1678. He preached there some three years, then went to Staten Island, and thence
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to Schenectady, where in the attack by the French and Indians, in 1690, he was killed. The Swedes, after the departure of Ris- ingh in 1653, had but one minister on the river, the man who was variously called Laers, Laurentius Carolus, Lock, Lokenius, etc.,
....
Great Meeting House, Philadelphia
Erected at Second and High streets in 1695, and "great" as it then was, it was taken down in 1755 to be made "greater." In 1808, the build- ing was sold and afterwards demolished.
a poor fellow whose missteps and mischances, moral lapses and legal misdemeanors are repeatedly mentioned in the scanty chron- icle of the time. He preached in the church at Tinicum island that Printz built, and at Crane Hook, between Christina and New Castle, where a log church was built about 1667. In 1672 an- other Lutheran minister came to the Delaware, Jacobus Fabritius. He had trouble with the authorities, and was suspended, but in
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1677 came to have charge in the block-house church at Wicaco, where he preached his first sermon on Trinity Sunday of that year. This church at Wicaco was the second place of public worship in Pennsylvania-Tinicum only preceding it-and the first place in Philadelphia. Fabritius continued a pastor for fourteen years, until about 1691, but was totally blind from 1682. He died in 1693. Lock had died in 1688.
At the close of the year 1680-in March, according to the old calendar-the pioneer period was ending. The hardships
Jam: farjenter
Signature of Samuel Carpenter, assistant in Government under Markham, 1695
of the earliest beginnings were over. They had been, on the whole, small when compared with what the first settlers elsewhere in the eastern colonies of America had endured. No destructive war, no deadly conflicts with the natives, no pestilence, no famine, had visited the Delaware settlements. There had been the usual diseases of a new country, there had been scanty food, coarse ap- parel, and rude shelter, there had been loneliness and homesick- ness, but on the whole the experience of over seventy years, since Hudson looked inside the capes' door, had served to show that here, without great cost in life or treasure, the homes of a new commonwealth might be prosperously planted.
Far detached from the life of the settlers on the Delaware, an episode of romantic interest claims attention before we dismiss this period. It relates to the discovery of western Pennsylvania by white men. We have described the exploration by Cham- plain's guide, Etienne Brulé, in middle Pennsylvania, in 1615-16. We turn now to the probable discovery of the Alle- gheny and Ohio rivers by La Salle, in 1669.
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That La Salle came in that year from Canada through New York, passed from the shore of Lake Erie by Chautauqua lake or a route further south to the headwaters of the Allegheny, de- scended that river to the Ohio, and passed down the Ohio to the Falls near Louisville, is a theory supported by evidence, and made very likely, if not fully proved. If he did make this journey at or about that time, he was, so far as history knows, the first white man to visit Pennsylvania west of the mountains, and his tour down the Allegheny and Ohio was the earliest exploration of those rivers by a European.
It may be stated briefly: (1) The French afterward claimed possession of western Pennsylvania, and based their claim upon the discovery of "the Ohio and its tributaries" by La Salle. (2) La Salle, in the period 1669-73, as in other years, was engaged in expeditions of discovery from Canada ; as to all other years his movements are well known, but as to this period his own accounts are totally lost. (3) An account remains, however, published in Paris, probably in 1678, and derived, it is said, from a number of conversations by the author with La Salle. This contains a brief, and in some points geographically inaccurate, description of a tour like that outlined above-Lake Erie to the Allegheny, to the Ohio, to the Falls. (4) This account from the "conver- sations" receives confirmation in the memorial which La Salle himself addressed to Count Frontenac, French Governor of Can- ada, in 1677, in which he then declared that he had previously dis- covered the Ohio, and had descended it as far as a fall, which ob- structed it. (5) It is further confirmed by maps which Louis Joliet, his rival, made, showing the region of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes; on each of them the Ohio is presented, and with the inscription that it was discovered by La Salle.
