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1148909

GENEALCCSY COLLECTION

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HISTOEY

DELAWARE COUNTY,

PENNSYLVANIA.

BY

HENRY GRAHAM ASHMEAD.

ILLUSTEATBD.

PHILADELPHIA: L. H. EVERTS & CO.

188 4.

Copyright, 188-1, by L. H. Everts & Co.

PRESS OP ;. LIPPINCOJT & CO., PHILADELPHIA.

^

1148909

TO

JOHN HOSKINS,

OF PHILADELPHIA,

THIS "W" o le IC IS EESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY HIS SINCERE FRIEND,

THE AUTHOE.

PREFACE.

Since the publication of the admirable History of Delaware County, written by Dr. George Smith, nearly a quarter of a century ago, the interest awakened in the National Centennial re- sulted in directing general attention in almost every locality through the country to its early annals, and as a consequence in Delaware County, at least, much historical material was reclaimed from the past of which Dr. Smith could have had no information while preparing his work for the press. The present history has been written with the purpose of pi'esenting, as far as could be done in a single volume, an authentic, exhaustive, and unbiased narrative of the events which have occurred in Delaware County from the period of the early settlements within its territory to the present time ; and in so doing care has been taken to avoid any reference to in- cidents happening without its boundaries, excepting in those cases where it became necessary to give a brief account of the movements elsewhere in order to render the incidents related in the present work intelligible. It will be noticed that very little attention has been given to the re- cital of political contests which have taken place in the county. The effervescent nature of such public incidents is such that after the reasons which have produced them have ceased to be poten- tial, very little substance remains for the annalist to deal with in relating the story of the times that have passed.

In that part of the work devoted to the histories of the several townships, the author has received the assistance of Mr. Austin N. Hungerford, a gentleman whose accuracy of research and comprehensive examination of documentary authorities has made his labors of the utmost value to the writer in the preparation of this history. To Mr. Hungerford's unwearying industry and quick appreciation of the data necessary to that end is largely due the full history given of the industrial establishments in the county. The pressure of time rendered it necessary that several of the township histories should be prepared by other writers. To Mr. Alfred Mathews was assigned Media borough, and Haverford and Radnor to Mr. John S. Schenck. Mr. Mathews' narrative of the history of Media is very full and accurate, and must commend itself to the reader, not only for those features, but because of the graceful style in which the narrative is presented. The histories of Haverford and Radnor, written by Mr. Schenck, are also admirable presenta- tions of the annals of those localities.

The author, in the preparation of this work, has been met with the utmost kindness by the residents of Delaware County, who responded promptly to his application for data and access to

PREFACE.

documents of a historical character. From William B. Broomall, Edward A. Price, David M. Johnson, John B. Hinkson, George M. Booth, and others, he has received many favors. The intro- ductory chapter of the General History was prepared by Dr. Ellwood Harvey, and that relating to the ten-hour movement was contributed by James Webb. These articles must commend themselves to the reader, as to style, comprehensiveness, and accuracy of statement. To the Historical Society of Pennsylvania the author desires to return his especial acknowledgments for favors shown, and also to Gilbert Cope, of West Chester, for like kindnesses. The atlas of Early Grants and Patents in Delaware County, prepared by Benjamin H. Smith, is the authority on which the author has based in most cases his references to the lands taken up by the early settlers. The rupture of a blood-vessel in one of the eyes of the author rendered it impossible for him to read much of the proof of the General History, and possibly errors may occur therein which might have been avoided under other circumstances.

H. G. A.

, Sept. 9, 1884.

CONTEISTTS.

Physical Geography and Geology of Delaware County.... CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV. ■William Penn's First Voyage to his Province in 1682— The Change of the Name Upland to Chester, and the Keason it was Made 20

CHAPTER V. The First Assembly of Pennsylvania, and the House wherein it met 22

CHAPTER VI. The Colonial History to the War of the Revolution 24

CHAPTER VII. The Revolutionary Struggle to the Battle of Brandywine 40

CHAPTER VIII.

The Battle of Brandywine 55

CHAPTER IX. From the Defeat at Brandywine to the Conclusion of the Revolu- tionary War 65

CHAPTER X.

From the Revolutionary War to the Erection of Delaware County.. 77

CHAPTER XI.

83

CHAPTER XII. The Second War with England 86

CHAPTER XIII. From the Second War with England to 1860 91

CHAPTER XIV.

Storms, Freshets, and Earthquakes 99

CHAPTER XV.

'"he Ten-Hour Movement lOS

CHAPTER XVI.

The Removal of the County-seat to Media 112

CHAPTER XVII.

■^he Civil War 114

CHAPTER XVIII. Crimes and Punishments l.'^7

CHAPTER XIX.

Manners and Customs — How Inhabitants of Delaware County lived in former Years 178

CHAPTER XX. Traveling and Transportation, with an Account of the Railroads in the County 192

CHAPTER XXI. Bedemptionera and Slavery in Delaware County 200

CHAPTER XXII. Agriculture, with a brief Mention of our Domestic Animals 207

CHAPTER XXIII. Wild Animals, Fish, etc., of Delaware County 211

CHAPTER XXIV. Delaware County Climate, together with Notices of Remarkable Weather 215

CHAPTER XXV.

, The Court, Bench, and Bar of Delaware County 217

CHAPTER XXVI.

Physicians and Medical Societies 253

CHAPTER XXVII.

Civil Lists 267

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Township of Tinicum 274

CHAPTER XXIX.

Aston Township 290

CHAPTER XXX.

Bethel Township 305

CHAPTER XXXI.

Birmingham Township 311

CHAPTER XXXII. Cily of Chester 327

CHAPTER XXXIII. Chester Township 424

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Borough of Upland 427

CHAPTER XXXV. South Chester Borough 435

CHAPTER XXXVI. North Chester Borough 443

CHAPTER XXXVII. Upper Cliichester Township 448

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. Lower Chichester Township	466	Middlctown Township	CHAPTER XLVII.	PAGE 611
	CHAPTER XXXIX.			CHAPTER XLVIII.
Concord Township...		482	Newtown Township....		634
	CHAPTER XL.			CHAPTER XLIX.
Darbv Townshn		605	. . ™ „„,v,i„	.... 662
	CHAPTER XLI.			CHAPTER L.
Darby Borough		515		666
CHAPTER XLII.			CHAPTER LI.
		■Ral To vnshiD
	CHAPTER XLIII.			CHAPTER LII.
Edgmont Township.		563	T 1 'n		702
CHAPTER XLIV.			CHAPTER LIII.
Marple Township....		563	Springfleld Township.		. 713
CHAPTER XLV.	579	CHAPTER LIV.
	CHAPTER XLVI.				756

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Andrews, James

Austin, Obdyke & Co

Bancroft, Samnel

Bartram, Thomas P

Beaumont, Davis

Bishop, Jeremiah

Bishop, Randal

Black, Henry B

Blakeley, Abraham

Booth, Thomas. Sr

Brinton, John

Brinton, Joseph E

Brinton, Joseph E., residence of.

Brooke, H. Jones

Burnley, Charles ,

Burnley, George

Burnley, John

Campbell, James

Cnssin, Isaac S

Oheyney, Charles M

Childs, George W

Childs, George W., residence of

Converse. John H., residence of. ,

County House, Media

Court-Hoiise and Jail

Crozer, Juhn P

Darlington, Kdward, Jr

Deshong,J. 0

Dunwoody, James -

Dun woody, John

Eachue, Eber

Eckfeldt. A. C

Edgniont Central Seminary ,

Edwards, Samuel

Ellis. Rudulph, residence of

Elwyn, A. L

Esrey, D. R

Etting, Frank M., residence of ,

Eureka Cast-Steel Company ,

Friends' Meeting-House, Middletowi

Forwood, J. L

Gartside, Amos

Garteide, B. & Sons

Gartside, Benjamin

Gartside, James.

Gartside, John

Gest, Joseph ,

Gest, Bebekah

Gibbons, Joseph

Gibbons, Joseph, residence of ,

Green, William H

Haldeman, Isaac ,

Hibberd, John

Hinkson, F.J

Holmes* Map of the Province of Poi

Hoskins (Graham) House

Hunter, J. Morgan

Irring, James

James, Daniel

Johnson, Charles

Kent, Thomas

Keystone Paper-Mills

Kirk, Benjamin

Landing-Place of William Penn

Larkin,John,Jr

Leedom, Jesse

Leedom, Joseph B ,

Lewis, J. Howard, Paper-Mills

Le\vis, Milton

Lewis, William, Birthplace of.

Magill, Edward H

Manley, Charles D ,

Mathues, C. W

McCall, Robert

Mcll vain, Spencer

Mendenball, John,

Middletown Presbyterian Church

Milbourne Mills

"MiUbourne"

Moore, James A

Moore, John M

Mural Tablet in St. Paul's Church, Chester- Outline Map

Palmer, Charles

Palmer, Lewis

Palmer, Samuel

PancoRSt, Samuel

Peace, Edward

Peace, Edward, residence of.

Pennell, Edmund

Penn Memorial Stone

Peterman, David

Plumstead, Robert

Porter House, the

Powel,T. P

Pratt, Thomas

Ramey, Lawrence

Rawle, James, residence of.

Reece, Thomas

Rhodes, John B

Rhodes, John B , residence of

Seal, Jane T.. Sellers, John.,

Sharpless, Joel

Shaw, Hugh

Shaw. Esrey & Co

Smedley. Samuel L... St. David's Church..., Swarthmore College.. Tasker, Thomns T

676 I Thatcher, (

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Thomas, Jonathan, residence of.	618 728	West, Benjamin, birthplace of	726
Thurlow, John J _	Williams, Edward H., residence of. Willcox, James M	680 494
Trainer, J. Newlin, residence of.
Trainer WiUiam	481	Wilson, Dr. ElUwood, residence of Worrall Jacob	. 292 755
Tyler, Hugh L	677
Ward, William
Walter, T. S	383 713	Worth, Edward, residence of.	298
Webster, Joseph

OUTLINE MAP OF

DELAWAHE COUNTT

PENNSYLVANIA £n(fi-nied Ejrpressir for /his Ji^ork .

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.

CHAPTER I.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF DELA- WARE COUNTY.i

The surface of the count}' is hilly with very little exception in its western part, but somewhat level in its eastern portion. Its drainage is by several small streams, called creeks, that flow in' a southerly direc- tion and empty into the Delaware River. These and their tributary branches make Delaware a well-watered county. Almost every country house is supplied from a never-failing spring of pure, soft water, and nearly all the fields of every farm have running streams through them.

The flowing of these creeks down a surface inclined to the Delaware River, which is the southeastern boundary of the county, gives an abundance of water- power, which is used for various manufacturing pur- poses. The rapid flow of these streams and their numerous branches have cut deeply into the surface of the land, making it beautifully diversified by wood- crowned hills and fertile valleys and hill-sides. No one who has ever seen the charming scenery of this part of our State can exclude from the recollection of it the well-tilled farms, with their tastefully-planned homes, capacious barns, fields of waving grain, and the herds of cows that supply milk and butter of the very best quality to the Philadelphia market. Here grow luxuriantly all the fruits, grains, grasses, and vege- tables of the temperate zone. The declension of the surface of the land toward the south brings it near to a right angle with the rays of the sun, which has an effect on its temperature that is equivalent to being a degree or more farther south. The lower altitude of lands touching tide-water also favors the mildness of the climate as compared with higher surfaces. Grass is ready for pasturing about ten days earlier in the spring than on the higher and more horizontal lands of similar quality a few miles farther north. The river has a considerable influence on the tempera- ture of that part of the county bordering immediately on it. In winter the air may be for a long time at a freezing temperature before the river has ice on it, for the reason that the whole depth of water must be very

1 Contributed by Ellwood Harvey, M.D., Chester.

near to the freezing-point before its surface can be- come ice, though the surface of the ground will be frozen by a single night of coldness.

Under such circumstances, and they occur every year, the two miles of width of water that is several degrees warmer than the general atmosphere has a very perceptible modifying influence. Fruits and flowers remain untouched by frost for several weeks after hard freezing has occurred in other parts of the county. In summer, evaporation keeps the river cooler than the surface of the land, which, becoming heated by the sun's rays, radiates the heat into the air above it. The air expanding by the heat becomes lighter, and rises, and is replaced by the heavier air from the river, which flows with refreshing coolness and moisture over the parched land. These river breezes are of daily occurrence whenever the surface of the land is warm and dry, and their visits are delightfully acceptable.

The geology of the county is somewhat peculiar. Our rocks belong to the earliest formation known to geologists. They were formed by the first process of hardening, which occurred when the surface of the great red-hot drop of molten matter which now con- stitutes the earth had cooled to the hardening-point. Having been formed by cooling from a melted condi- tion, they are crystalline in structure. It appears that they have not been submerged in the water of seas or lakes, where, if they had been, deposits of mud, sand, and gravel might have been washed upon them, to afterwards be hardened into rocks, but that since rocks have existed on the earth these have been a part of the dry land. They contain no traces of the remains of organic beings, such as are found in the stratified rocks that are formed under water.

In many parts of the county great fissures have opened, in the remote past, into which the liquid rock of the earth's interior has been injected, form- ing what are known as dikes. Into these diff"erent kinds of rock have been forced, some being trap-rock and others serpentine. Coming from the earth's in- terior, this liquid matter was intensely hot, and heated the rocks on both sides the dikes so much as to change their texture by semi-liquefying them, and thereby favoring a recrystallization into difi'erent forms.

HISTOKY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Overlying the rocks of the country are deposits of gravel, sand, and clay. Some of these are results of the decomposition of the rocks themselves, but the greater part of them appear to have been brought from some other region, and the opinion is generally accepted that they were pushed from the country north of us by immense ghiciers, that appear to have at one time covered all the northeastern parts of this country. The minerals of the county are very nu- merous. There are very few places iu the whole country that offer such an extensive field for scien- tific research in this direction as the small county of Delaware.

CHAPTER IL

THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF DELAWARE COUNTY TO THE GRANT OF THE PROVINCE TO WILLIAM PENN.

The first vessel under the control of white men whose prow ever ruffled the bosom of the great sheet of water now known to the world as Delaware Bay was the " Half Moon" (" Halveraann"), of eighty tons burden, an exploring vessel belonging to the Dutch East India Company, commanded by Henry Hudson. The log-book of Robert Jewett, the mate, records that about noon of Friday, Aug. 28, 1609, a warm, clear day, " we found the land to tend away N. W. with a great bay and river." The lead line, however, dis- closing many shoal places, the vessel, next morning, was put about and steered on a southeast cour.se, the officers being convinced that " he that will thoroughly explore this great bay must have a small pinnace that must draw but four or five feet water, to sound before

The following year Sir Samuel Argall is said to have entered the bay ; and in honor of Thomas West, Lord De La War, the then Governor of Virginia, he named it Delaware Bay. In 1610, Lord Delaware, it is stated, himself visited it, and again in 1618, when he died on his vessel when off the Capes. In 1614, Capt. Cornelius Jacobsz Mey, in the " Fortune," a vessel owned by the city of Hoorn, entered the bay, and in commemoration of his visit Cape Cornelius and Cape May between them still bear his name. Two years subsequent to Mey's voyage, Capt. Cornelius Hendrickson, in a small yacht, the " Restless," is positively asserted by some historians — and the state- ment is almost as positively denied by others — to have explored the Delaware as far as where the Schuylkill empties into the former river. If it be true that Capt. Hendrickson did actually sail up the stream to the place named, he was the first Euroi)ean of whom we have record that saw any part of the land now com- prising the county of Delaware, for his vessel moved along the river the 'entire length of our southeastern boundary, and he must have noticed the localities

where afterwards was planted that germ of civiliza- I tion from which has evolved the great commonwealth : of Pennsylvania.

. The history of the various attempts of the Dutch

and Swedish powers to establish permanent lodgment

j on the Delaware is a most interesting theme to the

student of our colonial annals. Especially is this true

I since the indefatigable labors of the members of the

I Historical Societies of Pennsylvania, New York, and

I New Jersey have unearthed in recent years a number

I of authentic documents and historical papers whose

j very existence was unknown, which now shed much

, light on those early days of adventurou.s colonization.

j But the scope of this work forbids other than a brief

narrative of these events excepting where, happening

wholly within the territory now comprising Delaware

County, they become part of the immediate story of

this locality.

In 1621, in Holland, was incorporated the great West India Company, which while its object was a monopoly of the trade of the territory where it might locate posts simply for barter with the savages, the practical result of its efforts was the establishment of a permanent colony in New York and, in a measure, the settlement of the Delaware. Under the auspices of this company, in 1624, Capt. Mey located a garri- son ^ near the mouth of Timber Creek, Gloucester Co., N. J., and built Fort Nassau, which post was aban- doned the year following. Nevertheless the Dutch company did not relinquish its purpose of making a permanent lodgment on the Delaware, and with that end in view, Samuel Goodyn and Samuel Bloemmaert in 1631 purchased from three of the chiefs of the resi- dent tribe of Indians a large tract of land, sixteen miles square, extending from Cape Henlopen north- ward towards the mouth of the river. To this pur- chase— although it was not made until after the arri- val of the vessel in the winter of 1630-31, which was remarkably mild — Capt. Peter Heyes, in the ship " Walrus," conveyed a small colony, which he located on Lewes Creek, designing to establish a whale- and seal-fishery station there, as well as plantations for

. ■ Dr. Smith ("History of Delaware County," page 9) states that from the deposilioQ of Catelina Tricho, said to have been the first wliite woman at Albany, the colonists who located at and bnilt Fort Nassau in 1624 were accompanied by females. The curious document (see " Documentary History of New York," vol. iii. page 49} is as follows; "New York, February 14, 1684-6.

" The deposition of Catelina Tricho, aged fouer score yeares or there- abouts, taken before the right hono*'!'^ Collo. Thomas, Leu* and Governoiir under his Roy" high" James, Duke of York and Albany, etc., of N. York and its Dependencyes in America, who salth and declares in the pr'sens of God as followcth :

" That she came to this Province either in the year one thousand six hundred and twenty-three or twenty-fouer, to the best of her reniember- ance, an that fouer women came along with her in the same shipp, in which the Governor, Arien Jorissen, came also over, which fouer women were married at Sea, and that they and their husbands stayed about three weeks at this place, and then they with eight seamen more went in a vessel liy ord" of the Dutch Governo' to Delaware river and there settled. This I Certifie under my hand and ye Scale of this proviuce. " Tho. Dongan."

EARLX" SETTLEMENT.

the cultivation of tobacco and grain. The settlement was called Swanendale, or " Valley of Swans," be- cause of the great number of those birds in the neigh- borliood. After the erection of Fort Oplandt, and surrounding it with palisades, Capt. Peter Heyes sailed for Holland, leaving Gillis Hossett, commissary of the ship, in command of the territory.

Early in 1632 it was determined that David Pieter- sen De Vries, one of the patroons of the company and an experienced navigator, should repair to the colony on the Delaware with a number of emigrants, to join those already there ; but before the expedition sailed from the Texel, May 24th of that year, the rumor was received that the little colony at Swanendale had been massacred by the Indians. The truth of this intelli- gence was established when De Vries entered the Delaware, after a circuitous passage, on the 5th of December following, and a careful exploration was made in a boat the next day. The fort was found a charred ruin, while the bones of the settlers and those of the horses and cows were discovered here and there bleaching in the sun. The adroit De Vries, however, managed to secure the confidence of the Indians, and induced one of the natives to remain all night on his vessel, from whom he learned the cir- cumstances connected with the massacre. The par- ticulars, as so related by the Indian, are thus recorded by De Vries : '

" He then showed U8 the place where our people had set up a column to which was fasteued a piece of tin, whereon the arms of Holland were painted. One of their chiefs took this off, for the purpose of malting tobacco-pipes, not knowing that he was doing amiss. Those in com- mand at the house made such an ado about it that the Indians, not knowing how it was, went away and slew the chief who had done it, and brought a token of the dead to the house to those in command, who told them that they wished that they had not done it ; that they should have brought him to them, as they wished to have forbidden him not to do the like again. They went away, and the friends of the murdered chief incited their friends, aa they are a people like the Indians, who are very revengeful, to set about the work of vengeance. Observing our people out of the house, each one at his work, that there was not more than one inside, who was lying sick, and a large mastiff, who was chained,— had he been loose they would not have dared to approach the house, — and the man who had command standing near the house, three of the stoutest Indians, who were to do the deed, bringing a lot of bear-skins with them to exchange, sought to enter the house. The man in charge went in with them to make the barter, which being done, he went to the loft where the stores lay, and in descending the stairs one of the Indians seized an axe and cleft his head so that be fell down dead. They also relieved the sick man of life, and shot into the dog, wlio was chained fast, and whom they most feared, twenty-five arrows before they could dispatch him. They then proceeded towards the rest of the men, who were at work, and, going amongst them with pretensions of friendship, struck them down. Thus was our young colony destroyed, causing us serious loss."

On Jan. 1, 1633, De Vries, who by divers presents had so won the good opinion and friendship of the Indians that they concluded a treaty of peace with him, sailed up the river, and on the oth of the same month reached the abandoned Fort Nassau, where he was met by a few Indians, who seeing him approach- ing, had gathered there to barter furs. The Dutch

1 " Voyages of De Vries." New York Historical Society Collection (new series), vol. iii. page 23.

