USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume One > Part 24
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
323
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
visit to Pennsylvania the goodly quantity of 5,000 acres each. These they had located upon the Neshaminy Creek in Bucks county. Joseph Growdon came to America very soon after the purchase, and settled upon the property, building a dwelling-house still standing, and giving it the name of "Trevose." He was several terms Speaker. Of his children, Joseph became Attorney- General of the province; Elizabeth married Francis Richardson, her descendants being found to-day in Philadelphia; Grace mar- ried David Lloyd; and Lawrence became a member of the Gov- ernor's council, one of Lawrence's daughters marrying in 1753 the prominent politician, Joseph Galloway. David Lloyd was a cousin of Thomas Lloyd. Thomas Lloyd was the third son of Charles Lloyd of Dolobran by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Stanley of Knockin. The writer of these lines has set forth the ancestry in "The Provincial Councillors of Pennsyl- vania;" it will contribute to an understanding of our colonial history to know that John Delaval, Richard Hill (who married Delaval's widow ), Samuel Preston, and Isaac Norris were Lloyd's sons-in-law. Isaac Norris and William Trent in 1704 bought a tract belonging to William Penn's son William, and on this was duly laid out the town of Norristown.
324
CHAPTER IX.
THE SUSPENSION AND RESTORATION OF PENN'S GOVERN- MENT AND HIS SECOND VISIT
W ILLIAM Penn had not been brought up a business man, but a knight's son, to be courtier and soldier, while bailiffs, solicitors and agents drew up his papers and handled his money. He had sacrificed the husbanding of his patrimony to the career of a minister among Friends, which, in- volving trials and punishment, traveling and putting forth books, engrossed his attention, and devoured his income as much perhaps as would have the diversions of the worldly. In the great land speculation into which philanthropy had led him, the Indians were not cheated with a few beads, and the impost which the colonists in 1683 offered to him was refused ; so the first cost was very heavy. He undertook when the Duke of York became King of England to be the patron at Court of those persecuted on account of religion, and so "overspent" the considerable sum of £3000 in that reign. Then came the war in Ireland, and other causes by which his estate, called Shanagarry, near Cork, was unproductive. In 1705 he estimated that on an average in the fifteen years between his first and second visits to Pennsylvania he had spent £400 annually in London "to hinder much mischief against us if not to do us much good."
Indebtedness from residence in London was not the only bad result of intimacy with James II. Penn was long suspected of being a Papist, and even called a Jesuit ; and after the Revolution
325
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
of 1688 was several times accused of connection with plots to restore James to the throne. Although escaping conviction of any actual treason to William and Mary, Penn was deprived of the gov- ernorship of Pennsylvania and the counties on the Delaware on the ground of his administration of it being a failure, and as a matter of prudence at a time when there was war with France. Some lawyers were of the opinion that the powers of government granted to William Penn were part of the regalia of the Crown, which Charles II could not alienate for longer than his own life. But without any judicial decision or even the bringing of a writ of quo warranto, the region was committed to the care of Benjamin Fletcher, esq., as Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief, he hold- ing the same position in the province of New York and its de- pendencies. He was thus made responsible for the defense of a settlement of which the inhabitants were conscientiously opposed to war, and which a force of 500 men could capture in the unpre- pared condition in which he found it. He tried to be considerate of the Quakers, and was careful of the property rights of the Proprietary, while laboring to organize and secure appropriations for a militia. His commission, dated October 21, 1692, under which he did not take possession until April 26, 1693, required him to appoint a Lieutenant-Governor and a Council, and to exe- cute such reasonable laws as were then in force or thereafter agreed upon by him with the advice and consent of the Council and As- sembly. He offered the first place in the Council to Lloyd, who declined it. Then he conferred it upon Markham, whom, on April 27, with the unanimous consent of the other councillors, he appointed Lieutenant-Governor. On a question of the validity of the former laws, Fletcher confirmed most of them, with some amendments to make them conform more to the laws of England, until the royal pleasure should be known. When the Assembly would not set back the wheels of progress by making burglary punishable with death, he yielded. He was willing to fix a salary of six shillings a day for each member and nine shillings for the
326
Suspension and Restoration of Government
Speaker ; but the councillors, unable to obtain a salary for them- selves or the Lieutenant-Governor, unanimously rejected the bill. The Assembly granted in 1693 a tax of Id. per pound for the sup- port of the government, and the next year would have done the same in reply to his promise that, in consideration of their scruples, the money "should not be dipped in blood," but should "feed the hungry and clothe the naked" Indians, unable to hunt because fighting for the English, but Fletcher would not consent to the formal appropriation of part of the proceeds to Lloyd and Mark- ham. Lloyd died Sept. 10, 1694.