That it was he who first of all men descended the Ohio "may then be regarded as established," says Francis Parkman, than whom there is no higher authority on such a subject. But in our present discussion we should wish to know where he en-
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tered the Ohio. Was it in northwestern Pennsylvania, over a portage between tributaries of Lake Erie and the Allegheny ? Most likely. That furnishes an easy and natural route. It is the route which was afterward taken by the French from the Lakes to the Ohio valley. It is vaguely suggested in the "con- versations" account. Such a route by La Salle would be need- ful, in order to give basis to the claim that he discovered the "tributaries" of the Ohio, as well as the main river.
It is pleasant to connect the discovery of the State's splendid western section with the name and fame of the intrepid French explorer-"the foremost pioneer of the Great West," as Park- man has named him. We believe it historically safe to do so.
But La Salle is further connected with Pennsylvania. The picturesque and striking episode of the building of the Griffin, in 1678-9, on the shore of Lake Erie, the voyage of the ship in 1679. and its disastrous and mysterious shipwreck, is a story which be- longs to the waters that wash our northwestern shore, and whose tradition for more than two centuries has persisted there.
This, then, is the story of the Griffin. She was the first sail- vessel on the Great Lakes. Bent upon their further exploration, and a trade with the Indians which might enable him to repay those who had helped him equip his costly expeditions, La Salle built, at the mouth of Cayuga creek, on the Niagara river, six miles above the great cataract, a rude vessel of forty-five tons. In the spring of 1679 she was launched. "Five small cannon looked out from her port-holes; and on her prow was carved a portentous monster, the griffin, whose name she bore, in honor of the armorial bearings of Frontenac." It was August before La Salle, who had been forced to visit Canada meantime, to baffle importunate creditors and envious enemies, was ready to pro- ceed ; it was the seventh of that month when, having overcome the swift current of the Niagara river by towing, they entered the Lake, chanted the Te Deum, fired a salute of cannon, and "plowed the virgin waves of Lake Erie, where sail was never
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seen before." They passed along the shore where Buffalo now stands, by the peninsula which in La Salle's language was for many a year called Presque Isle, where Erie is located, and so journeyed on to the West and the upper lakes. There, on an island at the entrance of Green Bay, La Salle loaded the vessel with the furs which his men had gathered, and decided to send her back to Niagara, where her cargo might appease his clamorous creditors, leaving him to press on in his explorations. "It was a rash resolution, for it involved trusting her to the pilot, who had already proved either incompetent or treacherous." On the 18th of September they parted, the Griffin eastward, he on his perilous way to Illinois. Baffled there, he built Fort Crevecœur, near where Peoria now stands, and returned in the winter, on foot, to Canada, asking anxiously for the Griffin. Where she was no
one could tell him. She had disappeared ! La Salle believed the pilot and crew had wrecked her, and escaped with the goods she carried to the Indians of the Northwest. Many other stories of her fate were told. But there is little doubt that she was lost, whether by design or accident, on the lake shore near where she was built. The Jesuits-enemies of La Salle-had a tradition that she was driven ashore in a gale, her crew killed by the In- dians, and her goods plundered. Articles found imbedded in the sand, near Buffalo, a century or more after-an anchor, and rusted guns bearing French inscriptions-were thought to have belonged to the ill-fated ship.
DANKERS AND SLUYTER'S JOURNAL.1
17th, [November, 1679] Friday .- ... Most of the English, and many others, have their houses made of nothing but clapboards, as they call them there, in this manner: they first make a wooden frame, the same as they do in Westphalia, and at Altona, but not so strong; they then split the boards of clapwood, so that they are like Cooper's pipe staves, except they are not bent. These are made very thin, with a large knife, so that the thickest end
1'The journal of these men, Jasper Dank- ers and Peter Sluyter, has been referred to in the preceding chapter. They were from
Frisia, in the Netherlands, and had become members of a communistic religious body in Germany, followers of Jean de Labadie.
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is about a pinck (little finger) thick, and the other is made sharp, like the edge of a knife. They are about five or six feet long, and are nailed on the outside of the frame, with the ends lapped over each other. They are not usually laid so close together as to prevent you from sticking a finger between them, in consequence either of their not being well joined, or the boards be- ing crooked. When it is cold and windy, the best people plaster them with clay. Such are most all the English houses in the country, except those they have which were built by people of other nations. .
