Area History: Contents of Vol II & Chapter 1: Watson's Annals of Philadelphia And Pennsylvania, 1857 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by EVC. USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. ____________________________________________________________ ANNALS of PHILADELPHIA AND PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE OLDEN TIME; being a collection of MEMOIRS, ANECDOTES, AND INCIDENTS of the CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS and of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania from THE DAYS OF THE FOUNDERS Intended to preserve the recollections of olden time, and to exhibit Society in its changes of manners and customs, and the city and country in their local changes and improvements. BY JOHN F. WATSON member of the Historical Societies of Penn., New York, and Mass. ______________________________________________ in two Volumes. VOL. II ------------------------ "Oh, dear is a tale of the olden time !" Sequari vestigia rerum. ------------------------- "Where peep'd the hut, the palace towers; Where skimm'd the bark, the war-ship lowers; Joy gaily carols where was silence rude, And cultured thousands throng the solitude." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1868 ______________________________________________ NOTE: Volume II is now on-line. Chapter 1. Olden Time Affections and Researches (watson0201.txt) Chapter 2. Pennsylvania Inland : (watson0202.txt) Part I - Germantown (watson0202.txt) Part II - Germantown (watson0203.txt) Part III - Frankford (watson0204.txt) Part III - Byberry (watson0204.txt) Part III - Gwynedd, in Montgomery County (watson0204.txt) Part III - Norristown (watson0204.txt) Part III - Chester County (watson0204.txt) Part III - Chester (watson0204.txt) Part III - Bucks County (watson0204.txt) Part III - Pennsbury (watson0204.txt) Part IV - Historical Notices of Lancaster and Lancaster County (watson0205.txt) Part IV - Harrisburg, &c. (watson0205.txt) Part IV - Wyoming and its Massacre (watson0205.txt) Part IV - Pittsburg and Braddock (watson0205.txt) Frontier Towns (watson0205.txt) Chapter 3. Indians - Part I (watson0206.txt) Indians - Part II (watson0207.txt) Chapter 4. The Pirates (watson0208.txt) Chapter 5. The Swedes (watson0208.txt) Chapter 6. Germans (watson0209.txt) Chapter 7. The Irish (watson0209.txt) Chapter 8. Negroes and Slaves (watson0209.txt) Chapter 9. Redemption Servants (watson0209.txt) Chapter 10. The Stamp Act resisted (watson0209.txt) Chapter 11. British Duties and Tea Act resisted (watson0209.txt) Chapte 12. The Governors of Colonial Days (watson0209.txt) Chapter 13. Occurrences of the War of Independence - Part I (watson0210.txt) Occurrences of the War of Independence - Part II (watson0211.txt) Chapter 14. Alliance Frigate (watson0212.txt) Chapter 15. The Federal Procession (watson0212.txt) Chapter 16. Seasons and Climate (watson0212.txt) Chapter 17. Medical Subjects (watson0213.txt) Chapter 18. The Post (watson0213.txt) Chapter 19. Gazettes and Printing Press (watson0213.txt) Chapter 20. Statistic Facts (watson0214.txt) Chapter 21. Remarkable Incidents and Things (watson0214.txt) Chapter 22. Curiosities and Discoveries (watson0214.txt) Chapter 23. Whales and Whalery (watson0215.txt) Chapter 24. Grapes and Vineyards (watson0215.txt) Chapter 25. Beasts of Prey and Game (watson0215.txt) Chapter 26. Culture of Silk (watson0215.txt) Chapter 27. Ships and Shipbuilding (watson0215.txt) Chapter 28. Paper Money (watson0215.txt) Chapter 29. Lotteries (watson0215.txt) Chapter 30. Steamboats (watson0215.txt) Chapter 31. Waterworks (watson0215.txt) Chapter 32. Anthracite Coal (watson0216.txt) Chapter 33. Watering Places (watson0216.txt) Chapter 34. Canals, Railroads, Turnpikes (watson0216.txt) Chapter 35. River Delaware (watson0216.txt) Chapter 36. River Schuylkill (watson0216.txt) Chapter 37. Country Seats (watson0216.txt) Chapter 38. Miscellaneous Facts (watson0217.txt) Chapter 39. Relics and Remembrancers (watson0217.txt) Chapter 40. List of Unpublished Papers (watson0217.txt) Chapter 41. Appendix - Part I (watson0218.txt) Appendix - Part II (watson0219.txt) Chapter 42. Final Appendix of the Year 1856 (watson0220.txt) Chapter 43. Variety of Passing Brief Facts (watson0221.txt) [ED. NOTE: Chapter numbers added as an identification aid for these archives.] ______________________________________________ Chapter 1. OLDEN TIME AFFECTIONS AND RESEARCHES Our love of antiquities -- the contemplation of by-gone days -- is an impress of the Deity. It is our hold on immortality. The same affection which makes us reach forward and peep into futurity, prompts us to travel back to the hidden events which transpired before we existed. We thus feel our span of existence enlarged even while we have the pleasure to identify ourselves with the scenes or the emotions of our forefathers. For the same cause, relics are so earnestly sought and sedulously preserved -- "they are full of local impressions", and transfer the mind back to "scenes before". As Americans, we see in a short life more numerous incidents to excite our observation and to move our wonder, than any other people. The very newness of our history and country ministers to our moral entertainment, and increases our interest in contemplating the passing events. A single life in this rapidly growing country, witnesses such changes in the progress of society and in the embellishments of the arts, as would require a term of centuries to witness in full grown Europe. If we have no ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum to employ our researches, no incomprehensible Stonehenge, nor circle of Dendara to move our wonder, we have abundant themes of unparalleled surprise in following down the march of civilization and improvements -- from the first landing of our pilgrim forefathers to the present eventful day ! The wealth and ambition of a potent prince may have accomplished a magnificent city in shorter time upon the banks of Neva; but in this country we have many equal wonders by the energies and resources of a people, until