Penn, on December 4, 1692, wrote to his friends in Pennsyl- vania to get one hundred persons there to lend him £100 each for three years, without interest, in which case he would in six months come over with all his family. The amount was not raised. Nevertheless Penn, at the beginning of August, 1694, attended the committee of the Privy Council for trade and plantations, and promised that if restored to the government, he would with all convenient speed go to Pennsylvania, and would transmit to the Council and Assembly Queen Mary's orders, which, he declared, he did not doubt would be complied with, as well as at all times such orders as their Majesties might give for sup- plying a quota of men, or defraying the share of the expense their Majesties should think necessary for the safety of the do- minions in America; furthermore, he would appoint Markham as his deputy; and if the government of Pennsylvania should not comply with the royal orders, Penn would submit the direction of the military to their Majesties' pleasure; and the laws passed by the Assembly in May, 1693, not yet confirmed or rejected by her Majesty, should be executed until altered by the Assembly. The Attorney-General and Solicitor-General gave an opinion that the government granted to Penn, being subject to their Majesties' sovereignty, their Majesties could appoint a governor in extraor- dinary exigencies through the default or neglect of Penn or those appointed by him in protecting or defending the province or in-
327
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
habitants in time of danger, but the right of government belonged to him when those reasons failed or ceased. The committee rec- ommended the restoration of the government, with directions that on application of the Governor or commander-in-chief of New York, a quota not exceeding 80 men or the value of the charge thereof be sent from Pennsylvania to New York. Accordingly, William and Mary, by letters patent dated August 20, 1694, re- ceived in Pennsylvania the following March, announced that they had thought fit to restore the administration of the government to Penn, and that the authority of Fletcher should cease. The next day the Queen signed a letter commanding the Proprietary at all times on request of the governor and commander-in-chief of New York to send So men, with their officers or the expense of maintaining the same for the defense of the latter province, and that the Proprietary give directions for making provision for the same at the public charge of the province of Pennsylvania and country of New Castle.
Not yet able to return to America, Penn on 9 mo. 24, 1694, commissioned Markham as Lieutenant-Governor, with the advice and consent of John Goodson and Samuel Carpenter as Assistants, or either of them. The commissions read "to govern according to the known laws and usages," and Markham proceeded under the frame of government of 1683, causing a Provincial Council to be elected. Fletcher, still commander-in-chief at New York, on April 15, 1695, made application for the eighty men and a cap- tain, two lieutenants, etc., to be at Albany as soon as possible after May I, and renewed the application in June, asking that they be at Albany as soon as possible after August 1 ; but the council- lors, on account of harvest, would not allow the Assembly to be convened before September 9; and to Markham's question : "Would you be willing that if an enemy should assault us I should defend you by force of arms?" some answered that they would ; others, that they must leave every one to his own liberty, and that Governor Penn's instructions must be followed, and it
328
7
PIN
-
·
:6.
