USA > Pennsylvania > Progressive Pennsylvania; a record of the remarkable industrial development of the Keystone state, with some account of its early and its later transportation systems, its early settlers, and its prominent men > Part 2
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
times. This stone was blown up recently with dynamite by the owner of the farm to rid himself of the annoyance caused by so many visitors to the stone. With the frag- ments he built a smokehouse.
The trouble with Pennsylvania in all its extent, from the Delaware river to the Ohio border, is traceable to many causes. In the first place it has a population that was originally composed of elements that were not homo- geneous, like that of New England and the Southern States, which were settled chiefly by people of English birth, and that were not even as homogeneous as the pio- neer population of Ohio; hence a certain absence from the beginning of what may be termed local pride such as pre- vails among a people with a common origin. This lack of homogeneity is illustrated in the glorification of the Scotch- Irish by Pennsylvanians of Scotch-Irish ancestry and by the organization of a strong society composed exclusively of descendants of the early German settlers of Pennsylva- nia. Notwithstanding many intermarriages these leading strains of blood in the settlement of Pennsylvania have not yet been thoroughly mingled, nor are they likely to be. Then, too, we had the Quaker settlers of English and Welsh blood, and we have their descendants to-day, all of whom have kept themselves apart from their Scotch- Irish and German neighbors to a very large extent. Few of these, indeed, have lived in any other part of Penn- sylvania than Philadelphia and the adjacent territory. In colonial days there were frequent conflicts between the dominant Quaker element and the German and Scotch- Irish settlers. They seldom agreed about anything. The large German and Irish immigration of the last sixty or seventy years has introduced other elements that have further emphasized the mixed character of the people of Pennsylvania. The German immigrants in this period have had few points of resemblance to the early German settlers, while few of the immigrants from Ireland in the same period have been Scotch-Irish. Nor should it be forgotten that in the northern and northwestern parts of the State and in Philadelphia there is a large infusion of New England blood.
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THE LACK OF CIVIC PRIDE IN PENNSYLVANIA.
In the last thirty or thirty-five years the lack of homo- geneity among the people of Pennsylvania has been con- spicuously and most painfully emphasized in the invasion of large sections of the State by hordes of Italians, Slavo- nians, and other immigrants of distinctly lower types than the original European settlers of Pennsylvania; hence less and less civic pride, for what do these people know about the past of Pennsylvania or about its present achieve- ments ? Most of them do not even speak the English lan- guage. They are not Pennsylvanians in any sense.
The negro population of Pennsylvania has largely in- creased since the civil war. This State has a much larger negro population than any other Northern State-156,845 in the census year 1900. Philadelphia has a larger negro population than any other Northern city and a much larger negro population than any Southern city except Washington, Baltimore, and New Orleans. This negro in- vasion has introduced practically a new and largely an undesirable element into the population of Pennsylvania, and it has brought its own train of evils and given the State nothing to be proud of. There are more negro voters in Pennsylvania than in any other Northern State.
If undesirable foreigners and undesirable negroes can not be restrained by law from coming into Pennsylvania an enlightened public sentiment, which is of the essence of civic pride, should be aroused to the necessity of secur- ing by some means all possible protection against one of the greatest evils that now menace the good name and the material and moral well-being of the Commonwealth -the debasement of our population. Western Pennsylva- nia suffers far more from the influx of undesirable immi- grants and undesirable negroes than Central or Eastern Pennsylvania. A recent writer points out in the following sentences a serious defect in the character of one class of present-day immigrants which has thousands of rep- resentatives in Pennsylvania. "The weak point in the Italian temperament is easily found. It is the hot temper and the thirst for revenge that go with their passionate natures. That this is a real handicap no one will deny." The foreign element and the negro element referred to
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
afford a wide field for missionary work by the churches which has heretofore been greatly neglected. The present situation is simply deplorable. Worthy negroes and wor- thy foreigners are, of course, always welcome.