18th, Saturday .- About ten o'clock, after we had breakfasted, we stepped into a boat, in order to proceed on our journey down the river. The ebb tide was half run out. . . We went along, then, moving with the tide; but as Ephraim was suffering with the quartan ague, and it was now its time to come on, we had to go and lie by the banks of the river, in order to make a fire, as he could not endure the cold in the boat. This continued for about an hour and a half. The water was then rising, and we had to row against the current to Burlington, leaving the island of Matinakonk lying on the right hand. This island formerly belonged to the Dutch governor, who had made it a pleasure ground or garden, built good houses upon it, and sowed and planted it. He also dyked and cultivated a large piece of meadow or marsh, from which he gathered more grain than from any land which had been made from woodland into tillable land. The English governor at the Manathans now held it for himself, and had hired it out to some Quakers, who were liv- ing upon it at present. It is the best and largest island in the South river ; and is about four English miles in length, and two in breadth. It lies near- est to the east side of the river. At the end of this island lies the Quakers' village, Burlington, . . . As we were now at the village, we went up to the ordinary tavern, but there were no lodgings to be obtained there, whereupon we re-embarked in the boat, and rowed back to Jacob Hendricks', who re- ceived us very kindly, and entertained us according to his ability. The house, although not much larger than where we were the last night, was somewhat better and tighter, being made according to the Swedish mode, and as they usually build their houses here, which are block-houses, being nothing else than entire trees, split through the middle, or squared out of the rough, and placed in the form of a square, upon each other, as high as they wish to have the house; the ends of these timbers are let into each other, about a foot from the ends, half of one into half of the other. The whole structure is thus made, without a nail or a spike. The ceiling and roof do not exhibit much finer work, except among the most careful people, who have the ceiling planked and a glass window. The doors are wide enough, but very low, so that you have to stoop in entering. These houses are quite tight and warm ; but the chimney is placed in a corner. My comrade and myself had some deer skins spread upon the floor to lie on, and we were, therefore, quite well off, and could get some rest. It rained hard during the night, and snowed and froze. .
They had come to America to seek a place to which the Labadists might remove, and they ultimately secured from Augustinc Herman a part of his great tract, the Bo- hemia Manor, in Maryland. The journal is harsh and censorious in tone (especially
in referring to the Quakers), but describes the Delaware between Trenton and New Castle as it appeared in the early winter of 1679 better than any other document which remains to us.
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19th, Sunday .-. .. At noon the weather improved, and Ephraim having something to do at Burlington, we accompanied him there in the boat. . . We tasted here, for the first time, peach brandy, or spirits, which was very good, but would have been better if it had been more carefully made.
20th, Monday .- We went again to the village this morning. . . It was almost noon before we left. The boat in which we had come as far as there with its owner, who intended to return in it, was exchanged for another, be- longing to Upland, of which a Quaker was master, who was going down with several others of the same class. . . We arrived about two o'clock at the house of another Quaker, on the west side of the river, where we stopped to eat our dinner and dry ourselves. We left there in an hour, rowing our best against the flood tide, until, at dark, we came to Takanij, a village of Swedes and Fins, situated on the west side of the river. Ephraim being ac-
John GoodSonn
Signature of John Goodsonn, assistant in Government under Markham, 1695
quainted, and having business here, we were all well received, and slept upon a parcel of deer skins. We drank very good beer here, brewed by the Swedes. .