I captain told them he wanted beans, and that he had 1 no goods to exchange for peltries, whereupon the sav- ages told him to go to Timmerkill (now Cooper's 1 Creek, opposite Philadelphia), where he could get corn. An Indian woman to whom he had given a cloth dress secretly informed De Vries that if he went there he would be attacked, for the natives had mur- dered the crew of an English boat which was ascend- ing the Count Earnest (Delaware) River. Thus fully on his guard, the next day when De Vries went to Timmerkill he permitted the Indians to visit his vessel, at the same time informing the savages that their evil designs had been revealed to him by Manitou, I the Indian god. After making a treaty of permanent peace with them, being unable to obtain corn in any ! quantity on the Delaware, De Vries sailed to Vir- '■ ginia, where he purchased provisions and received from the Governor a present of six goats for Swanen- 1 dale, to which he returned, and subsequently taking the colonists on his vessel, sailed to New York and thence to Europe. Hence, in the summer of 1633 no settlement of Europeans was located at any point along the shores of Delaware Bay and Eiver.

In 1635 a party of Englishmen from the colony on the Connecticut River, consisting of George Holmes, I his hired man, Thomas Hall, and ten or twelve others, attempted to make a lodgment on the Delaware, of which fact the Dutch authorities in New York seemed to have had information, and made preparation to thwart their design, for when the English squatters made an effort to capture Fort Nassau they found it garrisoned. The English party were taken prisoners and sent to Manhattan, where they were permitted permanently to settle. Thomas Hall, at the latter place, rose to some eminence, and was active in all the movements In the early days of New York while it I was a Dutch province.

1 In 1624, William Usselincx visited Sweden, and as ; as it was he who had drafted the first plan for the ! Dutch West India Company, he was invited by Gus- tavus Adolphus to remain in Sweden. Although ad- vanced in years, in 1626, Usselincx obtained from the king a charter for the Swedish West India Company, a commercial organization, whose project of forming a colony in " foreign parts" received the earnest sup- port of Gustavus Adolphus and Axel Oxenstierna, the great chancellor of Sweden. But nothing beyond the consent of Adolphus to the organization of the com- ! pany seems to have been done, and even the official royal signature to the charter was never procured. Hence after the death of the king the company was ' dissolved and the whole project apparently was aban- ! doned, notwithstanding a publication of the privi- leges granted by charter, although unsigned by the late monarch, was made by Chancellor Oxenstierna. This was the external appearance merely, for several i persons were still earnest in the effort to establish the I Swedi-sh West India Company. It is a peculiar cir- ! cumstance that as late as the middle of the year 1635

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

the objective-point of the proposed expedition seemed to have been undetermined, the coast of Guinea and that of Brazil being under consideration, while the eastern coast of North America apparently oflered no attractions whatever. In the summer of 1685, Peter Minuit, who had some knowledge of the territory on the Delaware, entered into correspondence with the Swedish authorities, and early in 1637 he went to Sweden, where, after many difficulties, on Aug. 9,

1637, the Admiralty issued a passport for the ships "Kalmar Nyckel" and " Gripen," the former a man- of-war, and the latter a sloop, or tender, which vessels comprised Minuifs fleet, the first Swedish expedition. It is stated in a Dutch state paper that Minuit's col- onists were " Swedes, the most of whom were ban- ; ditti.'" Unforeseen delays followed, until the winter was near at hand before the expedition finally made sail for the New World, after having put into the Dutch harbor of Medemblik for repairs. It is stated by Professor Odhner,- of Sweden, that documentary evidence seems to establish the fact that the fleet ar- rived in the Delaware in March or early in April, '

1638. Minuit about that time, it is known, purchased ' from the Indians a tract of land several days' journey in extent, located on the west bank of the river, i whereon he set up the arms of Sweden, and with a salvo of artillery christened the fort he began build- ing, near the present site of Wilmington, the " Kris- , tina," in honor of the youthful queen whose fiag he was the first to unfold on the American continent. The river Christiana retains the name thus bestowed on the fort— for Minuit called that stream the Elbe— to this day. Within the palisade were built two log houses, for the accommodation of the soldiers and for the storage of provisions. After the little settlement had been provided with all necessaries to sustain life, and for barter with the Indians, Lieut. Miins Kling was placed in command of the garrison, and Minuit, in July, 1638, sailed for Sweden, touching in his homeward voyage at the West Indies, where the sloop " Gripen" had preceded him. At St. Christo- I pher he sold all the merchandise on the " Kalmar Nyckel," and in place of the cargo he had taken to the island loaded the vessel with tobacco. When ready to sail Minuit and the captain of his vessel were invited to visit a Dutch ship, "The Flying Deer," and while on board of the latter a furious hur- ricane arose, compelling all the vessels in the road- stead to go to sea. Several of the ships were dis- masted, while others were lost, among the latter " The Flying Deer." She was never afterwards heard from. The " Kalmar Nyckel" made search for the missing Swedish officers, but, learning no tidings of them, after several days sailed for Europe. The sloop " Gripen" subsequently returned from the West

1 Penna. Archives, 2d eerieB, vol. v. p. 236.

2 •* The Founding of New Sweden" {Petm, Mag. of U\ 11, 279) is a mine of interec'iing information on the early the Delaware River.

Indies to the Delaware, where she was loaded with furs, and sailed for Sweden, reaching there in the latter part of May, 1639, having made the passage in five weeks.

The same year Cornelius Van Vliet, a Dutch cap- tain, was ordered to proceed in the " Kalmar Nyckel" to New Sweden, learn the condition of the colony, and make report of the country, no report having been made by Minuit, as it was the purpose of Queen Christina to people the land with Swedes. To the latter end an efibrt was made to obtain willing emi- grants, but failing in that, the government ordered the Governors of Elfsborg and Varmland " to lay hands on such marriaged soldiers as had either evaded ser- vice or committed some other offence, and transport them, with their wives and children, to New Sweden, with the promise to bring them back, if required, within two years ; to do this, however, 'justly and dis- creetly,' that no riot might ensue." ^

The " Kalmar Nyckel" on her second voyage to the colony sailed for Gottenburg, where she arrived in June, 1639. There she was detained more than three months, occasioned by the difficulty of procuring emi- grants, cattle, horses, swine, implements for hus- bandry, and partly because of the negligence of the new commander of the second expedition. Rev. Reo- rus Torkillus, the first Swedish clergyman in New Sweden, is believed to have been one of the passengers on the vessel, which left Gottenburg in the early autumn of 1639. The ship was obliged to stop at Medemblik to be overhauled, she having sprung a leak, and, ' afterward, when having put to sea, she was twice compelled to return for repairs, until the crew stated they were not willing to sail in such a vessel and under such a captain. Van Vliet was thereupon discharged, a new crew procured, and Capt. Pouwel Jansen, a Dutchman, given charge of the ship. The "Kalmar Nyckel," after encountering a remarkable storm, that intercepted all navigation in the Zuider-Zee, finally, on Feb. 7, 1640, sailed from the Texel for New Sweden. Lieut. Peter Hollandare, who had been appointed Governor of the province, accompanied the expedition, which, after a voyage of over two months, landed at Christiana on the 17th of April of the same year, where they found the colony planted by Minuit in good condition.* The emi- grants who accompanied the second expedition were of the most unpromising character, since Peter Hol- landare records that " no more stupid, indifl'erent peo- ple are to be found in all Sweden than those who are now here," and the domestic animals transported in the ship were few and of poor quality. On Nov. 2, 1640,

■I " The Founding of New Sweden," by Professor C. T. Odhner. Trans- lated by Professor G . B, Keen, Peiin. Mag. of History, vol. iii. p. 396.

4 This statement, which appears from Swedish documents, is in marked contrast to tbo assertion of Director Kieft, whose letter, dated in the latter part of May, 1640 (" New York Colonial Documents," vol. i. p. 693), states, "The Swedes in the South River were resolved to move off and to come here" (New York). " A day before their departure a ship arrived with a reinforcement."

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

the ship " Friedenburg," under the command of Capt. Jacob Powellson, having on board a number of Dutch colonists, with Jost Van Bogardt, who emigrated under the auspices of the Swedish crown, cattle, and " other things necessary for the cultivation of the country," arrived in New Sweden. These emigrants occupied land three or four Swedish miles below Christiana. Very little is known of the history of the colony from 1640 to 1643, saving that in 1642 a general sickness prevailed among the Swedish settlers on the Dela- ware.'

The " Kalmar Nyckel" returned to Sweden in July, 1640. The home government, in its anxiety to obtain settlers for its American colony, had ordered the Gov- ernor of drebro to prevail upon the unsettled Finns in that province to emigrate with their wives and children to New Sweden, while Mans Kling was in- structed from the mining classes, and particularly from among the roaming Finns, who lived free of charge in the houses of the inhabitants of the Swedish forests, to procure settlers to be sent abroad. The third ex- pedition, in the " Kalmar Nyckel" and the " Chari- tas," sailed for New Sweden in 1641, and a number of the Finns came hither in those vessels. Hence many of the early Swedish settlers were not of a class to be desired as founders of a new empire, for the ar- chives of Sweden disclose the fact that quite a number of criminals and forest-destroying Finns were trans- ported to the Delaware River settlements to rid the mother-country of their presence. The Finns men- tioned had, in violation of the mandates of the royal government, set Are to the forests in Viirmland and Dal, that they might free the ground of trees to sow grain in the ashes, and for this act they were banished to the New World. Professor Odhner directly asserts that in the province of Skaraborg, a trooper, who was condeinned to death for having broken into the monas- tery gardens at Varnhem, was permitted to make his selection between being hanged or embarking for New Sweden, and as late as 1653 - a criminal who had been convicted of killing an elk on the island D'Auland was sentenced to transportation hither.

The fourth colony, and the one whose history most intimately connects itself with Delaware County, was that which left Gottenburg on Nov. 1, 1642. This expedition, composed of the ships " Fama" and "Swan," was under the command of Lieut.-Col. John Printz, who had been commissioned Governor of New Sweden, Aug. 15, 1642, with an annual salary of one thousand two hundred dollars in silver and an allowance of four hundred rix-dollars for his ex- penses. The journey was a long one; "the watery way to the West was not yet discovered, and therefore, for fear of the sand-banks off Newfoundland, the ships which went under the command of Governor

Printz sailed along the coast of Africa until they found the eastern passage, then directly over to Amer- ica, leaving the Canaries high up to the north."' They landed at Antigua, inhabited at "that time 'by Englishmen and negroes, with some Indians,' where they 'spent their Christmas holidays, and were well entertained,' " says Mr. Holm, " ' at the Governor's house.' After quitting this seat of ' perpetual sum- mer' (as the same gentleman depicts it) they en- countered ' a severe storm,' accompanied at the last ' with snow,' which ' continued about fourteen days,' by which they ' lost three large anchors, a spritsail, and their mainmast, and the ship was run aground; but on the 15th of February, 1643, by God's grace, came up to Fort Christina, in New Sweden, Va.,' in the precise phrases of the historian, ' at two o'clock in the afternoon.' Here the first three Swedish expe-

j ditions had established their chief settlement, under

j Minuit and Hollandare, and here remained a short time also this fourth and greatest of the colonies, enjoying

\ friendly intercourse with fellow-countrymen most glad to welcome them, and happily reposing from

i the distresses of their long and perilous voyage.' "* Under the instructions he had received from the home government, Printz, in the exercise of his dis- cretion, located the seat of government at Tinicum Island, where he built a fort, which he called New Got- tenburg, and resided for a time in the fortress, until he built his mansion-house, known in our annals as Printz Hall. On this island the principal inhabitants then had their dwellings and plantations."' With the fort at that place, Printz controlled the passage of the river above Tinicum, and when he, shortly afterward, built Fort Elsenburgh, at Salem Creek, placing therein four brass and iron twelve-pound cannon and one " pots-hooft,"' " manned by twelve soldiers in command of a lieutenant, he rendered the Dutch fortress on the east side of the river above the mouth of the Schuyl- kill almost useless to the Holland colony, as was fully recognized by Hudde, who reported that Printz had closed " the enterance of the river."

We are told by Campanius that " In the be- ginning of Governor Printz's administration there came a great number of those criminals, who were sent over from Sweden. When the European inhab- itants perceived it they would not suffer them to set their foot on shore, but they were all obliged to re- turn, so that a great many of them perished on the voyage. This was related to me, amongst other things, by an old, trustworthy man, named Nils Matsson Utter, who, after his return home, served in His Majesty's life-guards. It was after this for- bidden, under a penalty, to send any more criminals to America, lest Almighty God should let his ven-

1 Winthrop, vol. il. p. 76.

2 5 Penna. Archives, 2d series, p. tina'8 order of Aug. 11, 1653, directin factor under sentence of death, be aei

, where is given Queen Chris- lat Henry D'Oregrund, a miile- I New Sweden.

» Acrelius, " History of New Sweden," p. 41.

< Professor G. B. Keen's summary of Printz's voyage, in " Descend-

ts of Joran Kyn," Pmna. Mag. of HUlory, vol. ii. p. 326.

s Campanius, " History of New Sweden," p. "9.

» Hudde's Report, Peunn. Archives, 2d series, vol. v. p. V>i.

HISTORY OP DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

geance fall on the ships and goods, and the virtuous people that were on board."'

This statement is iu direct conflict with the report of Governor Printz in 1647, for therein he asked in- struction from the home authorities "how long the criminals must serve for their crimes,"* and is told that nothing definite can be prescribed respecting that matter, that it is left to his discretion, but those who reform and perform their duty satisfactorily may be allowed the same wages as other free people. " But those who go on in the same wrong way as be- fore and do not exhibit any improvement may have their punishment increased by you, Sir Governor, or may continue to serve without wages." ^

The voluntary emigrants to New Sweden were of two classes, the freemen, those who were privileged to settle where they chose in the colony and to return to the mother-country at pleasure, and the company's servants, those who were employed at stipulated wages for a designated term. " There was a third, consisting of vagabonds and malefactors ; these went to remain in slavery, and were employed in digging the earth, throwing up trenches, and erecting walls and other fortifications. The others had no intercourse with them, but a particular spot was appointed for them to reside upon.*

The first year under Printz's administration many of the settlers died, which the Governor states was due to hard wor"k and the scarcity of food.* In four years thereafter (1647) we learn from the report fur- nished the home government that the total number of whites in the Swedish settlements on the Delaware was one hundred and eighty-three souls. Twenty- eight of the freemen had made settlements, and part of them were provided with oxen and cows. Tobacco seems to have been chiefly tire crop grown, for iu the return cargo of the "Golden Shark," in that year,

1 Campaniiis, " New Sweden,'' p. 73.

! Penna. Mag. of History, vol. vii. p. 277.

' Count Oxenetierna's reply to Printz, Penna. Mag. of History, vol. vii. p. 283. In fact, we have reason to believe that during all our colo- nial history criminals were sent to the American plantations. In a series of articles on crimes and criminals, published in the New Castle (England) WeeMii Clironicle, in 1883, the author says, " The statute of 39 Elizabeth was converted by James I. into an Act of Transportation to America, by a letter to the treasurer and council of Virginia, in the year 1619, commanding them ' to send 100 dissolute persons to Virginia, ! which the Knight Marshall would deliver to them for the purpose.' i Transportation is not distinctly mentioned by any Euglish statute prior ' to Charles II., which gives a power to the judges, at their discretion, 'either to execute or transport to America for life the mosstroopers of Cumberland.' This mode of pnnisbraent, however, was not commonly 1 practiced until the reign of George I. The courta were then, by Act of Parliament, allowed a discretionary power to order felons to be trans- ported to the American plantations. This lasted from 1718 to the decla- ration of American independence in 1776." The importation of crimi- [ nals into this colony in the character of redemption servants, who were purchased from the olficors in England, became such a public evil that I on Feb. 14,1729-30, the General Assembly by statute forbade masters of vessels, under heavy fines, landing such persons in the province, and ' extended the penalties to merchanta who should import, sell, or dispose of such convicts in the pwvince in violation of the act.

^ Campanius, " New Sweden," p. 73.

5 Printz's Report, /'cnn. Mag. of Hint., vol. vii. p. 272.

was six thousand nine hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco, grown in New Sweden, the rest having been purchased from Virginia. To stimulate this project those persons who cultivated land were exempted by the home government for ten years from taxation. A grist-mill had been erected by Printz in 1643, about a quarter of a mile in the woods at " Kara Kung," other- wise called the Water-Mill stream, " a fine mill, which ground both fine and coarse flour, and was going early and late. It was the first that was seen in that coun- try." * This mill was located on Crum Creek, and the holes sunk in the rocks to receive the posts sup- porting the frame-work are still to be seen, near the Blue Bell Tavern, on the Darby road." Townsend Ward*" tells us that in front of the old portion of the Blue Bell Tavern " is a carriage stepping-stone of considerable historical interest, for it is, perhaps, one of the first millstones used in what is now the terri- tory of Pennsylvania, and was in use before Penn's arrival. The stone is circular in form, with a square hole through its centre. Not far from the inn, and in the bed of the creek, only a few feet west of the old King's (Queen's) road bridge, may be seen the holes, drilled in the rocks, in which were inserted the sup- ports of the ancient mill wherein the stone was used. Mr. Aubrey H. Smith remembers finding, when a boy, a piece of lead weighing seventeen pounds, that had evidently been run, when melted, around an inserted post." Printz was much pleased with the mill, " which runs the whole year, to the great advantage of the coun- try, particularly as the windmill, formerly here before I came, would never work, and was good for nothing.'" Not only had he built this needed public improvement, but had caused some waterfalls to be examined as a site for saw-mills below the dam of the grist-mill, as well as three other places where oak-timber grew plen- tiful. But as he was without the saw-blades, and no person in the colony understood the management of such an establishment, Printz suggested to the home government that it would be worth considering, as a good trade in planking, pipe-staves, and timber could be made with the West Indies and other points, pro- vided a proper vessel was kept in New Sweden to transport those articles to market.'"

It is not my purpose to relate the history of the dif- ficulties and trials which Printz had to contend with from the encroachments of the Dutch and English in their efforts to make a lodgment on the Delaware. That he was insolent in his manner to those whom he regarded as intruders on the Swedish territory cannot be questioned, if the statement of his enemies is to be credited. Hudde tells us that Printz replied to his

» Campanius, p. 81. Of course the statement applies to the first mill mu by water. We know, from Printz's report, that a windmill had preceded it.

' Record of Upland Court, p. 88.

f " A Walk to Darby," Pmn. Mag. of Hut., vol. iii. p. 262.

8 Report for 1647, Petin. Mag. of Hitt., vol. vii. p. 274. 1" Pn,i. M-g. of Hid., vol. vii. p. 279.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

suggestion that the Dutch were the earliest settlers on the Delaware, "that the devil was the oldest pos- sessor of hell, but he sometimes admitted a younger one." That on another occasion, Printz treated con- temptuously a letter he had sent him by a sergeant, in that he threw it towards one of his attendants who stood near him, saying, "There, take care of it," and that when the sergeant insisted on seeing the Gov- ernor, who left him to meet some Englishmen, he, the sergeant, was thrown out of doors, " the Governor taking a gun in his hand from the wall to shoot him, as he imagined, but was prevented from leaving his room," and that when the servants of the Dutch Company went to Tinicum, Printz unreasonably abused them, " so that they are often, on returning home, bloody and bruised," while John Thickpenny,' of the New England colony on the Delaware, de- posed that, at Tinicum, Printz cursed and swore at the Englishmen, calling them renegades, and threw John Woollen, the Indian interpreter for the English settlers, into irons, which Printz himself fastened on his legs, and that he stamped with his feet in his rage. Despite all these statements, Printz was true to his sovereign's interest in the colony, even if he had failed in that respect in the Old World.'-'

On Feb. 20, 1647, when the ship " Golden Shark," which had arrived in New Sweden on the 1st of Oc- tober of the preceding year, left the colony on the return voyage to Europe, Printz dispatched Lieut. John Pappegoya, as a special messenger to orally make a report of the growth and need of the settlement. Pappegoya had been one of the early Swedish settlers on the Delaware and had returned home, but de-, siring to revisit New Sweden, he came back in 1644, particularly recommended to the favorable considera- tion of Printz by the home government. It is be- lieved at the time Pappegoya was sent to Sweden as bearer of dispatches he was then married to Ar- migart. Governor Printz's daughter, who figured prominently in our early annals. He returned to New Sweden in a short time (in those days of long voyages), for about in the middle of June, 1648, Hudde' mentions that the committee of the Dutch Council, after completing the purchase of land on the Schuylkill from the Indians, "with a becoming suite, sailed to Tinne Konck, and was received there by the commissay, Huygen and Lieut. Passegay (Pappe- goya), who left them about half an hour in the open

Deposition of .roiin TliicUponny, I. i. pp. 9T-9!).

Hav

Colonial Records,'

a John Printz was well educated, and after lie entered miliUry life he rose rapidly during the Prussian and Gennan war. In 1638 he was pro- moted lieutenant-colonel of West Giltha Cavalry. In 1G40 he shamefully and disgracefully surrendered the fortress of Chemnitz, and returned to Stockholm without the consent of the field-marshal. He was put under arrest, tried, and broken of his rank in the army. He was subsequently (Aug. 16, 1642) appointed Governor of New Sweden. On his return to the Old World he was made a general, and in 1668, Governor of the dis- trict of Jonkoping. He died iu 1663, leaving no male issue to succeed to the title conferred on him in 1642.

» Hudde's Report, Penna. Archives, 2d series vol. v. p, 11.1.

air and constaint rain," before they could obtain aa interview with Goversor Printz. When the latter, after administering the affairs of the colony on the Delaware for twelve years, sailed for Sweden in the latter part of the year 1653, he left the government in charge of his son-in-law, John Pappegoya.

