Area History: Chapter 90 - Persons and Characters: Part I: Watson's Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, 1857, Vol I

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          WATSON'S  ANNALS  of  PHILADELPHIA  and  PENNSYLVANIA

                  Vol. I    Written 1830 - 1850



Chapter 90.            PERSONS  AND  CHARACTERS

                  "A mingled group -- of good or ill."

  "The charm of biography consists of minor truths neglected by graver history."

  The following facts concerning the persons severally named, are not
intended as their proper biography, but as slight notices of individual
character, which might be usefully preserved.  As a general list, it will
embrace alike, noble or ignoble --- not solely a roll of merit, but rather
of notoriety, to wit :

                    The  First  Born --- JOHN KEY

  John Key, "the first born" of our city, of English parentage, was born in
1682, in a cave at "Penny-pot landing", i.e. at the north-west corner of
Vine and Water streets.  William Penn was pleased to distinguish the person
and the circumstance, by the gift of a city lot; the original patent of
which is in my possession through the politeness of George Vaux, Esq.  The
tradition of the spot granted was utterly lost to common fame; but this
patent shows its location to have been on the south side of Sassafras
street, nearly opposite to Crown street, say vis-a-vis to Pennington's sugar
house.
  The parchment and seal are in fine preservation.  The seal is flat,
circular, four inches wide, of brown wax, appended by a green riband.  It
may be curious to preserve the following abstract, to wit :  "William Penn,
Proprietary and Chief of Pennsylvania, sends greeting, &c., that a certain
lot of ground between the Fourth and Fifth streets, bounded on the north by
Sassafras street, &c. -- in breadth 49 1/2 feet and in length 306 feet;
first granted by warrant from myself bearing date the 26th day of 3 mo.
1683, unto John Key, then an infant, being the first-born in the said city
of Philadelphia," &c.  The patent to confirm the warrant aforesaid is dated
the 20th of July 1713; the first-born being then a man of 31 years of age.
The lot it appears, he sold at the age of 33 years (say on the 24th of May
1715) to Clement Plumstead; and the latter, in 2 years afterwards, sold it
to Richard Hill for only twelve pounds !  This he joined to many other lots,
and made of it "Hill's Farm".  Further particulars may be read in my MS.
Annals in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, page 50.
  The notable first-born lived to good old age at his home in Chester
county, and was accustomed to come occasionally to the city, always walking
the streets with an unusually active step; although necessarily wondering at
the changing scenes he constantly witnessed.  Considering that he only died
in his 85th year, as late as the year 1767 (July), persons may be still
alive who may have heard him talk of those things !  When the hospital was
founded in 1755, he was present by request, to lay the corner stone !
  It was remarkable that the same year (August 10th 1767) was also the year
of the death of "the first-born" child in the province of English parents,
born in 1681, one year before John Key, in a cave by the side of the
Delaware river.  This venerable man of 86 died at Brandywine Hundred,
Emanuel Grubb by name.  He was active and vigorous to the last, and actually
rode to Philadelphia and back on horseback, equal to forty miles -- only a
few months before his death.  His habits were temperate, never drinking any
ardent spirits.
  As those two venerable "first borns" lived both near Chester, they had
means of intercourse; and strange must have been their several emotions in
talking over the years of improvement which they had witnessed down to the
year 1767 !  What a feast they might have afforded to younger minds !
  But another and a still earlier first-born, than either of the preceding,
dwelt also in their neighbourhood, in the person of Richard Buffington, (son
of Richard) he being "the first-born Englishman in Pennsylvania" in the year
1679.  The facts in his case were peculiarly commemorated in the parish of
Chester on the 30th of May 1739; on that day the father, Richard, having
attained his 85th year, had a great assemblage of his proper descendants, to
the number of 115 persons, convened in his own house; consisting of
children, grand - children, and great - grand - children -- the first-born
being then present in his 60th year.
  These affections and respects to "first-borns" were alike commendable and
natural.  They possessed a peculiarity of character, and a relationship to
things around them, which none others could enjoy, or even share with them.
They were beings by themselves -- alone !  Others also have had and
signalized their first born !  The New Yorkers had their first-born, in the
person of Sarah Rapaelje, born in 1625, and the maternal ancestor of the
Bogerts and Hansens.  When she became the widow Forey, Governor Stuyvesant,
in consideration of her birth, granted her a valley of land near the city.
The Virginians had theirs, and such was their respect to him, that in the
case of his rebellion, his life was spared to him, and he lived to be 80
years of age. [Vide : Samuel Bownas' Journal]  Our sister city of Baltimore
honoured their first-born, in the person of Mrs. Ellen Moale, who died in
that city in 1825, in her 84th year -- she having been the first-born white
woman in that place.  Strange it was, that she in her own person could say
of such a city as Baltimore, that she had seen it first, covered with woods,
then become a field, next a village, and at last a city of 700,000 souls !

                               EDWARD  DRINKER

  Edward Drinker was born on the 24th of December 1680, in a small cabin,
near the present corner of Walnut and Second streets, in the city of
Philadelphia.  His parents came from Beverly, in the state of Massachusetts.
The banks of the Delaware, on which the city of Philadelphia now stands,
were inhabited, at the time of his birth, by Indians, and a few Swedes and
Hollanders.  He often talked to his companions of picking whortleberies and
catching rabbits, on spots now the most improved and populous in the city.
He recollected about the time William Penn came to Pennsylvania, and used to
point to the place where the cabin stood, in which he, and his friends that
accompanied him, were accommodated upon their first arrival.  At twelve
years of age, he went to Boston, where he served his apprenticeship to a
cabinet maker.  In the year 1745, he returned to Philadelphia with his
family, where he lived until the time of his death.  He was four times
married, and had eighteen children, all of whom were by his first wife.  At
one time of his life, he sat down, at his own table, with fourteen children.
Not long before his death he heard of the birth of a grand-child, to one of
his grand-children, the fifth in succession to himself.
  He retained all his faculties till the last year of his life.  Even his
memory, so generally diminished by age, was but little impaired.  He not
only remembered the incidents of his childhood and youth, but the events of
latter years; and so faithful was his memory to him, that his son has
informed that he never heard him tell the same story twice, but to different
persons, and in different companies.  His eye sight failed him many years
before his death, but his hearing was uniformly perfect and unimpaired.  His
appetite was good till within a few days before his death.  He generally ate
a hearty breakfast of a pint of tea or coffee, as soon as he got out of bed,
with bread and butter in proportion.  He ate likewise at eleven o'clock, and
never failed to eat plentifully at dinner of the grossest solid food.  He
drank tea in the evening, but never ate any supper; he had lost all his
teeth thirty years before his death, which was occasioned, his son said, by
drawing excessive hot smoke of tobacco into his mouth : but the want of
suitable mastication of his food did not prevent its speedy digestion, nor
impair his health.  Whether the gums, hardened by age, supplied the place of
his teeth in a certain degree, or whether the juices of the mouth and
stomach became so much more acrid by time, as to perform the office of
dissolving the food more speedily and more perfectly, is not known; but it
has often been observed, that old people are most disposed to excessive
eating, and that they suffer fewest inconveniences from it.  He was
inquisitive after news in the last years of his life.  His education did not
lead him to increase the stock of his ideas any other way.  But it is a fact
well worth attending to, that old age, must afford some consolation to those
who expect to be old, to discover, that the infirmities, to which the decays
of nature expose the human body, are rendered more tolerable by the
enjoyments that are to be derived from the appetite for sensual and
intellectual food.
  He was remarkably sober and temperate.  Neither hard labour, nor company,
nor the usual afflictions of human life, nor the wastes of nature, ever led
him to an improper or excessive use of strong drink.  For the last
twenty-five years of his life, he drank twice every day of toddy, made with
two table spoonfuls of spirit, in half a pint of water.  His son, when a man
of fifty-nine years of age, said that he never saw him intoxicated.  The
time and manner in which he used spirituous liquors, it is believed,
contributed to lighten the weight of his years, and probably to prolong his
life.  "Give wine to him that is of a heavy heart, and strong drink to him
that is ready to perish with age, as well as with sickness.  Let him drink
and forget his sorrow, and remember his misery no more."
  He enjoyed an uncommon share of health, insomuch that in the course of his
long life he never was confined more than three days to his bed.  He often
declared that he had no idea of that most distressing pain called the
headache.  His sleep was interrupted a little in the last years of his life
with a defluxion on his breast, which produced what is commonly called the
old man's cough.
  The character of this aged citizen was not summed up in his negative
quality of temperance : he was a man of the most amiable temper : old age
had not curdled his blood; he was uniformly cheerful and kind to every body;
his religious principles were as steady as his morals were pure.  He
attended public worship about thirty years in the Rev. Dr. Sprout's church,
and died in a full assurance of a happy immortality.  The life of this man
is marked with several circumstances, which perhaps have seldom occurred in
the life of an individual.  He saw and heard more of those events which are
measured by time, than has ever been seen or heard by any man since the age
of the patriarchs; he saw the same spot of earth, which at one period of his
life was covered with wood and bushes, and the receptacle of beasts and
birds of prey, afterwards become the seat of a city not only the first in
wealth and arts in the new, but rivalling in both many of the first cities
in the old world.  He saw regular streets where he once pursued a hare; he
saw churches rising upon morasses where he had often heard the croaking of
frogs; he saw wharves and warehouses where he had often seen Indians draw
fish from the river for their daily subsistence, and he saw ships of every
size and use in those streams, where he had often seen nothing but Indian
canoes; he saw a stately edifice filled with legislators, astonishing the
world with their wisdom and virtue, on the same spot, probably, where he had
seen an Indian council fire; he saw the first treaty ratified between the
newly confederated powers of America and the ancient monarchy of France,
with all the formalities of parchment and seals, near the spot where he once
might have seen William Penn ratify his first and last treaty with the
Indians, without the formality of pen, ink, or paper; he saw all the
intermediate stages through which a people pass, from the most simple to the
highest degrees of civilization.  He saw the beginning and end of the empire
of Great Britain, in Pennsylvania.  He had been the subject of seven
successive crowned heads, and afterwards became a willing citizen of a
republic; for he embraced the liberties and independence of America in his
withered arms, and triumphed in the last years of his life in the freedom of
his country.
  It might have been said of him also, that he was in spirit and politics a
real whig of the Revolution, and liked to get the King's proclamations and
make them into kites for the use of his grand and great-grand children.  The
late Joseph Sansom, who used to often see him at his father's, described him
to me as a little withered old man, leaning heavily upon his staff, whilst
Mr. Sansom's father, to please the ancient man, searched his clock-case for
old tobacco pipes to serve him.  When Dr. Franklin was asked in England to
what age we lived in this country, he said he could not tell till Drinker died !