2Ist, Tuesday .- The tide falling, we set out with the day, and rowed during the whole ebb and part of the flood, until two or three o'clock, when we arrived at the island of Tynakonk [Tinicum] the fifth we had passed. Mantinakonk and this Tinakonk, are the principal islands, and the best and the largest. The others are of little importance, and some of them, whose names we do not know, are all meadow and marsh, others are only small bushes. . . This Tinakonk is the island of which M. Arnout de la Grange had said so much. .. It lies on the west side of the river, and is separated from the west shore ... by a small creek, as wide as a large ditch, running through a meadow. It is long and covered with bushes, and inside somewhat marshy. It is about two miles long, or a little more, and a mile and a half wide. ... The southwest point, which only has been and is still cultivated, is barren, scraggy, and sandy, growing plenty of wild
onions, a weed not easily eradicated. On this point three or four houses are standing, built by the Swedes, a little Lutheran church made of logs, and the remains of the large block-house, which served them in place of a fortress, with the ruins of some log huts. This is the whole of the manor. When we arrived at this island, we were welcomed by Mr. Otto [Ernest Cock] late medicus, and entertained at his house according to his condition, although he lives poorly enough. . . .
22nd, Wednesday .- It was rainy all this day, which gave us sufficient time to explore the island. We had some good cider which he had made out of the fruit from the remains of an old orchard planted by the Swedish governor. . . We saw an ox as large as they have in Friesland or Denmark, and also quite fat-a species of which we have observed more among the Swedes, and which thrive well. It clearing up towards evening, we took a -
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canoe and came after dark to Upland. This is a small village of Swedes, although it is now overrun by English. We went to the house of the Quaker who had brought us down, and carried the other persons from Tina- konk. . .
23d, Thursday .- It was late before we left here, and we therefore had time to look around a little, and see the remains of the residence of Madam Pape- gay, who had had her dwelling here when she left Tinakonk. We had nowhere seen so many vines together as we saw here, which had been planted for the purpose of shading the walks on the river side, in between the trees. . . When the meal [dinner] was finished, Ephraim obtained a horse for himself and his wife, and we followed him on foot, carrying our traveling bags. . . After we had proceeded about three hours, our guide missed the way, and we had gone a good distance before he became aware of it, and would have gone on still further if we had not told him that we thought the course we were going was wrong. We therefore left one road, and went straight back in search of the other which we at length found. A man overtook us who was going the same way, and we followed him. We crossed the Schilt- padts kil [Tortoise or Turtle creek], where there was a fall of water over the rocks, affording a site for a grist-mill which was erected there. This Schiltpadts kil is nothing but a branch or arm of Christina kil, into which it discharges itself, and is so named on account of the quantities of tortoises which are found there. Having crossed it we came to the house of the mil- ler, who was a Swede or Holsteiner whom they usually call Tapoesie. .. .
24th, Friday .- Ephraim having some business here, we did not leave very speedily. This miller had shot an animal they call a muskrat, the skin of which we saw hanging up to dry. He told us they were numerous in the creeks. . .. It was about noon when we were set across the creek in a canoe. We proceeded thence a small distance over land to a place where the fortress of Christina had stood which had been constructed and possessed by the Swedes, but taken by the Dutch Governor, Stuyvesant, and afterwards, I be- lieve, demolished by the English. We went into a house here belonging to some Swedes, with whom Ephraim had some business. We were then taken over Christina creek in a canoe, and landed at the spot where Stuy- vesant threw up his battery to attack the fort, and compelled them to surren- der. At this spot there are many medlar trees which bear good fruit, from which one Jaquet, who does not live far from here, makes good brandy or spirits, which we tasted and found even better than Franch brandy. Ephraim obtained a horse at this Jaquet's, and rode on towards Santhoek, now New- castle, and we followed him on foot, his servant leading the way. We ar- rived about four o'clock at Ephraim's house. .
25th, Saturday .- We rested a little to-day. Ephraim and his wife and we ourselves had several visits from different persons who came to welcome us, as Mons. Jan Moll, whom we had conversed with in New York, and who now offered us his house and all things in it, even pressing them upon us. But we were not only contented with our present circumstances, but we con- sidered that we would not be doing right to leave Ephraim's house without reason. . . . Peter Aldrix also showed us much attention, as did others, to all of which we returned our thanks. We went out to view this little place, which is not of much moment, consisting of only forty or fifty houses. There is a fine prospect from it, as it lies upon a point of the river where I took a sketch.