May 21, 1654, the ship " Eagle" arrived at New Castle, having on board John Claudius Rising, who had been appointed commissary and Governor's as- sistant counsellor, — an office equivalent to Lieutenant- Governor ; but Printz having sailed before Rising came, the full charge of the colony devolved upon him. His first ofiicial act was not only a violation of his instructions, but an error which was disastrous in its results to the colony. As the vessel came to at Fort Cassimir two guns were fired as a salute to the fortress, after which Rising demanded the surrender of the stronghold. The Dutch commander desired time to consider, but Rising ordered a force of thirty men to land and take the place by assault, refusing, as the Dutch alleged, " to give one hour's delay." Acrelius tells us, "A correct inventory was made of everything in the fort, and evexy one was allowed to carry ofi' his property, whether belonging to the com- pany or to private individuals ;" ■* while Gerrit Becker, the Dutch commander, deposed, " I could scarcely induce him (Rising) by prayer not to be turned out naked, with his (my) wife and children, and all the i property in this fort was confiscated by them." ' The I capture of this fortress having taken place about noon on Trinity Sunday, the Swedes called it the " Fort of the Holy Trinity ;" and subsequently, under the su- i pervision of Peter Lindstrom, the engineer, it was

repaired, enlarged, and " as good as built anew." I On the 17th of June, 1654, Vice-Goveruor Rising ! held a council with the Indian sachems at Printz I Hall, at Tinicum, and although the savages stated that the Swedish vessel had introduced among them diseases, of which many of their people died, the gifts which Rising laid before them were too tempt- ing to be resisted, and a treaty of friendship was then j " made between the Swedes and the Indians, which has ever since been faithfully observed on both sides.'"

When the news of the capture of Fort Cassimir was 1 received in Holland it excited much indignation among the directors, and although previous to that event the home government had not approved fully of Stuyvesant's action in erecting the fort at New Castle, all differences of opinion were swallowed up in the indignation and anger the seizure of the fortress aroused. Hence, Stuyvesant was ordered "to e.xert every nerve to revenge that injury, not only by re- storing affairs to their former situation, but by driving the Swedes from every side of the river, as they did with us, provided that such among them as may be

« Acrelius, " New Sweden," p. 63.

s Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. t. p. 253.

6 <'ampanius, p. 78.

HISTOKY OF DBLAWAKE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

disposed to settle under and submit to our govern- ment may be indulged in it." ' In conformity with the spirit of these instructions, Stuyvesant silently but j promptly made preparation for an aggressive move- ment against the Swedish settlement on the Delaware. To that end he gathered an armament and fleet, while the Swedes, unaware of the danger that lowered over them, made no unusual provision for defense. On Sunday, Sept. 4, 1655, the expedition under Stuyve- sant, in seven vessels, with about six hundred men, set sail for the Delaware, and on the morning of the , 9th of September anchored a short distance from Fort Cassimir, when Stuyvesant sent a lieutenant ashore to demand the restitution of the stronghold. Lieutenant Schute, the Swedish officer, desired time to communicate with his superior, which was refused. ! In the mean while the Dutch commander had landed ^ a force which occupied all the approaches in rear of the fort, and, after some negotiation, the Swedish gar- rison capitulated on the morning of the 11th of Sep- tember. After the reduction of Fort Cassimir the Dutch forces laid siege to Fort Christiana, and from Governor Rising's official report^ we learn that the enemy made regular approaches until, having their guns in position in rear of the fort, Stuyvesant form- ally demanded the surrender of the post within [ twenty-four hours. The Swedish Governor, after a general consultation with the whole garrison, decided to accede to the demand he was powerless to resist. The articles of capitulation, among other matters, provided that the Swedish forces should march out of the fort with the honors of war, — drums and trumpet playing, flags flying, matches burning, and with hand and side arms. That they, as prisoners of war, were first to be conducted to Tinicum Island, and placed in the fort at that place until they could be taken to New Amsterdam.' Campanius asserts that " The Dutch then proceeded to destroy New Gottenburg, ; laying waste all the houses and plantations without the fort, killing the cattle, and plundering the in- habitants of everything that they could lay their hands on ; so that after a siege of fourteen days, and many fruitless propositions to obtain more humane , treatment, the Swedes were obliged to surrender that fortress for want of men and ammunition."*

1 HaznnrB Annals, p. 168.

2 Peuna. Archives, 2d series, vol. v. p. 224.

3 Acrelius, " Hist, of New Sweden," p. 76.

* Campanius, " New Sweden," pp. 85, 86. Smith, in his " History of New Jersey," page 34, says the Dutch "destroyed New Gottenburg, with such houses as are without the fort, plundering the inhabitants of what they had, and killing their cattle." From his account it also ap- pears that the fort at Tinicum was defended fourteen days, and that the pillaging took place before the fort was surrendered. The statements of both Campanius and Smith were doubtless has ary recitals, which, in descending from one generatio confused two separate matters into one, Campaniu published until 1702, nearly forty years after the ci rated took place, while that of Smith was issued long si date. To show how soon confusion may take place in n with historical events it is only necessary to cite " Ai

From the fact that the articles of capitulation at Fort Christina stijiulated for the detention of the Swedish prisoners of war at the fort at Tinicum, and that there is, so far as known, an absence of all documentary evi- dence to support the assertion made by Campanius, the conclusion seems irresistible that that author has con- fused his account of the doings at New Gottenburg with those occurring on the siege of Fort Christiana. Vice- Governor Rising, in his report," already mentioned, when relating the pillaging of " the people without sconce of their property, and higher up the river they plundered many and stripped them to the skin," thus briefly narrated the outrages of the Dutch in- vaders at Tinicum. " At New Gottenberg they robbed Mr. Papegoija's wife of all she had, with many others who had collected their property there." Not a word has this man, who pictured the minutest incident of the siege of Fort Christiana, and the killing of Swedish " cattle, goats, swine, and poultry," to say about the investment of Fort Gottenburg, the resistance of its slender garrison for fourteen days, or the laying waste of all the houses and plantations without the forts. Certain it is, that the Swedish Church at Tinicum, Printz Hall, and other buildings stood uninjured long years after the Dutch power in North America had waned before the conquering standard of Great Britain. In 1680 "'the remains of the large block- house, which served them (the Swedes) in place of a fortress," was on the island, together with " three or four houses built by the Swedes, a little Lutheran Church made of logs, and the ruins of some log huts."^ In Rising's reply to Stuyvesant," only thirty- four days after the capture of Fort Christiana, he does not mention the destruction of the post at New Got- tenburg, but sets forth the following outrages com- mitted by the Dutch in their conquest of New Sweden : " Your Honor's troops have behaved here as if they were in the country of their bitterest enemy, as the plundering of Tornaborg, Uplandt, Finland, Prince- dorp, and other places more clearly proves (not to speak of the deeds done about Fort Christiana), where the females have partly been dragged out of their houses by force ; whole buildings torn down, even hauled away ; oxen, cows, pigs, and other animals daily slaughtered in large numbers ; even the horses were not spared, but shot wantonly, the plantations devastated, and everything thereabouts treated in such away that our victuals have been mostly spoiled, carried away, or lost somehow." So, too, on Dec. 19, 1656," the directors instruct Stuyvesant to occupy the

tradition- lotber, had

'quent to that :count of tlie

vii. p. 219), where is given, by an unknown write of the attempted insurrection of the Long Fin, which < The writer states, " These are the particulars which I received from the oldest Swedes," and yet he relates that the conspirators " went to Phila- delphia and bought powder, balls, shot, lead, and so forth," nearly four- teen years before that city hud an e.<tistence.

5 Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. t. p. 227.

6 Journal of a Voyage to New York in I679-S0. Memoirs of the Long Island Hist. Soc, vol. i. p. 177.

' Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. vii. p. 487.

False Konigsuiack i

(Penn. Mag. of Uist., vol. ' » lb., 496.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

fort at New Gottenburg with eight or ten soldiers pro- visionally, " as well for the safety of the Swedes, now our subjects."

The Dutch had conquered, and the Swedish flag no longer floated over the disputed territory on the Dela- ware. But the triumph was a costly one, the expenses of the expedition swelling so largely the debt of the Dutch West India Company that in the summer of 1656, to relieve itself from liability to the city of Am- sterdam, the company ceded to the burgomasters of that municipality a portion of the Delaware River territory, extending from Bombay Hook to Christiana Creek, which subsequently was known as "the City's Colony," while the land north of that creek was termed "the Company's Colony."

Before intelligence of the conquest of New Sweden had reached the mother-country, on March 24, 1656, the Swedish ship " Mercury," with a hundred and thirty emigrants on board, entered the river. John Paul Jacquit, the Dutch Governor, prohibited the captain of the vessel to laud the crew or passengers, as well as refusing to permit him to ascend the river beyond Fort Cassimir. John Pappegoya, who had not yet returned to Sweden, together with Capt. Huygen, on March 30th wrote to the Council in New Amsterdam, requesting that these emigrants who came from Sweden should be permitted to settle in the colony, urging as reasons " the immense loss they would suffer, many good farmers would be ruined, parents separated from children, and even husbands from wife," but their appeals only made the Council hold more firmly to their resolution that the Swedes should settle at New Amsterdam, where their number could not be a constant menace to the authorities. Much time was consumed in tedious negotiations, until at length the patience of the Swedish colonists was exhausted, and through the influence of Pappe- goya with the savages, a number of the residents, Swedes and Indians, went aboard the vessel, when, in spite of the guns of the fort or the command of Gov- ernor Jacquit, the anchor was weighed, the " Mer- cury" sailed up the river, and landed her cargo and passengers at Christiana.' The Dutch, fearing that some of the Indians on board might be injured, re- frained from firing on the vessel in her passage by the fort.

After the Dutch had acquired absolute sway on the Delaware the ancient Swedish capital at Tinicum seems to have been abandoned, possibly because of the grant of that island to Governor Printz, hence in the early records only occasionally, at this period, do we find allusion to any places lying within the boun- dary of the present county of Delaware. Georan Van Dyck, who had been appointed sheriff" of the company's colony, requested permission to establish

1 Acielius, " Hist, of New Sweden," p. 90. Vincent says (Hist, of State of Delaware, vol. i. p. 276) tliat the passengers and cargo of the "Mer- cury" were landed at Marcus Hook. On what authority that statement is based is not given.

the Swedish settlers in villages, and on June 12, 1657, the Council responded that he was " not only author- ized and qualified, but also ordered and directed, to concentrate their houses and dwellings, but henceforth to erect them in shape of a village or villages, either at Upland, Passayonck, Finland, Kinghsessing, on the ' Verdrietige hoeck,' or at such places as by them may be considered suitable, under condition that previous notice be given to the Director-General and Council, in case they should chose some other places than those specified above."' This effort to gather the Swedish residents into villages failed, and it seems not to have been pressed earnestly until after Wil- liam Beekman was appointed, Oct. 28, 1658, vice- director of the company's colony on the Delaware, and even not then until the directors in Holland, under date of Oct. 14, 1659,^ recommend that the Swedes should be separated and scattered among the Dutch, since they, the directors, had reason to believe that the English may undertake "something against us there under the Swedish flag and name." In fur- therance of this recommendation, Beekman, in March following, attempted to execute the order, but found thiit he could not get the Swedish settlers to choose a location for the village, every one asserting that he would keep his entire lot and fields.* Miss Printz " objected to moving because the church was located at Tinicum, on her plantation, that her buildings were heavy, that she had offered her land rent free, but no one would live with her." Beekman also informed Stuyvesant that to enforce the edict then would result in great loss, as it would prevent the planting of spring crops, and he, therefore, had granted the Swedes five or six weeks longer before compelling compliance with the order. Thus the matter rested, for the Dutch authorities could not convince the Swedes of the advantage of the proposed change, and they had not sufficient force at hand to compel obedience therewith.* Beekman, however, constantly endeav- ored to prevail upon them to settle at Passayunk, but when the Swedes intimated that " they would rather go to Maryland than to remove to another place here and sponge upon the others," the project was finally abandoned by the authorities.

The aff'air of the Delaware's having been so mis- managed that many complaints had been lodged with the authorities in New Amsterdam, Council on April I 20, 1658, determining that these matters " as well as some necessary arrangements to be made among and regarding the Swedes, cannot well be attended to by a letter," ordered that Stuyvesant and Pieter Tonne- man should personally visit the Delaware River set- tlements " for the special service and advantage of the company." On May 8th Stuyvesant was at Tini- cum, for on that day Georan Van Dyck, Orlofl' Stille,

2 Penna. Archives, 2i se

3 lb., p. 698.

i .\crelius, " Hist, of Ne

, vol.vii. p. 511.

10

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Malthys Hanson, Peter Rambo, and Peter Kaik, the Swedish magistrates,' presented a petition to the Gen- eral Director, asking for the appointment of a court messenger to serve summons, make arrests, and "the carrying out of sentences," and that they be allowed " free access to the commander at Fort Altona to get assistance from the soldiers in case of emergency." The third request was "that an order be made that nobody sliall leave these boundaries without knowl- edge of the magistrates, much less, that the servants, man or woman of one, when they leave or run away without their masters' or mistress' permission, shall be concealed by the other."

From this petition, which was favorably received and acted on, we learn that Fort Gottenburg had at this time ceased to be a military post. This was per- haps due to the fact that the Dutch officers were doubtful of the loyalty of the Swedes to the new ad- ministration, and thought it judicious to concentrate their forces at the most available and strongest fortifi- cation ; that at Tinicum, being merely a block-house, was abandoned. We also gather from the same doc- ument that the system of redemption servitude at that early stage of our history was recognized in this locality.'

From the report of Jacob Alricks to the commis- sioners of the city's colony, Oct. 10, 1658,'' we ascer- tain that children from the almshouse at Amsterdam had been sent over to the Delaware River settlements and had been bound out among the residents there, the eldest for two, the major portion for three, and the youngest children for four, years. He suggested that from time to time more of these young people should be disi)atched hither, "but, if possible, none ought to come less than fifteen years of age and some- what strong, as little profit is to be expected here without labor."

In a letter from Beekman to Stuyvesant, April 28, 1660,' the former states " that among the Fins at Op- land there is a married couple who live very wretch- edly together, and the wife is often fearfully beaten, and daily driven out of the house like a dog, which was continued through several years. Nothing is heard of the wife, but he, on the contrary, has com- mitted adultery. Therefore the priest, the neighbors, the sheriff', and commissaries, and others besides, have appealed to me, at the request of the man and the woman, that they might be divorced, and the few ani- mals and personal property be divided among them. I answered that I would inform your Noble Worship of it and await orders." What was done finally in this case is unknown.

On the night of Sept. 20, 1661,'^ the wife of Rev.

Laurence Charles Laers, the Swedish priest at Up- land, eloped with Joseph Jongh (Young), the fugi- tives leaving the settlement in a canoe. Director Beekman, the next day, as soon as he was informed of the occurrence, dispatched an express to the Gov- ernor of Maryland and the magistrates at Sassafras River, requesting that should the parties come there they might be detained, and he notified of the fact. Four days afterwards Beekman came to Upland to look after the property there of Jacob Jongh. It ap- pears that in his hasty flight Jongh had left his per; sonal effects at Upland, and the next day the Rev. Mr. Laers went to the house of Andreas Hendriexson, a Finn, where his wife's paramour had lived, and without notifying the authorities forced open the door of Jongh's room with an axe." The keys to the chest belonging to the fugitive being found in the apartment, the clergyman opened the luggage and appropriated some of the contents. The Dutch au- thorities supposed, as they learned nothing from Maryland, that the runaways had gone to New Eng- land, whereas it is now almost conclusively estab- lished that this Jacob Jongh or Young made his way to Maryland, where he subsequently figured promi- nently in the early history of that colony." The abandoned husband, however, did not appear to be crushed by his wife's desertion, for in less than a month (October 15th) he asked Vice-Governor Beek- man to be allowed the next day to make the first proclamation of the banns of his intended marriage with a girl of seventeen or eighteen years, which con- sent the former withheld until he could hear from Stuyvesant.* The authorities in New Amsterdam ap- parently acted too slowly for the reverend lover, for November 8th' he again asked for advice " whether he may now marry again, as his household requires it." On December 15th '" he was granted a provis- ional divorce, the decree being subject to Stuyvesant's approbation ; but without tarrying until the latter signified his approval, the reverend gentleman, on Sunday, Jan. 26, 1662, entered anew into the married relation, which act aroused the indignation of Beek- man, and prejudiced him against " this fine priest." On April 14, 1662, the case against the Rev. Mr. Laers was tried at Fort Altona. He was prosecuted on behalf of the company for having broken into the room and making an inventory of the goods left by the absconding Joseph Jongh. In the crude system of justice then in vogue on the Delaware, the court sentenced him to pay two hundred guilders, which had been advanced to Jongh to purchase grain for the company, forty florins in beavers which were due from Jongh to Director Beekman and Mr. Decker, and was also fined forty guilders for usurping the author- ity of the court. The unhappy defendant was in ad-

I lb., 069.

; .Ioliiison'8 ■' History of Cecil County, Mil.," pp. S0-130.

» Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. vii. p. 670.

> lb., 671. 1" lb., 672.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

11

dition informed that " hia new marriage was declared illegal."' The clergyman thereupon petitioned Gov- ernor Stuyvesant, setting forth that he broke the door open in the search for his wife, whom he imagined was concealed in that place ; that he had found among Jongh's goods a few pairs of his (the petitioner's) wife's stockings ; that he had no intention " to vilify the court;" that his acts were committed through ignorance, and that in his marriage " he did not sup- pose it should have been so unfavorably interpreted ;" he therefore, to save his " reputation as a minister," prays that the Governor will disapprove of the sen- tence of the court, and " not inflict any further pun- ishment" than that he has already undergone, since, independent of the fine of two hundred and eighty ' guilders, the desertion of his wife had cost him | nearly two hundred guilders.' What was done with this petition does not appear.

From the report made by the commissioners and directors of the city's colony,' on Aug. 10, 1663, we learn that on the Delaware River it was found that "the Swedes, Fins, and other natives" had "made and erected there 110 good bouweries, stocked with about 2000 cows and oxen, 20 horses, 80 sheep, and several thousand swine." This was comparatively a good showing, and it induced the city of Amsterdam to accede to the proposition of the Dutch West India j Company, that the former should, in discharge of the j debt owed by the company, accept a deed for " all the country on the Delaware." In furtherance of this ! agreement a formal deed was executed Dec. 22, 1663, and the sway of the authorities at New Amsterdam j ceased on the Delaware River. On the day after the date of this conveyance Beekman wrote to Stuyves- ant that fifty farm laborers who had arrived in the ship " St. Jacob" during June of that year had been hired out to farmers, and that six or seven girls had ! been sent on the same vessel to cook and wash for i the emigrants. He informed the director-general I that "this is almost the same method as that of the ' English trade in servants."' '

The authority of the city of Amsterdam over the j entire Delaware River settlements was only of brief duration, and destined in a few months to be wholly | overthrown. The crown of Great Britain had never j acknowledged the right which the Dutch and Swedes maintained they had acquired l:)y occupancy to the ; territory, and it was merely due to the intestine dis- cord at home that the former nation had not earlier brought the mooted subject to the arbitrament of arms. Charles II., then firmly seated on the throne of England, on March 12, 1664, granted to his brother James, Duke of York and Albany, the territory now comprising the State of New York and New Jersey, and, by a subsequent grant, that of Delaware.

I Penna. Archives, 2d seriis, toI. vii. p. 680. ' Hazard's Annals, p. 332. ' Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. v. p. 470. ' lb., vol. vii. p. 716.

With

unusual promptness the duke fitted out an expedition, consisting of four vessels of war and four hundred and fifty men, including sailors and soldiers, which, under the command of Col. Richard Nicolls, sailed from Portsmouth, England, on May 25, 1664,^0 reduce and occupy the Dutch possessions in North America. Sir Robert Carr, George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick, Esquires, accompanied the expedition as commissioners appointed by the king, with power to hear and determine all military, civil, and criminal matters, and to proceed in all things for "settling the peace and security of the country," as also to adjust " boundaries between neighboring colonies and dis- putes between the Indians and ilie English."" The Governors of New England were instructed by the king " to join and assist them vigorously in recovering our right to those places now possessed by the Dutch, and reducing them to an entire obedience and submis- sion to our government." ' On the 25th of August the frigate " Guinea," the first ves^^el of the expedition to reach the point of destination, entered the lower bay of New Amsterdam, and a proclamation was issued guaranteeing protection to those persons who should submit to the English authority. The other vessel having arrived, after considerable negotiation, on the 9th of September, the Dutch authorities sur- rendered New Amsterdam to the English, the latter permitting the garrison to march out of the fort with all their arms, drums beating and colors flying. The English commissioners, when they had acquired pos- session of the settlement, changed the name of the place to New York, in honor of the duke. To secure control of the Delaware River territory, on the 3d (13th) of September, 1664, Sir Robert Carr was or- dered to proceed thither with the frigates " Guinea" and " William" and " Nicholas" and " to reduce the same" "to an English province. The instructions given him, among other things, required that all planters were to retain their real and personal property un- molested by the conquerors, and Carr was particularly directed to conciliate the Swedes; that all persons were to be permitted liberty of conscience ; the magis- trates were to be continued in office for six months on subscribing to the oath of allegiance ; the settlers were to be protected from violence in persons or estates ; and the system of jurisprudence there is urged not to be disturbed for the present.' After a long and troublesome passage, the exiiedition aVrived in the Delaware on the last day of September, and passed the fort at New Amstel without an exchange of shot, which was done, as Carr states, " the better to sattisfie the Sweede, who, notwithstanding the Dutches p'-

5 Old style; England at that time had not accepted the modem com- putation of time.

e Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. v. pp. 507-512.

» lb., 513.

8 Hazard's Register, vol. i. p. 36 ; Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. v. p. 636.

» Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. v. pp. 536, 537.