lately "no people". The wisdom of our free institutions has made our land the desired asylum of the oppressed. Here human life is not wantonly wasted in ambitious broils for sovereignty; we therefore behold our population quadrupled in a term of forty years; and our hardy pioneers subduing the soil, or advancing their settlements from the Atlantic to the Pacific wave. Canals, rivaling in magnitude the boasted aqueducts of imperial Rome, are in successful operation. By these and rail roads, inaccessible districts are brought nigh; mountains charged with metallic treasures are entered, and their deposits of iron, coal, and lead, &c., lavished over the land. Cities, towns, and villages, arise in the west, as if by enchantment. Many of their present inhabitants redeemed their soil from a waste howling wilderness. In less than twenty years our exports have grown from twenty to eighty millions. Our navy, from "cock-boats and rags of striped bunting", has got up to power and renown. Our private law, commercial code, and bold diplomacy, have grown into a matured and learned system. Our inventions and improvements in the arts, which began but yesterday, make us, even now, "a wonder unto many"; and our vapour vessels, while they crowd our waters and overcome the rapids of the Mississippi and Missouri, are accomodating and enriching the old world by their adoption and imitation. Here we have no lordly potentates in church, "lording it over the conscience of the people"; no standing armies to endanger their liberties : no despots to riot in the oppression of the subject. Nay, so exalted are our privileges as a self-governed people, that the fact of our example and happiness is bidding fair to regenerate other nations, or to moderate the rigour of despotic government throughout the world ! If topics like these -- which enter into the common history of our growing cities, may be the just pride and glory of an American, must not the annals, which detail such facts, (and to such these pages are specially devoted) be calculated to afford him deep interest; and should it not be his profit, as well as amusement, to trace the successive steps by which we have progressed, from comparative nothingness, to be "a praise in the earth !" There are minds, feeling and cultivated, which can derive rich moral pleasure from themes like these, for "Is there a man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said -- This is my own, my native land !" Such views and such feelings impressed and imbued the mind of the author, else he had never attempted these pages. His stimulus was purely `con amore'; recompense he did not contemplate, and time he could ill spare from other engagements; wherefore, indulgence for casual imperfections is but justly due from the considerate reader. He wrote at first for his sole gratification, never intending his collections for the public eye, nor does he encounter that ordeal but by the encouragement of those friends who are willing to accept the performance by their sense of his limited means to perfect it. If it should stimulate others to add to these materials, it will be a grateful service. And if the example, thus set to the sister cities of New York, Boston, &c., should engage minds of kindred feelings and adequate industry to make similar collections of their domestic history, the usefulness of the present publication will be still more felt and acknowledged; and the eventful aim of the author still more accomplished. We should not forget these things : our land and our fathers have been the subject of many heaven-descended mercies. They who love to contemplate the cause of the numerous effects, so indicative of our blessings as a nation, will regard it not less a duty of piety than of patriotism to thus preserve their memorial. "Go call thy sons -- instruct them what a debt They owe their ancestors, and make them vow To pay it -- by transmitting down enure Those sacred rights to which themselves were born!" In writing these memorials of the times by-gone, I have often felt the suggestion pressed upon my mind, whether I was indeed pursuing inquiries and preserving facts which will have the sympathies and countenance of others, or am I so peculiar, as to be only amusing myself. I have thought the contemplation of time past has something inherently attractive; not indeed the notice of our personal waste of years, when sufficiently old to see our sun declining, but in recollections of the exhilarating sunshine beams of our youth. Not that, when the past was the present, we were all satisfied with our situations and ourselves, but that vexations have been forgotten in the lapse of years, and we remember pleasures alone; as, in looking back on the landscape we have passed over, the rude hills softened by distance, and the cliffs, that were so difficult to surmount, seem dissolving in the purple sky. For this reason, the recollections of childhood are so captivating to every unperverted mind, though to him whose soul is stained with crimes, they are fraught with pain and remorse. The causes which operated to induce me to form the present museum of incidents of "men and manners" are curious even to myself. The resolution to execute them, was only a concern of a few years; but the love to such objects in general was as early as my childhood, and has indeed "grown with my growth and strengthened with my strength". I may now say, I feel gratified that my mind has been thus led to chronicle incidents. Many of them ought to be preserved as the eventful facts of a land peculiarly favoured of Heaven, and as destined, perchance, to future renown. We should not forget these things; and the record of them, in such manner as I have adopted, should be deemed a generous service to all those who, with grateful hearts, love to consider the causes of their blessings. Piety and patriotism equally cherish such sentiments. I have had frequent occasions to lament that this kind of inquiries was not instituted sooner, even by myself ; they might have been advantageously begun much earlier, by still older persons. In