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26th, Sunday .- We went to the church, but the minister, Tessemaker. who has to perform service in three places, over the river, Newcastle, and Apoquemenc, was to-day over the river, and there was, therefore, nothing done, except what was done by a poor limping clerk, as he was a cripple and poor in body. He read from a book a sermon, or short explanation, and sung and made a prayer, if it may be called such, and then the people went home. In the afternoon there was a prelection again about the catechism. [From New Castle they went to Maryland, returning on the 15th of De- .
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cember. They remained there ten days, finding it difficult to arrange for a boat up the river.]
[December] 25th, Monday .- The weather being good, we spoke again to our Swedes, but they continued obstinate; and also to Jan Boeyer, but nothing could be done with him either. While we were standing on the shore talk- ing with them about leaving, I saw coming down the river a boat which looked very much like that of the Quaker of Upland, as indeed it was. He landed at Newcastle and was going to Ephraim's house, where he had some business to transact, intending to leave the next day. We asked him if he was willing to take us with him, and he said, he would do so with pleasure.
26th, Tuesday .- All the letters having been collected together, which we were to take with us and deliver, and the Quaker having finished his busi- ness, we breakfasted together, and courteously took leave of all our acquaint- ances. . . . We will observe before leaving Sand-hoek, that it has always been the principal place on the South river, as well in the time of the Eng- lish as of the Dutch. It is now called New Castle by the English. . . . Formerly all ships were accustomed to anchor here, for the purpose of pay- ing duties or obtaining permits, and to unload, when the goods were carried away by water in boats or barks, or by land in carts. It was much larger
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and more populous at that time, and had a small fort called Nassau; but since the country has belonged to the English, ships may no longer come here, or they must first declare and unload their cargoes at New York, which has caused this little place to fall off very much, and even retarded the settle- ment of plantations. What remains of it consists of about fifty houses, most all of wood. The fort is demolished, but there is a good block-house, hav- ing some small cannon, erected in the middle of the town, and sufficient to re- sist the Indians or an incursion of Christians ; but it could not hold out long.
Returning now to our boat, it left about ten o'clock for a place a little higher up the river, where they had to take in some wheat, and where we were to go on foot, with the Quaker's wife. We reached it about noon, and found the boat laden, and lying high up on the land, so that we had to wait until the tide was half flood. We saw there a piece of meadow or marsh, which a Dutch woman had dyked in, and which they assured us had yielded an hun-
John Suncocks
Signature of John Simcocks, speaker of the Assembly, 1696
dred for one, of wheat, notwithstanding the hogs had done it great damage. The boat getting afloat, we left about three o'clock, and moved up with the tide. The weather was pleasant and still, with a slight breeze sometimes from the west, of which we availed ourselves; but it did not continue long, and we had to rely upon our oars. We arrived at Upland about seven o'clock in the evening, and it was there only half flood, so much later does the tide make there than at New Castle. The Quaker received us kindly, gave us supper, and counseled with us as to how we should proceed further. .
27th, Wednesday .- It rained some during the night and it was very misty early in the morning. Before the tide served to leave, we agreed with this man who had brought us up, to send us in his boat to Burlington, with two boys to manage it, paying him twenty guilders for the boat, and three guild- ers a day to each of the boys for three days, amounting in the whole to thirty- eight guilders; but one of the boys wishing too much, he determined to take us up himself. A good wind coming out of the south, we breakfasted and dined in one meal, and left about ten o'clock, with a favorable wind and tide, though at times the wind was quite sharp. We sailed by Tinakonk again, but did not land there. It began at noon to rain very hard, and continued so the whole day, and also blew quite hard. We ran aground on the lee shore upon a very shallow and muddy place, from which we got off with dif- ficulty. On account of this and other accidents, if we had had the boys it would have been bad for us. We arrived at Wykakoe, a Swedish village on the west side of the river, in the evening at dusk, where we went, all wet, into the house of one Otto, who had three children lying sick with the small- pox. We dried ourselves here partly. He gave us supper and took us to sleep altogether in a warm stove room, which they use to dry their malt in and other articles. It was very warm there, and our clothes in the morning were entirely dry.
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