Area History: Watson's Annals, Vol II: Chapter 2 - Pennsylvania Inland - Part I: Philadelphia Co, PA 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, VOL. II ______________________________________________ Chapter 2 - Part I PENNSYLVANIA INLAND The whole of Pennsylvania -- such as it was for the first half century of the settlement -- was comprised within the three counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, and Chester; of these, therefore, we are chiefly to speak in the following pages. All beyond these -- westward and northward, until of latter years, consisted of unsettled lands or Indian hunting grounds -- so very modern is every thing of improvement and civilization in Pennsylvania, which we now behold. Such a country, so rapid in its progress -- so lately rising from comparative nothingness, to be "a praise in the earth" may well demand our admiration and regard. Cotemporary with the first settlement of Philadelphia, the colonists proceeded into the country, and laid the foundation of sundry towns and neighbourhoods; as this was done while the country was in a wilderness state, and in the midst of the Indian nations, it may justly interest our readers to learn the earliest known facts concerning several of such settlements. To this end, we shall relate sundry incidents concerning Pennsbury, Bucks county, Chester, and Chester county, Byberry, Germantown, Frankford, Lancaster, &c. We begin with Germantown, the largest and oldest town begun in Philadelphia county, to wit : GERMANTOWN The Germantown settlement was first taken up by Francis Daniel Pastorius, the 12th of the 8th month 1683, by a purchase from William Penn, and was surveyed and laid out by the surveyor general, 2d of 3d month 1684; under a grant to him for himself and others for 6000 acres. It proved, however, to contain but 5700 acres. It was part of Springetbury Manor, and was distributed among the proprietaries as follows, viz.: 200 acres to Dr. Francis D. Pastorius himself, on Chestnut Hill 150 do. to Jurian Hartsfelder (the same who in 1676 owned all Campington) 5350 do. to Pastorius, as agent to German and Dutch owners, called the Francfort company. -------- 5700 do. Pastorius and Hartsfielder were to pay yearly 1s. per 100 acres, quitrent; and all the others at the rate of 1s. per 1000 acres, ("they having bought off the quitrents") for ever to William Penn and heirs. The patent for all the preceding land from Penn is executed by William Markham, secretary for Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, the 3d April 1689, and it therein specifies "the purchasers" as follows, viz. : Jacobus Vandewalle.... 535 acres Johan Jacob Sheetz.... 428 do. Daniel Spehagel....... 356 2/3 do. John W. Uberfeld...... 107 do. George Strauss........ 178 1/2 do. Jan Laurens.......... 535 do. Abraham Hasevoet...... 535 do. ------- 2675 do. All of the above 2675 acres were sold in 1768, for £3000, to one Sprogel, by Daniel Faulkner, as agent to the Frankford Company, but as it was contrary to the wish of his principals, it was always deemed a fraud, and did not convey a transfer. Jacob Tellner..............989 acres Jan Strepers.............. 275 do. Dirk Sipman................588 do. Gobart Renckes.............161 do. Lenert Arets...............501 do. Jacob Isaacs...............161 do ------ 2675 do. The distribution of the lands was made as follows: Germantown (proper) contained....2750 acres Cresheim ........................ 884 do. Somerhausen...................... 900 do. Crefelt..........................1166 do. -------- 5700 do. Germantown was incorporated as a borough town by a patent from William Penn, executed in England in 1689. Francis Daniel Pastorius, civilian, was made first bailiff; and Jacob Tellner, Dirk Isaacs op den graff and Herman op den Graff, three burghers, to act ex-officio as town magistrates, and eight yeomen; the whole to form a general court to sit once a month. They made laws and laid taxes. The town lost its charter for want of a due election, officers not being found willing to serve; somewhere about 1706. In a letter from Pastorius to William Penn, dated in 1701-2, he states his concern that he should not be able to get men to serve in the general court for "conscience sake", and he trusts, for a remedy, to an expected arrival of emigrants. This difficulty probably arose from the oaths used in court proceedings. All the settlers in Cresheim built on the Cresheim road, before settling a house on the Germantown road through Cresheim. There is an old map, made in 1700, in which all their residences and barns at that time are marked. The Germantown town lots (55) were located in 1687, and were drawn for by lot in 1689, being 27 1/2 lots on each side of the road. Their side lots up town began from Abington lane (at Samuel Johnson's) and went up to the foot of the hill by Leibert's boat yard. The original price of the township of Germantown was 1s. per acre. The original of the following curious paper is in the hands of John Johnson, Esq. "We whose names are to these presents subscribed, do hereby certify unto all whom it may concern, that soon after our arrival in this province of Pennsylvania, in October, 1683, to our certain knowledge Herman op den Graff, Dirk op den Graff, and Abraham op den Graff, as well as ourselves, in the cave of Francis Daniel Pastorius, at Philadelphia, did cast lots for the respective lots which they and we then began to settle in Germantown; and the said Graffs (three brothers) have sold their several lots, each by himself, no less than if a division in writing had been made by them. Witness our hands this 29th Nov., A.D.1709. Lenart Arets Thomas Hunder Abraham Tunes Jan Lensen William Streygert Jan Lucken Reiner Tysen. The Frankford Land Company gave titles to much of the lands on each side of Germantown Main-street. The company at first consisted of ten gentlemen living in Francfort, on the Maine, in Germany; their articles were executed in that city on the 24th November 1686. They bought 25000 acres of land from William Penn. The Germantown patent for 