USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Warwick's Keystone commonwealth; a review of the history of the great state of Pennsylvania, and a brief record of the growth of its chief city, Philadelphia > Part 3
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
W ILLIAM PENN was born in the city of London, in 1644. 1lis mother was a Dutch woman, well bred but without any particular strength or brilliancy of character. His father, Sir William Penn, was an Admiral in the English navy, and although he had served the government in the days of the Commonwealth, this did not prechide hin from enjoying the esteem, favor and companionship of Charles 11. and his brother, the Duke of York, who subsequently became James 11. Penn the younger was surrounded in his early home life by the most refining conditions and associations, and he was trained or educated for the career of a knight or cavalier. Notwithstanding the aristocratic and worldly surroundings of his early years, he evinced an unusual religious fervor and was impressed by the spirit of reform that prevailed in those times. When a mere boy, about eleven years of age, according to his own admission, he was suddenly surprised with an inward comfort and, as he himself described it, "an external glory seemed to permeate the room" which experience led him to adopt a life of severe piety. In England at that time the minds of men were in a state of feverish agitation, inflamed with religious fervor and they were controlled by an integrity of pur- pose that may be defined as fanaticism, a fanaticism that induced them not only to brave persecution but to defy it.
The Quakers appeared in the north of England in the year 1644, and were at first characterized by a wild enthusiasm and an extravagance of expression, thus differing from their successors in the same faith, who, with a meek and gentle disposition, were mild and complacent in their manners.
George Fox, founder of the sect, the son of a poor English weaver, was suddenly impressed with the belief that he was imbued with the spirit of a divine mission, and he went abroad carrying the glad tidings to his fellow men. He wandered from town to town and addressed large congregations of people
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in the open air. He held public meetings in the streets, byways and even in the fields. Although his followers were at first very few, the sect grew rapidly and as it increased in numbers, exerted a considerable influence. They estab- lished a propaganda, carried their faith among the poorer classes and evinced the spirit of the early martyrs. Persecution only increased their devotion and loyalty. Fox, although an illiterate man, was a forcible speaker. Ile was tall and impressive in appearance and possessed of an earnestness that per- suaded and convinced the minds of men. He was not in any sense of the word what may be termed a finished orator, but he drove home with force in simple and homely phrase, the truths he professed while vast audiences hung breathless on his words .. He is recognized as the founder of the sect, although the beliefs he taught long antedated his preaching. Molinos, a Spanish priest in the Roman Catholic church, had held almost the same views ; he went abroad preaching his doctrines, came to Rome, invaded the Vatican and almost converted the Pope. llis belief was called "Pietism" and he contended that the quiet meditation and contemplation of the mind directed upon one subject would bring the communi- cant within actual correspondence with the living God, and after this serious and sober contemplation and communication the mind would be filled with an inner light which would illumine and direct the way. Under this teaching the dogmas and sacraments of the church were ignored and her authority was nec- essarily diminished. This falling away from the original faith aroused the oppo- sition of the Jesuits, and that remarkable body of men immediately put forth stupendous efforts to counteract the influence of this Individualism. Persecu- tion was the weapon used to create a reaction and after a severe conflict the new "Ism" was plucked out of the church root and branch and thousands of its followers exterminated.
The Quakers or "Tremblers" as they were called in derision by their oppo- nents, refused to pay tithes to the state or to the church, they would take no oaths in the courts, basing their conduct in this matter upon the biblical precept, "Thou shalt not swear"; they wore their hats in the presence of all men, refused to uncover even when they stood before the king, and acknowledged only one God to whom they would make obeisance. They were plain and simple in speech, ignored titles of every kind, addressed each other as "Thee" and "Thon" and called every person by his or her first name, or "Friend So and So." Wil- liam Penn had not up to this time, however, become a member of the Society of Friends, but he was much impressed by their teachings, and to remove this impression he was sent by his father to Oxford where he became a student in Christ Church college. He was about sixteen years of age at this time and two years after his admission was expelled from the institution, "Glad," he said, "to be released from an existence in the midst of that hellish darkness and de- bauchery." The father of William Penn, proud and aristocratic as he was, and a faithful devotee of the established church, looked with no kindliness, as we may readily suppose, upon the religious inclinations of his son. The Quakers found no favor in the eyes of the authorities and they were harassed and an- noyed in every possible way. They were bound over to keep the peace, heavy bail was imposed upon them and in failure to secure it they were thrown into vile prisons among the lowest and most debased classes of society ; they were