12

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

evasions to y° contrary, were soon our frinds." Carr then summoned the fort to surrender, and for three days negotiations were had between the opposing forces, which resulted in the magistracy of the place agreeing to surrender the town, a conclusion in which D'Hinoyossa and his soldiers declined to concur. " Whereupon," states Carr, in his official report,' " I landed my soldiers on Sunday morning following, & comanded ye shipps to fall downe before y" Fort wi"'n muskett shott, w* directions to tire two broadesides apeace upon y' Fort, then my soldiers to fall on. Which done, the soldiers neaver stoping untill they stormed y* fort, and soe consequently to plundering; the seamen, uoe less given to that sporte, were quickly w'Mn, & have gotten good store of booty ; so that in such a noise and confusion noe worde of comand could be heard for sometyme ; but for as many goods as I could preserve, I still Keepe intire. The loss on our part was none ; the Dutch had tenn wounded and 3 killed. The fort is not tenable, although 14 gunns, and w"'out a greate charge w"'' unevitably must be expended, here wilbee noe staying, we not being able to keepe itt." We learn from Col. Nicolls' report to the Secretary of State' that the storming-party was commanded by Lieut. Carr and Ensign Hooke ; and, notwithstanding the Dutch fired three volleys at them, not a man in their ranks was wounded in the assault. Sir Robert Carr, it seems, stayed aboard the " Guinea" until the fort wa* captured, when he landed and claimed that the property in the fort, having been won by the sword, was his and his troops. All the soldiers and many of the citizens of New Amstel were sold as slaves to Virginia by the English con- querors, and most of the negroes belonging to the Dutch settlers were distributed among the captors, as were also one hundred sheep, forty horses, sixty cows and oxen.' Lands and estates were confiscated, and granted by Sir Robert Carr to his officers, as well as the commanders of the vessels which took part in the expedition to the Delaware.

When the standard of Great Britain floated from the flag-staffs over the captured Dutch forts on the Hudson and the Delaware it marked the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race on the North American continent, and as authority was then exercised from Maine to Florida, on the Atlantic coast, by a homo- geneous people, it made possible the great nation that was born to the world a century later. It was singu- larly fortunate, at this juncture, that the unbridled executive power in the new province was confided to so prudent and able a man as Col. Richard Nicolls proved to be, whose " administration was so wise and impartial that it enforced universal peace."* On the Delaware the Swedes, who had heretofore been held as a subjugated people, were in every respect benefited by the change, and even the Dutch settlers had reason

2 lb., 541. ! Hist, of Del,, p. 432.

1 Penna. Archives, 2d scries, vol. v. p. 660. ' N. y. Coloniiil Doc, vol. iii. p. 346; Vine * Gordon's " Historj* of Pennaylvaniii," p. :

I to be glad that the tyrannical sway of Stuyvesant had ended. In May, 1667, Col. Francis Lovelace suc- ceeded Col. Nicolls, and, as has been said by an able writer, " under Governor Lovelace the work of ad- justing the government of the Delaware, so as to bring it slowly but steadily into conformity with English law, progressed systematically year by year, until it received an unexpected check in 1673 by the total,

', but temporary, suspension of English authority inci- dent to the second conquest of the country by the Dutch." 5

Late in the summer of 1671 the Indians had com- mitted several atrocious murders, and it became neces- sary for Governor Lovelace to act cautiously but

j firmly to check further outrages, and to punish the

j culprits for the crimes already perpetrated. As pre- liminary to an Indian war he ordered that persons living in the outer settlements should thrash their grain and remove it and the cattle to a place of com- parative safety ; that no person, on pain of death,

i should sell powder, shot, or liquor to the savages, as also recommending the strengthening of garrisons and fortifications. Lovelace prudently had a confer- ence with the Governor of New Jersey, to secure, if war should result, the co-operation of that province, since the murderers were said to be under that juris-

I diction, and a meeting was held at New York, Sep- tember 25th, and another at Elizabethtown, N. J., Nov. 7, 1671, when it was determined that it was in- judicious at the then late season to begin an ofl'ensive movement against the savages, but that several com- panies of soldiers should be organized on the Dela- ware ; that every man capable of bearing arms (be- tween the ages of sixteen and sixty) should always be provided with powder and bullets fit for service, under a penalty ; that block-houses should be erected at sev- eral places on the river ; and also forbidding the ship- ment of grain unless a special license should be

' granted therefor. In the latter part of November the Indian sachems and William Tom, clerk of the court on the Delaware, held a council at Upland, at the

! house of Peter Rambo, at which the savages promised to bring the murderers to the whites within six days

j thereafter that they might be punished for their crimes, and if they could not bring them alive they agreed to deliver their dead bodies, as an. earnest of their purpose to prevent a war between the races. It afterwards appeared that one of the guilty men escaped from his people, and could not be delivered

I as promised, but the other was captured. It is stated by Tom'' that the smaller Indian, learning of the purpose of the sachems, went to the other and advised him to flee. The latter said he would go the next morning. Of the two Indians who had been dis- patched to take the culprits one was a personal friend, and was loath to kill his captive, but when the latter

i learned that the sachems had determined he must

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

13

die he placed his hands on his eyes and said, " Kill ' me." The other savage, not his friend, tliereupou ! shot two bullets into his breast. The body was taken to Wiccaco and delivered to the whites, who trans- ported it to New Castle, where it was hung in chains. The other murderer escaped by flight. The sachems faithfully notified the tribes that any of their people who should murder a white person would be similarly dealt with, and with this annunciation the cloud drifted by, greatly to the satisfaction of the magis- trates on the Delaware, who were opposed to the war, because among other things they proposed to " make \ towns at Passayvncke, Tinnaconck, Upland, Verdrie- I ties Hoocks, whereto the out plantacions" must retire in the event of a struggle.' I

The proscription on trade, which prevented vessels from ascending the Delaware Eiver beyond the fort at New Castle, remained in force until the latter : part of the year 1672, after which date no record re- mains, so faras known, of special licenses being given to trade above that point. On Sept. 29, 1671, Gov- ernor Lovelace authorized Capt. Thomas Lewis, of the ' sloop " Royal Oak," " to trade and Trafic, as the said \ masters occasion shall require," on the Delaware above | Newcastle, and no other vessel was permitted there to ship corn or provisions for exportation.- But pre- vious to this Capt. Martin Crieger, who seems to have run a packet-sloop regularly from New York to New 1 Castle, had license to go to the latter point, and Mrs. ; Susanna Garland was authorized to trade between those places.' In about three weeks subsequent to the j issuing of this license, permission was given the wife of Lawrence Hoist to go in Capt. Martin Crieger's sloop to New Castle, and " from thence to go up the River in some boat or Canoe to the Sweeds Plantations with shoes & such other of her Husband's Trade, & to return again without any maner of Lett, hinderence or molestation whatever."* March 20, 1672, John Schouten, in the sloop '' Hope," was authorized to trade at New Castle and parts adjacent, while the same day John Garland, of New York, and Susanna, his wife, were licensed to " TrafiBck with the Indyans" on the river above New Castle.' Mr. Christoph Hoog- i land, Sept. 28, 1672, was licensed to go on Criegers' j sloop to New Castle, with the privilege to trade on the river. Capt. Crieger, who was a " Dutchman," seems to have run the packet between the places named for more than ten years, for in July, 1682, Deputy Gov- ernor Markham complained that Capt. Crieger at New Castle had permitted Lord Baltimore the use of astronomical instruments, which were shipped by Markham at New York and intended only 'for him.''

War having been declared in 1672 by England and France against the United Belgic Provinces, on the 30th of July, 1673, the colony of New York, with its

dependencies on the Delaware River settlements, was recaptured by the Dutch fleet under Admiral Evert- sen, and Capt. Anthony Colve was commissioned Governor-General of " New Netherlands with all its Appendencies." Peter Alricks was appointed com- mander on the Delaware, with instructions that the right of private property should not be disturbed, nor should that belonging to persons holding office under the Duke of York be confiscated where the party took the oath of allegiance to the Dutch government. Freedom of conscience was assured to those who were followers of the true Christian religion according to the Synod of Dordrecht, but the new commander was instructed not to permit " any other sects attempting anything contrary thereto."' By the terms of the treaty of peace, Feb. 9, 1674, the province reverted to the Duke of York, and English authority was re- established on Oct. 1, 1674, when Maj. Edmund An- drosse, as governor, received possession of Fort James at New York, and appointed Capt. Edmund Carr commander on the Delaware. On Sept. 25, 1676, the Duke of York's laws were promulgated as the rule of conduct on the Delaware River, and courts in con- formity therewith were established ; one of which was "above att Uplands," where quarterly sessions were directed to be held on the second Tuesday of the month.

Early in the year 1675 the first member of the So- ciety of Friends known to have resided within the boundaries of Delaware County purchased an estate at Upland. Robert Wade, on March 21, 1675, bought the tract of ground known as Printzdorp from " Jus- tina Armguard, alias vpo Papegay," for eighty pounds sterling,- whereon he subsequently erected the famous " Essex House."

Penna. Archives, 2d serie	s, vol. vii. p. 756.
i lb, vol. V. pp. 605-607.
: lb., pp. 6H, 612.	» lb., p. 613.
' Pcnna. Mug. 0/ Hist., vol.	vi. p. 429.

" Penna. Aichives, 2d series, vol. v. p. 636.

s Recital in Deed from Jonathan Dickinson Sargeant and William Rotch Wister, trustees under the will of Albanus C. Logau, deceased, to Joliu ^1 J'.i 11 ii:. I'-a Hook E, No. 2, page 673, etc., Recorder's office, 51 ., . i . I:. I.itf of the conveyance to Wade is of record, 1673, but ! I ! 1 sical error is evident from the following let-

ter, wLilIi ;= (ui lol,. ill -A Further Account of New Jersey, in an Abstract of Letters written from thence by Several Inhabitants there Resident. London, Printed in the year 1676," pages 6 and 7 : " Dear and Loving Wife

" Having now an opportunty to let thee understand of my welfare, through the great mercy of God &c, and as to the other place it is as good or healthful place as man can desire to live in, and here is plenty enough of all provisions, and good English Wheat and Mault, plenty of Fish and Fowl; Indeed here is no want of anything, but lionest people to Inhabit it; there is Land enough purchased of the Indians for ten times so many as we were and these Indians here are very quiet and Peacable Indians ; In New England they are at Wars with the Indians, and the news is, they have cut ofS a great many of them ; but in this place, the Lord is making way to exalt his name and truth ; for it is said by those that live here abouts, that within these few years, here were five Indians for one now, and these that be are very willing to sell their land to the English; and had John Feuwick done wisely, we had not been disperst, but I hope it may all work for the best; And dear Wife, I hope thou will be well satisfied to come and live here, where we may live very quietly and Peacably, where we shall have no vexation, nor tearing nor rending what we have from us ; I have bought a plan- tation by the advice and consent of some Friends, upon which there is a very good house, a great deal of Out-housing, Orcharde, and Gardens ready planted, and well-fenced ; I do intend (if God permit) after the

u

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

The Essex House' stood on the site of the present brick dwelling at the northwest corner of Second and Penn Streets, Chester. It was a story and a half in height, its southeast gable fronting the river, the rear or southwest side facing Concord Avenue, and its front, with a commodious porch, extended the entire length of the building to Chester Creek. Almost one hundred and ten feet southeastwardly from it stood the noted trees under which Penn landed, seven years after Wade became the owner of the estate. In the journal of the Labadists, Dankers and Sluyter, in 1679, particular mention is made of these trees. "We have nowhere seen," they record, "so many vines together as we saw here, which had been planted for the purpose of shading' the walks on the river side in between the trees."'- It seems that Wade, after the purchase of the estate from Mrs. Pappegoya, re- turned to Great Britain, whence, accompanied by his wife, Lydia, he sailed in the ship "Griffin," which arrived in the Delaware on the 23d of Ninth month (November), 1675. It was in that year, we are told, that William Edmundson, a public Friend from Ire- land, made a second visit to America, and while he and his party journeyed, swimming their horses across the river at Trenton and the intermediate creeks, and camping out in the woods at night, when on the way to " Delaware Town, on the west side of the river Delaware," ..." there came up a Finland man, well-horsed, who spoke English. He soon perceived what they were, and gave them an account of several of their friends. His house was as far as they could

Harvest is gotten io, to come to England for thee, and'I hope thou wilt be willing to come, seeing here are several of thy Neighbours whom thou knowest well, as Richard Guy and his Wife and William Hancock and his Wife, and many others; and here is an honest Friend with me, that would have a fourth part of the Laud Ac, And so hoping these lines may find thee in g^od health, as through the great mercy and goodness of God I have never been better in health.

'* My love to Richard Green, he desired me to send him some account of the Country, which to the best of my knowledge I will do; as to Buildings here is little until more People come over, for the Inhabitants that were here did generally Build their own houses, though after a mean manner, for they fell down Trees, and split them in Parts, and so make up a sorry House, &c. But here is Earth enough that will make very good Bricks, and Stone enough of severall sorts, as four that will stroke fire, which may make millstones, or what a man will put them to; they make their Lime of oyster shells; here is a good Land and a Healthful and Plentiful Country^ here is no Tanner in all the River, but some Tann their Hides themselves, after their own manner. Here is good Oak enough, here is Hemp and Flax, good Water, and the Ground will bear anything that Groweth in England, and with less Pains and trouble ; with my dear Love to thee I rest thy loving Husband.

"Robert Wade. " Delaware River, the place called

Upland, the 2d of the 2d month,

1675."

1 In "A Journal of a Voyage to New York in 1679-80," Memoirs of Long Island Historical Society, vol. i. p. 1S3, it is recorded ; " It was late before we left here and we therefore had time to look around a little and Bee the remains of the residence of Madame Popegay, who had her dwell- ing here when she left Tinekonk." The diary the preceding day mentions that Robert Wade had brought the travelers to Upland after dark, and "we went to the house of the Quaker who had brought us down." So that there can be no doubt that the Kssex House was never owned by Mrs. Pappegoya.

2 "Journal of a Voyage to ■New York in 1679-80.'' Memoiin of Long j Island Historical Society, vol. i. p. 183. '

ride that day; there he conducted them and lodged them kindly. The next morning being the first day of the week, they went to Upland (since named Chester), where a few Friends were met at Robert Wade's house. After meeting was over they took boat and went to Salem, where they met with John Fenwick and several families of Friends, who, with those at Chester, had come from England in that year with John Fenwick." '■' It is, however, nowise certain ] that the Essex House had been built when the first recorded meeting of Friends in Pennsylvania was held at Wade's dwelling at Upland, but that it had been ' erected before 1679, the statement of the Labadist ministers, already quoted as a note, conclusively estab- lishes.

Governor Andross, on Sept. 25, 1676, promulgated the Duke of York's laws by proclamation, declaring that they " Bee likewise in force and practiced in this River and Precincts," excepting such ordinances as were peculiarly applicable to Long Island. At the same time he ordered courts to be held at three places on the river. That at Upland to be a Court of Quar- ter Sessions, and to begin on the second Tuesday of the month.*

The records of these early courts are historically interesting, for in them is found the story of the gradual growth of the English system of jurispru- dence in the State, which will be related elsewhere in this work.

On March 4, 1681, Charles II. of England signed the great charter which conveyed to William Penn, in lieu of the sum of sixteen thousand pounds, which the king owed to Admiral William Penn, the enor- mous tract of laud now known as Pennsylvania, and from that period our early annals become more inter- esting, for from that time we may date the actual founding of this great commonwealth. Almost im- mediately thereafter Penn sent his first cousin, Wil- liam Markham, to the colony as his Deputy Governor. It is presumed that he came over in the ship " John and Sarah," from London, commanded by Henry Smith, which was the first to arrive here after the grant was made to Penn. Certain it is that Markham was in New York about June 15, 1681,* and previous to the 21st of that month he had presented his com- mission to the authorities at New York, for on that date the Governor and Council issued a proclamation announcing the royal grant and commanding all per- sons to recognize Markham as Governor of Pennsyl- vania. On August 3d following he was at Upland and had assumed the reins of power on the Delaware, for on the date last mentioned his Council took and subscribed to the oath of oflice. The members of the

3 Smith's " History of the Province of Pennsylvania." Hazard's Regis- ter, vol. vi. p. 182.

< Pennna. Archives, 2d series, vol. iii. p. 783.

6 A letter to William Penn from New York, dated June 25, liJ81, says. "This is to acquaint thee that about ten daies since here arrived Francis Richardson with tliy Deputy."— Pen;i. Mag. of Hist., vol. vi. p. 175.

THE CmCULAR BOUNDARY LINE.

15

Governor's Council were Robert Wade, Morgan Drewt, William Woodmanse, William Warner, Thomas Fairman, James Saudilands, William Clayton, Otto Ernst Cock, and Lasse Cock, almost every one resi- dents of the territory now Delaware County. " The proceedings of their first session were kept secret and little is known, except that the government of the new province was established witli the capital at Ujj- land, where we find Markham holding court on the 30th of November, 1681.'" Markham made his resi- dence at the Esses House,^ and there the first sum- mons from Penu, calling a General Assembly, were written and proclaimed, for, as is well known, the proprietary was Wade's guest on his first coming to the province in 1682.

CHAPTER III.

THE CIRCULAK BOUNDARY LINE BETWEEN DELA- AVARE COUNTY AND THE STATE OF DELAWARE.

That Lord Baltimore, long before the royal grant to Penn, during the Dutch ascendency on the Dela- ware, had made demand upon the Hollanders for all the land lying to the south of the fortieth degree north latitude is fully attested by the published records, but inasmuch as his representatives never, so far as we have knowledge, personally came to any locality in Pennsylvania, the story of that disputed territorial authority at that time is properly the subject-matter j of the history of the State of Delaware, and does not come within the scope of this work.

The controversy respecting the proper adjustment of the boundary line between the territories of Lord Baltimore and William Penn was a long and bitter struggle, which, descending from father to son, cov- ered nearly a century in tedious and expensive litiga- tion before it was finally set at rest by the decree of Lord Chancellor Hardwick and the establishment of the noted Mason and Dixon line in conformity there- with. While the southern boundary of Delaware County presents a circular course extending the State of Delaware several miles at its northern limit beyond the straight line which elsewhere forms the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, that circle constitutes historically no part of the Mason and Dixon survey, which, during the Missouri Compromise debates in 1820, was made so familiar to the nation by John Randolph, who, in his remarks, constantly referred to it as the imaginary geographical line which marked the division between the free and slave States. Nearly four years previous to the grant of the territory to Penn, for the convenience of the then settlers on the

1 Duke of York's Book of Laws, p. 471.

2 Sept. 23, 1682, Markham lived there, for he says, " Lord Baltimore was at my lodging at Robert Waile's."— Pmn. Mag. of Hist., vol. vl. p. 430.

Delaware, an amicable adjustment of the line dividing New Castle and Upland (afterward Chester County) was made. At a court held at Upland, Nov. 12, 1678, this proceeding is recorded as follows: '

"The Limits and Division between this and Now Castle county, were this day agreed upon and settled By this Court and Mr. John Moll president of New Castle Court To be as followeth, vizt.

" This County of Upland to begin from ye north syde of oele franseus Creeke, otherwise Called SteenkiU Lying in the boght above ye verdrie- tige hoeck, and from the said Creek over to ye singletree point ou the East syde of the Eiver.'*

This division, Edward Armstrong, in his valuable note to the " Record of Upland Court," has made intelligible to the modern reader. The creek, he tells us, at the time when the boundary line between the two counties was adjusted, known as Oele Francens, was at a late date called Streen or Stoney Creek, and is now recognized as Quarryville Creek, cro.ssing the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad three and three-quarter miles below the mouth of Naaman's Creek, in Brandy wine Hundred, New Castle Co., Del. " Verdrietige hoeck." or corner of land, was also called Trinity Hook, lying between Shellpot (a corruption of " Skelldpadde," the Swedish for "turtle") and Stoney Creeks. "Verdrietige" was a term derived from the Dutch " verdrietigh," signify- ing " grievous" or " tedious," owing to the character of the navigation in approaching that point, while " Singletree Point" is now " Old Man's Point," on the New Jersey shore, one mile below the mouth of "Old Man Creek "

The charter or patent of Charles II. to William Penn, bearing date the 4th day of March, 1681, as also in the proclamation of the king, April 2d of the same year, in defining the territorial boundaries of Penn's provinces, mentions the circular line as " on the South by a circle drawn at twelve miles distance from New Castle northwards and westwards into the beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude and then by a streight line westwards to the limits of longitude above mentioned."

After Penn had acquired jurisdiction of the territory by virtue of the royal grant, he dispatched his cousin, Capt. William Markham, as his Deputy Governor, to represent him in the province. The latter, in a letter to Penn, dated New York, June 25, 1681, says, "This is to acquaint thee that about ten daies since here arrived Francis Richardson with thy Deputy," and on the 3d day of August, 1681, Markham was in Upland, as stated in the preceding chapter.

In the latter part of August, 1681, Capt. William Markham, Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, who had been intrusted by the king with a letter to Charles, Lord Baltimore, requesting the latter to " ap- point with all convenient speed some person or per- sons who may in connection with the agent or agents of ye said William Penn make a true division & sepa- ration of ye said Province of Maryland and Pennsil-

^ Record of Upland Court, page 119.

