USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume One > Part 14
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28th, Thursday .- It was flood at daylight when we left. . ... The weather was foggy, but when the sun had risen a little, it cleared away and became pleasant and calm. We therefore advanced rapidly, rowing with the tide, and reached Takany of which we have before spoken, about ten o'clock, and where we landed a person who had come up with us. We continued on, and as the tide just commenced rising there we had a constant flood tide with us to Burlington, where we arrived about two o'clock. We were put ashore on an island of Peter Aldrix, who had given us a letter of recominendation to a person living there, and working for him. We paid Robert Wade, who and his wife are the best Quakers we have found. They have always treated us kindly. He went immediately over to Burlington, where he did not stop long, and took the ebb tide and rowed with it down the river. . .
The man who lived on this island was named Barent, and came from Groningen. He was at a loss to know how to get us on further. Horses,
John Plungfor Signature of John Blunston, speaker of the Assembly, 1697
absolutely, he could not furnish us; and there was no Indian about to act as a guide, as they had all gone out hunting in the woods, and none of them had been at his house for three weeks. To accompany us himself to Achter kol or the Raritans and return, could not be accomplished in less than four days, and he would have to leave his house meantime in charge of an Indian woman from Virginia, who had left her husband, an Englishman, and with two chil- dren, one of which had the small-pox, was living with him; and she could be of no use to any one, whether Indians or other persons who might come there.
About three o'clock in the afternoon a young Indian arrived with whom we agreed to act as our guide, for a duffels coat which would cost twenty- four guilders in zeewant, that is, about five guilders in the money of Holland ; but he had a fowling-piece with him which he desired first to take and have repaired at Burlington, and would then come back. He accordingly crossed over, but we waited for him in vain, as he did not return. The greatest difficulty with him was, that we could not speak the Indian language, and he could not speak a word of anything else. He not coming, we asked Barent if he would not undertake the task, which, after some debate, he consented to do. He arranged his affairs accordingly and prepared himself by making a pair of shoes or foot-soles of deer skin, which are very comfortable, and protect the feet. That was done in half an hour. We were to give him thirty guilders in zeewant, with which he was satisfied.
29th, Friday .- We breakfasted, and left about ten o'clock in a canoe, which set us on the west side of the river, along which a footpath runs a part of the way, in an east northeast direction, and then through the woods north northeast. We followed this path until we came to a plantation, newly begun by a Quaker, where we rested and refreshed ourselves. We agreed with this man, who came in the house while we were there, that he should put us over the river for three guilders in zeewant. We crossed -
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over about one o'clock, and pursued a footpath along the river, which led us to a cart road, and following that we came to the new grist-mill at the falls, which, in consequence of the great flow of water, stood in danger of being washed away. Crossing here, we began our journey in the Lord's name, for there are no houses from this point to Peskatteway, an English village on the Raritans. We had now gone twelve or thirteen miles from Peter Aldrix's island, and it was about two o'clock in the afternoon.
PASSAGE IN THE "CONVERSATIONS" ACCOUNT OF LA SALLE'S EXPEDITION OF 1669
"Cependant M. de la Salle continua son chemin par une rivière qui va de l'est a l'ouest ; et passe à Onontaqué [Onondaga] puis à six ou sept lieues au- dessous du Lac Erié ; et estant parvenu jusqu'au 280me ou 83me degré de lon- gitude,et jusqu'au 4Ime degré de latitude, trouva un sault qui tombe vers l'ouest dans un pays bas, marescajeux, tous couvert de vielles souches, dont il y en a quelques-unes qui sont encore sur pied. Il fut donc contraint de prendre terre, et suivant une hauteur qui le pouvoit mener loin, il trouva quelque sauvages, qui luy dirent que fort loin de là le mesme fleuve qui se perdoit dans cette terre basse et vaste se réunnisoit en un lit. Il continua donc son chemin, mais comme la fatigue estoit grande, 23 or 24 hommes qu'il avoit memes jusque là le quittèrent tous en une nuit, regagnèrent le fleuve, et le sauvèrent, les uns à la Nouvelle Hollande, et les autres à la Nouvelle Angleterre. Il se vit donc seul à 400 lieues de chez luy, où il ne laisse pas de revenir, remontant la rivière, et vivant de chasse, d'herbes, et de ce que luy donnèrent les sauvages qu'il rencontra en son chemin."