                          ALICE --- a black woman -----

  Was a slave, born in Philadelphia, of parents who came from Barbadoes, and
lived in that city until she was ten years old, when her master removed her
to Dunk's Ferry, in which neighbourhood she continued to the end of her
days.  She remembered the ground on which Philadelphia stands when it was a
wilderness and when the Indians (its chief inhabitant) hunted wild game in
the woods, while the panther, the wolf, and the beast of the forests were
prowling about the wigwams and cabins in which they lived.  Being a
sensible, intelligent woman, and having a good memory, which she retained to
the last, she would often make judicious remarks on the population and
improvements of the city and country; hence her conversation became
peculiarly interesting, especially to the immediate descendants of the first
settlers, of whose ancestors she often related acceptable anecdotes.
  She remembered William Penn, Thomas Story, James Logan, and several other
distinguished characters of that day.  During a short visit which she paid
to Philadelphia in her last days, many respectable persons called to see
her, who were all pleased with her innocent cheerfulness.  In observing the
increase of the city, she pointed out the house next to the Episcopal
church, to the southward in Second street, as the first brick building that
was erected in it.  The first church, she said, was a small frame of wood
that stood within the present walls, the ceiling of which she could reach
with her hands.  She was a worthy member of Christ church; used to visit it
on horseback at 95 years of age; loved to hear the Bible read; had a great
regard for the truth. She died in 1802, and retained her hearing; she lost
her sight at from 96 to 100 gradually, but it returned again.  When blind
she was skilful in catching fish, and would row herself out alone into the
stream; at 102 years of age, her sight gradually returned , partially.
Before she died, her hair became perfectly white; and the last of her teeth
dropped sound from her head at the age of 116 years; at this age she died
(1802) at Bristol, Pennsylvania.  For forty years she received ferriages at
Dunk's Ferry.  The woman said she remembered that the bell of the church was
affixed in the crotch of a tree, then standing on the church alley.

                            F. D. PASTORIUS

  Among the primitive population of Philadelphia county, there were some
fine scholars -- such as Thomas Lloyd, Thomas Story, F.D. Pastorius, James
Logan, John Kelpius, and others.  Lloyd and Pastorius came over in 1683, in
the same ship, and ever after were very good friends.  Pastorius was a
writer of numerous pieces, during his 36 years' residence in the colony.  He
left a beautifully written quarto book of about 300 pages, of various
selections and original remarks, entitled the Bee.  The book was with his
grandson, Daniel Pastorius, in Germantown, until very lately, and has got
lost by the negligence of some of its readers.  I have, however, in my
possession some of his MSS., from which I shall make some remarks.
  One book, in my possession, is a quarto MS. of 54 pages, entitled "Scripta
sunt per Franciscum Danielem Pastorium, Germanopoli, Pennsylvania, 1714.
Born in Germany, October 4th, A.D. 1651, at Limpurg".  The contents of this
book are principally dedicatory letters, acrostics and poems, to his
friends, the three daughters of Thomas Lloyd, being annual compositions,
commemorative of his and their safe landing at Philadelphia, on the 20th of
6 mo., 1683.  [It appears he began them, to them, in 1714.]  All his
writings embrace much of piety.  Those ladies he treats as eminently
religious, to wit :  Rachel Preston, Hannah Hill, and Mary Norris, each
bearing the name of her husband.  These papers are not calculated for
general interest, or inspection; but to the descendants of the families
named they should be very gratifying -- even as he himself has remarked; he
writes, "that some of your children and the children's children might have a
few rhythmical copies to write after", &c.  When we consider that Pastorius
was a German, it is really surprising he could write so well in English as he
did !  I extract from his poem, entitled a "Token of Love and Gratitude" : ----

       "I am far from flattering ! and hope ye read my mind,
       Who can't nor dare forget a shipmate true and kind,
       As he, your father, was to me, (an alien) ---
       My lot being newly cast among such English men,
       Whose speech I thought was Welsh, their words a canting tune,
       Alone with him, I could in Latin then commune;
       Which tongue he did pronounce right in our German way,
       Hence presently we knew what he or I could say ---
       Moreover, to the best of my remembrance,
       We never disagreed, or were at variance, ---
       Because God's sacred truth (whereat we both did aim)
       To her endeared friends is every where the same --
       Therefore `twas he that made my passage short on sea,
       `Twas he, and William Penn, that caused me to stay
       In this, then uncouth land, and howling wilderness,
       Wherein I saw, that I but little should possess,
       And if I would return home to my father's house
       Perhaps great riches and preferments might espouse, &c.
       Howbeit nought in the world could mine affection quench
       Towards dear Penn, with whom I did converse in French,
       The virtues of these two (and three or four beside)
       Have been the chiefest charms which forced me to abide."

                           JAMES  LOGAN

   I once had the privilege to see an original MS, of four pages, at
Stenton, in the handwriting of James Logan, wherein he gave "his parentage
and early life".  It appeared that his father, Patrick, was born in
Scotland, and there educated as a clergyman.  For some time he served as a
chaplain, but turning Quaker by convincement, was obliged to go over to
Ireland, and there to teach a Latin school; afterwards he taught at Bristol
in England.  While yet in Scotland, he married Isabel Hume; her family was
related to the Laird of Dundas, and the Earl of Panmar.
   Besides these facts, related by James Logan, I have met with other facts
of the early antiquity and distinction of his family, which, as they are
little known, I shall inscribe in part from the Scotsman's Library, and from
the Memoirs of the Somervilles, to wit:
   "The name of Logan is one of those derived from locality, and hence
deemed the more honourable.  It appears in Scotch history at the early
period of William the Lion, and throughout subsequent ages is connected with
important national transactions.  The Chief was Baron of Restalrig, and this
house was connected by various intermarriages with most of the noble
families in the kingdom, and even with royalty itself, one of them having
married a daughter of Robert II., who granted him the lands of Grugar, by a
charter addressed "militi dilecto fratri suo".
   James Logan had several brothers and sisters, but none of them lived
long, save his brother William, who became physician of eminence in Bristol.
James Logan was born at Lurgan in Ireland, on the 20th of October, 1674; he
had learned Latin, Greek, and some Hebrew, even before he was thirteen years
of age. While in Bristol he assisted his father as a teacher. In his
sixteenth year he instructed himself in the mathematics, a science in which
he afterwards showed much ability in our country, as a scientific
correspondent. At nineteen years of age, he had studied French, Italian and
Spanish.
   In the year 1699, then in his twenty-fifth year, he was solicited by
William Penn to accompany him to Pennsylvania as his Secretary, &c., where,
in time, he fell into the general charge of all his business; but from
motives of tenderness to his harassed principal, he never charged but £100 a
year for all his numerous services, for many years. This was itself a lively
proof of his liberality and disinterested zeal for a good man, and showed
him at once a faithful and generous friend.  Steadfast as he was to his
honoured principal, it is hardly possible to conceive how irksome and
perplexing his duties, so moderately charged, always were.  In his MS. book
of letters to the proprietaries is preserved a long detail of them, such as
they were in general, drawn up by him about the year 1729, as reasons to
show why he so earnestly prayed to be excused from further servitude, saying
it injured his health, and much trespassed upon the time due to his proper
business as a merchant, &c.
   When James Logan first consented to come to this country with Penn, he
came to it as a place to hide himself from the cares of life, and with no
wish or expectation to advance his fortune among us; but the reasons which
he gives, in more advanced years, for changing his mind, are instructive, as
they show that a religious man may moderately desire a measure of wealth
with sincere purposes to make himself a better man, by attaining the proper
means of becoming more useful.  His words strike me as sufficiently sensible
and very impressive, to wit: "When he was a young man, and secretary to
Penn, he felt an indifference to money, and deemed this a happy retirement
for cultivating the Christian graces; but after he had some experience in
life, finding how little respect and influence could be usefully exerted
without such competency as could give man a ready access to good society, he
thenceforward set himself seriously to endeavour, by engagements in
commerce, (a new track to him), to attain that consequence and weight which
property so readily confers".  In the same connexion he adds, "he never had
the wish to leave any large possessions to his posterity, from the belief
that moderate fortunes were more beneficial legacies than large ones."  It
was probably from these views of moderate bequests to heirs, that he was so
liberal to bestow his large library and other gifts to public purposes,
rather than to his immediate heirs.
   In personal appearance James Logan was tall and well-proportioned, with
a graceful yet grave demeanour.  He had a good complexion, and was quite
florid, even in old age; nor did his hair, which was brown, turn gray in the
decline of life, nor his eyes require spectacles.  According to the fashion
of the times he wore a powdered wig.  His whole manner was dignified, so as
to abash impertinence; yet he was kind, and strictly just in all the minor
duties of acquaintance and society.  The engraved portrait is taken from a
family piece now in the Loganian Library.
   As a man of learning, he stood pre-eminent.  His business never led him
off from his affection to the muses.  He maintained a correspondence with
several of the literati in Europe, and fostered science at home.  His aid to
Godfrey, the inventor of the quadrant, is in proof to this point; and his
literary intercourse with Governor Hunter, Dr. Colden, Col. Morris, Dr.
Johnstone, Dr.Jenny, Governor Burnet, and others, at New York and elsewhere
in our country, shows how much his mind was turned to the love of science,
and to its disciples wherever found.
   As he advanced in life, he much desired to give up the cares of business.
He retired altogether to his country place at Stenton, hoping there to enjoy
himself OTIUM CUM DIGNITATE.  Still, however, Penn's business and official
employs were occasionally pressed upon him; especially in cases of Indian
affairs; because in them he had merited the peculiar affection and
confidence of the Indian tribes, they often visiting his grounds and
remaining there some time under his hospitality.  The celebrated Mingo
chief, "Logan", whose eloquent speech has been preserved by Mr. Jefferson,
was so named by his father Shickallemy, because of his regard to James
Logan.   As he grew in years, he met with the injury of a limb, which
confined him long to his home.  He there endeavoured to fortify his mind,
like Cicero before him, in cultivating the best feelings of old age, by
keeping his mind and attachments young and cheerful.  To this cause, he
translated Cicero de Senectute into English, a work which when published was
imputed erroneously to Dr. Franklin, who was only the printer.  This fact
may be seen demonstrated at large in my MS. Annals in the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania, page 322.  He was also the author of two other works, now
in possession of Joshua Fisher, Esq., but not found in any catalogues, to wit:
   "Demonstrationes de Rudiorum Lucis in Superfices Sphericas, --- Auctore
Jacobo Logan, Judice Supremo et Praeside Concilii Provincae
Pennsylvaniensis, in America". ----Also,
   "Jacobi Logani Judicis Supremi et Concilii Praedis Provincae
Pennsylvaniensis, Epistola ad Virum Clarissimum, Joannem Albertum Fabricium,
Experimenta et Meletemata de Plantarum, &c."
   He died in 1751, aged 77 years, and lies interred at Friends' Arch street
ground.  Several other facts concerning James Logan having been already
distributed through these pages, are omitted in the present article.
   James Logan, at different periods of his life, held the offices of
Provincial Secretary, Commissioner of Property and Receiver General, Mayor
of Philadelphia, Recorder of the city, President Judge of Common Pleas,
Chief Justice of the Province, and President of the Council, in which latter
office he governed the Province, as Governor, for two years, from 1736 to '38.
   From his steadfast and known attachment to the Penn family, he became
occasionally exposed to the shafts of obloquy, --- from those who had
adverse purposes and sinister design to answer.  This led to one instance of
his impeachment by the Assembly, urged on by David Lloyd.  His defence was
able, and sufficient in the opinion of Governors Evans and Gordon.  To them
succeeded Sir Wm. Keith, who from his needy circumstances and his desire to
gain popularity with the people, renewed the excitements against James Logan
and deprived him of his place in the Council and of the seals of the
Province.  When Governor Gordon came into power, the power and influence of
James Logan was regained.  Not long after, he retired from his public
employments with the respect of all the colonists, and to the great regret
of the proprietary family.
   When retired to his country seat at Stenton, he seems to have occupied
himself in agriculture and literature.  He there made out a large collection
of mathematical papers.  Treatises on History, Archaiology(sic), Criticism,
Theology, Ethics, Natural Philosophy, Anatomy, Law, severally engaged his
mind and occupied his pen.  His MS. remains and printed pamphlets are
numerous, and ought to be deemed worthy of being gathered and placed in the
Loganian library, as papers characteristic of the generous founder, and also
as an evidence that he personally understood the valuable scientific works
which he had so munificently accumulated for the use of others.
   Some among Friends have been surprised to have heard that James Logan
should have been an advocate for placing the city and country in a state of
defence; -- but it was really so.  In the year 1741, he actually wrote a
paper to dissuade Friends from serving in the Legislature, unless they could
feel free to contribute to the cost of defence.  He actually gave £500
towards the erection of the town battery at the South End.