Another cause of the trouble with Pennsylvania is found in the arduous pursuits of many of its people, who are now and long have been so largely occupied in such exhausting employments as the mining of coal, the mak- ing of coke, the manufacture of iron and steel and glass, the pumping of oil, the building and operating of canals and railroads, and the cutting down of forests that they have not, as a rule, felt the impulse to consult the few authorities which tell of the past and present achieve- ments of Pennsylvania, even its industrial achievements, a knowledge of all of which is surely essential to the devel- opment of civic pride such as Paul felt when he boasted that he was "a citizen of no mean city."
It may be frankly admitted that the pursuits of a people have much to do with their mental development, their tastes, and their ambition. The people of Western Pennsylvania especially have been so absorbingly devoted to the development of its natural resources and so keen to embrace its exceptionally favorable business opportuni- ties that the less strenuous and more intellectual side of life, which appeals to the imagination, to the love of art and music and elevating literature, and which places a liberal education above mere money-making, has been in large part neglected. Its people have even neglected to adequately record the industrial achievements to the ac- complishment of which they have been so devoted. West- ern Pennsylvania has little literature that tells the world what its whole people have done in leading departments of human effort.
Lastly, the physical conformation of Pennsylvania has had very much to do with the lack of civic pride among its people. The Allegheny mountains form a great natu- ral barrier between the eastern and the western parts of the State. Over a century elapsed after the first white settlements were made on the Delaware before there were any white settlements whatever in the Allegheny and
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THE LACK OF CIVIC PRIDE IN PENNSYLVANIA.
Monongahela valleys west of the mountains. Social and business intercourse between these sections before the days of railroads was infrequent, and nearly all intercourse be- tween them to-day is a matter of either business or poli- tics. There is more business and social intercourse be- tween Philadelphia and New York than between Phila- delphia and Pittsburgh. When a rich man in Pittsburgh decides to change his residence to another city he moves to New York and not to Philadelphia. The interests of the two sections are not antagonistic but they are not no- tably identical. Speaking generally they were not settled by the same races. There are comparatively few Penn- sylvania Germans in Western Pennsylvania, and in the counties along the Delaware and the Schuylkill there are few descendants of Scotch-Irish. A common pride in the great names or the great achievements of either section has certainly not been promoted by the barrier that has been mentioned. It has been said that " lands intersected by a narrow frith abhor each other," and mountain bar- riers, even when scaled by railroads, undoubtedly exer- cise an unneighborly if not an unfriendly influence. In- cidentally it may be mentioned that Pennsylvania is a State of very great territorial extent. Very few of its citizens have ever visited all of its sixty-seven counties, or even the half of them.
The people who settled Eastern Pennsylvania, even the proprietaries who succeeded Penn, did not concern them- selves very much about the western part of the State. A Dutch writer, of Amsterdam, once innocently gave ex- pression to the popular conception of the extent of Penn- sylvania which prevailed for many years after its settle- ment. He said that Pennsylvania embraces "an exten- sive tract of land, bounded on the east by the Delaware, on the north by the present New York, on the west by the Allegheny mountains, and on the south by Maryland."
The lack of civic pride in Pennsylvanians is thus seen to be due to several influences, each important and all contributing to a condition which every loyal Penn- sylvanian must deplore. The time will doubtless come, although it may be long delayed, when the citizens of
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
this great Commonwealth, although justified in boasting that they are descended from Scotch-Irish, German, Dutch, Huguenot, English, Welsh, or other ancestry, will also be proud to say that they are Pennsylvanians and the de- scendants of Pennsylvanians, and will point to the monu- ments that have been erected and to other evidences that they and their fathers have remembered the days of old. In the meantime, if there are political or other wrongs to be righted in Pennsylvania and they are permitted to continue-if our laws for the regulation of the liquor traffic and the sweatshops and the employment of children in factories and in and about coal mines are not made more stringent and more restrictive than they are-the fault will lie with those who, whatever their boasting, still lack the true civic pride that maketh a great people and, next to righteousness, exalteth a nation.
In the following chapters an attempt will be made to show that Pennsylvania is entitled to greater honor than she has yet received from her own citizens, and in the facts that we shall present particular attention will be paid to Western Pennsylvania, whose history has hereto- fore been greatly neglected, especially its industrial his- tory. First, however, the leading facts which relate to the early settlement of the province will be presented.
1
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THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER II.
THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA.