[Meanwhile M. de la Salle continued his journey by a stream which flows from east to west, and passed Onondaga; then at a distance of six or seven leagues below Lake Erie, and having reached the 280th or 283d degree of longitude, and as far as the 4Ist degree of latitude, he found a waterfall, which falls toward the west into a region low, swampy, quite covered with old stumps, of which some are still standing. So he was forced to land, and following a ridge which promised to carry him far, he found a few sav- ages who told him that very far from there the same river which disappeared in that wide low land united again in a bed. So he went on his way, but as the effort was very fatiguing, 23 or 24 men that he had led that far all left him, during the same night, went back to the river and decamped, some to New Holland, and others to New England. So he found himself alone at 400 leagues from home, when he lost no time in returning, re-ascending the stream, and living on game, on herbs, and on what the savages whom he met on the way gave him.]
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CHAPTER VI
THE FOUNDER OF PENNSYLVANIA
T HE personality of William Penn was woven into the fabric of his colony. It is hardly possible to sever the two, or to understand the one without a good knowledge of the other.
We return, therefore, to the year 1644, when Printz, newly arrived on the Delaware, was ruling the Swedish settlement from his capital on Tinicum Island, and the Dutch at Manhattan, in despair over the Indian war and the other evils of Kieft's direct- orship, were appealing pitifully to the mother-country for succor. In that year, in October, Captain William Penn, the commander of an English warship, was at London, under orders to proceed to the coast of Ireland to help fight the battle of the Parliament against Charles the First. Captain Penn was young for the rank he held ; he was twenty-three. His family, the Penns, were from the west of England-originally perhaps, from Wales-and he had been born at Bristol, then one of the chief ports for English commerce. His wife was from Holland, Margaret Jasper, the daughter of John Jasper, a merchant of Rotterdam, and he had fixed his home in London, to the east of the old city, near the Tower. Here, on the 14th of October (1644), his first child was born.
This child, our William Penn, the Founder of Pennsylvania, was educated first at Chigwell, in Essex, a few miles northeast of London. But when he was about twelve, the family removed to
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the south of Ireland, where Captain Penn had "estates" which Cromwell had given him-confiscated property of royalists. The boy was there some time in the charge of private tutors, but in 1660, when he was sixteen years old, he was sent a student to the University of Oxford. His father was now a vice-admiral of England, had been concerned in the restoration of the king, and' had been made a knight.
The Oxford student, it soon developed, was quite a different person from the vice-admiral of the royal navy, though their relationship was that of father and son. Between Sir William Penn and our William Penn there was a marked divergence of character, as we shall in due time sufficiently see. The seeds of a new thought, of new life, of a revived and reformed society, were planted in the mind of the boy, to bring forth fruit later. In his childhood at Chigwell he had run and played in Hainault Forest, near by, and had even then experienced the "long, long thoughts" of his developing consciousness and conscience. He had received religious impressions, as he tells us, in his twelfth year-perhaps in Ireland after the removal thither. Coming now to Oxford, the seat of traditional "prerogative" in Church and State, at the very hour of the Restoration, when the triumph of the enemies of Puritanism was complete, he found much that shocked him-"darkness and debauchery," as he afterward de- scribed it-and his opposition to this soon brought him into a strait place.
The ordinary difficulties of a serious youth, inclined to dream dreams of reforming society, at Oxford in 1660, would have been sufficiently great, but in the course of his two years' stay there, young Penn increased them materially. He inclined to become a Quaker. We must pause a moment to consider what this implied. There was, in 1660, a new religious body gathering in England, by the preaching of George Fox, a man twenty years older than William Penn. He had begun his religious labors between 1646 and 1650, in the midland counties of England, and
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at the Restoration the Friends, or Quakers, were well known in most courts and jails from Cornwall to Cumberland. At Ox- ford. Thomas Loe, a respectable citizen, was a preacher in the
Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church
small meeting which they ventured to hold there, and Penn, hearing him, was strongly influenced by his ministry.