5350, and the Manatauney patent for 22,377 acres. F.D. Pastorius was appointed the attorney for the company, and after his resignation Dan. Faulkner was, in 1708, made attorney. Most of the old houses in Germantown are plastered on the inside with clay and straw mixed, and over it is laid a finishing coat of thin lime plaster. Some old houses seem to be made with log frames and the interstices filled with wattles, river rushes, and clay intermixed. In a house ninety years of age, taken down, the grass in the clay appeared as green as when cut. Probably twenty houses now remain of the primitive population. They are of but one story, so low that a man six feet high can readily touch the eaves of the roof. Their gable ends are to the street. The ground story is of stone or of logs -- or sometimes the front room is of stone, and the back room is of logs, and thus they have generally one room behind the other. The roof is high and mostly hipped, forms a low bed chamber; the ends of the houses above the first story are of boards or sometimes of shingles, with a small chamber window at each end. Many roofs were then tiled. In modern times those houses made of logs have been lathed and plastered over, so as to look like stone houses; the doors all divide in the middle, so as to have an upper and a lower door; and in some houses the upper door folds. The windows are two doors, opening inwards, and were at first set in leaden frames with outside frames of wood. The Germans who originally arrived, came for conscience sake to this land, and were a very religious community. They were usually called Palantines, because they came from a Palatinate, called Cresheim and Crefelt. Many of the German Friends had been convinced by William Penn in Germany. Soon after their settlement, in 1683, some of them who were yet in Philadelphia, suffered considerably by a fire, and were then publicly assisted by the Friends. The original passports of the first inhabitants coming from Germany to Germantown were written with golden ink on parchment, and were very elegant. Wishert Levring, a first settler, lived to the age of 109, and died at Roxborough in 1744. Jacob Snyder lived to be 97. Francis Daniel Pastorius was a chief among the first settlers; he was a scholar, and wrote Latin in a good hand, and left a curious manuscript work called "the Bee" containing a beautiful collection of writing, and various curious selections. He once owned all Chestnut hill on both sides of the road. He was a member of assembly in 1687; and attorney for the Frankford Land company. He died about the year 1730. I have been indebted to the kindness of James Haywood, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, for an explanation of the old German pamphlet, 12mo., in the Cambridge Library, done by F. D. Pastorius, as a "Description of Pennsylvania". It consists of sundry subjects, printed in Holland, viz.: A voyage from London to Pennsylvania, in 1683. Pastorius' Account of the condition of Pennsylvania, in 1683. The Charter by Charles II. to William Penn, of March 1681 -- Penn's Constitution -- a Geographic description of the Country, its trade, and a History with some account of the Aborigines -- and Extracts of several letters of Pastorius to his friends in Germany -- An extract of William Penn's account of Pennsylvania, in a letter to his friends in London, &c. The whole seem to be an extract (im anszug) with notes, done from some larger work. Arents Klincken came from Holland with William Penn in his first voyage in 1682. He had seen and known Penn in Holland. He built the first two story house ever raised in Germantown; and Penn was present and partook of the raising dinner; the same old stone house on Justus Johnson's premises. He died at the age of 80. He left a son whose name was : Anthony Klincken, a great hunter, who spent a long life in such exercises. He used to have the garret of the house filled in the winter with wild game, and had it marked with the date when he killed it, so as to eat it in due succession as an epicure. The same house next to Justus Johnson's premises. He even purchased a German `Yager', celebrated for shooting, to aid him in his field sports; he had crows' scalps, which bore a premium. He used to wade in the Wissahiccon in the depth of winter; finally contracted rheumatism and gout, which so ossified the flesh of his knuckles, that he could scrape chalk from them when old ! He never went to Philadelphia without taking his gun with him in the spring and fall, and never came home without several geese or ducks, which he had killed in a spatterdock pond, then at the corner of Fourth and High streets ! He called it the best game pond any where to be found. This was probably about the years 1700 to 1710. He used also to speak with wonder of seeing hundreds of rats in the flats among the spatterdocks at Pool's bridge, and that he was in the habit of killing them for amusement as fast as he could load. He was born about the year 1677, and died about 1759, aged about 82 years. As early as 1700 there were four hermits living near Germantown -- John Seelig, Kelpius, Bony, and Conrad Mathias. They lived near Wissahiccon and the Ridge. Benjamin Lay lived in a cave near the York Road at Branchtown. John Kelpius, the hermit, was a German of Sieburgen in Transylvania, of an eminent family (tradition says he was noble) and a student of Dr. John Fabritius at Helmstadt. He was also a correspondent of Maecken, chaplain to the Prince of Denmark in London. He came to this country in 1694 with John Seelig, Barnard Kuster (Coster), Daniel Falkener, and about forty-two others, being generally men of education and learning, to devote themselves, for piety's sake, to a solitary or single life; and receiving the appellation of the "Society of the Woman in the wilderness". They first arrived among the Germans at Germantown, where they shone awhile "as a peculiar light" but they settled chiefly "on the Ridge", then a wilderness. In 1708, Kelpius, who was regarded as their leader, died "in the midst of his days", (said to be 35) -- after his