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despoiled of their homes and their property was seized and destroyed. The early Quakers, that is to say most of them, were of the ignorant, common people, and Admiral Penn was greatly exasperated because his son showed a desire to consort with what the irate father termed, the rabble; but the religious faith in the son could not by persuasion nor harsh treatment be shaken. The boy was beaten and thrown out of doors, he was sent to the continent in care of a tutor to see if travel and study would not curb his enthusiasm, but he seems to have returned without change of heart. One day, at Cork, while attending a meeting of Friends he heard a sermon on the text: "There is a faith which overcomes the world, and there is a faith which is overcome by the world." So impressed was he by the words of the preacher that it seems to have been the turning point in his life, for in this period he virtually accepted the religious views of the sect. Shortly after this, while in attendance again upon a meeting in the town of Cork, the authorities made a raid upon the con- gregation and young Penn was arrested, but his influential position soon se- cured him a release, and at once he returned to London where his father did everything in his power to induce him to abandon his belief. William Penn, however, would not surrender his views and finally made up his mind to become openly a member of the sect. His conversion was a great acquisition to the faith because of his high character, his education and his social position. Not only did he advocate his views in voice but he brought also his pen into requi- sition in defense of the position he had assumed. In 1688 he publised a work called "The Sandy Foundation Shaken." For this publication, he was sent summarily to the Tower, but the dungeon could not shake his resolution. "My prison shall be my grave before I shall budge a jot," was his defiant declara- tion. While in this dungeon he wrote a book entitled "No Cross No Crown," a book that holds its place in religious literature even to this day and which ex-President Eliot of Harvard deems worthy to be named in his five foot shelf library of world famous books. We cannot at this time fully estimate the influ- ence of such a man upon the society. He was not given to violent ranting, nor to enthusiastic speech without thought, but to reasonable, quiet and perstia- sive discussion. His very spirit of fortitude created admiration in the hearts of his worldly friends, although they scoffed at his religious views, and because of the great sacrifices he made in accepting this faith, he convinced even his enemies of his absolute sincerity. All this time he enjoyed the favor of the King, and even the Duke of York upon one occasion personally interceded for his re- lease from the Tower. In 1670, while preaching in the public streets he was arrested and thrown into jail. When brought before the Court for a hearing he refused to remove his hat. A heavy fine was imposed upon him for his con- tumacy, which he refused absolutely to pay. His father, however, hearing of his incarceration, paid the fine and once more had him released. It was about this time that his father died. Within six months after the Admiral's death, Penn was again arrested and committed to prison. Such a faith as this, such resolution and integrity of purpose could not be changed or swerved a jot by the infliction of corporal punishment. It was his spirit and fortitude of soul that arose above all chastisement and refused to be controlled by terror. He now went through the country, preaching and exhorting the people, and in 1672
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married a Quakeress, Gulielma Springett, a woman comely in appearance and of superior mental accomplishments. His having entered into matrimony may have been an inducement to him to cease offending the law and to avoid spend- ing much of his time in prison and he at once set about making arrangements to provide an asylum for his persecuted friends and followers.
Already many Quakers, to avoid persecution, had emigrated to the New World, many of them settling in the Jerseys. Their first appearance in Massa- chusetts was in 1656 when two male and six female Quakers arrived from Rhode Island. They were looked upon with fear and apprehension by the settlers and by their conduct provoked the greatest dislike and hatred. Penal enactinents. were made to keep them in subjection. A number of Quakers hav- ing arrived. they were sunnarily arrested by the authorities and carefully ex- amined for the purpose of discovering, if possible, any symptoms or signs of witchcraft, but no traces of this kind having been found they were returned to the colonies whence they came. This harsh treatment, however, did not deter others from entering the province, and they took every opportunity to expound their doctrines even in defiance of the authorities. Swarms of Quakers, as time ran on, descended upon the colony, irritated the officials and seemed to welcome persecution in order that they might be able to show their power of enduring cruelty. They were most fanatical in their doctrines and in their conduct. One Quaker, named Foubard, claimed that the inner light had directed him to sac- rifice his only son as did Abraham of old. The boy, however, not being as strong in the faith as his father, and being unwilling to lose his life under such conditions, shrieked for help and was fortunately rescued by outsiders. The Quakers also had the irritating custom of interrupting divine service in meeting houses and churches. Indeed, one man entered a meeting house and with a bottle in each hand, broke them by striking them together, exclaiming at the same time to the startled and enraged congregation: "Thus will the Lord in tinte break you in pieces." Female preachers were not more considerate than the males. One woman, her face begrimed with soot and ashes, interrupted a service by announcing in a loud voice that her face represented a pictorial illus- tration of the black pox which Heaven was to send as a judgment on all carnal worshippers, that is those who would not obey the inner spirit and were not illumined by the inner light. Another woman entered stark naked into a church when the congregation were at prayer, and exclaimed that she exemplified their naked spirituality by the indecent exposure of her body. Conduct so wild and fanatical brought down upon the sect the condemnation of all those who differed with them. These ranters were merely wild enthusiasts whose minds had been overturned by the religious fervor of the times. It does seem almost in- possible that these fanatics could have been the early disciples of a sect so sim- ple, so meek, so gentle and so complacent as the Quakers of other times and places.