The views of George Fox were far removed from those pre- scribed by and exemplified in the University of Oxford in the
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time of Charles the Second. Fox held and preached the doctrine of the Inner Light-an innate spiritual ability to be taught direct- ly from God. Such a doctrine is subversive of ecclesiastical sys- tems, and destructive no less to ritual and ceremonial. It is essentially a democratic doctrine, assuming the common and equal status of all men in the sight of their Maker. Moreover its logic leads to quietude of life, to a refined Puritanism of con- duct-all of which was offensive indeed in the year 1660, in the University of Oxford. . To have endured the Cromwellian re- gime had been bitterness, but to be confronted by a sect which carried even further the "levelings" of Puritanism, was not to be suffered. The Quaker preachers were therefore very commonly mobbed, and sometimes publicly whipped in that city. In 1654, two women, Elizabeth Heavens and Elizabeth Fletcher, "who came from the north of England to exhort the scholars in their colleges," were beaten and abused, and afterward "whipped forth" from the city, while others, men and women, including Thomas Loe and his wife, were imprisoned for preaching.
It resulted that for his general attitude of revolt against University conditions, and especially his refusal to "conform" to the established order in the Church, in 1662 young Penn was "banished the college," and concluded his studies there. His father was bitterly displeased. He had counted on his son's pur- suing the course he had laid out-the path of promotion in rank and wealth which he had himself with good success followed ; but the prospect now was that this expectation would be wholly frustrated by the youth's adopting views of religion and life which were fatal to a merely personal ambition.
After leaving Oxford, young Penn was sent by his father to travel on the continent; he studied theology awhile under an eminent Protestant teacher, Amyraut, at Saumur, in France, and proceeding farther on his tour, returned to London in 1664, having become somewhat influenced, probably, by his life abroad. The diary of that back-biting gossip Samuel Pepys reports him
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grown a "most modish person," a "fine gentleman." When the war with the Dutch followed-caused in part by the seizure of New Netherland-Admiral Penn commanded the English fleet, under the Duke of York, in the fierce naval engagement off the east coast of England, at Lowestoft, in June, 1665, and just before the battle, his son was sent to the King, once or more, with dispatches. A letter from W. P. to his father, 6th May, 1665, is as follows: "At my arrival at Harwich . . I took post for London, and was there the next morning by almost daylight. I hastened to Whitehall, where not finding the King up, I presented myself to my Lord of Arlington and Colonel Ashburnham. At his Majesty's knocking, he was informed there was an express from the Duke; at which earnestly slipping out of his bed, he came only in his gown and slippers; who, when he saw me, said, 'Oh! is't you? how is Sir William?' He asked how you did at three several times. . . After interrogating me about half an hour he bid me go about your business, and mine too."
The prevalence of the Plague in London sent young Penn out of town, and presently he went to Ireland, to attend to his father's property. There he remained for nearly two years, and two ex- periences, strongly contrasted in character, occurred to him. He was in service as a soldier, in May, 1666, under Lord Arran, at the siege of Carrickfergus-about which time the well-known picture of him, the "portrait in armor," is supposed to have been painted. A few months later, at Cork, he again heard Thomas Loe, the Oxford preacher, present the views of the Friends. The speaker employed a text which itself no doubt strongly moved his young hearer : "There is a faith which overcomes the world, and there is a faith which is overcome by the world." He spoke afterward, in his account of his journey in Germany, in 1677, of this incident as a providential rescue from the "worldly life" which he was then likely to have led, notwithstanding his earlier convictions. "It was," he said, "at this time that the Lord visited me with a certain sound and testimony of his eternal
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LIAMRAH MIMALNAS
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Etched for this work by Albert Rosenthal from the painting by Charles Willson Peale Owned by Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
grown a "most spodish person," a "6ne gentleman." When che war with the Dutch followed-caused in part by the seizure of New Netherland-Admiral Perm commanded the English Gou. under the Duke of York, in the force naval engagement off the east coast of England, at Lowestoft, in June 1665, am before the battle, Itis son was sent to the King, once or more, wre dispatches. A letter from W. P. to his father, ich May, 166 is as follows : "At my arrival at Harwich . . I took post ber London, and was there the next morning by almost daylight. Hastened to Whitehall where not finding the King up I presente! myself tomy Lord of Arlington and Colonel Ashburnham. AL Tus Majesty's Knocking, he was informed there was an esprest from the Duke; at which earnestly slipping out of Ins bed, be came only in his gown and slippers; who, when he saw me, sal 'Oli! is't you? how is Sir William ?' He asked How you did at three several times. . . AAfter interrogating me about half mm Hour be bid me go about your business, and mine too."