16

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

vania according to the bounds and degree of northern latitude expressed in our letters patent, &c.," went to Maryland in order to settle as quickly as might be the controversy respecting the boundary line between the two provinces. Markham also took with him a letter from William Penn to Lord Baltimore, urging the prompt adjustment of the vexatious dispute. The lord proprietary of Maryland received Penn's repre- sentative with marked kindness ; and as the latter was suffering from indisposition, induced by the in- tensely warm weather, Baltimore invited Markham to his house on the Patuxent River, where the latter became dangerously ill, and for nearly a month was incapable of being moved. On his recovery he de- termined to return to Pennsylvania, but before his departure Baltimore and he arranged to meet at Up- land on the 16th of October following, where observa- tions should then be taken to ascertain precisely where the fortieth degree of northern latitude was, and thus adjust the disputed point of territorial boundaries. Markham also promised to borrow from Col. Lewis Morris, of New York, the necessary instruments for making the astronomical observations. Unexpected, the passage of the vessel up Chesapeake Bay to its head was long and tedious, so that much of the time Markham had intended for his journey to New York was thereby consumed. Hence, from the head of the bay, he addressed a letter to Lord Baltimore, Sept. 25, 1681, requesting that the meeting should be deferred until the 26th of the same month. When the Deputy Governor reached Upland he was again taken ill, and thereupon he wrote to Lord Baltimore, this time in- forming him that his physical condition was such that it would be impossible for him to attend to the adjust- ment of the boundary line until the following spring. This letter was forwarded, but before it reached its destination Markham received a communication from Lord Baltimore, dated Oct. 10, 1681, in which the latter stated that he could not come to Upland that year " for fear of the frost," which might intercept navigation, but inasmuch as the king's wishes in this matter have not been complied with, his lordship would place on Blarkham the responsibility of not meeting that year. In the mean while both parties to the controversy maintained that his adversary was trespassing on his domain, and so convinced was Wil- liam Penn that this was the case, that on Sept. 16, 1681, he addressed letters to six of the most extensive land-owners in Maryland, whose possessions were lo- cated within the debatable territory, stating that he had no doubts that their estates were within his prov- inces, under his grant from the crown, and notified them to pay no taxes or assessments in obedience to any order of the lord proprietary or laws of Mary- land. This claim on the part of Penn caused many of the residents of the latter colony to resist the pub- lic levies, and so general was this sentiment in Balti- more and Cecil Counties that the military was ordered to assist the sheriffs in collecting the taxes. Lord

Baltimore, in his account of the difficulty respecting the boundaries, states that one of Penn's commission- ers, William Haige, a Quaker, had taken astronomi- cal observations at the head of the bay (Chesapeake), and that he was very much dissatisfied at the result he obtained. Haige afterward went to Patuxent, where, in an interview with Baltimore, the latter charged him with having " taken some observations at Elk river, for his private satisfaction," which Haige acknowledged he had done, but said the instrument he had used was so small that nothing decisive could be arrived at.

The winter of 1681 passed without any definite ac- tion being had until May 14, 1682, when Lord Balti- more wrote to Markham, desiring to meet him at Augustine Herman's plantation' on June 10th, to adjust boundaries. Markham, who was compelled to meet the Indians, to make payment for lands he had purchased from them, could not meet the Maryland commissioners at the time Baltimore had designated, since the Indians had deferred their annual hunt, nor was he ready, inasmuch that he was unable to pro- cure the use of Col. Morris' instrument until he had per.sonally visited New York and entered security for its safe return. For the latter purpose he went to New York on the 26th of May, 1682, and before he started he sent a message to Lord Baltimore, ap- prising him of his journey thither, and requested that the proposed meeting might be deferred until his re- turn. Baltimore, however, dispatched commissioners to represent him at the time fixed by him, and by them sent a letter to Markham, stating that they were fully qualified to act in his behalf, and trusting that they would be met by parties similarly commissioned on the part of Penn. The Maryland commissioners, when they reached Herman's plantation, feigned to be surprised at not meeting Markham's representa- tives, and on the day designated by Baltimore (June 10, 1682) addressed a letter to Markham, which was delivered to the Deputy Governor, then in New York, by George Goforth. In the communication the writers requested Markham to send the instrument he had promised to borrow from Col. Morris, as also to dis- patch duly qualified persons to meet with them. The Maryland commissioners tarried several days at Her- man's, ostensibly to await the coming of Markham's representatives, but in the mean while employed them- selves in making astronomical observations..^

1 A tract of four thousand acres, still known as Bohemia Manor, Cecil Co., Md., on the east bank of Elk EiTer, which was patented June 19, 16G2, by Lord Baltimore to Augustine Herman, in consideration of the latter having undertaken to prepare a map of Maryland. This chart was engraved and published by Faithorne, in London, in 1G72, and is very accurate so far as it delineates the western shore of the Chesapeake and the peninsula lying between the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. (Johnston's " History of Cecil County, Md.," page 37.)

= Extract of a letter to the Ld Baltimore from the commissioners appointed by bis lordship to settle the bounds between Maryland and Pennsylvania, June 17, 1682 (published in Pmmijhauia Mag,mne of History and Biogmphy, vol. vi. p. 418, note) :

" Wee have taken three severall observations & in all of them have not

THE CIRCULAR BOUNDARY LINE.

17

The letter from the commissioners to Markham, as before stated, was delivered to him in New York, and he immediately procured the instrument, which he sent in a sloop to New Castle, and made his way homeward by land to Burlington, where he took a j boat for the remaining distance. Pending these move- • ments on the part of the Deputy Governor of Penn- sylvania, the Maryland commissioners had gone to New Castle, — out of " a curiosity to see yt Towne," as they said, — and when they got there they learned that the sloop having Col. Morris' astronomical in- strument was at the landing. They, aided by the entreaties of the Dutch inhabitants of the place, per- ; suaded Capt. Criger, himself a Dutchman, to permit them to make use of the instrument. On Tuesday, ; June 27, 1682, it being a very clear day, the commis- sioners made several observations, and found that town was in thirty-nine degrees forty odd minutes north latitude. The next day Markham went to New Castle, where he learned that the Maryland commis- sioners had left the place the very night of the day they had used the instrument which the Governor of Pennsylvania had had so much trouble to procure. The following morning Markham sent William Haige to Herman's plantation, trusting that the Marylanders had gone thither, but before he got there they had renewed their journey southward. Markham there- upon wrote to Baltimore explaining his absence, and received in reply an intimation that in September he (Baltimore) proposed to send his commissioners again to meet him, and perhaps he might personally accom- pany them. On September 12th, Lord Baltimore sailed from Patuxent, reaching the Elk River on the 19th of the same month. There was no accommoda- tion for his suite at Herman's, and after he had dis- patched a message to Markham, who was then at Burlington, Lord Baltimore, with a number of per- sons, went to New Castle, from which place, on the evening of the 23d of September, he embarked in boats for Upland, reaching the latter hamlet that night. He lodged at the dwelling of Robert Wade, where Markham then dwelt. The following morning (Sunday) Markham (who had been informed that Baltimore was at New Castle, had hastened his return to meet him, and had reached home the same night that the Marylanders came to Upland) called on Lord Baltimore. The latter was accompanied by Col. Corsie, Maj. Seawell, Maj. Sawyer, four commission- ers, and forty men " armed with carbines, pistols, and

differed two niiuutes & wee find Mr. Augustin Hermau's house to lye in the latitude of 39d & 45in so that your Lordship has 15m. yet from hence due North which will go not farr short of Upland & this differs very little from their own observation lately taken as wee are credibly informed wee have used our endeavors in letting all here know of your Lordship's Desire to have the bounds determined & all seem much satis- fled with your Lordship's proceedings much blaiming Mr. Markham that after so many flourishes he should bee thus backward; Wee ques- tion but ye Lines will fall to answer yor Lordship's expectacons & our true endeavors shall not be wanting to give your Lordship satisfac-

swords." The lord proprietary of Maryland, al- though Markham stated that it was the Sabbath, and not a day for the transaction of business, requested that his own as well as Col. Morris' instruments should be set up, so that it would be known how they agreed. Markham at length consented, it being un- derstood that the degree of latitude should be ascer- tained the following day; but while the Pennsylva- nians were absent one of Lord Baltimore's attendants took an observation, and reported that he found the latitude of Upland was thirty-nine degrees forty-five minutes. Next morning Baltimore desired to go far- ther up the river, as far as the fortieth degree, and, that ascertained, to follow that line westward as the boundary of the province. Markham, however, de- clined this proposition, stating that he (Baltimore) could have no claim on the river twelve miles north- ward of New Castle, because the king's grant to Wil- liam Penn fully covered all the land on the Delaware above that point. Baltimore replied that he had nothing to do with the grant to Penn, but would be guided by the grant the king had made to him, many years before Penn's charter. The dispute thereupon waxed warm, during which Baltimore declared that he did not propose to bring the matter before the king and his Council, but designed to take his own wherever he found it ; that if, as Markham asserted. New Castle was the centre of the circle, and a sweep therefrom must be had before the beginning of the direct line westward was established, " his Majesty must have long compasses." The interview terminated by Markham refusing to permit Lord Baltimore to ascend the river to make observations, and a demand from the latter that the Deputy Governor of Pennsyl- vania should furnish his reasons for his action in writing, a request which the latter immediately com- plied with.' The two Governors, however, agreed to meet at New Castle the next day, so that the point of forty degrees might be determined at the head of Chesapeake Bay.

In the afternoon of the 20th of September Lord Baltimore left Upland for New Castle, but before he stepped into the boat at the landing he spoke in a

1 This letter is published in 6 Penn. Mag, of History and Biography, p. 432 : " To Bis ExceU'y My Lord Baltimort :

" Whereas your lordship hath been pleased to Desire a reason of me under my Hand why 1 concurr not with yourlordshippin Laying out the bounds of this province Pennsilvania upon Delaware river: My Lord This is my reason that as I received all yt part of The river Delaware beginning 12 Miles above New Castle Towne and so Upwards, ffrom The Government of New York which is according to The Express words of his Majesty's Letters Patent To our Proprietory Wm. Penn Esqr I most humbly Conceive That I am not to be accoumptuble to any other person Than his Majesty or Koyall Highness ffor any part of This Province lay- ing upon DelawareRiver&soeboundedbut if your Lordshippbe willing to lay out ye bounds betwixt This Province and your Lordshipp's Laying towards Chesapeake Bay and The rivere on That side I am ready and willing to wayte upon your Lordship for yt end A purpose.

" Upland in Pennsylvania 7ber 29th 1682.

*' I am mv Lord your Lordshipps most Humble Servt

" Wm. Maekoau."

18

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

loud voice to Markham, who was present, together with a number of the residents of the place. " You are sensible, Capt. Markham, that by an observation taken yesterday that this plantation is in thirty-nine degrees forty-seven minutes and some seconds, and must therefore be sensible that I am here about twelve miles to the southward of the degree of forty, which is my north bound as the same is Mr. Penn's south bound. Therefore, afore you and all the rest here present, I lay claim to this place and as far further as the degree of forty will reach." To this claim of Lord Baltimore, Markham made no response, but with courteous attention conducted the former to the boat, and thus they parted. Baltimore, as he descended the river, halted at Marcus Hook, where he lauded, and, going to each of the dwellings at that place, pro- hibited the residents from paying any more quit-rents to Penn, as the land did not come within his territory, but was part of Maryland, and that he, Baltimore, would return suddenly and take possession of his own. This notification, particularly as the one who made it was attended with the pomp and circumstance of power, caused the utmost consternation among the settlers, who repaired to Upland the next day, just as Markham — the instrument being placed on board a boat — was al.iout starting on horseback with his at- tendants for New Castle, and so great was the excite- ment consequent on Lord Baltimore's unexpected claim that Markham called his Council immediately together, and they decided that the Deputy Governor must remain at Upland " to quiet the disturbed peo- ple." Whereupon Markham wrote to Lord Baltimore that he could not meet him at New Castle under the circumstances.'

Although the proprietaries of the two provinces could not adjust their dispute, for the expediency of the inhabitants the court at Chester, on March 14, 1683, declared that Naaman's Creek should be the boundary line between the two counties; and so generally was this recognized, that Thomas Holme, surveyor-general under Penn, in his " map of the improved part of the Province of Pennsylvania in America," observes this division.

Nevertheless there was some confusion still exist- ing, hence ten years later, in 1693, a petition was pre- sented by some of the inhabitants of Chester County to the Governor and Council, stating that they were seriously inconvenienced because of there being no authoritatively recognized line between that county and New Castle. The Council after discussing the topic, on the 9th of August, 1693,—

•'Besatved, Tliat for tlie present conveuience of the government, and not for an absolute and final proprietarie division, but that the inhabit- ants on the borders of both counties may Know to which of the two to pay their levies, taxes, etc., and perform their other countle services, the bounds of New Castle co\inty shall extend northward to the mouth of I creek and upwards along the southwest side of the Northmost

For fuller particulars of the interview between Baltin m see f» Venn. Mag. of Uutortj anii Biography, p. 412.

branch (excluding the townships of Concord and Bethel), and not to ex- tend backwards of the said northmost branch above the said two town-

For eight years the boundary thus established seemed to meet in a measure the demands of the sparsely-settled country immediately effected thereby, although the constantly-growing disposition on the part of the inhabitants of the three lower counties (now the State of Delaware) to separate from the ter- ritory comprising the commonwealth of Pennsyl- vania was often manifested during the interval, and at length culminated in a petition from the Assembly to Penn, 20th of Seventh month, 1701, in which they urge " that the division line between the counties of New Castle and Chester be ascertained allowing the boundary according to the proprietarj^'s letters patent from the King." Penn, then in Philadelphia, in response to this petition, replied, " It is my own inclination, and I desire the representatives of New Castle and Chester Counties forthwith, or before they leave town, to attend me about the time and man- ner of doing it." In conformity with the wish of Penn a conference was held, which resulted in a warrant being issued 28th of Eighth month, 1701, to Isaac Taylor, surveyor of Chester County, and Thomas Pierson, surveyor of New Castle County, requiring them to meet the magistrates of the two counties, or any three of them, and, — " In their presence to ad- measure and survey from the town of New Castle the distance of twelve miles in a right line up ye said river and from ye said distance according to ye King's letters patent and deeds from the Duke and ye said circular line to be well-marked two-thirds parts of ye semi-circle."

The surveyor designated made report that, on the 4th day of Tenth month (December), 1701, in the presence of Cornelius Empson, Richard Halliwell, and John Richardson, justices of New Castle County, and Caleb Pusey, Philip Roman, and Robert Pyle, justices of Chester County, they ran the division lines, beginning at the point of the radial line, which was selected by the magistrates "at the end of the horse dyke next to the town of New Castle." Thence they measured due north twelve miles, the termination of : that distance being " a white oak marked with twelve i notches standing on the west side of Brandywine ' Creek, in the lands of Samuel Helm ;" thence, east- i wardly, " circularly changing our course from the east southward one degree at the end of every sixty-seven perches, which is the chord of one degree to a twelve miles radius ; and at the end of forty-three chords we came to the Delaware River, on the upper side of Nathaniel Lampley's old house at Chichester." The : surveyors then returned to the marked white oak on Helm's land and ran a westwardly course, changing, as before, " our course one degree from the west-south- ward at the cud of every sixty-seven perches, . . . until we had extended seventy-seven chords, which, being added to the forty-three chords, make two-thirds part

THE CIRCULAR BOUNDARY LINE.

19

of the semi-circle to a twelve-mile radius, all which said circular lines being well marked with three notches on each side of the trees to a marked hick- ory standing near the western branch of Christiana Creek."

The cost of the survey to the county of Chester is exhibited in the annexed interesting report of the Grand Jury :

" Chestee the 24 of the 12 month 1701-2. "We of the Grand .Jury for the county having duly considered and carefully adjusted an account of charges contracted by running a cir- cular line dividing this county from the county of New Castle and set- tling the boundaries and having duly and deliberately debated every article of the said account, do allow of the sum of twenty-six pounds nine shillings due to be paid by the county for said work.

Cowp

Foren

Although there is a general impression that Mason j and Dixon afterwards ran the circular line, that is a popular error ; nor is it true, as stated in an excellent article published in a leading American periodical, that " in the difficulty of tracing this circle was the origin of the work of Mason and Dixon." ' The sur- vey of Isaac Taylor and Thomas Pierson, in 1701, be- fore described, is the only one ever made of the cir- cular boundary between Pennsylvania and Delaware. The act of May 28, 1715,' providing "for corrobo- rating the circular line between the counties of Ches- ter and New Castle," seems to have been a dead letter ] from its passage, and was repealed July 21, 1719.

It is an interesting fact, in view of the ease with which the justices, in 1701, arrived at the point in j New Castle where the twelve-mile radius should : begin,—" the end of the horse dyke next to the town ; of New Castle,"— to recall the manner in which the commissioners of Maryland, in 1750, attempted to ' reach a like starting-point. In the diary of John Watson,' one of the surveyors on behalf of Pennsyl- 1 vania on that occasion, he mentions that the map of the Maryland officials had a puncture in it at a desig- nated place within the limits of the town of New Castle from which they contended the radius of twelve | miles should be measured. Watson subsequently learned that this point had been ascertained in this wise : " The commissioners of Maryland had con- structed an exact plan of the town of New Castle upon a piece of paper, and then carefully pared away the edges of the draught until no more than the draught was left, when, sticking a pin through it, they suspended it thereby in different ]>laces until they found a place whereby it might be suspended hori- zontally, which point or place they accepted as the centre of gravity," hence the centre of the town.

As the notches made by Taylor and Pierson to mark the circular line in the lapse of time were ob- literated, thereafter to be recalled only in vague and

1 Hwjm'^8 Magazine^ vol. liii. p. 549. '

- Dallas' "Laws of Pennsylvania," vol. i. ii. 105. i

s Tliis diary in good preservation is owned by the Historical Society \

of Pennsylvania, to whom it was presented by the late William D. Gil- .

pin, of Philadelphia. Gilpin stated that he found it among some old I

papers whicii liad been sent to his mill as waste.

uncertain traditions, and as the story that on the re- examination, in 1768, by Mason and Dixon, of the line surveyed in 1751 by Emorj-, Jones, Parsons, Shankland, and Killen, that the "middle stone," planted by the latter surveyors at the southwestern boundary of the State of Delaware, was found over- thrown by money-diggers, who believed because of its armorial bearing that it had been set up by Capt. Kidd to mark the spot where part of his ill-gotten treasures were secreted, had shifted its location many times, the impression became general that the stone planted by Mason and Dixon to mark the intersection of the three States had also been removed. Hence, in 1849, the Legislature of Pennsylvania authorized the Governor to appoint a commissioner to act in con- junction with similar commissioners representing the States of Delaware and Maryland to determine the points of intersection, and to place a mark or monu- ment thereon to indicate its location. On behalf of Pennsylvania, Joshua P. Eyre, of Delaware County, was appointed commissioner. George Read Kiddle represented Delaware, and H. G. S. Key, Maryland. The commissioners made application to the Secretary of War to detail Lieut.-Col. James R. Graham, of the corps of Topographical Engineers, who had acquired considerable prominence in adjusting the boundary of the United States and Mexico, to make the neces- sary surveys. On Oct. 30, 1849, the commissioners assembled at Annapolis, Md., where they had access to the notes of Mason and Dixon, as well as the agreement dated May 10, 1732, between Charles, Lord Baltimore, and the heirs and successors of William Penn, as also the subsequent agreement between Frederick, Lord Baltimore, and Thomas and Richard Penn, surviving heirs of William Penn, dated July 4, 1760, and the decree of Lord Chancellor Hardwick, May 15, 1750, which was the basis of the final settle- ment of the long controversy.

The commissioners, we are told by the accomplished historians of Chester County,* at the northeast corner of Maryland — the commencement of the Mason and Dixon east and west line — found that the stone planted in 1768 to designate the spot, in a deep ravine, on the margin of a small brook near its source, was missing. That several years before the commissioners visited the place it had fallen to the earth, and had been taken away an<l used as a chimney-piece by a resident in the neighborhood, who, with some slight propriety, had driven a stake into the ground to mark the spot where the stone once stood. The commissioners at that point erected a new stone with the letter P on the north and east sides, and M on the south and west sides. At the junction of the three States the com- missioners set up a triangular prismatic post of cut granite, eighteen inches wide on each side and seven feet in length. It was inserted four and a half feet in the ground, and occupies the exact spot where the

< Futhey and Cope 's "History of Cheater County, Pa.," p. lOO.

20

HISTOllY OF DELAWAKE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

old unmarked stone placed there by Mason and Dixon was found by Col. Graham in 1849, who had the old boundarj' mark buried alongside of its more modern and pretentious fellow. This new stone is marked with the letters M, P, and D, on the sides facing re- spectively towards the States of Maryland, Pennsyl- vania, and Delaware. On the north side, below the letter P, are the names of the commissioners in deep- cut letters, with the date 1849. Col. Graham, in his report, says, —

"At the meridian or middle point of the arc, corresponding to the length of the cliord as we actually found it, and at the distance of one hundred and eighteen and four-tenths feet perpendicular from the middle point of said chord, a post of cut granite six feet long was inserted in the ground four and a half feet of its length. This stone squares seventeen by fourteen inches. It is rounded on the west side to indicate that it is on the curve, and on the east side the date 1849 is cut in deep figures.

" The circular boundary between Pennsylvania and Delaware from I the point of junction of the three States to river Delaware being yet un- i marked, and a number of citizens residing near the common border being in doubt whether as to which State they belonged, the survey was con- , ducted with such precision as to enable us to describe that boundary 1 correctly, as will appear upon our map, for a distance of about three and j three-quarter miles northwestward from junction. AVe have determined the distauce by computation at which a due east line from northeast corner of Maryland will cut that circular boundary, and find it to be four thousand and thirty-six feet, or seven sixty-six of a mile. We have also computed the angle with the meridian at the said northeast corner made by a Hue drawn from thence to the spire of the court-house at New Castle, and find it to be 70 degi-ees,20 minutes, and 45 seconds east of south. At the distance of 3786 feet, measured by the said line from the aforesaid northeast corner, this line will intersect the circular boun- dary."' )

As Stated before, no survey of the circular line be- tween Delaware and Pennsylvania has ever been made since that run by Isaac Ta5'lor and Thomas Pierson, in 1701, and it may be asserted without fear of contradiction that no person at this time knows exactly where the line dividing New Castle County, Del., and Delaware County, Pa., is, and where it en- ters the river.