now recollecting the aged of my early days, of whom I might have inquired, how many are remembered from whom nothing was attempted ! To illustrate these ideas, what a treasure might Dr. Franklin have imparted of all he had seen or knew, from the years 1723 to 1790, when he died ! He was remarkably qualified to have given us the materials for such a history as I have attempted in these pages. He must have been familiar with the traditions of the primitive settlers; must have seen many who saw Penn, &c. But his mind appears never to have been drawn to the consideration of their value to us, their posterity. The truth is, very few minds are so abstracted from the daily concerns of life, as to perceive that the things which at every given moment every man knows, may thereafter become highly interesting. Another reason may be, that Franklin never saw, at any period, any such astonishing improvements, as those since his death that every where arrest attention. Colonial things were too uniform and tame to arouse the mind. All things, in his day, were regularly progressive, gliding to their end with the smoothness of a stream. But if a person of my inquiring mind had had opportunities of drawing from such an observing mind as Franklin's, what a fund of entertainment and information could have been derived for posterity ! For reasons like the above, I, who am but little past middle age, am better qualified to ask various questions which would never occur to the mind of much older men. To me, the field was all new and unexplored, and therefore, with the eagerness of a child which asks questions about every thing, I felt constantly awake to inquiries on topics which would not affect the minds of old persons; things in which they had long ceased to be curious. Owing to this faculty of the mind, the most interesting travels, like Sillimans, are those which record every new thing which most surprises or pleases it. Then such a writer must speak feelingly enough for those who, like himself, have never seen what he so discovers to them. And even to those who have, he refreshes their memories in a way most grateful. About twenty-seven or twenty-eight years ago, I desired to see some such work as the present effected. Not thinking to attempt it myself, I suggested some such scheme to a friend. It met the approbation of the late Mr. Delaplaine, who set upon it with great ardour. My ideas were expressed in the form of a prospectus, which procured a subscription list, it was said, of four thousand subscribers before the book was even written. With such a patronage, there was a defect of labour or enterprise in producing the materials, and Dr. Mease was resorted to as composuist, to bring out something to answer the claims of the subscribers. It received the name of "The Picture of Philadelphia" -- but how far like my present result, the reader must judge. The doctor has managed his materials unexceptionably; but the defect was that he had not the proper staple to weave into his fabric. Had he succeeded better in what were my aims, I should never have made this attempt; but untouched as my scheme had been, I have made at last, though late, my own efforts, although subject to the disadvantage of residing six miles from the city, about which my inquiries and observations are employed, and being withal fettered with daily official duties, and cares of paramount consideration. From reasons like these, those who know me best will be readiest to excuse imperfections, whether of style or selection -- and critics, if they deign to notice such labours, did they know the irregular hours and intervals in which fragments of time were seized for the purpose, might rather wonder it has been so well, than that it should have been so ill, executed. To judge beyond this may savour of ill-nature, "Which taught them still to say, Whate'er was done, might have been better done!" To such I need only say -- "What is writ, is writ -- would it were worthier". Many of my selections of local facts were derived from a very great mass of court papers, and had to be hunted out among files of petitions, recognisances, special presentments for assaults, batteries, felonies, tippling and disorderly houses, &c., being the usual accompaniments of "quarter sessions", as is well known to those in any degree acquainted with the criminal docket. Most probably, such a search as they have not had before, since packed away as the lumber of office, and such another, I presume, they will never have again ! Some local notices may appear to trivial for notice; but who knows what future discoveries may be made, in digging into some of the former "fillings up?" as, for instance, the late discovery of sub-ter-rane logs in Chestnut street, by Hudson's alley, (the remains of the old bridge, &c.,) which no living persons could explain from memory ! If a jewel, or some pieces of coin, (as may occur !) should hereafter be dug out of some of the "breaches" of Front street, (afterwards filled up) some of the foregoing facts may tend to elucidate the cause of their deposit there. As Boswell said, in an apology for his minute mention of the "oak cudgel" -- it was because it might afterwards become the hero of a good tale, in the hands of so interesting a character as Johnson ! Johnson's Rambler, too, justly remarks, "nor can it be always safely determined, which should be rejected or retained; for they may sometimes unexpectedly contribute to the illustration of history, and to the knowledge of the natural commodities of the country, or of the genius and customs of its inhabitants". Poulson's paper of March 6th 1821, contains an article by me, entitled, "Old Times" of 1769 &c. It requests others to communicate similar facts. I thus tried to set others at this kind of service, and to exempt myself -- but none heeded my counsel -- and afterwards I made my own attempt. Fame or reward never entered into my motives. Like quaint John Bunyon, "Twas mine own self to gratify". The service was sufficiently pleasing in itself, to be a positive recreation and amusement, furnishing