                            EDWARD  SHIPPEN

  Was chosen first Mayor under the city charter of 1701.  Tradition says he
was distinguished for three things -- the biggest man -- the biggest house
-- and the biggest carriage.  His house "was the great and famous house and
orchard outside the town", situate on the site now "Waln's Row", in south
Second street, below the present Custom House.
  He came early into the province from Boston, whither he had gone from
England in 1675. There he was persecuted for his religion as a Friend, and
actually received, from the zealots in power, a public whipping !  He was
very successful in business as a merchant in our infant city, and amassed a
large fortune.  He was grandfather to our late Chief Justice Shippen, and
ancestor of the first medical lecturer, Doctor Shippen.
  I have seen a letter of 1706 to young William Penn, wherein is given a
humorous description of his then late marriage to Wilcox's daughter -- then
his second or third wife; it was conducted, out of Meeting, in a private
way, as he had previously made a breach of discipline.  He had certainly,
about this time, laid aside his former submissive spirit; for in 1709, his
name appears on the minutes of the Common Council, as petitioning for a
remission of £7 10s. before imposed on him, as a fine for an assault and
battery on the body of Thomas Clark, Esq.  They agreed, however, to remit
the half, in consideration of his paying the other half.

                       JOHN  S.  HUTTON,  aged 109 years.

  John S. Hutton, silversmith of Philadelphia, as he related the particulars
of his life to the late C.W. Peale, was born in New York, in 1684.  He was
originally bound apprentice to a sea captain, who put him to school to learn
the art of navigation.  At that time he became intimate with a boy who
worked at the white-smith trade, by which means he obtained a facility in
working at plate-work in the silversmith's business.  He followed the
seafaring life for thirty years, and then commenced the silversmith's trade.
He was long esteemed in Philadelphia one of the best workmen at hollow work;
and there are still pieces of his work in much esteem.  He made a tumbler in
silver when he was 94 years of age.
  Through the course of a long and hazardous life in various climes, he was
always plain and temperate in his eating and drinking, and particularly
avoided spirituous liquors, except in one instance, while he was serving as
lieutenant of a privateer in Queen Anne's war.  That occasion gave him a
lasting lesson of future restraint; for having made a descent on the Spanish
main and pillaged a village, while they had all given themselves to mirth
and revelry, they were intercepted in their return to their boats, and all
killed save himself and one other, who were made prisoners and held in long
confinement.
  His first wife was Catherine Cheeseman, of New York, by whom he had eight
children, 25 grandchildren, 23 great grandchildren and great great
grandchildren.
  At the age of 51 he married his second wife in Philadelphia, Ann Vanlear,
19 years of age, by whom he had 17 children, 41 grandchildren, and 15 great
grandchildren -- forming in all a grand total of 132 descendants, of whom 45
were then dead.  Those who survived were generally dwelling in Philadelphia.
His last wife died in 1788, at the age of 72.  Mr. Hutton deemed himself in
the prime of his life when 60 years of age.  He never had a headache.
  He was always fond of fishing and fowling, and till his 81st year used to
carry a heavy English musket in his hunting excursions.  He was ever a
quiet, temperate, and hard-working man, and even in the year of his death
was quite cheerful and good humoured.  He could then see, hear, and walk
about; had a good appetite, and no complaints whatever, except from the mere
debility of old age.  When shall "we behold his like again !"
  In his early life he was on two scouts against the Indians; he used to
tell, that in one of these excursions they went out in the night, that they
took a squaw prisoner, who led them to where the Indians lay, of whom they
killed the most, before they could get to their arms.  The circumstance
induced the Indians to come in and make their peace.
  He knew the noted pirate, Teach, called Blackbeard; he saw him at
Barbadoes after he had come in under the Act of Oblivion to him and other
pirates.  This was a short time before that pirate made his last cruise and
was killed in Carolina.
  The father of Hutton was John Hutton, of Bermuda in Scotland, where many
of the family reside.  His grandfather, by his mothers side, was Arthur
Strangeways, who died at Boston, at the age of 101 years, while sitting in
his chair.
  J.S. Hutton died at Philadelphia, on the 20th of December 1792, in the
109th year of his age. His long life, and numerous children, made him a
patriarch indeed !  "In children's lives feels his resurrection, and grows
immortal in his children's children !"  He was deemed so rare an instance of
"lusty old age", that Mr. C.W. Peale was induced to take his portrait as now
seen in the Museum, as he appeared in the last year of his life.  He was
borne to his grave by his fellow craftsmen -- all silversmiths.

                             THOMAS  GODFREY

  The inventor of the quadrant, was born in Bristol township, about one mile
from Germantown, in the year 1704, on a farm adjoining to Lukens' mill, on
the Church lane.  His grandfather, Thomas Godfrey, a farmer, had purchased
the place of 153 acres from Samuel Carpenter, merchant of Philadelphia, on
the 24th of August, 1697.  His father, Joseph, a farmer and malster, died in
1705, when he was but one year old.  His mother afterwards married one Wood,
of Philadelphia, and put her son out to learn the business of a glazier.
The glaziers then did not paint as now; they only soldered the glasses into
leaden frames.  He did such work for the State house in 1732-3.  He also did
the same for £6 10s. for Andrew Hamilton's house at Bush hill, in 1740 --
and I saw his bills.  His father's estate became his when he was of age.  He
appears to have sold it to John Lukens on the 1st of January 1735.  The same
premises sold in 1812 for $30,600.
  While engaged at his business on the premises at Stenton -- J. Logan's
place -- accidently observing a piece of fallen glass, an idea presented to
his reflecting mind, which caused him to quit his scaffold and to go into
Mr. Logan's library, where he took down a volume of Newton.  Mr. Logan
entering at this time and seeing the book in his hand, inquired into the
motive of his search, when he was exceedingly pleased with Godfrey's
ingenuity, and from that time became his zealous friend.  He procured for
him a skilful person to try his quadrant at sea; and finding it fully
answered every wish, he endeavoured to serve him by writing to his friends
in England, especially to Sir Hans Sloane, so as to get for him the reward
offered by the Royal Society.  This was intended to be a measure in
opposition to the claim of Hadley, who it was supposed had obtained the
description of the instrument from his nephew, who it was recollected had
seen it in the West Indies.  Such is the tradition of the matter in the
Logan family as preserved by Mrs. Logan.  James Logan asserts in a letter to
one of his friends, that Godfrey's discovery was two years prior to Hadley's.
  "Joshua Fisher, of Lewistown, afterwards of Philadelphia, merchant, first
tried the quadrant in the bay of Delaware".  Afterwards Captain Wright
carried it to Jamaica, where unsuspicious of the piracy, he showed and
explained it to several Englishmen, among whom was the nephew of Hadley's.
  Godfrey's affections for mathematical science occurred at an early period,
from a chance opportunity of reading a book on that study.  Finding the
subject perplexed with Latin terms, he applied himself to that language with
such diligence as to be able to read the occasional Latin he found.  Optics
and astronomy became his favourite studies, and the exercise of his thoughts
led him on to conceive at length the instrument which should enlarge his
fame.  Further particulars, in print, on this subject may be found in the
Philosophical Transactions, No. 435, and also in Bradford's American
Magazine for July 1758, and in my MS. Annals in the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, p. 566.
  The grave-stones of some of the family still remained upon the farm.  Two
of them, of soapstone, were out in the field close to the partition fence,
and the letters much effaced; but Mr. Nathan Spencer, near there, who once
owned the place, and honoured the inventor, had procured the inscriptions as
they once stood, being told by Ann Nedrow to Spencer's father, and from him
to Nathan, my informant, to wit :

       East side: ---
              Here lyeth the body of Joseph, son of Thomas
         and Frances Godfrey, aged thirty-and-two years, who died
                the 14th of 2nd mo., in the year 1705, ---

              As by grace comes election,
              So the end of our hope is resurrection.