THE charter of the province of Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn in March, 1681, in consideration of a debt of £16,000 due by the king, Charles the Second, to his father at the time of the latter's death in 1670. Sir William Penn, the father, had been an admiral of distinc- tion in the British navy and was a warm personal friend of the king. The son, therefore, in reality paid nothing for his province except the payments he made to the Indians.
When Penn received his charter from Charles the Sec- ond, and in October of the following year sailed up the Delaware in the good ship Welcome, he was not the first person to attempt the establishment of a colony of Euro- peans within the limits of the present Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. " Brave men were living before Agamem- non." The way had been prepared for Penn's "holy ex- periment" by the Swedish and Dutch settlers on both the east and the west banks of the Delaware, and even by other Englishmen, the Swedes preceding Penn with actual settlements by about forty-three years, (1638,) the Dutch, after their victory over the Swedes, by about twenty-six years, (1655,) and the Duke of York's settlers at Upland and elsewhere by about seventeen years, (1664). The Dutch were the first Europeans to explore the Delaware, but they made no permanent settlements on its west bank until after the coming of the Swedes. A few Finns came with the Swedes. When Penn came there were Swedish settlements on the Delaware above and below the mouth of the Schuylkill and on the Schuylkill itself, and up the Schuylkill and lower down the Delaware there were a few Dutch settlements, while across the Delaware in West Jersey and on the west side of the river above and below the site of the future Philadelphia there were a few English settlements. All these predecessors of Penn estab- lished and with few exceptions maintained friendly rela-
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
tions with the Indians on both banks of the Delaware, so that, when Penn came with his colonists and his peaceful intentions, it was easy for him to secure the good will of these primitive people. Penn was, therefore, in no sense a pioneer in the settlement of his province, nor did he have to contend with hostile Indians, as many of the pioneers in other colonies, and also the early settlers in the interior of Pennsylvania in after years, had to do. He is entitled to unending praise for the great and wise work that he did in founding an empire on the principles of civil and religious liberty, which were not so generally recognized in that day as they are now, but the Swedes, the Finns, the Dutch, and the Duke of York's settlers were here long before the granting of the famous charter.
Delaware bay was visited by Henry Hudson, then in the service of the Dutch East India Company, in 1609, and in 1610 it was visited by Captain Samuel Argall, commanding an English vessel, who gave it and the river the name of Delaware in honor of Lord de la Warr, the governor and captain-general of Virginia. The Indians had various names for the Delaware river. The Schuylkill river is supposed to have been discovered in 1616 by Cap- tain Cornelius Hendricksen, in command of a Dutch vessel, the Onrust. Hendricksen is said to have named the river Schuylkill, which means hidden stream, the story being that, in sailing up the Delaware, he did not notice the mouth of the Schuylkill, as it was hidden by the over- hanging foliage, but he observed it on his return. The Delaware Indians called it Ganshowehanne, meaning wav- ing stream.
In 1623 or 1624 Captain Cornelius Jacobson Mey, com- manding a vessel owned by Amsterdam merchants, and who had previously visited Delaware bay, sailed up the Delaware and founded Fort Nassau in New Jersey, nearly opposite Philadelphia, as a trading post with the Indians. The fort stood for nearly thirty years, when it was aban- doned. This was the first settlement of white persons on the Delaware of which there is authentic information, but it was not in Pennsylvania or in the territory now embraced in the State of Delaware. In 1643 the Swedes
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THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA.
built Fort Elfsborg, in West Jersey, near the site of the present town of Salem, but the fort was abandoned about two years after it was built, the Dutch resenting the pres- ence of the Swedes in New Jersey.