its own reward by the way : "For having my method by the end, Still, as I pulled, it came; Till at length it came to be, For size, the bigness which you see !" If I were to give the history of my troubles or profits in the publishing of my three books, it might startle some and discourage others. The Annals went off heavily, and allowed a profit equal to the pay of a copyist if I had used such a help; and the two books of Historical Tales produced nothing for authorship. It had been a pity, indeed, if their readers had not been obliged or benefited, since their author was not. I have deemed it my duty, in many cases, to support my facts with the names of the credible relators. Not that they alone mentioned them to me, for it was my practice to confirm surprising facts by concurrent testimony, so far as the things told were susceptible of being known to others. Several authorities too, deemed awkward or indelicate to introduce into the printed text, may be found in their connexion, in the original MS. Annals, in the City Library, and in the Historical Society. There is another remark concerning names which might be appropriately mentioned here, as showing that I was aware that `names' and `personalities' are sometimes too sensitive to bear the touch. Yet I found it needful to retain them in general, and especially in my MS., as my necessary proofs and vouchers, in case of dispute or reference. Some think that I designed only in initials, the inadvertency of the printer sometimes retained. In other cases, the names were sanctioned by the informants or persons themselves -- and finally, as an imposing reason, some names occasionally became a necessary appendage to the story. Searching for some of these facts was like seeking for the "living among the dead". Only a few of the very aged, as by accident, had preserved their memory. And very often, persons equally old, or even older, dwelling on the spot of interest or inquiry, knew nothing or nearly nothing about it. The comparative intelligence of different men of equal ages was often very dissimilar. To exemplify this, I have only to say that not one aged man in fifty, now in Philadelphia, could tell me where was "Guest's Blue Anchor tavern in Budd's long row" -- nor the "Barbadoes lot" -- nor the "Swamp" -- nor the adjoining "Society hill" -- nor "Bathsheba's bath and bower" -- the "Schuylkill baptisterion" -- the "old Hospital" -- Hudson's orchard" -- "Penny-pot landing" -- "Penn's cottage" -- the "Swedes' house" -- and many other things spoken of in these pages. I came at them by reading ancient papers, and then, by recalling forgotten things to their memories, their minds were enabled to seize on long forgotten facts. Sometimes, when I have asked ancient persons to tell me what they knew of antiquity, such would seem to have nothing to relate : all seemed a blank to them. But when I have transported myself back to the cotemporaneous occurences of their youth, and warmed their imaginations with recitals, with which they were once familiar, I have been rewarded by receiving many of the lively images of things which my conversation had generated. Without vanity, I may say that I have often made my company agreeable to the aged, and have seen them quickened to many emotions younger than their common feelings or their years. On other occasions I have visited such as were past sensibility -- the body enfeebled and the memory decayed; I laboured in vain to revive the expiring spark of life. They were looking for their "appointed charge", and this not unwisely engrossed all their thoughts. Finally, earlier questions might have been more successful, and any thing later than my attempt would have been absolutely fatal ! What I rescued was "trembling on the lips of narrative old age" or "tumbling piece-meal into the tomb". My regret is, that some of those of whom, or from whom, I write, will scarcely stay to have the chance of reading some of these pages. I might perhaps pertinently hint at my being fully aware of occasional repetition of facts in substance, though not in language -- this necessarily occurred occasionally from the design of making given chapters more complete on given subjects. In connexion with the foregoing, it may not be inappropriate to add, that many of the little histories of places and things set down in this book have been often since used in substance, by publishers and orators, as a part or parcel of their own explorations and insight into the past -- not even hinting at the source whence derived. It gives me no offence, since I wished them to be known -- but it is but justice to myself to here suggest, in self-protection, that I came not at them, from their discoveries and researches, but as the results of my own industry. With some I shall doubtless need an apology for the little estimation in which they may regard some of my collections; I am content to say, I have only written for kindred minds. Such affections as mine have had precedents enough in feeling minds; for instance, "the oak" immortalized by Cowper's muse, became so precious that the owner, the Marquis of Northampton, to keep it from its frequent pious thefts, was obliged to enclose it by a strong fence, and to affix to it a notice of prohibition. The chair in which the poet Thomson composed, is exhibited at his commemorative festivals. How many pious thefts have been made upon Shakespeare's mulberry tree; and cups made from that, and from the "royal oak" have sold at great prices. Learned doctors still deem it an honour to shroud themselves in Rabelais' old cloak at Montpelier. The taking of the sword of Frederick the Great, by Buonaparte, from Berlin to Paris, while it shows his estimate of relics, is treated by Scott and the world as a heinous offence to all other men. Of all such things, says Edgeworth, and truly too, "we contemplate such with deep curiosity, because they are full of local impressions, and by the aid of those we create the ideal presence". They connect the heart and the imagination with the past. We take as another evidence of the appreciation