death the members began to fall in with the world around them, and some of them to break their avowed religious intentions by marrying. Thus the society lost it distinctive character and died away; but previous to their dispersion they were joined about the year 1704 by some others among whom was Conrad Mathias (the last of the Ridge hermits) a Switzer, and by Christopher Witt (sometimes called Dr. Witt of Germantown) a professor of medicine, and a "magus" or diviner. After the death of Kelpius, the faith was continued in the person of John Seelig who had been his companion, and was also a scholar. Seelig lived many years after him as a hermit, and was remarkable for resisting the offers of the world, and for wearing a coarse garment like that of Kelpius. This Seelig records the death of his friend Kelpius in 1708, in a MS. Hymn Book of Kelpius', (set to music) which I have seen -- saying he died in his garden, and attended by all his children, (spiritual ones, and children whom he taught gratis) weeping as for the loss of a father. That Kelpius was a man of learning is tested by some of his writings; a very small-written book of one hundred pages, once in my possession. It contains his writings in Latin, Hebrew, Greek, German and English; and this last (which is very remarkable, he being a foreigner) is very free and pure. The journal of his voyage to this country, in sixteen pages, is all in Latin; some of his letters (of which there are several in German, and two in English) are in Latin; they are all on religious topics, and saving his peculiar religious opinions, reason very acutely and soberly. From venturing with the thousands of his day to give spiritual interpretations to Scripture, where it was not so intended, he fell upon a scheme of religion which drove him and other students from the Universities of Germany, and under the name of Pietists, &c., to seek for some immediate and strange revelations. He and his friends therefore expected the millennium year was close at hand -- so near that he told the first Alex. Mack (the first of the Germantown Tunkers) that he should not die till he saw it ! He believed also that "the woman in the wilderness" mentioned in the Revelations, was prefigurative of the great deliverance that was then soon to be displayed for the church of Christ. As she was "to come up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved," so the beloved in the wilderness, laid aside all other engagements (i.e. being hermits, and trimming their lamps and adorning themselves with holiness, that they may be prepared to meet the same with joy), Therefore they did well to observe the signs of the time, and every new phenomenon(whether moral or preternatural) of meteors, stars, or colours of the skies, if peradventure the harbinger may appear". He argued too, that there was a three-fold wilderness, like state of progression in spiritual holiness : to wit, "the barren, the fruitful and the wilderness state of the elect of God". In the last state, after which he was seeking, as a highest degree of holiness, he believed it very essential to attain it by dwelling in solitude or in the wilderness; therefore he argues Moses' holiness by being prepared forty years in the wilderness -- Christ's being tempted forty days in the wilderness as an epitome of the other -- John the Baptist coming from the wilderness, &c. He thought it thus proved that holy men might be thus qualified to come forth among men again, to convert whole cities, and to work signs and wonders. He was much visited by religious persons. Kelpius professed love and charity with all -- but desired to live without a name or sect. The name they obtained was given by others. There are two of Kelpius' MS Hymn books still extant in Germantown; one of his own composing, in German, is called elegant; they are curious too, because they are all translated into English poetry (line for line) by Dr. C. Witt, the diviner or magus. The titles of some of them may exhibit the mind of the author : "Of the wilderness -- or Virgin-Cross love" "The contentment of the God-loving soul" "Of the power of the new virgin-body wherein the Lord revealeth his mysteries" "A loving moan of the disconsolate soul" "Upon `Rest' after he had been wearied with `Labour' in the wilderness" Although he looked for a qualification to go forth and convert towns and cities in the name of the Lord, it is manifest, that neither he nor his companions were enthusiastic enough to go into the world without such endowment. They often held religious meetings in their hermitage, with people who solicited to come to them for the purpose. Kelpius' hut or house stood on the hill where the widow Phoebe Riter now lives. Her log house has now stood more than forty years on the same cellar foundation which was his; it is on a steep descending grassy hill, well exposed to the sun for warmth in the winter, and has a spring of the hermit's making, half down the hill, shaded by a very stout cedar tree. After Kelpius' hut went down, the foxes used to burrow in his cellar; he called the place the "Burrow of Rocks, or Rocksburrow" -- now Roxborough. DOCTOR CHRISTOPHER WITT was born in England (in Wiltshire) in 1675; came to this country in 1704, and died in 1765, aged 90. He was a skilful physician and a learned man; was reputed a `magus' or `diviner', or in grosser terms a `conjuror'; and was a student and a believer in all the learned absurdities and marvellous pretensions of the Rosicrucian philosophy. The Germans of that day, and indeed many of the English, practised the casting of `nativities' -- and as this required mathematical and astronomical learning, it often followed that such a competent scholar was called "a fortune teller". Doctor Witt "cast nativities", and was called a conjuror; while Christopher Lehman, who was a scholar and a friend of Witt, and could cast nativities, and did them for all of his own nine children, but never for hire, was called a notary public, a surveyor, and a gentleman. BENJAMIN LAY, the hermit, called the "Pythagorean, cynical, Christian