Specimen of Ephrata Cloister Pen Work, 1747
From the collection of J. F. Sachse
Suspension and Restoration of Government
being his business they had nothing to do with it. By the time the Assembly met, choosing Edward Shippen as Speaker, it had come to be the opinion of the members of both that body and the Council that the frame of government was no longer in force, and so, after recalling Fletcher's promise when Governor of Pennsyl- vania that the money voted to him for support of government should be applied to providing for the Indians, and declaring that what they might now vote for the King to be used as he pleased, should be deemed a compliance with the letter of the Queen as far as conscience and ability permitted, the Council and Assembly tacked an act of settlement establishing a charter to an act appro- priating 250l. for the support of the King's government; but Markham did not feel that he could so bind the Proprietary, and, despairing of obtaining satisfaction of the military demands, exercised the prerogative which the denial of the validity of the old frame left him, and dissolved both Council and Assembly. Fletcher in lamentation wrote in June, 1696: "The town of Philadelphia in fourteen years' time is become near equal to the city of New York in trade and riches," and explained that the hardships of defending his province had driven many of the people to Philadelphia to enjoy their ease, and, there being no duty on trade in Pennsylvania, the trade of his province had been drawn thither. Markham, some of whose letters to Penn were captured by the French, and others, delayed by the roundabout voyages, was without instructions as to a Council.
Meanwhile Penn, fifty-one years of age, was taking a step for which mankind does not blame him, but which lowered the pros- pects in life of his three children then living, carried him into greater expenditure and deeper embarrassment, dragged his friends and taxpayers into the hardship of assisting him, and finally placed Pennsylvania under a new family with no other wealth than what could be gotten out of it-his second marriage I mo. 5, 1695-6. His children then living were Springett, the eldest, William, and Letitia. His eldest son died a month after
33I
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
this without issue. The second son, two years later, married at the age of nineteen. Of the object of young William's "im- petuous inclination," his father writes in 1707: "I wish she had brought more wisdom since she brought so little money to help the family." The young man, by 1703, when he came to Penn- sylvania, jealous of his step-mother and her children, and emanci- pated from his father, had raised his own set of creditors. The marriage portion of his sister, who became the wife of William Aubrey, was with difficulty raised. A note to the Penn and Logan Correspondence, published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, has passed an eulogium on Penn's second wife, Hannah, daughter of Thomas Callowhill, a worthy Quaker, dealer in groceries in Bristol; and it would be an ungracious task to contradict it, if we could. Suffice it to say, she was not satis- fied to live in Pennsylvania, and inasmuch as she was of less social position than his first wife, Gulielma Maria, daughter of Sir William Springett, and had no influential connections to strengthen her husband in England, we may hazard the remark that a Pennsylvania girl would have been better for the lord of Pennsylvania ; such a choice and remaining here would have had one worldly advantage-that of popularizing him.
On September 25, 1696, Markham appointed a Council for himself, and on October 26, John Goodson resigned as Assistant, and Arthur Cook presented commissions from the Proprietary, which Cook had kept secret for eighteen months, authorizing Markham to act according to law and charter with Samuel Jen- nings and Arthur Cook as Assistants. An Assembly was summoned and chose John Simcock Speaker, and passed five acts to which Markham consented on November 7, of which the last three were respectively how to raise county levies, for preventing of hogs, etc., running at large in the town of Chester, and for preventing accidents by fire in the towns of Philadelphia and New Castle. The first of the acts was a frame of government providing among other things for a Council of two members elected from each of
332
=
Suspension and Restoration of Government
the six counties, and an Assembly of four elected from each coun- ty, the right of electing or being elected being confined to free denizens over twenty-one years old, having fifty acres of land, ten being seated and cleared, or having 50l. clear estate, and resi- dent within the government two years before the election; any voter receiving a reward or gift for his vote should forfeit the right to vote that year, and any person giving or promising the same,
Early specimens of Wood Cuts made at Ephrata Community
From the Danner collection
in order to be elected, or offering to serve for nothing or for less wages than allowed by law, should be incapable of serving that year ; the real estate of an alien dying before denizenation should pass as if he had been denizenised; the inhabitants should have liberty to fish and hunt upon their lands or any lands not enclosed. The act was to be in force until the Proprietary should signify his pleasure to the contrary, but nothing in the act was to preclude the inhabitants from any rights, privileges or immunities under the old frame of 1683 or belonging to them by virtue of any law. charter, or grants whatsoever. By the second act, Id. per pound. etc., tax was levied, which raised 300/. Pennsylvania money for
333
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
Fletcher, who sent his thanks, but explained that what he had asked was the equivalent of 2,000/.