of relics, the fact of the late proceedings of congress, upon receiving from the heirs of Washington, the gift of his sword and the cane of Doctor Franklin -- called "two most interesting and valuable relics connected with the past history of our country" -- and saying of them, that "associations are inked in adamant with their names, and with those sacred symbols of our golden age". The sword was a plain hanger, with a green hilt and silver guard, made at Fishkill, in 1757, -- the same which he had worn first as colonel in the Virginia service in Forbes' campaign, and afterwards through the whole period of the Revolutionary war. Among the encouragements to such reminiscences, I may mention such evidence as results from public celebrations of fetes intended to revive and cherish such recollections. They prove to me that my anticipations from such records as the present have not been vain. Already have the semi-historical sketches of Irving's muse, in this way, given rise to a drama, in which is portrayed the costumes and manners of the primitive Knickerbockers. The prologue to his "Rip Van Winkle" has some sentiments to my taste and to my future expectations of what may be hereafter set forth in poetry, painting, or romance, to arrest the attention of modern Philadelphians, to what were the primitive manners of their forefathers. The poet thus speaks, to wit : "In scenes of yore endear'd by classic tales The comic muse with smiles of rapture hails; `Tis when we view those days of `Auld Lang Syne', Their charms with Home -- that magic name -- combine. Shades of the Dutch ! how seldom rhyme hath shown Your ruddy beauty, and your charms full blown' How long neglected have your merits lain ! But Irving's genius bids them rise again." Since the publication of my former edition, my friend, William Dunlap, Esq., of New York, while stirring up his recollections of the past, at my suggestion and for my use, found that he could compile enough to make a work for himself in my way, viz., his History of New York for schools and youth; and afterwards, as his mind expanded with his theme, he felt impelled to bring out his large work, the General History of New York State. Thus every way, the fund of historical truth is increased. J.R. Broadhead, Esq., also is procuring state papers, &c., in Holland, for a future publication. The Annals of Portsmouth, Lewis' History of Lynn, Gibbs Collections of Salem, and Davis' Notices of Plymouth, are such works as we wish to see multiplied in our country. So also is Johnson's Early Notices of Salem, N.J. Such works furnish occasions for imaginative works and tales, such as we have already seen deduced from my Annals, in the story of "Meridith, or the Meschianza" -- and in "a Tale of Blackbeard, the Pirate". Our country has been described abroad, and perhaps conceived of at home, says Flint, as sterile of moral interest. "We have, it is said, no monuments, no ruins, none of the colossal remains of temples, and baronial castles, and monkish towers, nothing to connect the heart and the imagination with the past, none of the dim recollections of the gone-by, to associate the past with the future". But although we have not the solemn and sombre remains of the past, as the remains of the handy work of man, we have every thing in the contemplation of the future. For when our thoughts have traversed rivers a thousand leagues in length, when we have seen the ascending steamboat breasting the mantling surge, or seen her along our opening canals, gleaming through the verdure of the trees, we have imagined the happy multitudes that from those shores shall contemplate their scenery in ages to come, in times when we shall have "strutted through life's poor play", and "been no more !" As our desires conspire with our feelings in wishing to promote and excite a love of the study of the past, we propose herein to add a few of such articles as have most ably sustained the arguments which we wish to enforce -- viz : Walter Scott had early habits of antiquarian study. He dwelt with fondness on the rude figures of the olden time. Blackwood's Magazine says that anecdotes of men and things will have a charm as long as man has curiosity. "Hudibras (says Dr. Johnson) is one of those compositions of which a nation may justly boast, [mark the reason] as the images which it exhibits are domestic, the sentiments unborrowed and unexpected, and the strain of diction original and peculiar." Hutton, speaking of Birmingham, says "while the historian only collects matter of the day, the antiquarian brings his treasures from remote time -- calls things back into existence which were past -- collects the dust of perished matter, remoulds the figure and stamps the past with a kind of immortality -- by his recreative power". Blackwood's Magazine says "things that may appear trifling now, when present and familiar, may become very different, when they are read after the accession of a totally different set of manners. They are the materials from which alone a graphic and interesting history of the period can be formed. With what delight do we read the glowing pictures in Ivanhoe, and the Crusaders, in Quentin Durward, and Kenilworth, of the manners, customs and habits of those periods !" "Instructed by the antiquarian times, He must, he is, he cannot but be wise." The author of Scott's Memoirs (George Allen) presents many facts to prove how very much the readers and admirers of Scott are indebted, for their interest in his writings, to his affection for talking with, and gathering up, the recollections of "the ancient crones and gaffers". When a young man, Scott was wont to make frequent journeys into the country, among strangers, going from house to house, with his boy George -- and particularly seeking out the residences of the old people, with whom he delighted to enter into conversation, and exciting them to dilate upon the reminiscences of their youth. Finally, says his biographer, "all who know his works must feel how much of their amusement they owe to his gypsy strolls." All this he did too from his innate