       West side: ---

               Death ends man's worke
               And labour here.
               The man is blest
               Whose labour's just and pure.
               `Tis vain for man
               This life for to adore,
               For our dear son
               Is dead and gone before;
               We hope our Saviour
               Him hath justified
               Though of his being present
               We are now deprived.

   On the south side of the above described stone were placed the bodies of
his father (Thomas) and mother, and on the north side, the bodies of his son
Thomas, the inventor, and his wife.  Mrs. Nedrow said she saw Thomas, the
inventor, there buried in December 1749.  There never was any separate stone
placed for him.  Thus he, who had benefited naval science and commerce with
millions, had not had the requital of a stone itself to mark his memory !
Like Washington's, it may live without it -- without "storied urn or
monumental bust!"
  I have since taken the headstone and the remains of the whole Godfrey
family to the cemetery at Laurel Hill, where beside the old stone, valuable
for its antiquity, they have generously placed a new marble tombstone with
this inscription, to wit :

                          Here repose the remains
                                    of
                               Thomas Godfrey
                            The inventor of the
                                 Quadrant
                           Born 1704, died 1749.
                                   Also.
                    The remains of his father and mother,
                           Joseph Godfrey and wife,
                          They were removed from the
                    Old homestead by Townsend's first Mill,
                               October 6, 1838
                              By John F. Watson
                          Viam navit¾ complanavit**

**There has since been a monument placed there.

  I deem it a general mistake to suppose that Thomas Godfrey was either poor
or uneducated.  His trade as a plumber, who glazed window panes in leaden
frames, (the latter of which he made, and of which I have seen some remains
of his matrices, &c.,) must have been a good one, when he made such for the
State House, Hamilton's place at Bush Hill, and probably for Christ Church
and other respectable buildings.  It was a mistake to suppose he was a
common house-painter because he was a "glazier".  I know, also, that he was
a measurer of superfices, by profession, for I have in my possession his
original MS. certificate in good handwriting and spelling, of the quantity
of ground dug and carted from the State House premises, on the 29th of
September 1738.
  Some persons seem to have wished to magnify his discoveries by affecting
to lower his attainments.  But truth is truth; and so I have given it, as I
have found it.

               THOMAS  GODFREY, Junior

  This was the second son of Godfrey the inventor.  He had learned, in
Philadelphia, the business of watchmaking, but became a lieutenant of the
royal Americans raised for the expedition to Fort du Quesne in 1758.  After
their disbandment, he went to Wilmington, North Carolina, where he became a
factor. {Note :  Factor = One who acts or transacts business for another,
i.e.: Broker}  He died there, after three years' residence, the 3d August
1763, in the twenty-seventh year of his age, in consequence of over exercise
on a very warm day.  His remains were designated there by a tombstone, in
the ground of St. James' church.  He was much of a reader -- well versed in
the English poets, and was himself a poet of no mean rank.  He wrote several
pieces descriptive of the vicinity where he dwelt.  His principal poem was
called the Court of Fancy.  Some of his pastorals and elegies possess
beauty.  His Epistle from Fort Henry has been admired.  He is principally,
however, to be distinguished as the author of the first American drama.  He
called it the Prince of Parthia -- a tragedy of some merit.  He had also
some taste for music and painting.  Genius was in him and stirred.
  It is scarcely known to the public that the inventor had another and an
elder son, Joseph, brought up in the trade of his father, as a glazier; but
about himself or family we know nothing, save that when his mother Ann died
in 1752, (only three years after the death of her husband, the inventor)
letters of administration were granted to him on the estate, and in that
estate it appears they had an interest in the house now standing at the
north-west corner of Strawberry alley and Chestnut street.
  There seems some reason to believe that there were some other branches of
the Godfrey family in Philadelphia.  For instance, Philip Godfrey of Cape
May, born about the year 1721, was a respectable landholder and shipbuilder
there with a large family, and I chance to know that, about the year 1743,
his sons and daughters became heirs of family estate left to them in
Philadelphia.*  And upon looking over the records of Philadelphia, we find
there a Thomas Godfrey, who died in 1756, and his wife Jane, in 1771,
leaving a large family of children, whose names are on the record, and
connected with the book of Wills, &c.
    *A descendant of theirs, Thomas Godfrey, a plasterer, aged about thirty
years, is now a resident of Kensington.
  We mention the facts without presuming to settle any inferences.