philosopher", dwelt in a cave on the York road, near Dr. De Benneville's. He left it in the year 1741, and went to reside with John Phipps, near Friends' meeting house at Abington. He was suddenly taken ill when from home, and desired he might be taken to the dwelling of his friend Joshua Morris, about a mile from Phipps', where he died on the 3d of February 1759, aged 82 years. He was the first public declaimer against the iniquities of holding slaves. He was in communion with the Germantown Friends. It is to the honour of the German Friends of Germantown, that as early as 1688 they addressed the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting at Burlington, "protesting against the buying, selling, and holding men in slavery, and declaring it, in their opinion, an act irreconcileable with the precepts of the Christian religion". FRIENDS -- Their first meetings were held at Dennis Conrad's house (then spelt Tennis Kundert) as early as 1683. Part of the wall of that ancient house may now be seen on the north-west end of the two houses rebuilt and occupied by Lesher, as an inn. On the site where Dr. George Bensell's house now stands, there was an ancient house, pulled down by Dr. Bensell, in which William Penn preached : it was low and built of frame work and filled in with bricks. He also preached at Schumachers ancient house, built in 1686, and till lately standing in Mehl's meadow. In 1705, the Friends built a meeting house of stone, in their present graveyard on the street. It has been taken down. From the original subscription and account book, it appears that they bought fifty acres for £60, raised by subscription of individuals and other meetings, in sums of from 20s. to £10. 4s. In Philadelphia, one hundred and thirty persons of that meeting gave £12, 7s.8d. Eighteen Friends in Frankford contributed £22, 8s. In Abington, thirty-seven persons gave £21, 6s. chiefly in wheat at 4s. Byberry meeting gave forty bushels of wheat, £8, 3s. The prices of labour were then 3s. 6d., apples 1s. 6d. per bushel, boards 10s. per hundred, lime 14d., oats 2s. 6d., malt 4s. 6d., bricks 22s. per thousand, linseed oil 8s., nails 1s.2d., shingles 10s. per thousand, timber 6s. per ton, sawing 10s. per hundred. TUNKERS -- In 1709, the Tunkards from Germany and Holland emigrated to Pennsylvania, and settled first at Germantown. Their first collected meetings were held in the log house in front of their present stone church in Beggarstown. Alex. Mack was then their principal leader. He was a very rich miller in Cresheim, gave all his property in common, and came with 8 or 10 to Germantown in 1708. He died old: and his son Alexander lived to be near 91 years of age. That log house was built in 1731, by John Pettikoffer, for his dwelling, who procured his funds, by asking gifts therefor from the inhabitants. Because it was the first house in the place and procured by begging, it was called "Beggarstown". The stone church on the same premises was built in 1770. Alex. Mack, junior, succeeded his father as minister, and Peter Baker had been their minister as early as 1723. the original Tunkers from Ephrata, used to dress alike and without hats covered their heads with the hoods of their coats, which were a kind of gray surtout, like the Dominican friars. Old persons now living remember when forty or fifty of them would come thus attired on a religious visit from Ephrata near Lancaster, to Germantown, walking silently in Indian file, and with long beards; also girt about the waist, and barefooted, or with sandals. PENNSYLVANIA INLAND -- GERMANTOWN THE MENNONISTS' first meeting house was built here in 1708, and was a log house, in the same lot where their present stone house (built in 1770) now stands. The log house was also a school house, kept by Christopher Duck, in 1740. [See on-line photograph.] THE GERMAN REFORMED erected their first meeting house, opposite to the market house, about the year 1733. The front half part was first built; the back part was added in 1762. This old church, in the market square, originated as a Dutch Reformed, was built and used as one directly under the Reformed church in Holland. From thence it had its first pastor. It had an ancient shingle roofed steeple after the Dutch manner, and was surmounted by a well finished iron cock, being the Dutch sign of a church. From its low elongated form of stone, with its adjunct additions and affixes, and bare beams to the gallery -- with high and narrow pulpit and sounding board -- it was in itself a venerable specimen of the olden time, and for that cause was to be prized for its associations. It seemed in itself calculated to bring up the recollections of the forefathers who once worshipped there. It seemed the very place to inspire the descendants with hallowed reminiscences of those who had gone before them. Among its recollections was that of its being the place, in 1793, where General Washington and his family regularly went, as often as they had English preaching, which was sometimes done by Doctor Smith, from the Falls of Schuylkill. But time, and the passion for newness, resolved them "to pull down and build greater". They therefore lately made a new brick church in its place. The steeple was taken down with much skill, entire, and taken away to be preserved as a graceful summer house, by one who had the fancy for thus preserving it as a relic of the past; and the rod and vane were taken and set up again upon Mr. Stokes' hall. The steeple at the summit had many rifle bullets in it, shot there by the Paxtang boys, when they shot at the vane as a mark. The old organ, too, with its trumpet angels in their golden array, just as the whole came from Holland, was discarded and cast aside. The whole subject forcibly brings to mind the poetic description made by Mrs. Seba Smith, saying, They are all passing from the land, Those churches old and gray, In which our fathers used to stand, In years gone by, to pray --- They never knelt,* those stern old men Who worshipp'd at our altars then. No, all that e'en the semblance bore Of popedom on its face, Our