In December. Penn suggested to the Lords of Trade that the best way to regulate the quota would be by two deputies from each province meeting in a common assembly once a year or oftener during the war, and at least once in two years in times of peace, the Governor of New York presiding as the King's com- missioner, and that the body should settle complaints between the provinces, and the King's commissioner should be commander-in- chief of the quotas against the common enemy. It was in pur- suance of this idea that the congress at Albany was held in 1754, and the wisest men engaged in American affairs endeavored for a union of the colonies until one was actually effected in the Revolutionary War.
Philip Ford, the agent who had sold to the first purchasers, and managed other of Penn's affairs, claiming a balance of fIo,- 500, Penn in March, 1696-7, deeded to him Pennsylvania and the Lower Territories, taking in return, instead of a defeasance to prove the transaction a mortgage, a lease dated April 1, 1697, for three years at £630 rent. The purpose of this was to enable Ford to escape a tax on personal estate, which his rights really were.
Markham's administration lasted until the arrival of William Penn the second time in America. These four years and a half were the great day of piracy on the American coast, the time of Captain Kidd. Much of the trade in the seaport towns was in ill-gotten goods, and the cupidity of the adventurers who held the offices for the execution of the laws bound them to the pirates. Markham's son-in-law, James Brown, at one time in the Assembly from Kent, was a pirate, sent to England in 1700, and, it is be- lieved, hung. Most of the governors of New York were charged with some kind of malfeasance, and Benjamin Fletcher, it was said, licensed vessels sailing from New York with piratical de- signs. Edw. Randolph, Surveyor-General of Customs, accused Markham of conniving at piracy, and wrote that certain well
334
Suspension and Restoration of Government
known pirates had been seen in Philadelphia, and that Markham had paid no attention to the Lords' proclamations, had neglected to prosecute forfeited bonds, and had adjourned the courts, to the benefit of fraudulent debtors. Some months later, when a pirat- ical craft had come into Delaware bay, taking nine or ten ships, and committed several robberies on the people of Pennsylvania, Markham applied to the Earl of Bellomont for a man-of-war to guard the bay, but none were at the officer's disposal. Certain offenders being found in town, and pointed out to Markham, he made several arrests. Although the province contained at least 7,000 men capable of bearing arms, he was a weak governor at such times for want of a militia.
During Markham's administration, Robert Quarry, former- ly Governor of South Carolina, became Judge of the Admiralty in Pennsylvania, and John Moore, who was a lawyer, the advocate in such matters. At the instigation of David Lloyd, who had had an education in the law, Anthony Morris, an early mayor of Philadelphia, at this time a justice of the county court, granted a writ of replevin by which certain goods seized by Quarry's order were taken out of the marshal's hands, and the owner, by Lloyd as attorney, prosecuted the marshal for the detainer. The marshal in justification, produced the King's letters patent with the King's effigy stamped at its head and the wax seal depending in a tin case. Lloyd, taking the commission in his hand, and exhibiting it, declaimed, "What is this? Do you think to scare us with a great box and a little baby. 'Tis true, fine pictures please children; but we are not to be frightened at such a rate." Penn was obliged by Quarry's reporting the replevin to the British government to have Morris removed from his judgeship. and when, in 1700, Lloyd was elected a councillor, Penn sus- pended him pending trial for these disrespectful speeches and pos- tures. Perhaps from their extortionate practices, the customs officials gave Lloyd good reason for another remark with which he was charged, that whoever were instrumental or aided in
335
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
erecting or encouraging a court of admiralty in the province were greater enemies to the liberties and privileges of the people than those who promoted ship money in King Charles I's time. Crown officers and Churchmen, Quarry and his followers were on guard against citizens and Quakers. Quarry reported the shortcom- ings in the administration not only of Markham, but of Penn
Thomas Cadwalader
Physician ; for many years a leader in the work of the Pennsylvania Hospital
and the deputies following him, and was the head of what Penn called the "hot Church party," which had many adherents in the Proprietary's possessions on Delaware bay. In Pennsyl- vania, in all the struggles as to arming the province down to the Revolution, the laymen of Christ Church, Philadelphia, in the establishment of which John Moore had been most prominent, next to Joshua Carpenter, were the nucleus of the political party opposed to the Society of Friends.