love of antiquity' and not merely from the design of drawing pictures of common life for books -- for it was earlier than the time of his career of authorship. These facts are worth consideration. Hannah More, in writing to Mrs. Gwatkins, on the occasion of her first visit to London, says "I have rambled through the immediate shades of Twickenham; I have trodden the haunts of the swan of the Thames". -- "I could not be honest for the life of me; from the grotto I stole two bits of stones; from the garden a sprig of laurel; and from one of the bed chambers a pen; because the house had been Pope's". On another occasion, speaking of her visit to Kent, where had once dwelt Sir Philip Sidney, and Sacharissa, she says, "I pleased myself with the thought, that the immense oaks and enormous beeches, which had once shaded them, now shade me". [This last is the very thought I have expressed in passing the woods to Harrisburg, and thinking they were the same trees which had shaded the aborigines, now so wasted and expelled.] The Edinburgh Review, in discussing the leading objects of history, says, "the perfect historian is he in whose work the character and spirit of an age is exhibited in miniature; by judicious selections, rejections and arrangement, he gives to truth those attractions which have been usurped by fiction. He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity of manner, no familiarity of saying, as too insignificant for his notice, which is not too insignificant to illustrate the operations of laws, religion, and of education, and to mark the progress of the human mind. Men must be made intimately known to us, by appropriate images presented in every line. Sir Walter Scott has succeeded to illustrate history, by using up those fragments of truth which historians have scornfully thrown behind them, in a manner which may well excite their envy. A truly great historian would reclaim those materials which the novelist has appropriated; society should be shown from the highest to the lowest. Instruction derived from history thus written would be of a vivid and practical character. It would be received by the imagination as well as by the reason. An intimate knowledge of the DOMESTIC history of nations is therefore absolutely necessary". [I have aimed at this last.] Hones "Every Day Book", which I have only lately seen, is an expensive and embellished work, published in 1827 in London, got up on purpose to illustrate, after my manner, the perishing memorials of by-gone men and things in London. The chief difference between us seems to be that he is often supported by the written contributions of others, from all parts of England, and of course producing the pleasing varieties of many minds, whereas I never could enlist the help of any competent mind to furnish me with any personal reminiscences. Hone manifests much tact and good feeling and good taste for his subject -- giving us many interesting actions of men and things -- several of them disused and obsolete -- which in that cause enhances their value and character to us as moderns. His "Every Day Book" abounds with sentences commendatory of olden time affections, and shows that, in the estimation of men of sense, they are decidedly worthy of all praise. It may also be remarked, that in many cases, much smaller matters than I have preserved, and which some might deem trifles, are deemed of sufficient value to be embellished with drawings, or gravely supported with proofs. The whole is calculated to prove that the memorial of times by-gone is certainly valued, because of the insight it affords into the character and action of a departed age; and for that very reason is most valued by those who are most intellectual. Those whose imaginations are most occupied about their readings of any given people or place, are those who most like to have the pictures and images, which their fancies may instinctively draw, satisfied and settled by facts; and hence the love for those portraits and delineations of olden time, which bring up the "very age and picture of the past". Chambers' "Traditions of Edinburgh", which I only saw in 1834 -- after the publication of my Annals, has much the spirit and purpose of my own book; it is even more minute in sundry articles than I ventured to be : such as characteristics of crazy or silly persons and beggars, under the chapter "objects"; also "the hangman"; some memorable "old maids", &c. His leading topics are "characters" of sundry remarkable "old houses" and their inmates; and many miscellaneous facts of men and manners, in the former age. The whole in two volumes, 12mo.: 2d edition, Edinburgh, 1825. The author speaks of his performance, as a subject which had engrossed his leisure for many years, and that the praise which it has received is to be ascribed to the accidental excellence of his subject, rather than to any personal merit of his own. He gives several pages on ladies' dresses, such as "calashes, bongraces, (a bonnet of silk and cane) negligees, stomachers, stays, hoops, lappets, pinners, plaids, fans, busks, rumple, knots, &c., then worn and now forgotten". Gentlemen's dresses he appears to have overlooked, save that he incidentally says that they wore a small black muff, hung by a cord from the shoulder, and seen dangling at the side, when not in use, like a child's drum ! A life or a book of observation may always be useful; and this idea is supported by Mr. Walpole, from the opinion of a poet, saying that "if any man were to form a book, of what he had seen or heard himself, it must, in whatever hands, prove a most useful and interesting one". I am fully of the same opinion, from numerous facts known to me in my researches among the aged for reminiscences and traditions; and with such sentiments, I would make the above sentence my motto, to such future observations or passing events as I may record. Our eloquent countryman, Everett, has touchingly commended to our notice a just regard for our national recollections -- saying of them, "it is thus a free people is to be formed, animated and