CHAPTER IV.

WILLIAM PENN'S FIRST VOYAGE TO HIS PROVINCE IN 1632--THE CHANGE OF THE NAME UPLAND TO CHESTER, AND THE REASON IT WAS MADE.

As stated in the preceding chapter, as soon as Penn had acquired title to the three lower counties,-— the

1 Col. Graham states that the want of a proper demarkation of bound- aries between States is always a source of inconvenience and frequently of great trouble to parties residing therein, who are uncertain as to which State their taxes and personal services.jury duty and the like, are due. He tells us that tbey found that William Smith, who had served as a member of the Legislature of Delaware, resided fully half a luile within Pennsylvania, measured on the shortest dii-ection from his dwell- ing-house to the circular boundary.

2 Futhey and Cope, in a note to their UistoryofCbeBter County, page 20, state, "Although the territory west of the Delaware had been gov- erned by the Duke of York, he at the time held no valid title to any part of it. King Charles II. made a regular conveyance to him of the country Comprised within the present territorial limits of the State of Delaware

present State of Delaware, — he made his arrangements to visit his colony, and so energetically did he act that in less than one week after the execution of the deeds by the duke on the 30th day of the Sixth month (August, — for the Friends of those days computed the year as beginning on the 1st of March), he sailed for Pennsylvania from Deal in the ship " Welcome," of three hundred tons burden, Kobert Greenaway, com- mander, accompanied by about one hundred com- panions, mostly Friends, from Sussex, England. The voyage was lengthy (smallpox having broken out on the vessel, of which disease thirty of the emigrants died on the pa.ssage), and on the 27th day of October, 1682, the " Welcome" stopped at New Castle, where Penn landed, and took possession of the three lower counties with all the pomp and circumstance usual at that time in the formal transfer of estates. It is known he stayed at New Castle all night, and the next day the vessel stood up the river and cast anchor off" the mouth of Chester Creek, opposite the house of Rob- ert Wade, for, as is stated in the manuscript book of Evan Oliver, a passenger on the " Welcome," " We arrived at Upland in peusilvania in America, ye 28tli of ye 8th month, '82." '

Dr. Smith, in referring to the landing of Penn, says, " He landed at ^Upland, but the place was to bear that familiar name no more forever. Without reflection, Penn determined that the name of the place should be changed. Turning round to his friend Pearson, one of his own society, who had accompanied him in the ship ' Welcome,' he said, ' Providence has brought us here safe. Thou hast been the companion of my perils. What wilt thou that I should call this place?' Pearson said, 'Ches- ter,' in remembrance of the city from whence he came. William Penn replied that it should be called Chester, and that when he divided the land into counties one of them should be called by the same name. Thus for a mere whim the name of the oldest town, the name of the whole settled part of the prov- ince, the name that would have a place in the affec- tions of a large majority of the inhabitants of the new province, was effaced to gratify the caprice or vanity of a friend. All great men occasionally do little things." *

Although Dr. Smith cites Clarkson's Life of Penu and Hazard's Annals in support of this statement, it will not bear investigation. We know that Penn is- sued his proclamation three weeks after his arrival at Chester to the several sheriffs of the counties of Ches- ter, Philadelphia, and Bucks, as well as the three lower counties, to hold an election for a General As- sembly, to convene at " Upland.'" The original letter of Penn, now in the Historical Society of Peunsyl-

on the 22d of March, 1683 ; the deeds from the duke to Penn for the same country were executed on the 24th of August, 1682. See Hazard's Register, vol. i. p. 429, 430 ; vol. ii. p. 27."

a Note in Martin's " History of Chester," p. 02.

^ Smith's "History of Delaware County," i». 139.

WILLIAM PENN'S FIRST VOYAGE TO HIS PROVINCE IN 1682.

21

vania, addressed to several gentlemen requesting them to meet him on the following " so-called Thursday, No- vember 2, 1682," is dated " Upland, October 29, 16S2," ■ the day after his arrival, clearly indicating that he 1 did not change the name of this city in the dramatic ' manner tradition has stated. There is no authentic list of the passengers on the " Welcome" extant, I although Edward Armstrong has gathered the names ; of several of Penn's companions in the ship, which are generally accepted as well established by evi- dence, excepting that in that list the name of

Pearson appears, to which is added, " supposed to be Robert," a statement that may well be questioned. As this mythical personage is represented to be an | eminent member of the society of Friends, the rec- ords of meetings ought to disclose his Christian name, but it has never been found among the list of the early settlers. Hence we have reason to believe that the first person of the name of Pearson in this prov- ince was Thomas, and we know that neither of the Thomas Pearsons — for there were two of that name — came here until the following year, 1683.' The second of that cognomen in a diary memorandum written by himself, also in the Historical Society's collection, clearly states when he came. To quote his own words, after setting forth his various adventures, he says, " On ye 25th day of July, in ye year 1683, I set sail from Kingroad, in ye ' Comfort,' John Reed, Master, \ and arrived at Upland in Pennsylvania ye 28th ' of September 1683," almost a year after Penn's arrival. In the report of the vestry of St. Paul's Church, Chester, to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in the year 1704, I occurs this sentence : " The people of Chester County showed very early zeal to have the Church of Eng- I land worship settled among them. This county is so ' called because most of the inhabitants of it came from Cheshire, in England. Chester, the chief town ! of the county, is finely situated on the river Dela- ! ware." '

1 Martin's " Historj- of Ohester," page 499. See" Queries," Penua. Mag. of Bislory, vol. iii. page 368, where the ubiquitous Mr. Pearson presents himself once more in a uew light and demanding unexpected honors. The statement in the Tolume just cited is that in a recent life of Ben- jamin West it is said, " In the year 1677 or 167S, one Thomas Pear- son, from England, settled in a cave on the west bank of the Delaware River, now below Philadelphia. He was a blacksmith by trade, and, it is said, wielded the first smith's hammer in Pennsylvania. About the ' first work done was to make small axes for his Indian neighbors, who in their short way termed him Tom or Tommy. In'their language the word hawk signifies any tool used for cutting, hence the origin of the word tomahawk." That this was " the Pearson" is settled by the state- j mentin the same book quoted from that he was the grandfather of Ben- I jamin West. Here then is the man who, before Penn came, was the , only blacksmith in Pennsylvania making " little hatchets" for the In- dians, and from his Christian name and that of the article he produced caused the savages to coin the word " tomahawk." Pearson (sup- posed to be Robert) turns up in 1082 a passenger on the ship"W-el-

come," and the proprietary, especially for this Pearson's benefit,

changes the name of "Upland" to " Chester" instantly and without re- flection. In the fulure some enterprising historian may yet discover the man who swallowed the first oyster, and I have no doubt that Friend Pearson will have liis claims present for that noteworthy act, and in all probability have that claim allowed.

Bampfylde Moore Carew, the celebrated " King of the Mendicants," who, while escaping from banish- ment in Virginia, passed through Chester in 1739, in relating his adventures, records that he came " to Chester, so called because the people who first settled there came for the most part from Cheshire. . . . The place is also called Upland." Thirty years previous to Carew's coming, Oldmixon stated, in 1708, when mentioning the town of Chester, "This place is called Upland," and when he alludes to Chester County he gives the like and true reason for the name that Carew did: "so called because the people who first settled here came for the most part from Cheshire in Eng- land." - The Labadist missionaries, Danckers and Sluyter, record, nearly three years before Penn's coming, in describing their journey down the Dela- ware in 1679, that "It clearing up towards evening we took a canoe and came after dark to Upland. This is a small village of Swedes, although it is now over- run by English."'

In a letter from Penn, Nov. 1, 1682, the epistle is dated from Upland ; but subsequently, Dec. 16, 1682, from West River, Md., Penn writes, "That an As- sembly was held at Chester, alias Upland." These circumstances clearly establish that the official change of name had taken place previous to the last date and subsequent to the preceding one. In the letter of December 16th is the first time we have record of the name of Chester as applied to the old Swedish settle- ment at Upland.

The most rational conclusion is that Penn, when he changed the name of the town, doubtless within a few weeks after his arrival, and also designated the county of the like name when he divided the settled parts of Pennsylvania into three divisions, he did so in deference to the desire of the English settlers who had " overrun" the town, the major part of whom had come from that locality in England. As stated in the extracts quoted, the name of the shire-town soon became Chester, although its ancient name did not entirely disappear from familiar use until nearly three-quarters of a century had elapsed after William Penn's first visit to the province. The Pearson story for the first time appeared in our annals in Clark- son's " Life of Penn," a work which was not published until more than a century had elapsed after the inci- dents therein first recorded are said to have occurred. Until the publication of the work just alluded to, no writer makes any mention of the change of name having been suggested to Penn by "his friend Pear- son."

The Swedes, we are told by Acrelius, received the English proprietan,- and his companions with great friendliness, carried up their goods and furniture from

- " The British Empire in Register, vol. v. p. 180.

3 " Journal of a Voyage I and .Jasper Danckers ; Menr vol. i. p 183.

, by J. Oldmixon, in Hazard's

Sew York in 1679-80," by Peter Sluyter i of the Long Island Historical Society,

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

the ships, and entertained them in their houses with- out charge, " as many aged Quakers still relate with great pleasure." '

Peun, when he landed, resided temporarily at the dwelling-house of Robert Wade, and that fact has rendered the " Essex House" famous in our State annals. Penn remained but a short time there as the guest of Wade, for after his return to Chester from New York, whither he had gone to "pay his duty" to the Duke of York by a visit to the latter's repre- sentative in that place, as well as from his visit to Maryland, he lodged, according to tradition, at the Boar's Head lun, a noted public-house at Chester in the early days, which stood until March 20, 1848, when it was destroyed by an incendiary fire.

CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA, AND

THE HOUSE WHEREIN IT MET. j

1

Ox the 18th day of November, 1682, three weeks after his arrival in the colony, William Penn issued | his writs requiring the sheriffs of the several counties, | in their respective bailiwicks, " to summon all the freeholders to meet on the SOth inst and elect out of i themselves seven persons of the most note for wisdom, j sobriety and integrity to serve as their deputies and ' representatives in General Assembly to be held at Upland, in Pennsylvania, December 6th (4th) next." ]

In pursuance of this proclamation the Assembly met at Chester on the day designated, Dec. 4, 1682, and organized by the election of Nicholas Moore, of | Philadelphia County, president of the " Free Society of Traders," as chairman of that body. After the appointment of committees, four of the members were selected to apprise the Governor that the Assembly " humbly desired him to honor the House with a trans- mission of his constitutes."

It is an interesting historical fact that the very first i record in the commonwealth regarding the meeting of a legislative body discloses that then, as now, ' " ways that are dark" were resorted to in the effort to i secure the election of members in the interest of par- ticular individuals. On that occasion Edmund Cant- well, the sheriff of New Castle County, was charged witli " undue electing a member to serve in Assembly from that county," in which effort he was ullimately thwarted, for the Committee on Elections and Priv- ileges reported adversely to Abraham Mann, the

^ Acrelius, "History of New Sweden," p. 111. That autlior returned to Sweden iu 1756, and doubtless he might have talked to old pereutiB wlio could recall the incideix-H comnected with the arrival of the pro- prietary, as such an event would make a lasting impression on their

sheriff's candidate, and in favor of John Moll, who was contesting his seat, in which conclusion the House concurred.

The first two days of the session were consumed in hearing the case of contested election just mentioned, the adoption of rules governing the meeting, passing the act of union, which annexed " the three lower counties" (those comprising the present State of Del- aware), and providing for the naturalization of the inhabitants thereof, as well as the Swedes, Finns, and Dutch settlers in Pennsylvania. On the third day they received from William Penn the " Printed Laws" and the " Written Laws, or Constitutions." The "Printed Laws" were "the laws agreed upon in England," which had been prepared by learned coun- sel there, at Penn's desire, and printed in that country, and the " Written Laws, or Constitutions," were the ninety bills presented to the Assembly by the propri- etary, out of which the meeting passed the sixty-one chapters of " the great body of the laws." ' A strange fact is that not one of those enactments, as adopted, is now in force in this commonwealth. As soon as the statutes had been acted on, the members from the lower counties particularly became anxious to return to their homes, and so intimated to the Assembly. The Speaker considered this desire to adjourn as un- becoming in the members, and bordering on an insult to the Governor. A committee of two of the deputies was appointed to wait upon Penn respecting it, and he consented " that the Assembly be adjourned for twenty-one days, which was accordingly ordered by the Speaker.'' The body failed to meet again at the time designated by adjournment, and at the next reg- ular Assembly in Philadelphia it is recorded that the Speaker " reproves several members for neglecting to convene at the time appointed when the House last adjourned."

Nearly forty years ago an old structure stood on the western side of Edgmont Avenue, north of Second Street, which was commonly termed " The Old As- sembly House," because of the popular belief that it was in this building that the first Assembly couvened in Pennsylvania, Dec. 4, 1682. Dr. George Smith, in his valuable " History of Delaware County," conclu- sively established the fact that this building was the first meeting-house of Friends iu Chester, and was not erected until 1693, hence the first Assembly, which held its session more than ten years before that date, could not have met in that structure. We know that on the 6th day of the First month, 1687, Jiiran Kyn, or Keen, made a deed conveying a lot in Chester, ad- joining his "lot or garding," to certain persons in trust, " to use and behoof of the said Chester meeting of the people of God called Quakers, and their successors for- ever," and on this lot, now included in William P.

: For a most interesting disquisition on the subject of the laws, the number enacted at the session of the Assembly, and other valuable in- formation iu relation thereto, see " Historical Notes, Pari II., Appendix to the Duke's Book of Laws," pp. 477-482.

THE FIRST ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

23

Eyre's ground, on Edgmont Avenue, the ancient meet- ing-house was built.

Dr. Smith thereupon argues that the Assembly must have met in the court-house, or, as it was then known, " The House of Defense," which stood on the eastern

side of Edgmont Avenue, above Second Street, and so projected into the roadway that, when Edgmont Avenue was regularly laid out as a street, it had to be removed. The doctor rightly thinks, "It was the only public building in Upland, at the time, of which we have any knowledge." Martin, in his " History of Chester," accepts the doctor's conclusions as un- questionably accurate. Nevertheless, both of these able historians are in error in this. The thought es- caped them that perhaps Penn saw that the "House of Defense" was too small for the purpose intended, and therefore a private dwelling was used for the meeting of the members.*

Mrs. Deborah Logan informs us in her notes to the " Penn and Logan Correspondence," ^ that the Assem- bly convened in the large, or, as then termed, " The Double House," by way of distinction, which James Sandilands, the elder, had erected for his own dwell- ing which stood near the creek, and subsequently, when the road to Philadelphia was laid out, near that highway. On an old plan of the borough of Chester, made about 1765, now owned by William B. Broomall, Esq., of that city, the lot on which " The Double House" stood is designated as beginning about one hundred and thirty feet southerly from the intersection of the present Edgmont Avenue and Third Street. The lot itself was about one hundred and twenty feet front on the west side of Edgmont Avenue. This house, which was spacious and pretentious for those times, — and would even now be regarded as an unusually large dwelling, — had unfortunately been built with mortar made of oyster-shell lime, which proved utterly value- j less. In a few years the building showed signs of decay, then became a ruin, and as .such continued until the be- ginning of the present century, when its foundations were removed. In time its very existence was gen- erally forgotten, so much so that, as is mentioned, some of our most accurate and painstaking historians j were unacquainted with the fact that it had ever per- { formed the important part it did in our early colonial j annals. I

In considering the location of the house wherein the Assembly convened, it is unnecessary to refer to the first meeting-house of Friends. The fact that it was not built previous to 1693 is proved conclusively from the original minutes of the Society, which takes

1 The "House of Defense," we are told by Edward Armstrong, in ; his admirable notes to "The Eeoord of Upland Court," p. 202, "was ' rectangular in shape, its size was 14 by 15 feet, and, according to meas- , urement, its S. E. corner stood about 84 feet from the N. E. corner of Front and Filbert. The northeru portion of the house of Mrs. Sarah P. Combe occupies about eleven feet of the south end of the site of the I House of Defense." I

2 Vol. i. p. 46; "Descendants of Jiiran Kyn," the founder of Upland. By Professor Gregory B. Keen, Peuim. Mag. of Hislorii, vol. ii. p. 446. I

it entirely out of the controversy. After standing one hundred and fifty-two years it was torn down in April, 1845, by Joshua P. and William Eyre, the then owners of the property.

I believe that the Assembly met in the double house and not the Hou.se of Defense, and my reasons for this opinion are briefly these.

The first record we have of the site of the Assem- bly building will be found in " The Traveller's Di- rectory,"^ wherein it is stated in the notice of Chester that " The first Colonial Assembly for the province was convened in this place on the fourth day of December, 1682. ' A part uf the old iraft of th>- room stiil remahix.' "

This wall could not have been part of the old House of Defense, for July 13, 1728, George McCall and Ann, his wife (Jasper Yeates' eldest daughter), and John Yeates conveyed to George Ashbridge the house now owned by the heirs of the late Sarah P. Coombs, which dwelling, according to Armstrong, on the north side occupies about eleven feet of the south end of the site of the House of Defense. On May 5,

1797, George Ashbridge, the grandson of the grantee just mentioned, sold the property to Dorothy Smith and Zedekiah Wyatt Graham as joint tenants. In

1798, Mrs. Smith and Mr. Graham, brother and sister, both died of the yellow fever, and the property passed to their nephew and four nieces in equal shares. At that time the passage-way on the north side of the house was paved, and rose-bushes and other shrubbery grew in a bed alongside of the fence which divided the Smith and Graham property on the north from that of Henry Hale Graham. No part of a wall was to be seen at the point designated several years before the beginning of this century, and it must have been there in 1802 had it been the site of the Assembly House.

Official evidence, however, tells us that almost a hundred years before the "Traveller's Directory" was printed, the House of Defense was destroyed, for at the November court, 1703, the grand jury pre- sented " the old Court hous, being a nuisance to the town in case of fire, and also the chimney of Henry

3 " The Traveller's Directory or Pocket Companion. By S. S. Moore and T. W. Jones, Philadelphia. Published by Mathew Carey, 1802." An exceedingly rare volume, in library of Pennsylvania Historical Society. Fifteen years subsequent to the publication of the Directory a correspondent of the West Chester Federalist visited Cliester and re- cords that, " On the bank of Chester Creek, which passes through the town, there is still shown an old wall, now making a part of a dwelling house, which formed one side of the first hall of justice in Pennsyl- vania—answering for the sessions of the Legislature and the Court of Justice, in both of which W"> Penn occasionally presided." (Martin's " History of Chester," p. 122.) The extract just quoted is of course full of historical misstatements, the narrative being based on perverted tra- ditions related to the writer by the people of Chester of that day. The old Assembly House is confused with the fourth court-house of Chester County, built by John Hoskins in 1695, and the wall mentioned still remains in the dwelling-house to this day (1884). It shows, however, that tradition at that time never located the site of Assembly House on the east side of Edgmont Avenue, where the House of Defense stood, —a species of negative proof.

HISTORY OP DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Hollingsworth, in Chester Town," and, thereupon, " The Court on deliberate consideracon orders the s* hous to be pulled down, and that Jasper Yeats, chief burges of ye borough of Chester, shall see ye order Pformed." Martin is of opinion that this order had reference to the House of Defense, and there seems to be no doubt but that the authorities were alarmed lest the great pile of logs, dry as they must be, would burn the small cluster of houses at Chester. The site of the House of Defense subsequently became the property of Jasper Yeates, and he doubtless saw that the order of court was executed. We certainly learn nothing further from the records of the old nuisance, hence the presumption is that it was abated.

On the other hand, it is known that on the double- house lot the ruins of the dwellings remained for several years after the beginning of this century, and as it adjoined the lot to the south, where the Friends' meeting-house stood when the foundation of Sande- land's dwelling was removed to be used in other build- ings, the tradition that the first Assembly had met there attached itself to the antiquated structure on the adjoining lot, and in time the fact that the double house had ever existed was generally forgotten. So quickly did the tradition link itself to the meeting-house that John F. Watson, in 1827 (only a quarter of a century after the " Traveller's Directory" had correctly located the place where the Assembly met), refers to it as the " old Assembly House," and Stephen Day, in 1843, in his " Historical Collections of Pennsylvania," follows with the same statement, until the error had made permanent lodgment in the popular mind, and is now difficult of eradication.

CHAPTER VI.

THE COLONIAL HISTORY TO THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.