In 1658, a law was passed in Massachusetts, providing for the punishment by death upon all Quakers returning from banishment. The law was at first opposed, but finally adopted by the narrow majority of a single vote. Every- thing was done by the authorties to induce the prisoners, after their trials, to withdraw from the colony with the promise that they would not again return,
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but the prisoners were obdurate. They contended that they had been called by the inner spirit and they refused to abandon a field which, in their opinion, needed so much religious cultivation. Under the barbarous enactment above cited four Quakers, three men and one woman, were put to death at Boston. It does not appear that these prisoners had offended the community by violent conduct or frenzied preaching, but they were executed simply because they had
returned from banishment. In a number of instances offending Quakers were fastened to the tail ends of carts and lashed naked through the town.
In order to escape persecution at home and abroad, William Penn decided to secure, if possible, a tract of land in the new world where the followers of his sect could establish a settlement. William Penn's father had a claim against the English government for back pay and for money loaned the crown. The chances for the payment of this money in coin of the realm did not seem to be very likely in view of the financial condition of the Kingdom, so Penn in order to effect a settlement, suggested to Charles 11. and the Duke of York that they
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give him in full payment, a tract of unexplored land in the New World running west of the Delaware river and covering an area of about forty-five thousand square miles. In return Penn and his heirs were to send to the castle of Wind- sor two beaver skins annually and one-fifth of all the gold and silver that might be found in the locality. Charles looked with favor on the proposition and the charter for the new government was signed at Westminster on March 4, 1681. The King, to show distinction to the new proprietor christened the land Pennsylvania but Penn objected to this name, claiming it would look like vanity on his part to give to the territory such a designation, and for a time insisted that the province should be called New Wales, there being already a New England, a New Netherlands, a New Sweden and a New Jersey. After some persuasion the King induced Penn to accept his views and the state ever afterwards became known as Pennsylvania or "Penn's Woods." Penn, in writing to a friend, Robert Turner, of Dublin, in relation to this matter said: "After many waitings, watchings, solicitations and disputes in council this day
my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England.
*
*
It is a clear and just thing that my God has given it to me, through many diffi- culties will I believe, bless it and make it the seed of a nation." At this time Pennsylvania was a vast wilderness reaching down to the water's edge, and even after the settlement of Philadelphia was established and a clearing of the forest had been made, great trees left growing on the banks of the stream, shadowed the vessels that lay anchored close to the shore, and for years after the city was laid out, large stumps in the middle of the highways interfered with travel. Wild beasts and red men wandered at will through the woods. Game of all kinds was most abundant. Great flocks of ducks, geese and swan in their flights often darkened the sun. The marshes, lowlands and meadows were full of snipe, woodcock, rail, reed and shore birds, while on the uplands, wild turkeys, ruffed grouse and covies of quail were found in abundance. It gave no indications of becoming the site of a great city. Penn at once Thaugur- ated a system to induce emigration and advertised for settlers not only in Eng- land, but also on the continent, especially in Holland and Germany. As an in- ducement he offered five thousand acres in Pennsylvania for one hundred pounds in cash and a rent of one shilling annually thereafter for each one hun- dred acres. If the settler was not able to buy the land he might rent two hundred acres or less at one shilling per acre per annum.
Penn, with a goodly company and on a little ship of three hundred tons burden, named the "Welcome," left Deal at the close of August, 1682. There were about one hundred passengers on board and the voyage had not proceeded far when smallpox, the dreadful pest of that age, broke out among the passen- gers and about one-third of those on board died before reaching their destina- tion and were cast into the sea. The ship at last, however, arrived inside the Delaware capes, October 24, 1682, and sailing up the river reached New Castle on the twenty-seventh of the month. Two days after this it arrived at Upland. where Penn's cousin, Markham, whom he had sent across the water in advance to serve as deputy until his arrival, awaited him. It is said that Penn left his vessel lying at anchor at Upland, which is now Chester, and proceeded up the river in a barge until he reached Dock Creek. Here was located a tavern called
-
£
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the "Blue Anchor" which at that time was conducted by Captain William Dare. It was a brick building, sixteen by thirty-six feet long, situated on what is now called Front street, about one hundred and fifty feet north of Dock Creek. A wooden wharf ran out into the river at the rear of the Inn and it is here that Penn is supposed to have come ashore and for the first time to put foot npon the site of his future city. Up to this time in his life, Penn had been a man of leisure, but now he was to become the founder of a great settlement and the governor of a people. He had devoted himself to religions discussion and con- templation and up to this period had received no training that specially fitted him for the work he was about to undertake. "However, it is not one inch beyond the truth to assert," says the Honorable Hampton L. Carson in his interesting paper on the "Greatness of Pennsylvania," "that William Penn out- ranked clearly, intellectually and philosophically, the founders of the remain- ing Thirteen Original States, and this