                 DR.  FRANKLIN

  It is but little known, or set down to the commendation of Franklin, that
when he was young in business, and stood in need of sundry articles in the
line of his profession as a printer, he had the ingenuity to make them for
himself.  In this way he founded letters of lead, engraved various printing
ornaments, cut wood-cuts, made printer's ink, engraved copperplate
vignettes, and made his plate press.  Sower, an ingenious German printer,
did something in the same way at Germantown.
  Not long after Benjamin Franklin had commenced editor of a newspaper, he
noticed with considerable freedom the public conduct of one or two
influential persons in Philadelphia.  This circumstance was regarded by some
of his patrons with disapprobation, and induced one of them to convey to
Franklin the opinion of his friends in regard to it.  The doctor listened
with patience to the reproof, and begged the favour of his friend's company
at supper on an evening which he named; at the same time requesting that the
other gentlemen who were dissatisfied with him should also attend.  The
invitation was accepted by Philip Syng, Hugh Roberts, and several others.
The doctor received them cordially, and his editorial conduct was canvassed,
and some advice given.  Supper was at last announced, and the guests invited
to an adjoining room.  The doctor begged the party to be seated, and urged
them to help themselves; but the table was only supplied with two puddings
and a stone pitcher filled with water !  Each guest had a  plate, a spoon,
and a penny porringer; they were all helped; but none but the doctor could
eat; he partook freely of the pudding, and urged his friends to do the same;
but it was out of the question -- they tasted and tried in vain.  When their
facetious host saw the difficulty was unconquerable, he rose and addressed
them thus : "My friends, any one who can subsist upon saw-dust pudding and
water, as I can, needs no man's patronage !"
  The house, No. 141 High street, on the north side, between Third and
Fourth streets (now the property of the heirs of Daniel Wister) was
originally the residence of Dr. Franklin, and was the first house in
Philadelphia which ever had a lightning rod affixed to it.  This was put up
by Dr. Franklin.  The rod came into the bedchamber in the second story on
the gable end, eastern side, and there being cut off from its communication
with the rod descending to the ground, the intermediate space of about one
yard was filled up with a range of chime of bells, which whenever an
electric cloud passed over the place were set to ringing and throwing out
sparks of electricity.  These bells remained some time after Daniel Wister
occupied the house, and were at last reluctantly taken down, to quiet the
fears of his wife.  Mr. C.J. Wister, who told me of this, told me they even
played and conducted electricity sometimes in the winter.
  In 1750, Benjamin Franklin owned and dwelt in the house at the south-east
corner of Race and Second streets.  The same house was afterwards made the
Franklin Inn.
  I had the pleasure to see several original letters from Dr. Franklin, when
province agent in England, to Hugh Roberts in Philadelphia.  He speaks in
strong terms of affection for the members of the Junto -- speaks of the club
then existing 40 years.  The letters from each of them express their mutual
love of punning, and both give good examples of their skill therein.
  When I visited the house of Edward Duffield, in Byberry, the executor of
Franklin's will, I there saw in the possession of his son, a portrait of
Franklin's bust, done for him when apparently about 38 to 40 years of age.
It was a present from Franklin, supposed to have been done by West, and
would be quite a new face to the public.  [I have since procured the present
engraving from it.  The leading features and general aspect have so many
agreements with his older portraits already known to the public, that this
may be readily received as his true likeness in middle life.]  There was
also there a miniature profile done by Wedgewood in white china, finely
delineated, also one as a medal done in France.  Edward Duffield, the son,
told me that Franklin told his father that when he was in France, and
travelling, he sometimes made a temporary ®olian harp by stretching a silken
cord across some crevice where air passed.  On one such occasion, in
repassing such a house after an elapse of years, he found it deserted
because of their hearing strange but melodious sounds, which they deemed
good evidence of its being haunted.  On entering the house he found vestiges
of the silk remaining -- the creator of all the mischief.
  Dr. Franklin's person, as seen at the period of the Revolution, was square
built and fat; he wore his own hair, thin and gray; his head was remarkably
large in proportion to his figure, and his countenance mild, firm and
expressive -- looked healthy and vigorous.  He was friendly and agreeable in
conversation, which he readily suited to his company -- with a seeming wish
to benefit his hearers; and at the same time possessing a rare talent of
himself profiting by the conversation of others, and turning their hints to
such purposes as he desired.
  He once told Dr. Logan that the celebrated Adam Smith, when writing his
"Wealth of Nations", was in the habit of bringing chapter after chapter, as
he composed it, to himself, Dr. Price and others of the literati; then
patiently hear their observations, and profit by their discussions and
criticism -- even sometimes submitting to write whole chapters anew, and
even to reverse some of his propositions.
  On page 170 of my MS. Annals in the City Library, I have preserved a
fragment of Dr. Franklin's black silk velvet coat with the pile uncut --
such as was his dress coat.
  In 1764 Dr. Franklin is sent to England to act as agent for the province.
He is sent in consequence of the difference with Governor John Penn
concerning taxing the proprietary estates.
  In consequence of thus going abroad, his interest in the Pennsylvania
Gazette ceases, and is continued by D. Hall first, and by Hall and Sellers
afterwards.
  My aged friend, Samuel Preston, tells some anecdotes of Dr. Franklin when
he was at the Indian treaty at Easton in 1756.  Preston's father, then
there, much admired Franklin's ready wit.  When the old Indians came in
their file to speak to the Governor he would ask their names; then the
Governor would ask Ben, as he called him, what he must think of to remember
them by.  He was always answered promptly.  At last one Indian came whose
name was Tocarededhogan.  Such a name !  How shall it be remembered ?  The
answer was prompt :-- Think of a wheelbarrow -- to carry a dead hog on.
Note -- One of the Indian names for Governor of Maryland was much like the
above long name, "Tocarry-Hogan".  Vide Douglass, 1749.
  "The Historical Review of Pennsylvania" of 1759, was generally imputed to
Dr. Franklin; but his grandson, Backe, declared in court that it was not so.
Some extracts from a MS. of twenty pages, found among Governor Hamilton's
papers, treats it as the production of Franklin, and says of him, "he
certainly will not pretend to a disinterested or undesigning combat in this
dispute" &c.  There is, however, much reason to believe that he had much
hand in its production; there is so much of his acumen in it, although it
too often violates truth and candour, to present false glosses, &c.   More
may be seen in my MS Annals, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania page
110, at some length.
  On page 344 of the same Annals, is an autographed letter of Dr. Franklin
to Charles Thomson, of the 13th of May 1784, saying, "Yesterday evening Mr.
Hartley met with Mr. Jay and myself, when the ratifications of the
Definitive Treaty were exchanged.  God be praised ! -- an event I hardly
expected I should live to see" &c.  The advice which he proceeds to give I
have told in another place.
  When Franklin came from London in 1786, in a ship commanded by Captain
Truxton, he was landed at High street wharf, where half the population came
to hail his welcome, and to salute him with a discharge of artillery.  What
a change in his circumstances since he first landed at the same place --
when he first landed there as an unfriended boy !
  Franklin and his daughter Mrs. Bache were both remarkable for their very
large exhibition of the organ of "philo-progenitiveness" -- or bumps upon
the back of the head.  In Franklin's time, when people spoke of it, they
said it was a mark of wisdom; but now it goes for love of children, of which
Dr. F. gave sufficient proofs in his care of his natural children.
  The original electrical apparatus of Franklin is preserved in the Franklin
Institute in Philadelphia.  The same by which he experimented to bring "fire
from heaven!"
  The printing press on which he worked when in London is also there as a
gift, lately brought here as a relic.
  The suit which he wore in France at the time he signed the Treaty, is now
in the Historical Society of Massachusetts -- it is of silky fabric -- striped.
  There is some reason to suppose that Dr. Franklin was not originally
thorough-going for the Revolution; there were reasons enough to keep him
moderate; such as that he held valuable offices for years of the crown, and
enjoyed the confidence of its officers at the time of the Stamp Act, so much
so, that he readily procured the office of stamp master for his friend
Hughes, and having at the same time his natural son, William Franklin in the
office of Governor of New Jersey.  It was insinuated at the time, that he
was too indifferent to the operation of the Stamp Act; and the family of
Hughes afterwards got offended at his after measures, and preserved some
correspondence on those points.  Some hints of these things I saw also in
the MS. of Charles Thomson, and a letter from Franklin's son, exculpating
him; copies of which, with other papers, are in my manuscript book, given to
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.  Finally, after Franklin's return,
and he in Congress, he was supposed by some to have been unsettled in his
mind respecting the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  John Adams,
speaking of Franklin, in his letter to his wife, says, "his conduct has been
composed and grave, and, in the opinion of many, very reserved -- yet
entirely American".  Indeed it was a perplexing point, for so wary a man.
  Since my publication of the foregoing, I have learned that there are
better reasons for believing that Dr. Franklin had stronger resolutions for
the Revolution than I had then supposed; because it is a fact capable of
proof, that he was one of the committee of five who actually assisted in the
preparation of the Declaration of Independence -- that he also joined in the
report of it to Congress, and voted for its adoption with two others of the
Pennsylvania delegation, on the 1st and 4th July.  On this matter, see Gov.
McKean's letter.
  At the time of the Stamp Act in 1765, and while he was abroad in England,
as agent for the interests of the colony, electioneering strife ran very
high.  The adverse parties got up caricatures : in one of these, Franklin is
made conspicuous among the electors, accompanied by the Devil, who is made
to ejaculate his suggestions in the ear of Franklin, and saying, "Thee shall
be agent Ben for all my realms".  The same caricature, the "Medley", says of
him ---
      "All his designs concentre in himself,
       For building castles and amassing pelf ---
       The public `tis his wit to sell for gain
       Whom private property did ne'er maintain."
  As a proof that the rancour of modern politics had its equal even in the
days of olden time, we shall here add some exemplifications from the pen of
Mrs. Franklin herself, which, while they show the characteristic feelings of
a public spirited woman, will also tend to preserve something to the memory
of a lady otherwise but little known to the public.  They are additionally
interesting as being family letters, and showing the living relation of
those two individuals, who now mingle their remains in Christ Church ground,
under the simple monumental inscription of "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin".
  In her letter of 21st February 1765, written to him in London, from
Philadelphia, she says -- "The Southern mail has not come in, nor has the
Virginia mail, for more than two months !" -- Little correspondence then !
  In her letter of September 22, 1765 from near Philadelphia, she says :
   "You will see by the papers what work has happened in other places, and
something has been said relative to raising a mob here.  I was for five days
kept in one continued hurry to remove, and was persuaded to go to Burlington
for safety, [probably to Franklin's son, Governor of New Jersey] but on
Monday last we had very great rejoicings, on account of the change of the
ministry, and a preparation for bonfires at night, and several houses
threatened to be pulled down.  Cousin Davenport came and told me that more
than twenty people had told him it was his duty to be with me.  I said I was
pleased to receive civility from any body; so he stayed with me some time.
Towards night I said he should fetch a gun or two, as we had none.  I sent
to ask my brother to come and bring his gun also; so we made our room into a
magazine.  I ordered some sort of defence up stairs, such as I could manage
myself.  I said, when I was advised to remove, that I was very sure you had
done nothing to hurt any body, nor had I given any offence to any person at
all, neither would I be made uneasy by any body -- nor would I stir or show
the least uneasiness -- but if any one came to disturb me, I would show a
proper resentment, and I should be very much affronted with any body to
hinder me.  I was told that there were eight hundred men ready to assist any
one that should be molested.  * * * ____ came down to ask us up to
Burlington -- I consented to ____'s going; but I will not stir, as I really
don't think it would be right in me to show the least uneasiness. * * *  It
is past three o'clock.  I have only to tell you who was so good as to visit
me last Monday night --- Cousin Davenport, my brother, F. Foxcrafte, Mr.
Wharton, Sen.  He came past eight o'clock on horseback; also his son Sammy,
Mr. Baynton, Mr. S. Rhodes.  They offered to stay all night, but I begged
they would not, lest they should get sick.  My three cousins Lacock, and Mr.
Hall, neighbour Shoemaker's sons, neighbour Wister's son, and more of the
neighbours came.  Young Dr. Tennent, who came home in Friend's vessel, came
and offered me all assistance in his power; I thanked him.  I should not
forget Mr. John Rose and brother Swan."
  "It is Mr. S.S. that is setting the people mad, by telling them it was you
that had planned the Stamp Act, and that you are endeavouring to get the
Test Act brought over here; but as I don't go much to town, I maybe shall be
easy for a while after the election is over; but till that, I must be
disturbed."
  Her letter of 3d November 1765, says -- "The dreadful first of November is
over, and not so much disorder as was dreaded.  I am ashamed of many of our
citizens; but I think you are informed by better hands than mine.  * * *  I
saw a letter from Mr. Colden, [Lieutenant Governor of New York] wherein he
says, they had a mob the night before last, and there was one threatened to
be that night, to pull down his office, (they burnt his coach) and his wife
and children were gone to the Fort in order to escape the insults of the
mob; but I hope it will blow over without any damage, as the threatenings of
the tools have done here.  So you see, my dear, how ready we are to follow
the fashion of the English folks.  I have often thought what a mercy it was
that it is only those here, that seem dissatisfied, which think and call
themselves the better sort -- and that we can turn out six or seven hundred
honest good tradesmen to convince them that they are but mere botchers.  The
head of the mob is about three persons, two or three doctors, your
countryman S.S., whom I really pity, as I believe he will kill himself
heartily despised, for which I can't help being pleased in some measure."
  Some other facts in relation to the foregoing period and the excitement
produced, may be consulted under the chapter "Stamp Act resisted".