The only hamlet in Pennsylvania which had re- ceived a distinctive name that was known to persons in "England at the time Penn acquired title to the ter- ritory was Upland, and that that had done so was doubtless due to the fact that Robert Wade had al- ready made it his home. He being a Friend in com- munication with members of that religious sect in the mother-country, that circumstance directed the atten- tion of the Quakers, "a society," says Acrelius, "that the realm could well spare," to the little cluster of rudely-fashioned dwellings on the banks of the Dela- ware. Hence Friends (whom, fortunately for the United States, could be spared from Europe to plant on this continent those seeds of political truths and re- ligious liberty which, germinating, have grown into a nation on the maintenance of which the future contin- uance of constitutional representative government on the earth largely depends), or Quakers, as popularly

known, desiring to flee from persecution and ignominy at home, gladly availed themselves of the liberal conditions which Penn offered to persons anxious to j leave England, and particularly did the latter meet ! the approval of those people whose poverty had been ' largely produced by reason of the heavy fines im- posed on them simply because of the religious senti- ments they maintained. That Penn originally in- I tended to locate his proposed capital city at Upland i can hardly be questioned, for his instructions to his : commissioners, Crispin, Bezer, and Allen, partieu- ] larly directing them "that the creeks should be j sounded on my side of the Delaware River, especially Upland, in order to settle a great toune," will bear I no other legitimate construction. That this was his purpose is evident from all the surrounding circum- j stances, and he only abandoned it when he learned that Lord Baltimore, by actual observation, had dis- covered that the site of the hamlet was in the debata- ble land as to ownership. That the proprietary, after he had been informed of Lord Baltimore's persistent claims, had resolved to build a city farther up the river, before he first came to his province, will not admit of doubt; hence the result of the visit of William Penn to James Sandelands, mentioned as having taken place almost as soon as the former lauded at Upland, when it was " talkt among the people that it was with Intent to have built a City" at that place, " but that he and Sanderlin could not agree,"' may perchance have interfered with some proposed improvement at the old Swedish settlement, but even had Sandelands assented to all that Penn may have required, it would not have eventuated in locating the contemplated "great town" at that point.^ Under the circumstances the risks, owing to the disputed ownership of that part of his territory, were too great for Penn to assume.

Martin informs us on the authority of Mrs. Sarah Shoemaker, aged ninety-two years, who died in Ches- ter in 1825, and who had heard her grandfather, James Lownes, often speak of the times of which I am now writing, that during the winter of 1682-83, Upland presented a very animated appearance. It was the only place then in the province, as stated, known to English shiji-owners, and consequently, as the destination of all vessels was this port, most of the emigrants landed here, and several ships often rode at anchor at the same time off the hamlet. It is said that the water was deep near the western shore, and vessels could approach so closely to land that the trees would often brush their upper rigging.

The great influx of emigrants in the hamlet caused nearly every dwelling in it to be a house of entertain- ment, and as the people of that day, in the majority of instances, used beer instead of tea or coffee, that fact may account for the number of presentmenta by the

1 The Bieviato, Penn vs. Lord Baltimore, folio 105; Professor G. B. Keen's "Descendants of JiiranKyn," Penna.Mag. of /7is(., vol.ii. p. 445. - Latrobe's " History of Mason and Dixon's Line."

i

THE COLONIAL HISTORY TO THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.

grand juries of the residents along the Delaware "for selling beer, etc., witliout license, contrary to law." The proprietary himself is believed to have made his home at Chester during the greater part of the winter of 1682-83, and while here, it is said (on Nov. 25, 1682), he divided the territory theretofore known as Upland into the three counties, — Chester, Philadel- phia, and Bucks.

William Penn, having called the city of Philadel- phia into being,— he had named it before it had any actual existence as a town, — summoned the freemen throughout the province to hold an election on the 20th day of the Twelfth month, 1682 (February, 1683), to choose seventy-two persons of most note for their wisdom, virtue, and ability to serve as members of a Provincial Council, to meet on " the 10th day of the First month next ensuing" (March, 1683), at the new capital. From each county twelve men were returned under this order, but the several sheriffs also pre- sented petitions from the people in their bailiwicks praying that only three of the twelve men returned as councilors be vested with the duplex character of councilors and assemblymen, and the remaining nine as simply assemblymen. The petition presented by the people of Chester County was as follows:^

"To William Pe^k, proprieUtry and governor of theprovince of Peniifijl- i'auUt and territories thereof. " The petition of the freeholders of the County of Chester respect- fully showeth, That in obedience to the writ sent to our SherifT wo have chosen twelve persons for our delegates to serve in the provincial Council, but considering that the numbers of the people are yet small, and that we have few fit for or acquainted with such public business, and also that we are unable to support the charge of greater elections and Assemblies. After our humble acknowledgments of the favor in- tended us therein, we take leave humbly to request that three of the twelve we have chosen may serve as provincial Councillors, and the other nine for the Assembly, which provincial Councillors are John Symcock (for three years), Ealph Withers (for two years), and William Clayton (for one year), leaving it to thee to increase the number, as occasion may serve, hereafter.

. [Signed] "James Brown k Co."

The assemblymen thus designated from Chester County were John Hoskins, Robert Wade, George Wood, John Blunston, Dennis Rochford, Thomas Bracy, John Bezer, John Harding, Joseph Phippes.

These petitions, although in direct violation of the charter, were favorably acted on, but in the formation of Council Ralph Withers appeared as credited to Bucks County, while Christopher Taylor represented Chester. It is not my purpose to make extended ref- erence to the proceedings of the second Assembly further than to notice that the seal of Chester County at that session was established, bearing as its dis- tinctive design a plow.

The influx of immigrants into Pennsylvania for the few years immediately after Penn acquired own- ership of the territory is unequaled in the history of the British colonial possessions in North America, and can only be likened in recent years to the mar- velous growth of settlements in the oil region of this State, or localities west of the Mississippi, where pre-

cious metals are supposed to yield almost certain for- tune to adventurers who locate there. Within the limits of the present county of Delaware, before the close of the year 1683, the population began to pre- ponderate largely of members of the Society of Friends, and at Chester, Marcus Hook, Darby, and Haverford permanent settlements of Quakers had been made, from which centres their influence ex- tended outwards, giving tone and character to the whole people. The few Swedes and Dutch who had preceded these Friends were soon absorbed in, and their individuality of thought and action was merged into that of the more intelligent majority, greatly to the benefit of the former. The Welsh immigrants, who had secured a tract of forty thousand acres in a whole from Penn previous to leaving the Old World, found, on arriving in the colony, that they could not locate it within the city limits of Philadelphia, and were forced to push out into the then wilderness; and we find, in 1682, that their first lodgment with a few settlers was made in Merion and Haverford, from which they rapidly spread into Radnor, Newtown, Goshen, Tredyft'rin, and Uwchlan.

It was the fixed policy of William Penn, in order to avoid all causes of trouble with the Indians grow- ing out of disputed rights to the soil, to purchase from the aborigines, and extinguish the title to the territory as rapidly as civilization pushed outward into "the backwoods." The ownership of the land within Delaware County was released to William Penn by the Indians in two deeds, both of which are interesting because of the consideration mentioned as having been paid to chiefs. The first deed was exe- cuted over a year before William Penn returned to England, in 1684. The old document is as follows :

"We, Secane k Icquoquehau, Indian sbackamakei-s, and right

owners of ye Land Lying between Manaiunk, als Sculkill and Maco- panachan, als Chester Kivei-s, doe this 14th day of ye fift month, in ye year according to English account 1683, hereby graunt and Sell all o"'' Right & Title in ye sd Lands Lying between ye s-i River, begining on ye West side of Manaiunk, called Consohockhan, 4 from thence by a Westerly Line to ye s'l River Malopanackhan, unto William Penn Pro- prief & Govern' of^e Province of Peonsilvania 4c., hiss heires & As- signes, for Ever, for and in Consideration of 150 fathom of Wampum, 14 Blanketts, 05 yds. DuftJlLs, 28 yds. Stroud watrs, 1.5 nunns, 3 great Kettles, 15 small KetUes, 16 pr. Stockins, 7 | i, ^In-c-s '' 'ill'-. 12 Gimb- letts, 6 Drawing Knives, 15 pr. Sissors, 1' i ; i I i - u-i-dles, 10

Tobacco boxes, 15 Tobacco Tongs, 32 IViun: i : i . - Beads, 2

papers Red Lead, 15 Coats, 15 Shurls, 1,'. A\.^, 1 Kim . :;(i barra of Lead, 18 Glasses, 15 hoes, unto us in hand paid, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged have renounced all Claims 4 Demands for ye future from us c heires or Assignes, in or to y"^ prmises. In witness whereof we have hereunto sett o' hands and seals ye day 4 year first above written.

'■The mark of

X

SzCiHE.

"Sealed and delivered i

"PiSEKICKEM.

" The mark of X Petee Rambo, " The mark of X Swan Swanson,

" Philip Th. Lehnmann,

"Jos. Cdrteis,

"Catemus, an Indian king.'

2 Penna. Archives, Ist seriei

*. mark of

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

The second deed was made after Penn had returned to England. The Provincial Council, on the 22d of the Seventh month (September), 1685, was notified by Capt. Lasse Cock that the Indians were anxious to dispose of their land between Upland and Appoqui- nomy. Council immediately appointed Thomas Holme, surveyor-general, John Simcock, and Col. William Markliam, the then secretary of the body, to meet the Indians and purchase from them the terri- tory named. The following deed, executed in ten days after the date given, shows how expeditiously the authorities acted in carrying out the original in- tention of Penn, the extinguishment of Indian titles ; but the indefinite bounds, "so far as a man can ride in two days with a horse," clearly shows the superior bargaining abilities of the white man, and the success which attended this transaction might have prompted the noted " walking purchase" of a later date.

"This Indenture Witnesseth Tliat We Lare Packenah Tareek- ham Sickais Peltquessitt Tewis Essepenaick Petkhoy Kekelappau Feomus Mackalohr Melleonga Wissa Powey Indian Kings Sachemak- ers, Eight Owners of all the Lands from Quing Quingus Called Duck Creek uuto upland Called Chester Creek all along by the West Side of Delaware River and So between the Said Creeks Backwards m ^nr as a man can Ride in Itro days toith a horse for and in Consideration of these following good to Va in hand paid and secured to be paid by W>" Penn Proprietary* and Gouvnour of the Province of Pennsilvania and Territo- ries Thereof, Viz Twenty Gunns Twenty fathom Matchcoat twenty Fathom Stroudwaters, twenty Blankets twenty Kettles twenty pounds Powder One hundred Barrs Lead forty Tomahawks One hundred Knives Fourty pare Stocking One Barrel of Beer twenty pound red Lead One hundred Fathom Wamphum thirty Glass Bottles thirty Pewter Spoons one hundred Awl Blades three hundred tobacco Pipes One hundred bands of Tobacco twenty Tobacco Tongs twenty Steels three hundred flints thirty pare Sissers thirty Combs Sixty looking Glasses two hun- dred Needles one Skiple Salt thirty pounds Shuger five gallons Mollas- sis twenty Tobacco Boxes One hundred Juise Harps twenty Hows, thirty Guimlets thirty Wooden Screw Borers & One hundred Strings Beeds Wee hereby Acknowledge in behatfe of Our Selves as Only Bright Own- ers of the aforesaid Tract of Land to Bargain and Sell And by these Presents doe fully Cleariy and Absolutely Bargaine A- Sell Unto the said W«n Penn his heirs and Assigues for Ever without any mollestation or hindrance from or by Us and from or by any other Indians whatsoever that Shall or may Claime any Right Title or Interest in or unto the Said Tract of Land or any Part thereof. In Witness Whereof Wee have hereunto Set our hands and Seals at New Castle the 2'1 day of the Eighth month 1685.

"Signed sealed and delivered unto Cap* Thomas Holme Survey Geni of ye Province of Pennsylvania to & for ye use of William Penn E5q' Proprietary & Govern"' of y^ afores*! Province & Territories thereunto belonging in the presence of us.

" PlETEK Alricks The Mark of

"Lasse Cock Owes Ham

" Pmur Tu Lehxmakn The Mark of

"James Atkinson Oweg X H^"

"Christopher GoRR The Mark of

"The Mark of LiK X Hamm

" JoHS X 'Walker The Mark of

"Edward Lare Patasko X

" John Mandy. The Mark of

"The Mark of Mack X Bashute." i

"TammaXGwaran

The general history of our county is very meagre of interesting incidents in the early days of the province other than the happenings which became matter for the intervention and adjudication of the courts; and as these subjects wil.l be found collated and treated of

* Penna. Archives, Ist series, vol. i. p. 95.

in a distinctive chapter, no allusion will be made to them at this time.

The absence of William Penn from England af- forded an opportunity to his enemies and for the friends of Lord Baltimore in the mother-country to press with earnestness objections to the former's title to the " three lower counties," now Delaware, as also to seriously menace his ownership of the greater part of the present county of Delaware (as well as others) in Pennsylvania. Hence it became imperatively es- sential that he should return to Great Britain ; and preparatory to his departure he appointed Thomas Lloyd, James Harrison, and John Simcock — the former to be Deputy Governor, and, in the event of death, the others to succeed to that position in the order mentioned — to represent him in the province, and, in the contingency of his (Penn's) death before other ofiicers were selected, empowered them to be " Commissioners & Guardians in Government to my dear Heir, Sprigett Penn." As the record shows that on Aug. 14, 1684, Penn presided for the last time in Council until he returned, nearly sixteen years subse- quently, it is thought that he sailed not long after the date above mentioned.

At a Council held at Philadelphia, April 1, 1685, Thomas Lloyd presiding, the boundaries of the county of Chester were ofKoially prescribed, as follows: "The county of Chester to begin at ye Mouth or Entrance of Bough Creek, upon Delaware River, being the upper end of Tiuiciim Island, and soe up that creek, dividing the said Island from ye Land of Andros Boone & Company ; from thence along the several courses thereof to a Large Creek Called Mill Creek: from thence up the several courses of the said creek to a W.S.W. Line, which Line divided the Liberty Lands of Philadelphia from Several Tracts of Land belonging to the Welsh and other Inhabitants ; and from thence E.N.E. by a line of Marked Trees 120 perches, more or less; from thence N.N.W. by the herford (Haverford) Township 1000 perches, more or less ; from thence E.N.E. by ye Land belonging to Jno. Humphreys 110 perches, more or less ; from thence N.N.W. by ye Land of John Eckley 880 perches, more or less ; from thence continuing ye said Course to the Scoolkill River, wch sd Scoolkill River afterwards to be the natural bounds." -

Many complaints having been made respecting the manner in which Charles Ashcom, the deputy sur- veyor for Chester County, had encroached on the forty thousand acres which Penn had ordered set apart as the Welsh tract' (including Radnor and

" Colonial Records, vol. i. p. 126. Dr. Smith ("History of Dela- ware County," p. 155), says, "This line continues to be the eastern boundary of Delaware County to the north line of Haverford. The resolution of the Council makes the next course run easterly instead of westerly, and is probably a mistake, as Radnor township never extended farther easterly than it now does."

3 The survey of the Welsh tract was authorized by the following warrant from the proprietary :

"Whereas divers considerable persons among y Welsh Friends have

KEPEEENOES TO THE SETTLEMENTS OF SEVEEAL INHABITANTS IN THE OOUNTY

Phil. Roman.

Wm. Hicheot.

Pet. Lounder.

Jno. Simcock,

Rich. Far.

Wm. Collet.

Jos. Philps.

Wm. Clayton.

Jo. Beale.

Mos. and Ben. Mendinhall.

Wm. Hicheot.

Rob. Chamberlain.

Wm. Brampton.

Tho. King.

Tho. Moor.

Nat. Park.

Jno. Hannam.

Godin Walter.

Tho

Jno. Palmer. Wm. Ouborn. Jno. Brazor. Adam Roads. Jno. Kerk. J. Bluntston. Cha. Lee. Sam. Sellers.

6 Gibbons Hobbs.

7 J. Bluntston.

8 Jos. Fern.

9 Geo. Wood. 10 Wm. Wood. n Pet. Ellet.

12 Jno. Bluntston.

1.3 Sam. Bradsh.aw.

14 Tho. Eradshaw.

15 Jam. StanBeld.

16 Ant. Sturgis.

17 Edw. Cartledge.

18 Jos. Potior.

19 Tho. Hood.

20 Jos. Slayton.

21 Pet. Lester.

22 Geo. Gleave.

23 Geo. Mearis.

24 Fra. Yornel.

25 Jac. Steedman.

26 Jno. Steedman.

27 Jno. Steedman.

28 Jno. Holwel.

29 Cha. Wheetaker.

30 Edm. Cartledg.

31 Jos. Potter.

32 Tho. Hood.

33 Smith.

34 Jno. Batram.

35 Edw. Gibbs.

36 Amb. Boon.

37 Wm. Wood.

38 Rich. Tucker.

39 Har. Johnson.

40 Col. Hook.

41 Hansunin.

42 Mer. Morten.

43 Mountstoker.

44 Jno. Henrickson.

45 Tho. Nerbury.

46 Jno. Simcock.

47 Jno. Harding.

48 Jno. Kingsman.

49 Jno. Edg.

50 Rob. Cawdwell.

51 Wal. Fosset. 62 Jno. Ni.'con.

53 Jno. Simcock.

54 Sar. Baker.

65 Cha. Whitaker.

56 Tho. Rawlins.

57 Fra. Cook.

58 Tho. Ducket. 60 Joel Baloy.

61 Tho. Taylor.

62 Jno. Buckley.

63 Jos. Eushell.

64 Rob. Piles.

65 Jno. Gibbons.

66 Rob. Southrey.

67 Widdow.

69 Jam. Swarfar.

70 Jno. Houlson.

71 Wm. Gregory.

72 Bowetcr.

73 Will. Edwards.

74 Oswin Musgraye.

75 Churchman.

76 Free Sohoole.

77 Dav. Ogdon.

78 Jno. Hodskinson.

79 Jac. Chanler. '

80 Fra. Harrison.

81 -Tno. Peusey.

82 Jno. Prisner.

83 Gil. Woolara.

85 Jno. Prisnor.

86 Wm. Woodmansee.

87 Jno. Gibbons.

88 Fra. Harrison.

showing Settlers of Delawai

m an original in the possession of Saml, L. Smedley, Phila., Pa.

THE COLONIAL HISTORY TO THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.

27

Haverford townships, in this county), in laying out lands for other purchesers, not recognized as distiuc- ively Welsh settlers, in such a way as to interfere 'vith the continuity of "the Barony," and because the iuhabitants of that territory were summoned to do •ury and other public duties in both Philadelphia and Chester Counties, in 1688 a lengthy petition was prepared by them and forwarded by Col. William Markham the same year to Penn in England. It is not known whether the letter was ever received by Penn ; at least so far as the writer has information no notice was ever taken by the proprietary of the communication.

The Welsh settlers in Radnor and Haverford, how- ever, declined to recognize the division of the coun- ties of Philadelphia and Chester, and silently refused to pay their proportion of the public taxes to the treasury of Chester County or to serve on juries. The authorities of the latter at length, having exhausted all means at their command to compel recognition of their jurisdiction, presented a petition from the jus- tices and inhabitants of Chester County to the Gov- ernor and Council, March 25, 1689, in which they represented that the county was at first small, " not above 9 miles square & but Thinly seated, whereby y" said County is not able to Support the Charge thereof!'," and that the Governor in " his Serious Con- sideration of our Weak Condition was pleased, out of Compassion to us, to grant an Enlargement of y" same," which was subsequently done in the official boundaries before mentioned. To support the allega- tion that these limits had been approved by William Penn, John Blunstone testified "that a ffew days be- fore Gove"' Penn left this Province that upon y° bank by John Simcock's house I moved him to Deside this matter that had been so long Discoursed, who then, before me and Others did Declare that y' bounds Should thus runn from the mouth of Bow Creek to Mill Creek, w'" should be y= bounds until it come to j' Laud of Herford, and then to take in the Townds of Herford & Radnor; from thence to the Skoolkill, and take in his mannour of Springtowne, . . . then I asked him if he would be pleased to give it under

requested me j« all y" Lands Purchased of me by those of North Wales and South Wales, together with y adjacent counties to y, as Haver- fordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire, about fourty thousand acres, may be layi out contiguously as one Biiroiii), alledging y' y« nuuiber allrcady come and suddenly to come, are snob as will be capable of planting y same much wthjn yo proportion allowed by y custom of y country, A so not lye in large and useless vacancies. And because I am iDclioed and determined to agree and favour y" w* any reasonable Conveniency & priviledge: I do hereby charge thee * strictly require thee to lay out y «•> tract of Land in as uniform a manner, as conveniently may be, upon y West side of Skoolkill river, running three miles upon y same, & two miles backward, & then extend y parallell w'l" y river six miles, and to run westwardly so far as till y s^ quantity of land be Com- pleately surveyed nnto y». Given at Pennsbury, y IS'i" 1" mo. 1C84.

' WlL

Penn

"To Th8. Holmes, Surveyor General."

In pursuance of this warrant the Surveyor General, on the 4th of the 2d month (April), 1684, issued an order to liis deputy, David Powell, he directing him to execute it. The survey was probably made before the end of 1684. See Smith's " History of Delaware County," pp. 104-65.

his hand, to avoyd ffurther Trouble, who answered he I would, if any of vs would Come the next day to Philadelphia, in order thereunto; one was sent, but what then obstructed I am not certaine, but y' y' Gover"^ Departed about two days after." Randall Vernon testified that William Howell, of Harford, " Signified unto me" that he had " asked y" Gover'' to j what County they should be joined or belong unto, & The Gover' was pleased to answer him that they must I belong to Chester County." Thomas Usher, sheriff j of Chester County, testified that Penn said to him, I " Thomas, I perceive that the Skoolkill Creek Comes ' or runs so upon the back of Philadelphia that it makes y° City almost an Island, so that a Robbery or the like may be there Committed, and y° offender gitt over y" Creek, and so Escape for want of due persute, &c., therefore I intend that y' bounds of Philadelphia County Shall Come about 3 or fiour miles on this side of the Skoolkill, and I would not have thee to take notice or to oppose that Sheriff on y" Execution I of his office, about Kingses or the like, but I intend to enlarge this County downwards to Brandy wine."' The Deputy Surveyor-General produced the official i map, showing the county lines as before given, and stated that " it so is set out by order of the Governor and Provincial Council." Governor Blackwell and the Council intimated that as the bounds had been pub- 1 lished in the map of Thomas Holme, which had been distributed in England, and as land had been sold and located according to that map, to change the boundaries now might result in much confusion to purchasers. Besides, the Welsh settlers had refused to bear any part of the taxes or serve on juries in I Philadelphia, as they had done in Chester County, ! claiming that they were a distinct " barouy," and I although the Governor and Council intimated that I clearly the Welsh Tract was a part of Chester County, yet they refused to announce their final conclusion until the next morning, when, if the Welsh settlers chose to show cause why they should not be part of Chester County, they would be heard. The next , morning, Thomas Lloyd and John Eckley appeared : on behalf of the Welsh, alleging that. Penn had in- timated to them that they would form a county pal- atine; but as they had no written evidence to sub- stantiate that assertion. Council decided that the t boundaries already shown to have been established ' must be confirmed. Thereupon the strong arm of i the law was extended to compel the reluctant Welsh- men to yield obedience to the decree that had been made. The Court of Chester County appointed John Jerman constable for Radnor, and John Lewis for Haverford, but these recipients of judicial favor fail- '. ing to present themselves, the justices determined that the dignity of the bench should be maintained. ' Hence we find that at court held " 3d day of 1st week, 3d mo., 1689, ordered that Warrants of Con-

1 1 Colonial Records, vol. i. pp. 263, 265.