The prevalence raf the Plague in London sent young Penn out of town, anul presently he went to Ireland, to attend to his father's property. There He remained for nearly two years, and two ex- periences, strongly contrasted in character, occurred to him. He was im service as a soldier, in May, 1666. under Lord Arran, at the siege of Carrickfergus-about which time the well-known picture of bin, the "portrait in armor," is supposed to have been paintel A Jew months later. at Cork, he again heard Thomas Loe, the Oxford preacher, present the views of the Friends. The speaker emplovedl a text which itself no doubt strongly moved his young bearer: "There is a laith which overcomes the world !! and there is a faitl which is overcome by the world " He spoke afterward, in his account of his journey in Germany, in 1677. ot this nicident as a providential resche from the "worldh life" which he was then likely to have led. notwithstanding his earlier convictions. "Te was " he said, "at This time that the Lord visited! me with a certain sound and Testimony of his eternal
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C. W. Peate. Inc.
Etched by Albert Rosenthal
Sopyright by The Penningtvani Historical Publishing konu Philia 1:102
The Founder of Pennsylvania
Word, through one of those the world calls Quakers, namely Thomas Loe."
From this time, near the close of the year 1667, the young man definitely united himself with the Friends, and so remained until his death, fifty-one year's later. We need not here pursue his biography, in detail. We may mention simply that Admiral Penn died in 1670, worn out at forty-nine, and his son succeeded to his estates. In April, 1672, he married Gulielma Maria Springett, daughter of Sir William Springett, a Puritan, and an officer for the Parliament, who had fallen quite early in the Civil War.
We may proceed now to connect William Penn with the colo- nization of America. According to a statement made years afterward, he had thought of the New World, probably as a place of refuge, in the days of his student troubles at Oxford. In a letter written in 1681, after he had obtained his charter for Pennsylvania, he says, "I had an opening of joy as to these parts, in the year 1661, at Oxford, twenty years ago." Probably the thought of a colony in America had thus long lain in his mind. It is certain that even earlier than 1661 George Fox had been making plans for a Quaker colony on the Susquehanna. Fox wrote in 1660 to Josiah Cole, an English Friend who was then- for the second time-traveling and preaching in Maryland, asking him to look for land, and Cole replied in February, 1660-61, in a letter which has particular interest for us :
"Dear George-As concerning Friends buying a piece of land of the Susquehanna Indians, I have spoken of it to them, and told them what thou said concerning it; but their answer was that there is no land that is habitable or fit for situation beyond Baltimore's liberty till they come to or near the Susque- hannas' fort and besides these Indians are at war with another nation of Indians, who are very numerous, and it is doubted by some that in a little space they will be so destroyed that they will not be a people."
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It was, however, the colonization of New Jersey which first definitely engaged Penn's activities in the New World. The Duke of York, in 1664. immediately upon receiving his great patent from Charles, granted the territory which is now the State of New Jersey to two of his friends, John Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. The interests of the two were divided by a line running from the seashore northward into East and West New Jersey, Carteret taking the former and Lord Berkeley the latter. In March, 1673-4, Berkeley sold his half to John Fenwick, in trust for himself and Edward Byllinge. Fenwick and Byllinge were English Friends. Differences arose between them as to the measure of their respective interests in the pur- chase, and the case was referred to William Penn, who late in the year 1674 rendered his decision, by which an undivided one- tenth of West New Jersey was, with some money, given to Fen- wick, and the remaining nine-tenths to Byllinge. A little later Byllinge, who was a merchant in London, became embarrassed, and made an assignment of his interest to William Penn, Gawen Lawrie, and Nicholas Lucas. Subsequently other business oper- ations placed in Penn's hands a further interest in this half of the New Jersey colony. He became thus a leader among those who were engaged in the movement to settle West New Jersey, and his hand is visible in the several circular letters of description. instruction, etc., drawn up at this time. Those thinking of re- moval were cautioned in one circular of 1676 to be deliberate : "And as we formerly writ, we cannot but repeat our request unto you that in whomsoever a desire is to be concerned in this planta- tion, such would weigh the thing before the Lord, and not headily or rashly conclude on any such remove."