fathers as the men of yore Spurn'd from the holy place --- They bow'd the heart alone in prayer And worshipp'd God thus sternly there. Through coarse gray plaster might be seen Oak timbers large and strong, And those who reared them must have been Stout men when they were young --- For oft I've heard my grandsire speak How men were growing thin and weak. His heart was twined, I do believe, Round every timber there --- For memory loved a web to weave Of all the young and fair, Who gather's there with him to pray For many a long, long sabbath day. He saw again his youthful bride --- His white hair'd boys once more All walk'd demurely by his side, As in the days of yore, Alas ! those boys are old and gray, And she hath pass'd in death away. That sounding board ! to me it seem'd A cherub poised on high --- A mystery I almost deem'd Quite hid from vulgar eye. And that old pastor, wrap't in prayer, Look'd doubly awful 'neath it there. I see it all once more; once more That lengthen'd prayer I hear --- I hear the child's foot kick the door --- I see the mother's fear --- And that long knotty sermon too, My grandsire heard it all quite through. But as it deeper grew and deep --- He always used to rise --- He would not like the women, sleep --- But stood with fixed eyes, And look'd intent upon the floor, To hear each dark point o'er and o'er. Aye pull them down, as well ye may, Those altars stern and old --- They speak of those long pass'd away, Whose ashes now are cold. Few, few are now the strong arm'd men Who worshipp'd at our altars then. And they reproach you with their might, The pious, proud and free --- The wise in council, strong in fight, Who never bow'd the knee, And those gray churches only stand As emblems of that hardy band. Then pull them down and rear on high New-fangled, painted things, For these but mock the modern eye, The past around them brings. Then pull them down, and upward rear, A pile which suits who worship here. * It was one of the points of early opposition to the Church, that dissenters should not kneel, as they said the others did, `too much' by rule. THE LUTHERAN CHURCH --- It is not accurately known when this was built, but it had an addition of its front part made to it in 1746. It is certain, too, that there was a church in Germantown before the first one in Philadelphia, which was erected in 1743. The first ordained minister, Dr. H. M. Muhlenburg, came to Philadelphia in 1742, and of course before that time their services in Germantown were conducted by their schoolmaster, as is their practice in similar cases. In 1754 a lottery of five thousand tickets at $2 each, was drawn in Philadelphia, to net £562 to purchase a messuage and lot of ground in Germantown for the minister of the Lutheran church and school house, &c., for the benefit of the poor of the society, the minister to instruct the poor children. In 1761 the Lutheran church at Barren-hill was also built by a lottery. Nothing but German was preached in the Lutheran and German churches till of late years, and the present Presbyterian church was formed by the seceders from those churches, because the other members would not agree to have English preaching for half the time. They built their stone church in 1812, under the patronage of the Rev. Dr. Blair. THE METHODISTS began to preach in Germantown about the year 1798, and in 1800 they built their stone meeting house, in the lane opposite to Mr. Samuel Harvey's house. In 1823, their former church being too small, they built a new and larger meeting house. THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH of St. Luke was built in the year 1819; the first rector was the Rev. Charles Dupuy; previously the society assembled for worship at the house of James Stokes, at the corner of the church lane. The lower burying ground of half an acre was the gift of John Streeper, of Germany, per Leonard Aret; and the upper one was given by Paul Wolff. The potter's field in Bowman's lane was bought in 1755 for £5 10s. containing one hundred and forty perches. The first grist mill set up in Philadelphia county was that now called Roberts' mill, in Church lane, just one mile north-east from the market square. Roberts' mill was erected as early as 1683, by Richard Townsend, a public Friend, who brought the chief materials from England. Some years afterwards, in his printed address to Friends, he speaks of this mill and his early difficulties, and the kind providence extended to him there, which are very interesting. He stated that his was the only mill for grain in all the parts; and was of great use to the inhabitants. That they brought their grist on men's backs, save one man, who had a tame bull which performed the labour. That by reason of his seclusion in the midst of the woods, he had but little chance of any supply of flesh meat, and was sometimes in great straits therefor. On one occasion, while he was mowing in his meadow a young deer came near to him, and seemed to wonder at his labour; it would follow him up while he worked, but when he stopped or approached it, it skipped away; but an accident made him stumble, and so scared the deer, that he {the deer} rushed suddenly aside against a sapling, and being stunned, he fell and was taken alive and killed, to the great relief of the family. {Story repeated in the Appendix written by Richard Townsend} The first paper mill in Pennsylvania was built by Garret Rittenhouse. It stood about a hundred yards higher up the stream than where old Martin Rittenhouse now lives, at C. Markle's. It was carried off by a freshet. William Penn wrote a letter soliciting the good people to give some aid in rebuilding it with their money. The grist mill, now Nicholas Rittenhouse's on Wissahiccon, below Markle's was built without the use of carts, or roads or barrows. [on-line photo, see table of contents.] THE ACADEMY --- There were numerous scholars here in the German school, sixty-five years ago; now there are none taught. The public school now called the Academy was first commenced in building in 1760, by a subscription chiefly raised in