In 1631 the Dutch, under David Pietersen DeVries, founded a settlement which they called Swanandael, on the west side of Delaware bay, at a point near where the town of Lewes, in Sussex county, Delaware, is now locat- ed. This settlement lasted for about one year, when all the inhabitants, about thirty in number, were massacred by the Indians. Trading by the Dutch with the Indians on the Delaware continued, however, without serious dis- turbance or interruption until 1638, in which year a small colony, under the auspices of Queen Christina, of Sweden, sailed up the Delaware in two ships, commanded by Peter Minuet, with the express purpose of founding a permanent settlement on the west side of the river. This settlement was successfully established at Fort Christina, now Wil- mington. Quarrels more or less serious between the Dutch and the Swedes for the control of the trade of the Dela- ware and the territory on both sides of the river followed this settlement. In the meantime many Swedes and Finns re-enforced the parent Swedish colony and established other settlements, the principal new settlement being at Tinicum, below the present Philadelphia. This was the first settlement of Europeans within the limits of Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1643. The Swedes, who called their new country New Sweden, had no serious quarrels with the Indians, nor had the Dutch on the Delaware after the mas- sacre at Swanandael, although the Swedish policy in deal- ing with the Indians was always more distinctly peaceable than that of the Dutch. The Swedes were mostly farmers and they invariably bought their lands from the Indians. The Dutch on the Delaware were chiefly traders in beaver skins and other furs and were never so numerous as the Swedes. As traders they did not hesitate to pay the In- dians for their furs with brandy and other liquors, which caused most of the troubles that the settlers experienced in dealing with them. The Delaware Indians, otherwise known as the Lenni Lenape, occupied the land on both
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
sides of the Delaware and were known as River Indians, but west of them, on the headwaters of Chesapeake bay, were the warlike Susquehannocks, or Minquas, who did not live on terms of amity with the Delawares. All the domestic animals, the cereals, and garden vegetables were brought by the Swedes and Dutch to the Delaware.
In 1655 the Dutch were successful in establishing their supremacy over the Swedes, but they permitted the Swedes to remain. Nine years later the whole Delaware country, following the surrender of New York by the Dutch to the English, passed under the control of the Duke of York, who maintained his rule over the territory west of the Delaware, with the exception of about one year, until the coming of Penn. When Penn came in 1682 he first landed at New Castle and a day or two after at Upland, now Chester, the former being the capital of the Duke of York's possessions on the Delaware. Upland was the Swedish capital. The Dutch capital was at Fort Amstel, now Newcastle.
The number of settlers on the west side of the Dela- ware at the time of Penn's acquisition of his province can only be conjectured. It has been estimated that the total number of settlers of all nationalities on the west side in 1664, when the Duke of York's rule on the Delaware succeeded that of the Dutch, may have amounted to two thousand men, women, and children, most of whom were Swedes. This was seventeen years before the granting of Penn's charter, so that, as both Swedes and English con- tinued to increase in numbers, it is a fair presumption that the population in 1681 may have amounted to three thousand, although Janney thinks that the population in this year on the west side of the Delaware was "about two thousand souls, consisting mostly of Swedes and Eng- lish." Most of these settlers were good people and in every way worthy material with which to lay the foundations of a great commonwealth. Swedish names are to be found to-day among the leading families of Eastern Pennsylva- nia, and some Pennsylvania families of English origin boast of their descent from ancestors who settled on the Dela- ware before Penn received his charter. One of the signers
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THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA.
of the Declaration of Independence, John Morton, was de- scended from a Swedish settler on the Delaware. Colonel Robert Anderson, who was in command of Fort Sumter at the outbreak of our civil war, was the descendant of another Swedish settler. There are many streets in Phila- delphia which bear Swedish names.
We now come to the grant of the province of Penn- sylvania to William Penn by Charles the Second and will quote literally from that document, which is dated March 4, 1681. The preamble reads as follows : "Charles the Second, by the Grace of God King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, &c. To all to whome these presents shall come Greeting. Whereas our Trustie and well beloved Subject, William Penn, Esquire, sonn and heire of Sir William Penn, deceased, out of a commendable desire to enlarge our English Empire and promote such usefull comodities as may bee of benefit to us and our Dominions, as alsoe to reduce the Savage Natives by gentle and just manners to the love of civill Societie and Christian Religion, hath humbley besought leave of us to transport an ample colonie unto a certaine Countrey hereinafter described in the parts of America not yet cultivated and planted. And hath likewise humbley besought our Royall majestie to give, grant, and confirme all the said countrey with certaine privileges and Juris- diccons requisite for the good Government and safetie of the said Countrey and Colonie to him and his heirs for- ever."