28

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTy, PENNSYLVANIA.

tempt be Directed to y' Sheriff to apprehend y° Bodyes of John Lewis and John Jerman for their Contempt of not entering into their respective oflBces of Constables (viz.) John Lewis for Harfort, and John Jerman for Radnor, when thereunto required by this Court."

At the same session, David Laurence, who had been returned as agrand juror from Haverford, failed to attend, and for his neglect or refusal to appear was presented by the grand inquest. The court fined Laurence ten shillings. The jury also presented "the want of the inhabitants of the townships of Radnor and Hartfort, and the inhabitants adjacent, they not being brought in to join with us in the Levies and other public services of this county." The move- ment to compel the Welsh to submit to the consti- tuted authority did not cease, for at the following (June) court the commission of William Howell, of Haverford, was read, and he afterwards assumed the office and subscribed "to the solemn declaration" required. William Jenkins, of Haverford, at the same court, served as a juror. Haverford had yielded, but the court deemed it wise that public proclamation, as was then customary with all laws, should be made respecting this decree, hence we find this entry in the old record of the county : That at court, on Wednesday of the first week in June, 1689, "the Division Lyne between this County and Philadelphia was read, dated ye 1st of y' 2" mo'", 1685." At the December court following, John Jerman was qualified as constable of Radnor, and thereafter the two townships made no further objection to act with and pay taxes to the authorities of Chester County. In 1688 the inhabi- tants of the province were greatly alarmed by reason of a rumor diligently circulated that two Indian women from New Jersey had informed an old Dutch resident near Chester that the aborigines had deter- mined, on a designated Thursday, to attack and mas- sacre all the white settlers on the Delaware. To add to the general consternation, about ten o'clock at night of the evening fixed upon by the savages to begin the attack a messenger " out of the woods" came hurriedly into Chester with the report that three families, residing about nine miles distant, had been murdered by the Indians. The people of the town gathered to consider the startling intelligence, and at midnight a Quaker, resident at Chester, ac- companied by two young men, went to the place named, where they found the three houses empty, but no signs of murder. The dwellers therein, alarmed by the rumor, had fled to the homes of their parents, about a mile distant on Ridley Creek. The further particulars of this alarm are thus given by Proud : '

*' The inaBter of one of these families being from home, bad been informed Ave hundred Indians were actually collected at Naaman's Creek, in pursuit of tbeir design to kill the English ; and as he was hastening to his home, be thought he heard his boy crying out and say- ing, 'What shall I do, my dame is killed!' Upon which, instead of

going home to know the certainty of the affair, he ran off t the government at Philadelphia, but being met by a pers< prudence than himself before he got to the city be was pei

"The report, notwithstanding, soon arrived at the city, and was told with such alarming circumstances that a messenger was immediately dispatched to Marcus Ilook, near the said Naaman's Creek, to enquire the truth of it. He quickly returned and confirmed the report, but with this variation, that it was at Brandywine Creek, at an Indian town, where the five hundred Indians were assembled, and that they, haying a lame king, bad carried him away, with all their ivomen and children. These circumstances rendered the affair still more alarming, and with many amounted to a certainty.

"The Council were, at that time, sitting at Philadelphia on other affairs, when one of them, a Friend, supposed to be Caleb Pusey,2 who lived in Chester County, voluntarily offered himself to go to the place, provided they would name five others to accompany him, without weapons ; which, being soon agreed on, they rode to the place ; but, in- stead of meeting with five hundred warriors, they found the old king quietly lying with his lame foot along on the ground, and his head at ease on a kind of pillow, the women at work in the fields, and the chil- dren playing together.

" When they had entered the wigwam the king presently asked them very mildly, ' What tbey all came for ?' They told him the report which the Indian women had raised, and asked him whether the Indians had anything against the English. He appeared much displeased at the report, and said, ' The woman ought to be burnt to death, and that they had nothing against the English,' adding, "Tis true there is about fifteen pounds yet behind of our pay for the land which William Penn bought, but as you are still on it and improving it to your own use, we are not in haste for our pay; but when the English come to settle it we expect to be paid.' This the messengers thinking very reasonable, told him they would undoubtedly be paid for tbeir land.

"One of the company further expressed himself to the Indian King, in the following manner: 'That the great God, who made the world, •and all things therein, consequently made all maukind, both Indians and English ; and as he made all, so his love was extended to all ; which, was plainly shown, by his causing the rain and dews to fall on the ground of both Indians and English alike; that it might generally pro- duce what the Indians, as well as what the English sewed or planted in

equally on all, both Indians and English, to nourish them all, extend- ing his love thus to all, for they were naturally bound to love one another.'

" The King answered, ' What they had said was true ; and as God has given you corn, I would advise you to get it in (it being harvest time) ; for we intend you no harm.' They parted amicably, and the messengers returning put an end to the people's fears."

The Revolution of 1688 in England was a serious obstacle to the rapid development of this province. William Penn was known to be a warm personal friend of the deposed king, from who.se hand he had received many favors ; hence, when the new mon- archs were told that Penn was a Jesuit of St. Omers, a self-devoted slave to despotism, and even charged with conspiring for the restoration of James II., the royal ears hearkened attentively to the wildest rumors circulated by his enemies. Peun was twice exam- ined before the Privy Council, and he was even held to bail for his appearance, but the Court of King's Bench discharged him, as no evidence was presented substantiating the charges lodged against him ; there-

2 Dr. Smith has correctly shown that Pusey was not a member of the Council that year. It is to be regretted that the name of this member of Council is not recorded, for his act was one of rare heroism. In all probability Proud has confused the incidents, in that he makes Pusey visit the Indians from Philadelphia, when doubtless— for he was of that stamp of noble men — the Quaker who at midnight rode from Chester, accompanied by two young men, to the scene of the alleged violence was Puse.v.

THE COLONIAL HISTORY TO THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.

upon he decided to return immediately to his colony, and to that end had gathered about five hundred per- sons to accompany him, the government had even ordered a convoy for the protection of the emigrants, when an infamous wretch accused him under oath of attempting to incite a treasonable outbreak in Lan- cashire, and Penn escaping arrest, was compelled to abandon his proposed colony, entailing on him serious loss. Meanwhile in the province faction feelings and dissensions had been aroused until the three lower counties, now comprising the State of Delaware, actu- ally separated from the three upper counties of Penn- sylvania, their representatives refusing to act in eon- junction with the authorities in Philadelphia. At last Peun, in the hope of maintaining order, was compelled to appoint, in the beginning of 1692, Thomas Lloyd to be Governor of the province, and William Markham to be Governor of the territory (Delaware). The new order of things, however, failed to produce the harmony desired, so that reports of the confused condition of affairs in the province which went abroad supplied the crown of England with an excuse for suspending the proprietary rule, which was done by a commission from William and Mary, dated Oct. 20, 1692, to Col. Benjamin Fletcher to be Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of Pennsyl- vania. The commission to Fletcher set forth three reasons for the act of suspension, but the real in- centive was the doubt of Penn's loyalty, which the latter's enemies had awakened in the royal breasts. But whatever was the motive, the whole system of laws which had been enacted were revised, modi- fied, and repealed by the throne in the authority vested in Fletcher. There is little of interest, speci- ally in reference to the radical changes thus made, connected with the annals of Delaware County, apart from that of the State at large, but among the seven members of the late Governor Lloyd's Council who protested so earnestly against any and all measures in contravention of Penn's charter this county was j ably represented. Governor Fletcher's understand- ing of the situation was made clear in his reply to a subsequent address by the Assembly, that " These Lawes and that model of government is desolved and at an end."

William Penn, than whom no more adroit politician (in the legitimate, not the conventional use of that word) appears on the pages of English history, waited for the royal distrust to subside in time, and by degrees the antagonistic feelings of the crown died away to such an extent that their Majesties themselves at last desired to restore Penn to the enjoyment of those rights of which they had arbitrarily deprived him. Hence, on Aug. 20, 1694, the commission of Governor Fletcher was annulled, and letters patent granted to Penn fully restoring to him the Province of Pennsylvania and its territories. The proprietary not having matters arranged that he could leave Eng- land at that time, commissioned William Markham

Governor, which office the latter discharged until late in the spring of 1698, when he received a new com- mission as Lieutenant-Governor.

In the fall of 1699 the yellow fever visited Phila- delphia as a pestilence. Many of the inhabitants died of the disease, and the utmost alarm prevailed through- out the province. Although we have no direct record that the malady made its appearance at Chester, that such was the case may be inferentially concluded from the fact that the September court adjourned without transacting any business, an incident without a par- allel in our county's history. Later on, in November of that year, William Penn came for the second time to his colony, and before leaving England he an- nounced that it was his intention to make his perma- nent residence in the province. As the vessel sailed up the Delaware the proprietary caused it to be an- chored off Chester, and, coming ashore, he for a second time became an honored guest at the Essex House. Eobert Wade, his friend, was dead, but Lydia, his widow, welcomed Penn, and here he met Thomas Story, who had recently returned from a religious journey to Virginia. The next morning, as is related by Clarkson,' Penn was rowed across the creek in a boat to the eastern side, " and as he landed, some young men officiously, and contrary to express orders of some of the magistrates, fired two small sea pieces of cannon, and being ambitious to make three out of two, by firing one twice, one of them, darting in a car- tridge of powder before the piece was sponged, had his left arm shot to pieces ; upon which, a surgeon being sent for, an amputation took place." The young man, Bevan, thus injured died the following April, and the expenses attending the nursing and ultimate burial of the wounded lad were discharged by Penn.

The proprietary was not destined to end his days in his colony. William III., after the death of Mary, is believed to have regarded him in no friendly spirit, and when the proprietary learned that the ministry, with the intention of converting the provincial gov- ernment into a regal one, had introduced a bill to that effect in Parliament, the consideration of which had been postponed until he could be present, the urgency of affairs compelled his prompt return to England. He sailed from Philadelphia, Nov. 1, 1701, never again to visit the commonwealth he had founded. Before his departure he established a Council of State, and appointed Andrew Hamilton as Deputy Governor.

The general history of our county, saving such in- cidents as relate to court proceedings, religious asso- ciations, organization of townships, and similar mat- ters, which will be considered hereafter, is very meagre until the approaching struggle of the colonists with Great Britain threw the country into a commotion that tore asunder family ties, and strained the social and political fabric to its very foundation. In a great measure previous to that period, year had followed

' Life of William Peno, vol. ii. p. 163.

HISTORY OP DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

year without leaving any impression that has remained to our day. Even the absurd farce, on May 16, 1706, of the French invasion, in which Governor Evans played such a ridiculous part, seems to have made no lasting trace on our county's records, yet doubtless the messenger who rode with such hot haste to Philadel- phia, and whose tidings caused such widespread con- sternation in the latter place' as he passed through Marcus Hook, Chester, and Darby, gave forth intima- tions that be was the bearer of momentous intelli- gence, for such a course would have been in full accord with the preconcerted scheme of the Governor to arouse general alarm in the province, and yet there seems not to be the faintest reference to this in our local annals.

On May 16, 1712, to the Provincial Council was presented " A Petition of a great number of the In- habitants of the county of Chester, praying that y° Burrough of the Town of Chester, in this Province, may be made a free Port, was read & Considered ; And it is the opinion of the board that the matter may be presented to the Propry., that he may take proper methods Concerning the same & Consult the Courts of the Queen's Customs therein."^ In all prob- ability William Penn, whose energy was beginning to yield under the weight of years and constant pecu- niary embarrassments, never gave this petition any serious consideration, bis chief desire at that period appearing to l)e to rid himself of the trouble, vexa- tion, and expense of the colony by its sale to Queen Ann for twelve thousand pounds. This transfer would doubtless have been effected had not a stroke of par- alysis rendered Penn unable to formally execute the contract. During all the last century, as will be shown as we proceed in this narrative, Chester was a place where outward- and inward-bound vessels stopped for days together. On the 4th of Fifth mouth, 1730, at noon, James Logan dispatched a letter to his son, William, " on his voyage to Bristol, sent to him at Chester," and during the British occupation of Phila- delphia almost all their transports and men-of-war lay off the former town. As just stated, William Penn's health became so impaired that he was unable to carry to an end his contemplated sale of the province to the crown, and from that time he never wholly rallied, his mind gradually becoming more and more feeble until his death, July 30, 1718.

The disputes respecting the northwestern boundary of the county of Chester, which had been, as supposed, officially determined in 1685, and after a protracted resistance had finally been accepted by the Welsh in 1689, in the early spring of 1720 again engaged the attention of Council, when at that time a petition of the inhabitants of the west side of Schuylkill was presented, setting forth that the commissioners of Chester County had compelled the payment by them

of taxes levied by the assessors of that county, al- though they stated that ever since their first settle- ment they had paid their taxes to Philadelphia; that they had no trade with Chester, "seeing it is impos- sible for us to have any tolerably convenient road to Chester by reason of Rocks and Mountains," and also urged other arguments, all concluding with a prayer that the counties might be so divided as to place them within Philadelphia.'' On Feb. 1, 1721. Council re- ported ' that the General Assembly had acted on the matter, and that the secretary had made full examina- tions as to the official boundaries as theretofore estab- lished, but that he expressed his belief that the line then run " was done arbitrarily by the Survej;or-Gen- eral, and that in his opinion it would have been more regular to carry the Division Line along the side of Radnor and the upper part of that called the Welch Line, laying all those Tracts called Manors to Phila- delphia County." Council thereupon concluded that until the matter could " be more fully and effectually settled, the Commissioners and Assessors of Chester County should forebear to claim those Inhabitants . . . and that the said Inhabitants be permitted to pay their Taxes and do all other Duties to the county of Philadelphia as formerly." Chester County, how- ever, declined to accept this decree without resist- ance, for on March 28, 1722,^ David Lloyd (who at the time was chief justice of the province) and Nathaniel Newlin, in behalf of themselves, and the other com- missioners appointed by the act of Assembly for Chester County, presented a petition to Council pray- ing relief " from the unrighteous Attempts of the said persons to sever themselves from the said County of Chester." Council called the attention of David Lloyd to the fact that no regular division of the coun- ties, so far as known, had been made, and the inter- diction of the commissioners of Chester County from levying taxes only applied to cases where persons had been assessed in and had paid taxes to Philadelphia County, for it would be unreasonable to require on the same estate taxes in both counties, and, besides, those who had thus paid their assessments to Philadelphia County were only six in number, but they were of opinion that it was of great importance that the divi- sion-lines should be adjusted without delay. David Lloyd replied that there were persons yet living who remembered the running of the division-line, which was done, he believed, about the year 1688, under the administration of Governor Blackwell, but the com- missioners of Chester County did not know where to apply for the record " or written proofs of it, except to the secretary, in whose custody all things of that kind should be kept." After an interesting statement relative to the custody of the papers of the former secretary, Patrick Robinson, Council instructed the

THE COLONIAL HISTORY TO THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.

31

then secretary, James Logan, and Attorney-General Andrew Hamilton, without delay, to make search for the missing documents belonging to the records of Council, and the secretary was " ordered to make further search for the proofs that have been mentioned of the Division Line between the Counties of Phila- delphia & Chester." With this announcement, so far as the minutes of Council are concerned, the whole matter dropped out of public notice, and adjusted itself in the manner suggested by Secretary Logan, by " laying all those Tracts called ^Manners to Phila- delphia County."

At a meeting of Council held Feb. 6, 1728-29, a pe- tition was presented by the inhabitants of the upper part of Chester County, setting forth that " by Reason of their Great Distance from the County Town, where the Courts are held, Officers are Kept and Annual elections made," the inconvenience of attending court or obtaining writs and other legal process, being compelled to travel one hundred miles for such purposes, the want of a jail to imprison "Vagabonds aud other dissolute People" who harbored among the frontier settlements where they believed themselves "safe from justice in so remote a Place," a division of the county should be made between the upper and lower parts, and that the upper portion should be i erected into a county.' It is not within the scope of this work to follow the particulars of this movement, which finally resulted in the county of Lancaster being erected by the act of May 10, 1729. I

We learn from the minutes of Council of Dec. 16, 1728,^ that the propriety of again making Chester the seat of the Provincial Government was seriously con- sidered. It seems that a resolution had been carried in the General Assembly which set forth, "that inas- much as there has been of late several Indecencies used towards the Members of Assembly attending the Service of the Country in Philadelphia by rude and disorderly Persons unknown to this House, ' the Gov- ernor and Council were requested to select a place which they shall deem " more safe for the Members of Assembly and most convenient for the Dispatch of the Business of the Country." The Provincial Coun- cil, on their part, after considering the inconvenience of removal at that season of the year and setting out ' other difiBcuIties, concluded that "if on further Ex- perience the House shall continue in the same Senti- ments that a Removal is necessary, the Board are of opinion that the same out [ought] to be adjourned to Chester, as the most convenient place for their meeting next to Philadelphia." The sober second thought of the indignant legislators, or the penitent petitions of the inhabitants of the Quaker city pre- vailed over the anger of the Assembly, and, on "further experience, the House" neglected to press the subject of removal, and thus Chester did not grasp the prize she was so willing to secure.

1 Colonial Kecords, vol. iii. p. 343.

! lb., p. 340.

About 1730, the first mission of the Roman Catholic Church within the territory now comprising the present county of Delaware was located at the resi- dence of Thomas Willcox at Ivy Mill, in Concord, to which fuller reference will be made in the history of that township. This religious sect did not progress very rapidly, for in 1757, in the census of Roman Catholics in Pennsylvania,' the following return shows that in Chester County there were

Men. Women.

" Under care of Robert Harding 18 22

" Tbomas Schneider 13 9

(Irish) 9 6

" " Ferdinane Farmer (Irish) 23 17

" (German) 3 ...

" Tliese were all who took the sacrament above twelve years of age or thereabout."

On the afternoon of Aug. 11, 1732, Thomas Penn, the son of the proprietary, landed at Chester, and a messenger was dispatched to Philadelphia to apprise the Council and Assembly, then in session, of his arrival. The secretary of Council immediately came to Chester, with the congratulations of the authori- ties, and " to acquaint him — Penn — that to-morrow they would in person pay their respects to him." The following day the Governor and Council, accom- panied by a large number of gentlemen, visited the borough, and " waited on the Honorable Proprietary and paid him their compliments. After dinner the Proprietary with liis company, now grown very num- erous, sett out for Philadelphia." Ou September 20th of the following year, John Penn arrived at Chester, from England, and was there met and welcomed by his younger brother, Thomas, who, with a large num- ber of gentlemen, had come from Philadelphia to greet the eldest son of the founder. After passing the night at Chester, the next morning the party rode to the city, where they were received with manifesta- . tions of popular rejoicing.

In 1739, when England declared war against Spain, an expedition was proposed from the colonies to in- vade the West Indies, and the Governor, in a procla- mation calling for recruits " to inlist in the important Expedition now on Foot for attacking and plundering the most valuable Part of the Spanish West Indies," notified the people of Chester and vicinity that those who proposed to recruit should call on James Mather in the borough, while Henry Hockley, Robert Fin- ney, and Lazarus Finney were designated for like service in other localities throughout the then county of Chester. It seems that in this enterprise a num- ber of redemption servants were enlisted, and not- withstanding the attention of Governor Thomas was drawn to that fact, he took no official action to pre- vent such recruiting, and the parties aggrieved were compelled to seek redress from the Assembly. That body promptly provided for the payment by the prov- ince of all losses sustained by mastere whose servants had been accepted into the military forces, and ac- cordingly, on June 3, 1741, to James Gibbons and

s Penna. Archives, let series, vol. iii. p. 144.

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Samuel Levis was issued an order on the loan-ofBce for £515 lis. 9(1., in payment for fifty-eight servants mustered by the officers in Chester County. Other claims for damages suffered by similar enlistments were urged and paid; in one instance it was alleged that ten servants were taken from the iron-works at Coventry and Warwick, and those establishments were obliged to cease operation for a time, because their skilled labor had been marched away as recruits.

On Dec. 22, 1741, the Governor presented to Coun- cil a petition from the justices of the county of Ches- ter, setting forth that great abuses had been " com- mitted" in the county by the use of defective weights and measures, and that they, the justices, at the in- stance of some of " the substantial Inhabitants," as well as an address from the Grand Inquest, had " di- rected the purchasing of Standards of Brass for Weights & Measures, accordingly to his Majesty's Standard for the Exchequer." They therefore prayed that " the Governor would be pleased to appoint an Officer to keep the said Standards, and to Seal and Mark all Weights and Measures within the said County." ' Isaac Taylor was the favored one who re- ceived the appointment, and the standards, we learn, cost the county £17 12s. llrf.^