Philadelphia; but it not being likely to be finished thereby, in 1761 they made a lottery to draw in Philadelphia, of 6667 tickets, at $3, to raise $3000 at 15 per cent. to finish it. In 1821 the legislature granted $1000 to help it out of debt. Their first teacher was Dove, distinguished in Philadelphia as a scholar; and he had considerable fame as a satirical poet in political controversies. He used to send a committee of boys with a lantern and candle in day time, ringing a bell, to find absent scholars, and bring them with shame to school. His name was David I. Dove. He differed with the trustees, and built the house next to the Academy as an opposition seminary, and found himself unsuccessful and mortified. Pelatiah Webster succeeded him; all that time there was also a German master and scholars, and all the education there was at 10s per quarter, and now English is $5, and the languages $10. The MARKET HOUSE AND PRISON was built in 1741. The ground was granted for that purpose by James de la Plaine in 1701; the said De la Plaine lived and owned James Stokes' house. There was once a `pound' in the market square at the south-east end, and near it stood a small log prison, in which one Adam Hogermoed was imprisoned for a small offence of intemperance. His friends pried it up at one corner and let him out at night. Some time after he made the prison his free house, for when the charter was lost, it was sold to him and he moved it to where it now forms part of Joseph Green's group of houses. In 1761 Jacob Coleman began, from the King of Prussia Inn, the first stage with an awning, to run to Philadelphia, three times a week, to the George Inn, south-west corner of second and Arch streets. He afterwards ran a stage to Reading. I have not seen any ancient inhabitant who had a correct knowledge respecting the terms on which they once held court. They had a tradition that they held courts here before it was done in Philadelphia ! But I have seen the record of the original patent, from which I abstract as follows, viz. -- A patent of William Penn, dated London, August 12, 1689, and on the back thereof, this endorsement, viz.: "12 8mo. 1689, let this pass the great seal. To Thomas Lloyd, keeper thereof, in Pennsylvania. (Signed) William Penn". On the inside was affixed, "passed under the great seal of the province of Pennsylvania on the 3d day of the 3d mo. 1691". This therefore marks the period, I presume, at which they began to live subject to the laws of a borough town. The patent grants "that Francis Daniel Pastorius, civilian, and J. Tellner, merchant, Dirk Isaacs op den Graeff and eight other freemen of Germantown, (named) shall be a body corporate by the name of the bailiff, burgesses and commonalty of Germantown, in the county of Philadelphia. To have perpetual succession, and at all times thereafter shall be able and capable in law with a joint stock to trade, and with the same to take, purchase, &c., messuages, lands &c., of a yearly value of £1500 per annum. To have and to use a common seal. That there shall be elected one bailiff (Pastorius) and four burgesses and six persons committee-men, all from the aforesaid eleven nominated corporation, which shall constitute "and be called the General Court of the Corporation of Germantown". The then appointed corporation to continue in office till the 1st December next ensuing, and from thence UNTIL there be a new choice of other persons to succeed them, "according as therein directed". "The bailiff and the two eldest burgesses for the time being shall be justices of the peace. The bailiff and the oldest burgesses, and the recorder for the time being, shall hold and keep one court of record, to be held every six weeks for hearing all civil causes according to the laws of the province. And also to hold and to keep a market every sixth day, in such places as the provincial charter doth direct". [Recorded at Philadelphia, 13th 3d month, 1691] The government of Germantown began the 6th of 8mo. 1691, and terminated 25th of 12th mo. 1706-7, being fifteen years. The borough and court records of Germantown were ordered to the Recorder's office in Philadelphia, by an act of the General Assembly in 1769. From those records I have extracted the following primitive and "simple annals" of that beginning era of settlement and civilization, to wit : The Records of the Courts of Record held in the Corporation of Germantown, from the 6th day of 8th month, anno 1691, [the year of their getting their charter from William Penn] and thenceforward from time to time; -- thus transcribed by order of a general court held at the said Germantown, the 26th day of 10th month, in the year 1696. Anno 1691. The 6th day of the 8th month the first court of record was held at Germantown, in the public meeting house, (of Friends) before Francis Daniel Pastorius, bailiff, Jacob Tellner, Dirk Isaacs op den Graef, and Herman Isaacs op den Graef, the three eldest burgesses. Isaac Jacobs van Bebber, recorder; Paul Wolf, clerk; Andrew Souplis, sheriff; Jan Lucken, constable. Proclamation being made by Andrew Souplis, the charter was read, and the officers attested. Caspar Carsten and his wife, who were both bound over to this court for menacing the constable when about to serve a warrant upon them, were called, and submitting to the bench, were fined two pounds, ten shillings. The court adjourned until the 17th of November next. 1692, the 29th day of 9th month. John Silans (upon Jacob Schumacher's complaint) promised before this court to finish the said Jacob Schumacher's barn within four weeks next coming. [Observe there are no fines or penalties in the case -- only a promise of better action !] Walter Simons and James de la Plaine, for themselves and in behalf of their neighbourhood, protested against the road from the Mill street towards Thomas Rutter's, as not being laid out by the governor's order. 1692-3, the 21st day of 12th month. By reason of the absence of some, for religious meeting over Schuylkill, this court was adjourned till the 4th of 2d month, 1693. [How considerate and accommodating !] 