                  REV.  GEORGE  WHITFIELD

  Great was the religious excitement in his day;  and the consequence was
that some fanaticism prevailed -- where preachers and people "carried high
sail", and spoke and acted "too often from fires of their own kindling", as
some of those concerned afterwards made their confessions.  I give the
following facts as I found them, to wit :
  1739 -- Mr. Whitfield preached to fifteen thousand people "on Society
Hill, near to the flag staff", somewhere near Frost and Pine streets.  The
Gazette of the time says, that since his preaching among us, the dancing
school, assembly and concert room have been shut up as inconsistent with the
Gospel; and although the gentlemen concerned broke open the doors, no
company went the last assembly night.
  During the session of the Presbyterian Synod of one week, there were
fourteen sermons preached on Society Hill, (meaning in the open air) to
large audiences, by the Tennants, Davenport, Rowland and Blair.  The change
to religion here (says the Gazette) is altogether surprising, through the
influence of Whitfield.  No books sell but religious, and such is the
general conversation.  Benjamin Franklin proposes to publish Whitfield's
journal and sermons, by his permission.  His paper, No. 606, contains a long
letter from the Rev. Ebenezer Kinnersley, the Professor, against the violent
and extravagant preachings of Rowland and others; and the Rev. Mr. Cummings
of the Episcopal Church, publishes sermons against the manner of the
awakenings and tumults.
  Whitfield publishes a letter to southern planters in favour of their
blacks, and against slavery; and it is said he takes up five thousand acres
of land in the Forks of Delaware, (since Bethlehem, &c.) in order to erect a
negro school, &c.  Whitfield's letters, to prove that Tillotson was not a
Christian believer, are given in the Gazettes at large.
  In December 1739, Mr. Whitfield left the city, and was accompanied to
Chester by about 150 horsemen, and preached there to about 7000 people.  At
White-creek he preached to 8000; of whom as many as 3000 were on horseback.
Many complimentary effusions to him appear in the Gazettes.
  The very tones of his voice had witchery in it; it was both powerful and
sweet.  Colonel Morris, when 90 years of age, told me he was distinctly
heard by persons at Gloucester Point, when he was preaching on Society Hill,
making a distance, by water, of 2 miles; and old Mr. Dupuy told me, that
when he preached from the balcony of the court house on Second street by the
market, he could be readily heard by people in boats on the river -- not
perhaps to make out the sense but to hear the sound.  However, the words "he
taught them saying" were said to have been heard even at Gloucester Point !
  A letter from James Pemberton, a Friend, of the 11th of 9 mo. 1739, which
I have seen, speaks thus of him, saying, "He preaches here every day to
numerous people.  Some of our curious, IF youths of rash judgment, who look
at words more than substance, are very constant in attending, and are much
pleased.  He preached three nights successively upon our court house steps
(in Second street) where he exceedingly takes with the people.  He aims much
at priestcraft,*  and speaks very satirically of the Papists, whom he
incenses much.  [*There is ambiguity in this sentence, but which I
understand to mean, that he attacks such craft -- for he says of him further
on, "He has not much of the priest in his conversation", &c.]  Last night he
had the greatest multitude I ever saw, and some accident happened which
greatly frightened many.  Some thought it was an earthquake, others that it
was fire, others that the Spaniards were come, &c.  Many were much hurt by
falling and being trod upon; many lost their hats, cloaks, &c.  The preacher
had to leave off speaking till they recovered their senses, which some did
and others did not.  His intentions are good; but he has not arrived at such
perfection as to see so far as he yet may.  In his conversation he is very
agreeable, and has not much of the priest; he frequents no set company."
  This sober judgment of Friend Pemberton, given to his friend John Smith of
Burlington, came to have a singular verification in Whitfield's own
confession, later in life.  His friendly biographer has published of him,
that as he grew older he thought and acted differently; and of himself he
said, "I have carried high sail whilst running through a torrent of
popularity and contempt.  I may have mistaken nature for grace, imagination
for revelation, and the fire of my own temper for the flame of holy zeal;
and I find I have frequently written and spoken in my own spirit, when I
thought I was assisted entirely by God".
  Here was at least a redeeming penitence and candour; he did not "see so
far as he may" in several of his most sanguine projects; indeed generally,
they failed.  He built the old academy over-large, and for itinerants for
ever -- and behold how soon it passed for other purposes; he took up lands
for freed negroes at Bethlehem, and it went to the Moravians; his orphan
house and scheme in Georgia was quite a failure.
  1742 -- The Gazettes contain much controversy on religious topics, excited
by the success of Whitfield and his friends Rowland, Davenport, Dickinson,
and the two Tennants.  There are letters to and from G. Tennant, from Evans,
from Samuel Finley, and the Querists.  Mr. Cummings and others publish
pamphlets against the religious excitement.  Dr. Kinnersley's letter in the
Gazette, against them, goes upon sensible ground.
  James Logan in a letter he wrote in 1742, calls Whitfield a whimsical
enthusiast, "who, through his companion Seward, bought the 5000 acres (at
Bethlehem) to form a school for negroes; but the purchaser dying soon after,
his wiser executors turned it into money again by a sale, by which it is now
the property of Zindzendorf, for his Moravians".
  "None can be long a stranger to George Whitfield; his journals, letter,
&c., are so industriously printed here.  His life, written by himself, and
first printed here, is scandalously plain.  All I have to say of him is,
that by good language, a better utterance, and an engaging manner, and
powerful voice, he gained much at first, on most sorts of people; but on his
falling foul of Bishop Tillotson, and the most unexceptionable author of the
Whole Duty of Man, &c., the more judicious fell from him; yet he still
gained on the multitude, in so much, that they have begun for him a great
brick building, (the present old academy) in which, though not yet covered,
he a great many times preached when last here.  It must be confessed his
preaching has a good effect in reclaiming many dissolute people; but from
his countenancing so very much the most hot-headed predestinarians, and
those of them principally who had been accounted by the more sober as little
better than madmen, he and they have actually driven divers into despair,
and some into perfect madness !  in short, it is apprehended by the more
judicious, that the whole will end in confusion, to the great prejudice of
the cause of virtue and solid religion -- his doctrine wholly turning on the
danger of good works, without such a degree of sanctifying faith as comes up
to his gauge."
  A MS. Journal of John Smith, Esq. which I have seen, writes under date of
the 21st of 2nd mo. 1746, saying, "George Whitfield came to town last
Seventh-day and preaches daily; but people's curiosity about him now seems
so well satisfied that there is very little talk of him".
  In 1750, the foundation of the Rev. Gilbert Tennant's "New Meeting house"
was laid at the north-west corner of Third and Arch streets; at the same
time, the former used church of Whitfield, in Fourth street, is in its new
hands partitioned across for "the academy".  This church was formed of the
Presbyterians who went off from the first church in High street as seceders
-- receiving the name of "New Lights", and their minister "Hell-fire
Tennant", in the common parlance of the day.  Mr. Tennant was eccentric.  He
affected to wear a kind of great coat drawn round him by a girdle, and to
wear no wig -- a great oddity then for a preacher.  He at length came to see
he had gone beyond sober Christianity, and made his confession in a letter
printed in the Gazettes -- Vide Pennsylvania Gazette, No. 713 -- year
1741-2; saying "My soul is grieved with such enthusiastic fooleries and
perilous `ignis-fatuus' &c."
  In these cases of over-zeal in Tennant and Whitfield, &c., we see the
usual retractions which maturer age and observation are usually destined to
effect in honest hearts -- such as occur with like natures where other
themes engross the minds of ardent spirits -- as Dr. Johnson says of
Lyttleton and others in their headstrong ardour for liberty : -- "It is what
a man of ardour always catches when he enters upon his career and always
suffers to cool as he passes forward".  It is the common fate of
enthusiasms, when most excited, to ascend and flame like a rocket, but to go
out and fall like its stick.
  On page 300 of my MS. Annals in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
there is for the inspection of the curious an autograph letter of G.
Whitfield, of the year 1754, written from Boston to Dr. William Shippen, the
elder, saying he intends to hasten back to Philadelphia soon after.  This
branch of the Shippen family became his ardent admirers.  I have seen a
letter of October 1774, from Edward Shippen, Esq., to this William, his
brother, wherein he speaks of an intended Doctorate for Mr. Whitfield,
saying, "I thank you for Wesley's funeral sermon upon our deceased,
heavenly, mutual friend, G. W. I am sorry you had not an opportunity of
presenting him with the proposed Doctorate from our Nassau Hall.  Such a
thing would have been a great honour to him".

                        COUNT  ZINZENDORF

  This founder of the Moravians showed himself an eccentric and strange
person in his deportment in this country.  I give the facts in his case as I
find them -- "nothing extentuate nor aught set down in malice", to wit :
  In 1742, came to Philadelphia Count Zinzendorf and daughter, and Peter
Bohler -- names often noticed in ecclesiastical history.  The Count while in
Germantown stayed at John Wister's house; and in the same house to this day
are two great chairs and a tea table, left there a present from the Count.
They sometimes in those days of religious excitement put their theology into
the Gazettes.  In the Pennsylvania Gazette, No. 753, may be seen an article
of the Count's and a rejoinder in Nos. 759 and 760, by the Rev. Gilbert Tennant.
  On page 244 1/2 of my MS. Annals in the City Library are two autograph
letters of the Count and of his daughter Benigna, of the year 1742-3 --
written in German on religious subjects.  The Count's letter is one of
reproof and pardon to a dear spiritual sister who had been slandered by
Beckey.  He thinks the sister has talked unadvisedly before Beckey, and he
cautions her to set a future watch on her words; he signs himself Nicholas
Ludewig. His daughter writes from Bethlehem to her spiritual sister
Magdalene Fende in Germantown, to whom she commends the blood of Christ in
strange metaphysical epithets.
  I have seen in the hands of the late Benjamin Lehman of Germantown, a
curious autograph letter of Count Zinzendorf to Frederick Fende, (i.e.
Vende)  being the same which was also published in Bradford's Mercury, No.
1214, on the 14th of August 1743, together with one to Mr. Neuman.  These
letters of 1741-2 are addressed to parents who complained to the Count of
his taking off their young and maiden daughters to Germany as members of his
congregation.  The MS. letter which I have mentioned above is dated
Philadelphia, December 26th 1742, and reads in extract translation thus :
"To the cooper, F. Vende, in Germantown -- I take you both -- man and wife
-- to be notorious children of the devil *, and you, the woman, to be a
twofold child of hell.  Yet I would have your damnation as tolerable as
possible.  The laws provide against such unreasonable parents, and will not
suffer you to keep your daughter against her consent.  Yet you may vex her
soul.  If that sevenfold devil which possesseth you will permit -- then
consider and leave your daughter peaceably with the congregation", &c. {*
They bore excellent moral characters; and he used to preach in their house,
where now J. Bowman's house is.}  To Neuman, he wrote, "In case you die
without forcing your daughter away, your former sin shall be forgiven you,
but if you resume your murdering spirit against her soul, by her consent or
not, I recall my peace, and you I leave to the devil, and the curse of your
child, thereby lost, shall rest on you till she is redeemed -- AMEN !"  This
is really very curious supremacy as well as theology.  Miss Lehman, and Miss
Vende, much against the will of their families, went off to Germany.
  Kalm, the Swedish traveller, here in 1748, says "his uncommon behaviour
here persuaded many Englishmen of rank that he was disordered in his head".
  A MS. letter of James Logan of the year 1743, written in confidential
frankness to a friend, speaks of the Count as follows, to wit :  "I have had
frequent intercourse with him, and heartily wish I could say any thing
concerning him to satisfaction; but his conduct lost him all credit here,
being now only regarded by his own few Moravians.  He sent to the Friend's
Meeting a letter signed `Anne the Elder', written in an odd French style,
which it was difficult to put into any consistent meaning or sense.  About
the same time he framed an instrument of resignation of all his honours and
dignities to some relative.  This was done in Latin, but still more odd than
his French -- in some parts carrying a show of elegance, but in other parts
mere nonsense; in other places plain enough, and in others perfectly
unintelligible.  This he desired of me to put into English.  As I could not,
he had it printed as it was, and invited the governor and all who understood
Latin to meet him.  Several met, when he read off his instrument, giving
each of them a printed copy; but after all this parade, he withdrew his
papers and himself too, saying, on reflection, he must first advise with
some of his friends in Germany.  This conduct much astonished the company,
who generally concluded him insane.  He has lately been visiting the
Iroquois.  In short, he appears a mere knight-errant in religion, scarce
less than Don Quixote was in chivalry !"  Other facts of his singular
behaviour are mentioned by Logan. I have preserved some other facts
respecting his strange conduct in Germantown.  Very wild notions are imputed
to him too, and told in detail by Rimius, of Prussia, who printed a book of
it in London in 1753.  The decree of George III, as Elector of Hanover
against them, and which induced them to come to Pennsylvania, see in
Pennsylvania Journal of the 20th of December 1750.
  Bethlehem, where the Count settled his sect, was said to have received its
name from his purpose of adding all the other names of the Holy Land.
Secretary Peters' MS. letter to the Penn family says, "The Count desired to
name his villages after all the names in the Holy Land, and to settle there
ten thousand people on sixteen square miles of land".