perpetuated. With such fine examples and studies at home, we need not to be eternally ringing the changes upon Marathon and Thermopylae. From the lessons of our forefathers, let us glean our instructions. Let us consult with profit their prudent councils in perplexed times; their exploits and sacrifices, either as settlers, or as citizen soldiers, contending for themselves and posterity. The traditionary lore still dwelling in the memories of the few revered survivors among us is worth our preservation. Let us seize it all as the rich inheritance of our children; as a legacy from our progenitors, virtually saying -- "My sons, forget not your fathers". Some have taken it for granted that I must have a decided preference for every thing olden, as if age alone made things valuable; but they mistake my bias and feelings; mine is a poetical attachment. I go into it as into the region of imagination. The Edinburgh Review, in noticing the works of Sir Walter Scott, has ascribed principles of action to him, the force of which, in its degree, I also felt and can appreciate, viz.: "his attachment to the manners of antiquity is to be considered merely as a poetical attachment. He is won by their picturesqueness, and by their peculiar applicability to purposes of romance". I write of olden time, because I think the facts, if so preserved, will eventually furnish the material of future legendary story and romance. I also, as I think, am thus preserving useful facts for national recollections and reflection. The public in general have very little conception of the really pleasing character of olden time inquiries. They view the volume as so much accumulated facts, attained, as they suppose, by laborious delving, and exploration and inquiry. They wholly overlook the real poetry of the subject; the stimulus and gratification which a mind duly constituted for the pursuit acquires, by opening to itself the contemplation and the secrets of a buried age. Such an inquirer examines a world of beings known only to himself; and while he walks and talks with them, he learns facts and incidents known only to themselves. By comparing in his mind the things which may have been so unlike the present, he learns how to estimate the measure of changes which may probably occur in the future, and thus opens to himself additional subjects of gratification and consideration. Thus his mind is busied in the contemplation of things -- calm and soothing in their nature, which others do not consider and cannot enjoy. The present race are mostly engrossed in themselves, and their various bounds of action and concern. Their ideal images are limited; but the lover of olden time, revels in the regions of past events, and peoples his intellectual reveries with persons and society all his own; not of fairy creatures like Shakespeare's, but of sober reality, and of such choice selection as may best minister to his entertainment and edification. He sees the forefathers of our land, fresh and ardent as they were, when first set upon the enterprise of cultivating a new Eden for us; he enters into their spirit, and feels their sympathies at home and abroad; he hears their deliberations in the domestic circle, and in the public councils; he is present at every new inland settlement; sees how new plantations are effected, and how towns are created; sees original lands, now dense with population, just as they were in their state of wild nature, then savage with beasts of prey and tawny aborigines. He sees aged oaks and hemlocks, and visits uncultivated spots, like the many still undisturbed scenes on the banks of the Wissahiccon, and cheers his imagination with the fact that he sees the same unaltered objects, which they had once seen and considered : "It soothes to have seen what they have seen, And cheers to have been where they have been." The poet who expressed that sentiment, had a soul which anticipated and felt all which is meant to be here embodied by these few remarks. To an imaginative mind rightly cultivated, the very few hints here suggested will present an unlimited field of amplification. To such, every thing of the past is filled with imagery; and the possessor of the faculty is always enabled to evoke from the store-house of his memory the ideal presence, and is at all times ready "to walk and talk with men of other days". Surely there is positive gratification in faculties like these. "A fool and an antiquary (says Hutton) is a contradiction -- they are, to a man, people of letters and penetration". Superficial observers and thinkers may think lightly of the contemplation of facts and things that are past, or grown gray and neglected with years, only because they do not think with the same character of emotions, which actuate the minds of the real lovers of the times and things by-gone. The affection for such pursuits and studies is wholly intellectual. There are occasions when the soul feels irrepressible reverence, and a hushed silence, in the contemplation of a known relic, or the remains of what was once memorable and peculiar. The soul has a ready facility in investing the perishing, or rescued remains, with an impersonation and ideal presence which enables it, as it were, to speak out to our arrested and excited senses, and recites to us, mentally, the long tale of its notices and observations on men and things, which, through days of by-gone time, it may have witnessed or considered. From such a cause of operation, who can behold an ancient mummy, for instance, and not instinctively revert in reflection to Campbell's touching apostrophe to such an impressive relic ! -- "Statue of flesh -- immortal of the dead ! Imperishable type of evanescence ! Come, prithee tell us something of thyself; Reveal the secrets of thy prison house :-- Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumber'd, What hast thou seen -- what strange adventures numbered ?" I cannot but observe it as a fact in our history, which may perhaps be applied in general to most other early history, that the chances for a true account of the origin of things, are but