1693, the 8th day of 6th month. Francis Daniel Pastorius, as attorney of the Frankford Company, delivered unto Wigart Levering a deed of enfeoffment containing fifty acres in Germantown. [enfeoff -- to invest with a fief or fee ....from the French : OF en + fief] James de la Plaine, coroner, brought into this court the names of the jury which he summoned the 24th day of 4th month, 1701, viz. -- Thomas Williams, foreman, Peter Hearlis, Herman op den Graef, Reiner Peters, Peter Shoemaker, Reiner Tissen, Peter Brown, John Unslett, Thomas Potts, Reiner Hermans, Dirk Johnson, Herman Turner. Their verdict was as followeth : We, the jury, find that through carelessness the cart and the lime killed the man; the wheel wounded his back and head, and it killed him. 1701, the 20th day of 11th month. Reiner Peters, for calling the sheriff, on open street, a rascal and liar, was fined 20 shillings. 1703, the 28th day of 12th month. When the cause of Matthew Smith against Daniel Faulkner being moved, the plaintiff, by reason of conscience, viz., that this day was the day wherein Herod slew the innocents, as also that his witnesses were and would for the aforesaid reason not be here, desired a continuance to the next court of record to be held for this corporation; which was allowed of, provided the said Daniel Faulkner do then appear and stand to trial. 1703-4, the 8th day of 12th month. George Muller, for his drunkenness, was condemned to five days' imprisonment. Item, to pay the constable 2 shillings for serving the warrant in the case of his laying a wager to smoke above one hundred pipes in one day. [At this place there seems to be a stoppage of court proceedings, until the next opening in 1706-7, which was then made final. A letter of Pastorius to Wm. Penn, when in Philadelphia in 1701-2, which I have seen, says, he believes there will be a difficulty to get men to serve in the general court, "for conscience sake" -- meaning the oaths.] On the 17th of 12th mo., 1701, the general court of Germantown present to Wm. Penn, their "honourable and dear governor", newly arrived, "the petition of the Germantown corporation" -- to the effect, "that seventeen years preceding they had laid out the township in lots and more compact settlements then elsewhere had been done, so that some dwelling so near each other, had not enough of timber to make their separate fences, whereby they were compelled to fence in four quarters -- [meaning, it is believed, on the four angles of the oblong square, on the outside only] -- consequently requiring much care, lest by carelessness of one or other, the rest [within the enclosure] should suffer harm or injury". They also represent, "that by reason of the charter of 1689, granted unto Germantown -- construing the same most beneficially to the grantees, they have hitherto refused to pay those taxes, levies and impositions, which the county courts do lay upon those under their jurisdiction -- for being by the said charter exempted from the county court of Philadelphia, and having our own court of record, as well as our general court, we cannot but believe that we are freed from all charges towards the said county -- seeing that it would be rather a burthen than a privilege to pay both the county taxes and the taxes of our own corporation. [Just the very thing which citizens of Philadelphia now do.] As to the provincial taxes we make no exceptions, and are willing to bear our share, as good and loyal subjects should". "We implore thy benevolence, that thou wilt so defend and support our township, by way of explanation to thy aforesaid charter, that our corporation may be exempted from all and every county tax; and whereas, we before represented a difficulty of finding persons to serve in the corporation, for conscience sake, we hope it may be remedied, as it is already in part, by arrivals of new comers among us." 1706-7, the 11th day of 12th month, (January) before Thomas Rutter, bailiff, &c. The court was opened; the queen's attorney George Lowther laid the following points before this court : 1st, that the general court of this corporation did lay taxes, &c.; 2d, that the justices wanted their qualifications; 3d, that this court did clear by proclamation, &c., and 4th, bind over to the peace, and not to the Philadelphia county; 5th, that Johannes Kuster married a couple without the limits of the corporation; and [he, the said queen's attorney] desired the court's answer to the government : whereupon this court adjourned till two o'clock in the afternoon, and having given their answers to the said attorney-general, further adjourned to the 25th day of this instant. N.B. The said attorney-general promising then to procure the government power to qualify them himself -- the which, nevertheless, he did not, though often required and well paid; and therefore, from thence, no more courts were kept at Germantown ! And the above charged points being partly false, and the others sufficiently answered, convinced the said attorney-general, as by his own hand-writing, hereunto affixed, may appear. Old Mr. J. W., about the year 1720, purchased five hundred acres of land at 2s. per acre, adjacent to where his descendant now lives; when he afterwards sold much of it at £3 per acre, he thought he was doing wonders; some of it has since been worth $200 to $300 per acre. The price of labour in and about Germantown, sixty years ago, was 3s. a day in summer, and 2s. 6d. in winter. The price of hickory wood was 10 to 11s per cord, and oak was 8 to 9s. Hickory now sells at $8, and oak at $6, and has been $2 higher. In 1738 a county tax was assessed of 1 1/2 d. per pound on the city and county (including Germantown) for "wolves and crows destroyed, and for assemblymen's wages", at 5s. per day. The blackbirds formerly were much more numerous than now; a gentleman mentioned to me that when he was a young man, he once killed at one shot [with mustard seed shot) one hundred and nineteen birds, which he got; some few of the wounded he did not get; they had alighted in an oat-field after the harvest, and he was