Then follows the grant in great detail, the material parts of which we copy in this paragraph. The territory conveyed to Penn by the king embraced, in the exact words of the charter, "all that tract or parte of land in America, with all the Islands therein conteyned, as the same is bounded on the East by Delaware River from twelve miles distance Northwarde of New Castle Towne unto the three and fortieth degree of Northern latitude if the said River doth extend soe farre Northwards ; but if the said River shall not extend soe farre North warde then by the said River soe farr as it doth extend, and from the head of the said River the Easterne bounds are to bee de-
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
termined by a meridian line to be drawn from the head of the said River unto the said three and fortieth degree, the said lands to extend Westwards five degrees in longitude, to bee computed from the said Eastern Bounds, and the said lands to bee bounded on the North by the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of Northern latitude, and on the south by a circle drawn at twelve miles distance from New Castle Northwards, and Westwards unto the be- ginning of the fortieth degree of Northern latitude ; and then by a straight line Westwards to the limitt of Longi- tude above mentioned, . . And him the said William Penn, his heirs and assignes, Wee Doe, by this our Royall Charter, for us, our heirs and successors, make, create and constitute the true and absolute proprietaries of the Countrey aforesaid, and of all other the premises, saving always to us, our heirs and successors, the faith and alle- giance of the said William Penn, his heirs and assignes, and of all other, the proprietaries, tenants and Inhabitants that are or shall be within the Territories and precincts aforesaid ; and saving alsoe unto us, our heirs and Succes- sors, the Sovreignity of the aforesaid Countrey, To Have, hold, possesse and enjoy the said tract of Land, Countrey, Isles, Inletts and other the premises, unto the said Will- iam Penn, his heirs and assignes, to the only proper use and behoofe of the said William Penn, his heires and as- signes forever. . . And of our further grace certaine knowledge and meere mocon, wee have thought fitt to Erect, and wee doe hereby Erect the aforesaid Country and Islands into a province and Seigniorie, and doe call itt Pensilvania, and soe from henceforth wee will have itt called."
It is a somewhat remarkable fact that the boundaries of the province of Pennsylvania as above defined, not- withstanding many territorial controversies with other col- onies, correspond almost exactly with the present bound- aries of Pennsylvania, the Erie triangle constituting al- most the only variation, and this bit of territory was ac- quired after the close of the Revolution.
The following provision of the charter, appointing William Penn the commanding general of any army to be
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THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA.
raised and employed in his province, and authorizing him to "make war as well by sea as by land," is of special in- terest when Penn's peaceable and nonresistant convictions are considered : "And because in soe remote a Countrey, and scituate neare many Barbarous Nations, the incur- sions as well of the savages themselves, as of other ene- mies, pirates and Robbers, may pbably be feared. There- fore, Wee have given and for us, our heires and succes- sors, Doe give power by these presents unto the said Will- iam Penn, his heires and assignes, by themselves or their Captaines or other their officers to levy, muster, and traine all sorts of men, of what condicon, or whatsoever borne, in said pvince of Pensylvania, for the time being, and to make warr and pursue the enemies and Robbers afore- said, as well by Sea as by Land, yea, even without the Limits of the said pvince, and by God's assistance to vanquish and take them, and being taken to put them to death by law of Warr, or to save them att theire pleasure, and to doe all and every other act and thing which to the charge and office of a Captaine generall of an Army belongeth, or hath accustomed to belong, as fully and ffreely as any Captaine Generall of an Army hath ever had the same."
The charter having been granted Penn made immedi- ate preparations to secure settlers for his province and to develop its resources. The Free Society of Traders was organized to promote both these objects ; pamphlets were prepared by his own hand and widely circulated either as a whole or in part in Holland, Germany, and France, as well as in England and Wales, presenting the advantages of his province as a home for all who were dissatisfied with their surroundings ; an elaborate "frame of govern- ment" for the province was also prepared by his own hand; and in a general way his time was busily occupied for a year and a half in the work of perfecting all the de- tails that were necessary to insure to his " holy experi- ment" a good start and ultimate prosperity. In June, 1681, Penn's cousin, William Markham, reached New York on his way to Pennsylvania as Penn's commissioner to establish his authority in the province, which was done at
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