is without attempting to disparage or underrate the faith or the services of others." All the associations of Penn's early home life were refining. Ile cultivated the friendship of men distinguished in politics and letters. He had enjoyed the friendship of John Milton, Algernon Sidney and John Locke, an association which must have been of itself a liberal education. ITe was, as already seen, a student for a time at a college at Ox- ford, and he took a course of law at Lincoln's Inn. Penn, however, was not what might be called a "bookish" man, but a philosopher, a practical statesman and politician. In his framework of government for Pennsylvania, he says that "Any government is free to the people under it no matter what its form; where the rulers and the people are a party to those laws, and more or less than this is tyranny, oligarchy and confusion." Ile further quaintly states in the same paper: "Governments, like clocks, go with the motion which men give to them, wherefore it is more important that men be good than the government be good, for if government be bad and men be good they will mend it, but if government be good and men be bad they will warp and spoil it to their turn." It is fortunate for the future welfare of the state that such a man was called upon to take hold of the helm and guide it at the beginning of its course. Lib- eral in principle, tolerant in spirit, he began to treat with the Indians upon a fair and equal basis and under an oak tree in the district of Shackamaxon. a treaty was made so fair and equitable in its provisions that it has held for all time the friendship of the Indians. It was this treaty that called forth the ad- miration of Voltaire, who declared that it was the only one which, while never reduced to writing, had never been broken. Penn at once undertook to pre- pare a code of laws for his commonwealth and unlike all other codes of that period, it provided that the penalty of death should be inflicted only in two cases, that of treason and that of murder in the first degree. This shows how far in advance of the spirit of the age were the thoughts, views and liberality of this great man, for at that time no less than three hundred offences were punishable in England by death, while other methods of punishment were not only severe but degrading. It was not only the higher class of felonies that were punished by the death penalty but also many offenses comparatively trifling in character. Among these may be named stealing a falcon, concealing a hawk. hunting in a forest or park by night or with painted faces, conjuration of the
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evil spirits, the practice of witchcraft or sorcery, burning stacks of corn, coun- terfeiting lottery tickets, returning from transportation, smuggling, burning down turnpike gates, robbing a rabbit warren, stealing fish out of any river or pond, damaging Westminster Bridge, stealing sheep or cattle and many other misde- meanors of like degree too numerous to mention. In the stocks and the pillory men were placed for the slightest offences against the law and so disgraced were the culprits by measures so cruel that their subsequent reform in the locality where the punishment was inflicted was all but impossible. Malicious boys and men with eggs, vegetables or even stones pelted the poor, miserable offenders who were thus subjected to public insult and revilement. In all these matters Penn endeavored to introduce reforms. The jails in England at this time were vile, loathsome dungeons, crowded with criminals of the lowest order who were herded together like wild beasts. Men whose only offence had been that they had failed to pay a debt were thrown into a cell with prisoners accused of the vilest crimes. Jailers were cruel and heartless, hardened by the scenes they daily witnessed, while criminals had no hope and gave no promise of reforma- tion. Even after the terms of the prisoners had expired they were kept in con- finement until they secured money sufficient to pay for their expenses during their incarceration, and often a poor wretch without any means was unable even after the lapse of months of time to secure his release. The reforms intro- duced and effected by Penn in his new province showed how careful and broadminded he was as a statesman and an organizer of government and how closely he must have observed the conditions in his native land. He even went so far as to guarantee to every criminal the right of defence. He armed citi- zens with the ballot and with care he guarded its purity. He made land subject to the payment of debts, and abolished the law of primogeniture. He also pro- vided for the recording of titles to land. In fact, his whole system was bene- ficial, reformative and progressive. He was tolerant and in the matter of religion declared that "No man will be molested in their (sic) religious per- snasion or be compelled to frequent or maintain any religous worship or min- istry contrary to his mind but shall follow and freely enjoy his Christian lib- erty in all respects without molestation or interruption." This was indeed a new doctrine that pushed forward the hands of the clock.
The government of Pennsylvania was to consist of a Governor. . and a Provincial Council composed of the free men of the Province, and a legislative body designated as the General Assembly, "By whom all laws shall be made, officers chosen and public affairs transacted." The free men of the province were to meet and choose from among themselves seventy-two persons to act as a Provincial Council. One third of the members were to be chosen for three years; one third for two years and one third for one year, and annually thereafter the free men were to choose twenty-four persons to serve three years in place of those whose term had expired. It was the function of the Governor and the Provincial Council to prepare and propose to the General Assembly all bills which they should at any time think fit to be passed into laws.
William Penn was an enthusiast in religion, but reasonable and liberal in all his views. When he arrived in this country he was in the very vigor of youth, being but thirty-eight years of age, but he had had a varied and tumul-
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