                                   BRADFORD  FAMILY

  William Bradford was the first printer who settled in this colony -- (PA.)
He was the son of William and Anne Bradford, of Leicester, England, at which
place he was born. He served his apprenticeship in London with Andrew
Sowles, printer, in Grace Church street, and married his daughter Elizabeth.
Sowles was intimately acquainted with George Fox, the founder of the English
sect of Quakers.  Sowles was one of his sect, and printed for the society.
Bradford adopted the principles of the Quakers, and was among the first
emigrants from England to Pennsylvania in 1682, and landed at the spot where
Philadelphia was soon after laid out, before a house was built.  The next
year his wife arrived.
  At what place he first settled is rather uncertain; but it was, as he
expresses it "near Philadelphia".  As the general assembly was holding at
Chester, and this borough became, for a time, a place of consequence, it was
probable that Bradford resided there until Philadelphia assumed the
appearance of a city; he might, however, have set up his press at
Burlington, which is but eighteen miles distant from Philadelphia, and was
then the capital of New Jersey; or even at Kensington, then a small village.
The first work printed by Bradford, which has reached us with a date, is "An
Almanac for the year of the Christian account 1687, particularly respecting
the meridian and latitude of Burlington, but may differently serve all
places adjacent.  By Daniel Leeds, student in agriculture.  Printed and sold
by William Bradford, near Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, pro Anno 1687".
  In 1689, Bradford lived in the city.  A quarto pamphlet by George Keith,
respecting the New England churches, printed by Bradford in Philadelphia in
that year, is the oldest book I have seen, printed in the city.
  In the year 1692, much contention prevailed among the Quakers in
Philadelphia, and Bradford took an active part in the quarrel.  George
Keith, by birth a Scotchman, a man of good abilities and well educated, was
surveyor general in New Jersey; and the Society of Friends in this city
employed him in 1689, as the superintendent of their schools.  Keith, having
attended this duty nearly two years, became a public speaker in their
religious assemblies; but being, as the Quakers asserted, of a turbulent and
overbearing spirit, he gave them much trouble.  They forbade him speaking as
a teacher or minister in their meetings; this, and some other irritating
circumstances, caused a division among the Friends, and the parties were
greatly hostile to each other.  Bradford was of the party which was attached
to Keith, and supported him; their opponents were the majority.  Among them
were the Lieutenant Governor Lloyd, and most of the Quaker magistrates.
Keith and Thomas Budd wrote against the majority, and Bradford published
their writings.
  Keith was condemned in the city meetings, but he appealed to the general
meeting of the Friends; and in order that his case might be generally known
and understood, he wrote an address to the Quakers, which he caused to be
printed, and copies of it to be dispersed among the Friends, previous to
their general meeting.  This conduct was highly resented by his opponents;
the address was called  seditious, and Bradford was arrested and imprisoned
for printing it.  The sheriff seized a form containing four quarto pages of
the types of the address; he also took into his custody a quantity of paper,
and a number of books, which were in Bradford's shop, with all the copies of
the address which he could find.  The civil authority took up the business;
and as Keith and Bradford stated the facts, they who opposed them in the
religious assemblies, condemned and imprisoned them by civil process -- the
judges of the courts being the leading characters in the meetings.  Several
of Keith's party were apprehended and imprisoned with Bradford; and among
them, Thomas Budd and John Macomb.  The offence of the latter consisted in
his having two copies of the address, which he gave to two friends in
compliance with their request.
  The following was the warrant for committing Bradford and Macomb :
  "Whereas William Bradford, printer, and John Macomb, tailor, being brought
before us upon an information of publishing, uttering and spreading a
malicious and seditious paper entitled, an Appeal from the twenty-eight
judges * to the Spirit of Truth &c.  {* "Twenty-eight", meaning those who
condemned Keith, in what he called "their spiritual court".}  Tending to the
disturbance of the peace and the subversion of the present government, and
the said persons being required to give securitie to answer it at the next
court, but they refused so to do.  These are therefore by the King and
Queen's authoritie and in our proprietary's name, to require you to take
into your custody the bodies of William Bradford and John Macomb, and them
safely keep till they shall be discharged by due courts of law.  Whereof
fail not at your peril; and for your so doing, this shall be your sufficient
warrant.  Given under our hands and seals this 24th of August 1692.
           "These to John White, Sheriff of Philadelphia, or his deputies."
                Signed by Arthur Cook and four others.

  The day after the imprisonment of Bradford and his friends, a "Private
Sessions" as it was called, of the county court was held by six Justices,
all Quakers, who, to put a just complexion on their proceedings, requested
the attendance of two magistrates who were not Quakers.
  This court assembled, it seems, for the purpose of convicting Keith, Budd,
and their connexions, of seditious conduct; but the two magistrates who were
not Quakers, if we credit Keith and Bradford, reprobated the measure, and
refused to have any concern in it, declaring, that the whole transaction was
a mere dispute among the Quakers respecting their religion, in which the
government had no concern.  They, however, advised that Keith and others
accused should be sent for, and allowed to defend themselves, and affirmed
that if any thing like sedition appeared in their practice, they would join
heart and hand in their prosecution.  To this the Quaker magistrates would
not consent, and the others in consequence left the court.  The court then,
as is stated in a pamphlet*, "procededed in their work, and as they judged
George Keith in their spiritual court without all hearing or trial, so in
like manner they prosecuted him in their temporal court without all
hearing".  The pamphlet further states that "one of the judges declared that
the court could judge of matter of fact without evidence, and therefore,
without more to do, proclaimed George Keith by the common cryer, in the
market place, to be a seditious person, and an enemy to the King and Queen's
government".  {* This pamphlet is entitled, "New England Spirit of
persecution transmitted to Pennsylvania and the Pretended Quaker found
Persecuting the True Christian Quaker, in the Tryal of Peter Boss, George
Keith, Thomas Budd and William Bradford, at the Sessyons held at
Philadelphia, the Ninth, Tenth, and Twelfth days of December, 1692.  Giving
an account of the most Arbitrary Proceedings of that Court".}
  Bradford and Macomb, who had been imprisoned, appeared at this court, and
requested that they might be brought to trial; pleading that it was very
injurious to them and their families to remain in confinement.  They
claimed, as free-born English subjects, the rights secured by Magna Charta,
among which was the prompt administration of justice; and Bradford, in
particular, desired that his trial might then take place, "because, not only
his person was restrained, but his working tools, and the paper and books
from his shop were taken from him, and without these he could not work and
maintain his family".
  Soon after this session of the court, Bradford was, by some indulgence,
released from his confinement.  It is said, that in the examination of the
`frame', the jury not being acquainted with reading backwards, attempted to
raise it from the plank on which it was placed, and to put it in a more
favorable situation for inspection; and that one of them, assisting with his
cane, pushed against the bottom of the types as the form was placed
perpendicularly, when, like magic, this evidence against Bradford instantly
vanished, the types fell from the frame, or chase, as it is termed by
printers, formed a confused heap, and prevented further investigation.
  Bradford, having incurred the displeasure of the dominant party in
Pennsylvania, and receiving encouragement to settle in New York, he, in 1693
removed to that city; but it is supposed he had a concern in the press which
was continued in Philadelphia, by Reinier Johnson, from that time until
Andrew Bradford took charge of it in 1712.
  Bradford continued to print for the government of New York, and during
thirty years was the only printer in the province.
  On the 16th of October 1725, he began the publication of the first
newspaper printed in that colony.
  He continued his residence in that city, and enjoyed a long life, without
experiencing sickness or the usual infirmities of age.  Several years before
his death he retired from business, and lived with his son William in
Hanover Square.
  On the morning of the day which closed his life, he walked over a great
part of the city.  He died May 23, 1752 aged ninety-four.  The New York
Gazette, which announced his death on the Monday following, mentions that
"he came to America seventy years ago: was printer to the government upwards
of fifty years; and was a man of great sobriety and industry; a real friend
to the poor and needy, and kind and affable to all.  His temperance was
exceedingly conspicuous; and he was almost a stranger to sickness all his
life.  He had left off business several years past, and being quite worn out
with old age and labour, his lamp of life went out for want of oil".  There
is at Trinity church, N.Y., a grave stone, inscribed to the memory of
himself and wife, making himself ninety-two years of age, and his wife
Elizabeth, who died in 1731, sixty-eight years of age.
  The whole of the curious trial he encountered at Philadelphia in 1692,
before the court of justice, (all Friends like himself) may be seen in
Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, vol.1, page 55.
  In 1702, William Bradford is spoken of in Samuel Bonas' Journal, as having
combined with George Keith to have  Bonas prosecuted and imprisoned on Long
Island.  Bonas says he was dispossessed of his place as printer for Friends,
and was disowned because of his contentions among them at Philadelphia.
  Andrew Bradford, his son, began "the Weekly Mercury", the first city
gazette, in 1719 in conjunction with John Copson.  In 1725, he was arraigned
before the Council, concerning a late pamphlet, entitled "Some Remedies
proposed for restoring the sunk credit of the province"; and also for
printing a certain paragraph in his Mercury of the second of January.  The
Governor informed him he must not thereafter publish any thing relating to
affairs of this government without permission from him or his Secretary; to
which he promising submission, the subject was dismissed.  About this time
he held the place of Postmaster.  The father (William) and the son (Andrew)
are thus spoken of in Keimer's poetic effusion of the year 1734, saying ----

     "In Penn's wooden country Type feels no disaster,
      The Printers grow rich; one is made their Post Master;
      His father, a Printer, is paid for his work,
      And wallows in plenty, just now, at New York,
      Though quite past his labour, and old as my Grannum,
      The Government pays him, pounds sixty per annum."

  Andrew Bradford died 23d November 1742.
  About the year 1754, William Bradford, probably the son of Andrew, with
whom he was once a partner in the Mercury, opened "the London Coffee House",
for the first time, at the south-west corner of High and Front streets.  The
peculiar terms under which he engaged to manage it as a place for the
refreshing beverage of coffee, served up daily from a "hissing urn", and the
after terms of 1780, by his successor Gifford Daily, to keep it without
games, or sales on the Sabbath, &c., may be seen under the article "Old
London Coffee House".  The same William had, however, then a Gazette under
publication, called the "Pennsylvania Journal", begun directly after the
death of his father, Andrew, in 1742.  In 1766, he united to his imprint the
name of his son Thomas Bradford, lately alive at the age of 88.  William
Bradford lived till the year 1791, leaving his paper in the hands of his son
Thomas, who finally merged it into the "True American", a daily paper of
modern times.
  In the year 1757, an "American Magazine", was started by William Bradford,
to continue monthly, but it was soon discontinued, probably for want of
sufficient support.
  The sons of Thomas Bradford also became printers and publishers, thus
continuing this ancient family in the line of printers and publishers, even
to the present day.