Most important of these documents was the elaborate one drawn up in England, and dated March 3, 1676, the "Conces- sions and Agreements of the Proprietors, Freeholders and Inhab- itants of the Province of West New Jersey in America." This was signed by the three assignees of Byllinge, Gawen Lawrie,
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William Penn, and Nicholas Lucas, by Byllinge himself, and others in England, and-at a subsequent time, certainly-by many of those who had settled on the east bank of the Delaware, including Swedes, Dutch, and English. This document became the charter and constitution for the West Jersey colony, and has historic interest because it contains features which were subse- quently adopted in the framework of Pennsylvania. There are forty-four chapters, none of them long. Provision is made for Colonial Commissioners by appointment,1 but on New-Year's day, March 25, 1680, such commissioners, ten in number, are to be elected by the people-"the proprietors, freeholders and inhabit- ants resident upon the said province"-and annually thereafter. These commissioners to "govern and order the affairs of the said province, for the good and welfare of the said people," until the election of a "general free assembly." There is to be absolute freedom of conscience; it is declared that "no men, nor number of men, upon earth hath power or authority to rule over men's consciences in religious matters." There is to be trial by jury, and no arrest, attachment, or imprisonment for debt, except after due process before a court of judicature. Trials are to be public. "that justice may not be done in a corner, nor in any covert man- ner." Conveyances of land are to be recorded. The estates of suicides are not to be forfeited, but to go to their heirs. Care is to be taken for justice to the Indians. Persons found guilty of murder or high treason are to be punished according to the law which the general assembly may provide. This assembly to be chosen on the Ist day of October each year, one member for each of the one hundred "proprietaries" into which the province was to be divided, and to have power to choose the ten commissioners, and to pass laws not repugnant to the constitution now made.
"The first Commissioners, members of the Burlington Colony, were Thomas Olive, Daniel Wills, John Kinsey, John Penford, Joseph Helmsley, Robert Stacey, Benjamin Scott, Thomas Fulke, and Richard Guy.
John Kinsey died at Shackamaxon, on his arrival, in 1677. His grandson, John Kin- sey, was one of the most prominent men in the Pennsylvania Colony for many years- Speaker of the Assembly and Chief Justice.
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Each member of the assembly to have one shilling per day, "that thereby he may be known to be the servant of the people."
Earlier even than the preparation of this fundamental law, the English occupancy of the east side of the Delaware had be- gun. In 1675, John Fenwick, to whom the conveyance by Berke- ley had first been made, began the movement. He brought over a company of English colonists, mostly Friends, in the ship Grif- fith. Ascending the river, they chose a place on the stream now called Salem creek, and named their town Salem. Near by was the site of the Swedish fort, Elfsborg, which the Dutch-and the mosquitoes-had broken up, thirty years before.
Next to that at Salem was the settlement at Burlington. The story of the coming of its first settlers is one of exceptional inter- est, and has been eloquently told, but it belongs, of course, to the history of New Jersey. The Burlington company, about two hundred and thirty in number, in the ship Kent, left the Thames early in 1677, and reached the Delaware in the middle of August, having touched at New York to exhibit to Gov. Andros their right of settlement. They landed at Raccoon creek, near Salem, and decided, after some hesitation, to go farther up the river, choosing the place called Jegou's island, a part practically of the mainland, and near the island familiar to our narrative as Matin- neconck. At Jegou's, therefore, they began to build, and Bur- lington thus became the first place of note upon the Delaware, above New Castle. Philadelphia was yet unthought of, unless by William Penn, and its shore line of primeval forest stood practically unbroken. In the following year, 1678, when the ship Shield, with another party of settlers for Burlington, sailed by the Indian place called Coaquanock, about the center of the pres- ent water front of Philadelphia, the vessel came close in, and in tacking her yards reached the branches of the trees that grew by the edge. And then some one on board, unaware what three years would bring forth, but seeing the attractions of the spot, - called out, "Here is a fine place for a town!"
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