336
Suspension and Restoration of Government
When about to come a second time to Pennsylvania, William Penn secured as secretary James Logan of Bristol, born in Ire- land of a good Scotch family, who had taught school, but was then in mercantile business, and they, with Penn's wife and her children, sailed from Cowes on September 9th, 1699, in the "Canterbury." On the way over a ship was sighted supposed to be an enemy, and Logan took arms for defense, while Penn, the stauncher Quaker-perhaps because a Quaker by conversion, while Logan was only a Quaker by birth-retired down below. The danger passed, after which Penn expostulated with Logan for en- gaging in battle. Logan replied that if Penn had disapproved, Penn, being Logan's master, should have ordered him down. They arrived in Philadelphia in December. Penn made the "slate- roof house" on Second street his residence, and Logan lived with him. The country seat was at the manor of Pennsbury in Bucks county.
To satisfy the British government, Penn soon summoned an Assembly, and secured a law against piracy and a law against ille- gal trade, and was able thus to express himself, "After so many calumnies and complaints we have been loaded with, I hope these two laws will in some degree wash us clean." An effort was made to give Penn a tax of 3d. per l., but it was voted down. However, an impost on liquor, yielding between 500l. and 1000 !. , was granted to him. Disagreeing to Markham's frame of gov- ernment passed in 1696, the Proprietary thought the old frame of 1683 in force until abrogated as provided for in it. Accordingly the old frame was surrendered by the unanimous vote of the Council and Assembly on June 7, 1700, and it was unanimously agreed that all laws, including those passed at Chester in 1683, and the petition of right, and those just made at this session, should be in force only until twenty days after the adjournment of the next session. The next Assembly being opened at New Castle in October, Penn urged the importance of a frame of gov- ernment and new set of laws, a statute of limitations or for quiet-
I-22
337
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
ing title to property, and a supply for the support of government. The Assembly levied a tax to raise 2000l. for him. This was not paid with the alacrity with which it was granted. It was claimed that the first purchasers having paid cash for their lands, had agreed to pay the quit rent to compensate the Proprietary for his expenses in the government. The opinionated religionists who were the majority of the colonists seem to have looked upon him as a Joshua making a distribution of the land; whereas his legal status was that of a William the Conqueror establishing a feudal system. They rather thought that he should sell to new pur- chasers at the old price, notwithstanding the rise in value. They considered the unsold land between Vine and South streets as a common, and from it they cut their wood. Of two grievances they felt assured. When the ten per cent. of the first purchases, instead of being located within the city of Philadelphia, were sat- isfied by land in the Liberties, lots in the city proper were given in addition, and were understood to be a free gift, whereas they were patented subject to quit rents. When, in 1701, the Assembly was asked to suggest a suitable expedient for the people's safety in privileges and property, the reply was, a charter embracing twenty-one favors, of which the eighth was to make the inhab- itants easy in this matter of the city lots. Penn's answer was that he had tied them to nothing which the first purchasers pres- ent in the allotment of the city had not seemed readily to comply with, and by a replotting their lots had been increased to a double frontage ; if they would surrender the increase, he would be easy as to the quit rents. The Assembly asked him to call the parties concerned ; the latter were never either convinced or relieved. The other grievance was as to the land taken for roads. As an allowance for this, ten per cent. was added to the quantity of land paid for. The third favor asked by the Assembly was that for the future there be no such delays as in the past in the granting of patents for land, and the 10 per cent. be allowed. Penn prom- ised his endeavor to prevent such delay and to allow the ten per
338
Suspension and Restoration of Government
cent. when there was an overplus, but only two per cent. on surveyed lands when no more was to be found. However, he finally offered six per cent., whether so much had been included in the lines of the survey or not, and on this compromise the as- semblymen were brought to his house on his last day in Philadel- phia half an hour before his leaving them, and shut up in his parlor. They announced an acceptance under protest.
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.