                 THE  HUDSON  FAMILY

  Mrs. Deborah Logan told me that she was informed by one of the daughters
of the Hudson family of Philadelphia, which came here from Jamaica at the
time of the first settlement, that they were the kinsfolk of the celebrated
Captain Henry Hudson, the discoverer of our country.  That lady was
respectable and intelligent, and if now alive would be past one hundred
years of age.  Her brother, Samuel Hudson, was the last male of the family,
the descendants by the female line are now respectable members of society.
A table of family descent is now in possession of William Howell, a
descendant.  The original William Hudson, who first came here, had been an
Episcopal clergyman, and became a Friend by convincement; while he lived he
was honoured with several offices.  The house which he built and dwelt in,
in Philadelphia, was of very respectable and venerable appearance, having a
brick portico before the door, and a court yard on Third street, and another
as an outlet in Chestnut street -- thus placing his house on the premises
now of Charles C. Watson, near the corner of Third and Chestnut streets.  He
had property also on the line of Hudson's alley, which gave rise to that name.

                            JOHN  BARTRAM

  John Bartram was a most accurate observer of nature, and one of the first
botanists this country ever produced, a self-taught genius, whom Linn¾us
called "the greatest natural botanist in the world".  He seated himself on
the bank of the Schuylkill, below Gray's Ferry, where he built a comfortable
stone house and formed his botanic garden, in which there still remain some
of the most rare and curious specimens of our plants and trees, collected by
him in Florida, Canada, &c.  The garden is still kept up with much skill by
Colonel Carr, who married his granddaughter, and is always worthy of a visit.
He enjoyed, for many years preceding the Revolution, a salary as botanist to
the royal family in England.
  In the year 1741, a subscription was made, to enable him to travel through
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, to observe and collect
plants and fossils.
  In 1729, James Logan, in a letter to his friend in England, thus writes
respecting him, saying, "Please to procure me Parkinson's Herbal; I shall
make it a present to a worthy person, worthy of a heavier purse than fortune
has yet allowed him.  John Bartram has a genius perfectly well turned for
botany; no man in these parts is so capable of serving you, but none can
worse bear the loss of his time without a due consideration".
  Hector St. John, of Carlisle, has left a picturesque description of things
seen and observed of John Bartram and his garden, &c., as they appeared on a
visit made to him before the Revolution.  There Mr. Bartram, with his
visiter, his family and slaves, all sat down to one large table, well stored
with wholesome fare.  The blacks were placed at the foot -- the guest near
the host; there was kindness from the master to them, and in return they
gave him affection and fidelity.  The whole group and manner reminds one of
the patriarchal manner of the Old Testament.  Some whom he freed still chose
to remain with him until their death.  Bartram described his low grounds as
at first a putrid swampy soil, which he succeeded to reclaim by draining and
ditching.  {This was then deemed a novel experiment, the first then made in
our country.  He also led waters from higher grounds through his higher
lands which were before worthless; and in both cases succeeded to form
artificial grass pastures, by means now common enough -- but then deemed
wonderful.}  Although he was a Friend he had a picture of family arms, which
he preserved as a memorial of his forefather's having been French.  In this
visit he particularly speaks of noticing the abundance of red clover sowed
in his upland fields -- an improvement in agriculture, since thought to have
not been so early cultivated among us.  He spoke of his first passion for
the study of botany, as excited by his contemplating a simple daisy, as he
rested from his ploughing under a tree; then it was he first thought it much
his shame to have been so long the means of destroying many flowers and
plants, without ever before stopping to consider their nature and uses.
This thought, thus originated, often revived, until at last it inspired real
efforts to study their character, &c., both from observation and reading.
  John Bartram was born in the year 1701, in Chester county, in
Pennsylvania, being of the second line of descent from his grandfather, John
Bartram, who, with his family, came from Derbyshire, England, with the
adherents of the justly famed William Penn, proprietor, when he established
the colony, and founded the city of Philadelphia, Anno Domini 1682.
  Thus being born in a newly settled country, at so vast a distance from the
old world, the seat of arts and sciences, it cannot be supposed that he
could have acquired great advantage from the aids of literature; having
acquired, however, the best instruction that country schools at that early
time could afford, and at every possible opportunity, by associating with
the most learned and respectable characters.  With difficulty he obtained
the rudiments of the learned languages which he studied with extraordinary
application and success. He had a very early inclination and relish for the
study of the Materis Medica and Surgery, and acquired so much knowledge in
these sciences as to administer great relief to the indigent and distressed.
And as the vegetable kingdom afforded him most of his medicines, it seems
extremely probable this might have excited a desire and pointed out to him
the necessity of the study of botany.  Although bred a husbandman and
cultivator, as the principal means of providing subsistence for supporting a
large family, yet he pursued his studies as a philosopher, being attentive
to the economy of nature and observant of her most minute operations.  When
ploughing and sowing his fields, or mowing the meadows, his inquisitive mind
was exercised in contemplating the vegetable system, and of animated nature.
  He was perhaps the first Anglo-American who imagined the design, or at
least carried into operation a botanic garden for the reception of American
vegetables as well as exotics, and for travelling for the discovery and
acquisition of them.  He purchased a convenient place on the banks of the
Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, where, after building a house of hewn stone
with his own hands, he laid out a large garden, containing six or seven
acres of ground, that comprehended a variety of soils and situations, and
soon replenished it with a variety of curious and beautiful vegetables, the
fruits of his distant excursions; but though highly gratified and delighted
with beholding the success of his labours, yet his benevolent mind
contemplated more extensive plans, which was to communicate his discoveries
and collections to Europe and other parts of the earth, that the whole world
might participate in his enjoyments.  Fortunate in the society and
friendship of many literary and eminent characters of America, namely,  Dr.
B. Franklin,  Dr. Colden,  J. Logan, Esq., and several others, who observing
his genius and industry, liberally assisted him in establishing a
correspondence with the great men of science in England, particularly P.
Collinson, whose intimate friendship and correspondence continued unabated
nearly fifty years, and terminated only with life, through whose patronage
and philosophy his collections, relating to Natural History, Physiological
and Philosophical investigations, were communicated to men of science in
Europe, and annually laid before their Societies, of which he was in fellowship.
  He employed much of his time in travelling abroad through the provinces
then subject to England, during the autumn, when his agricultural avocations
least required his presence at home; the object of the peregrination was
collecting curious and nondescript vegetables, fossils, and the
investigation and economy of nature.  His ardour in these pursuits was so
vigorous and lively that few obstacles opposed or confined his progress.
The summits of our highest mountains are monuments of his indefatigable
labours and inquisitive mind.  The shores of Lake Ontario and Cayuga
contributed through his hands to embellish the gardens and enrich the
forests of Europe with elegant flowering shrubs, plants, and useful
ornamental trees.  The banks and sources of the rivers Delaware, Schuylkill,
Susquehanna, and Alleghenny, received his visits at a very early date, when
it was difficult and truly perilous travelling in the territories of the
aborigines.  He travelled many thousand miles into Virginia, Carolina, East
and West Florida, in search of materials for natural history, and to enrich
the funds of human economy.  At the advanced age of near seventy years he
performed an arduous and dangerous task -- a tour into East Florida.
Arriving at St. Augustine, he embarked on board a sail boat, with a hunter
to provide flesh meats.  From Picolata he proceeded up the east bank to its
source -- originating from immense inundated marsh meadows, the great
nursery of the nations of fish and reptiles, the winter asylum of the
northern fowl, ducks and the Anser tribes, in their annual festive visits to
their southern friends, but held in awe by the thunder of the devouring
alligator; and returning down the west bank to the capes, noting the width,
depth and courses of its winding flood, the vast dilatations of the river
with its tributary streams, at the same time remarking the soil and
situation of the country and natural productions.
  His stature was rather above the middle size, erect and slender, visage
long, his countenance cheerful and gay, regulated with a due degree of
solemnity.  His manners modest and gentle, yet his disposition active and of
the greatest good nature.  A lover and practiser of justice and equity.
Such a lover of philanthropy, charity and social order, that he was never
known to enter into litigious contest with his neighbours, or any one, but
would rather relinquish his rights than distress his neighbours.  He was
through life a rare example of temperance, particulary in the use of vinous
and spirituous liquors, as well as other gratifications; not from a passion
of parsimony but in a respect to morality; nevertheless he always maintained
a generous and plentiful table -- annually on a New Year's day he made
liberal entertainment at his own house, consecrated to friendship and
philosophy.
  He was industrious and active, indulging repose only when nature required
it, observing that he could never find more time than he could with pleasure
employ, either intellectually or in some useful manual exercise, and was
astonished when people complained that they were tired of time, not knowing
how to employ it, or what they should do.
  In observing the characters of illustrious men, it is generally an object
of inquiry of what religion they were.  He was born and educated in the
Society of Friends, (called Quakers) devoutly worshipped the Supreme Deity,
the Creator and Soul of all existence, all goodness and perfection.  His
religious creed may be seen by any one, sculptured by himself in large
characters on a stone in the wall over the front window of his apartment
where he usually slept, and which was dedicated to study and philosophical
retirement.  This pious distich runs thus: --- {Note : distich = a verse of
two lines}

          "Tis God alone, the Almighty Lord,
           The Holy One by me adored.      John Bartram --- 1770.

  He was an early and firm advocate for maintaining the natural and equal
rights of man, particularly for the abolition of negro slavery, and
confirmed his zeal in these great virtues by giving freedom to a very
excellent young man of the African race, at the age of between 20 and 30,
whom he had reared in his house from a young child; and affection, for he
continued constantly in the family to the end of his life, receiving full
wages as long as he was able to perform a day's work.
  William Bartram, his son, another distinguished florist and botanist, who
succeeded in the same place, died in July 1823, at his garden, at the
advanced age of 85 years.  His travels, in search of botanical subjects, in
the Floridas, &c., were published in 1791 -- he preceded Wilson as an
ornithologist, and gave his assistance to that gentleman in his celebrated work.