few and difficult -- because I cannot but perceive that such is the little of investigation employed thereon by competent minds, and so little are the topics within the cognizance of the mass of the people, that there remains scarcely any to detect a fraud or misconception; but almost all tacitly concede to the first writer or compiler, the complaisance to believe all that he asserts of times by-gone. I have, in after time, detected some such lapses, especially in typographical errors of dates, &c., in my own pages; but which none of the vigilant reviewers -- so fond of faults, had the sagacity or skill to expose ! Sometimes very old people assert things as facts, which they verily believe and have often told, only because their extreme age has destroyed the power of accurate discrimination -- they confound things -- and yet they seem so sure and so plausible, that we are constrained to believe them, until subsequent official or written data of the true time and circumstances, disclose the truth. A remarkable instance of what I mean, is verified in the incident related by old Butler, aged 104, respecting General Braddock's marching from Philadelphia, when he landed at Virginia and travelled westward, via the Potomac ! If these never come to light to contradict the former assertion, the oft repeated tale goes down to posterity unmolested for ever. In this manner the oldest persons in Philadelphia had all a false cause assigned for the name of "Arch street" and it was only the records of the courts which set me right. The historian of North Carolina gave a wrong case as the cause of the origin of "Yankee Doodle" and if I had not discovered another cause, it would have stood as confirmed history for ever. Mr. Heckewelder has given us much detailed history of our Pennsylvania Indians, and of the Delawares, and has said these last were an original people, and more powerful than all the other Indians; but a late writer, in Mr. Vetake's New Review, endeavours to prove that it was an illusion of the good missionary. He has said too, that the name of "Manhattan" was given to New York by the Indians, as meaning "the place where they all got drunk". This is in opposition to the facts told one hundred and fifty years before, by De Laet, a cotemporary, who twice asserts that the Manhattes was the name of a tribe there. We do not pretend to decide in this matter, but we can discern hereby, how it is, that given facts take a "local habitation and a name". Truth, therefore, requires much wariness, in seeking. My notices of olden time were wholly of my own conception and suggestion. I had never read any similar works -- and even to this day, (1842) although I have named them in my "Annals". I have not read Lewis' Lynn, Gibbs' Salem, Notices of Plymouth, &c., none of which have been made a part of the Philadelphia Library. We had thought to have here concluded this chapter, already longer than we had proposed when we began it -- but we think that a few beautiful remarks which we shall here give from Alison's Notices of the Beautiful and Sublime, will be willingly read by every intellectual reader. He says : "The delight which most men of education receive from the consideration of antiquity, and the beauty that they discover in every object which is connected with ancient times, is in a great measure to be ascribed to their perceptions of beauty. Surrounded by relics of former ages, we seem to be removed to ages that are past, and indulge in the imagination of a living world. `Tis then that all that is venerable or laudable in the history of those times present themselves to the memory; then the imagination and fancy are stimulated. The subjects of consideration seem to approach him still nearer to the ages of his regard : the dress, the furniture, the arms of the times, are so many assistances to his imagination in guiding or directing its exercises; and offering him a thousand sources of imagery, provide him with an almost inexhaustible field in which his memory and his fancy may expatiate." "There is no man who has not some interesting associations with particular scenes. The view of the house where he was born, of the school where he was educated, and where the gay years of infancy were passed, is indifferent to no man. The scenes which have been distinguished by the residence of any person, whose memory we admire, produce a similar effect. The admiration which the recollections afford, seems to give a kind of sanctity to the place where they dwelt." "It is not the first prospect of Rome, as Rome only, which creates our emotions of delight. It is not the Tyber, diminished to a paltry stream. It is ancient Rome, with all its associations, which fills the imagination. It is the country of Caesar, and Cicero, and Virgil, which is before him. All that he has read and studied opens at once before his mind, and presents him with a mass of high and solemn imagery which can never be exhausted." I cannot but be aware, that my mind has been instinctive in its perception of matters and things in their state of `transitu' , that are habitually overlooked by many others. In the consciousness of my own peculiarity therein, I cannot but feel the force of remarks made by Colonel Trumbull, in his autobiography -- tending equally to show that in his department of national painting, which is, in fact, his desire for preserving his pictorial images of the past, we have been actuated measurably alike. "His aim (he says) has been to transmit to those who come after us, the personal resemblances of those who have been the great actors in those scenes that are past -- to portray which he had some superiority, because he had been an actor and a willing observer of things, for which no one then lives with him, possessing the same advantage -- and withal, no one can come after him to divide the honour of their truth and authenticity. He may therefore cherish an honest pride (he says) in the accomplishment of a work -- such as never has been done before, and in which it is not easy that he should find a rival." Next : PENNSYLVANIA INLAND.