concealed in a near hedge, and shot them as they rose on the wing. There was a law in 1700 made to give 3d. per dozen for the heads of blackbirds, to destroy them. A person, now 80 years of age, relates to me that he well remembers seeing colonies of Indians, of twenty to thirty persons, often coming through the town and sitting down in Logan's woods, others on the present open field, south-east of Grigg's place. They would then make their huts and stay a whole year at a time, and make and sell baskets, ladles, and tolerably good fiddles. He has seen them shoot birds and young squirrels there, with their bows and arrows. Their huts were made of four upright saplings, with crotch limbs at top. The sides and tops were of cedar brushes and branches. In these they lived in the severest winters; their fire was on the ground and in the middle of the area. At that time wild pigeons were very numerous in flocks of a mile long; and it was very common to shoot twenty of them at a shot. They then caught rabbits and squirrels in snares. The superstition then was very great about ghosts and witches. "Old Shrunk" as he was called, (George S., who lived to be 80) was a great conjuror, and numerous persons from Philadelphia and elsewhere, and some even from Jersey, came to him often, to find stolen goods and to get their fortunes told. They believed he could make any thieves who came to steal from his orchard "stand" if he saw them, even while they desired to run away. They used to consult him where to go and dig for money; and several persons, whose names I suppress, used to go and dig for hidden treasures of nights. On such occasions, if any one "spoke" while digging, or ran from "terror" with out "the magic ring" previously made with incantation around the place, the whole influence of the "spell" was lost. Dr. Witt, too, a sensible man, who owned and dwelt in the large house, since the Rev. Dr. Blair's, as well as old Mr. Frailey, who also acted as a physician, and was really pretty skilful, were both U_______e's doctors (according to the superstition then so prevalent in Europe) and were renowned also as conjurors. Then the cows and horses, even children, got strange diseases; and if it baffled ordinary medicines, or Indian cures and herbs, it was not unusual to consult those persons for relief; and their prescriptions which healed them, as resulting from witchcraft, always gave relief ! Dr. Frailey dwelt in a one-story house, very ancient, now standing in the school house lane. On each side of his house were lines of German poetry, painted in oil colors, (some of the marks are even visible now); those on one side have been recited to me, viz : Translated thus: Lass Neider neiden, Let the envious envy me, Lass Hasser hassen; Let the hater hate me; Was Gott mir giebt What God has given me Muss mann nir lassen. Must man leave to me. An idea was very prevalent, especially near the Delaware and Schuylkill waters, that the pirates of Black Beard's day had deposited treasure in the earth. The fancy was, that sometimes they killed a prisoner and interred him with it, to make his ghost keep his vigils there and guard it. Hence it was not rare to hear of persons having seen a "sphoke" or ghost, or of having dreamed of it a plurality of times, which became a strong incentive to dig there. To procure the aid of a professor in the black art, was called Hexing; and Shrunk, in particular, had great fame therein. He affected to use a diviner's rod, (a witch-hazel) with a peculiar angle in it, which was supposed to be self-turned in the hands, when approached to any minerals; some use the same kind of rod now to "feel" for hidden waters, so as to dig for wells. The late Col. T.F. used to amuse himself much with the credulity of the people. He pretended he could hex with a hazel rod; and often has had superstitious persons to come and offer him shares in spoils, which they had seen a "sphoke" upon ! He even wrote and printed a curious old play [A copy of it is in the Athenaeum Library] to ridicule the thing. Describing the terrors of a midnight fright in digging, he makes one of the party to tell his wife, "My dearest wife, in all my life Ich neber was so fritened ; De spirit come, and Ich did run "Twas juste like tunder, mid lighning." Mr. K., when aged 78, and his wife nearly the same age, mentioned to me, that in their youthful days they used to feel themselves as if at double or treble the distance they now do from Philadelphia, owing to the badness and loneliness of the roads. They then regarded a ride to the city as a serious affair. The road before it was turn-piked, was extremely clayey and mirey, and in some places, especially at Penn's creek, there was a fearful quicksand. Several teams were often joined at places along the bad road to help out of mires, and horses were much injured, and sometimes killed thereby. Rail stakes used to be set up in bad places to warn off. In those times the sleighing used to continue for two or three months in the winter, and the pleasure parties from the city used to put up and have dances at old Macknett's tavern, where his son since lived. It was then very common for sailors to come out in summer to have frolics, or mirth and refreshments at the inns. The young men also made great amusement of shooting at a target. They used no wagons in going to market, but the woman went, and rode a horse with two panniers slung on each side of her. The women too carried baskets on their heads, and the men wheeled wheel-barrows -- being six miles to market ! Then the people, especially man and wife, rode to church, funerals and visits, both on one horse; the woman sat on a pillion behind the man. Chairs or chaises were then unknown to them; none in that day ever dreamed to live to see such improvements and luxury as they now witness. The first carriage of the coach kind they ever saw or heard of belonged to Judge Allen; [There were three or four earlier carriages in Philadelphia, viz.: Norris, Logan, and Shippen's] who had his country seat at the present Mount Airy College. It was of the phaeton or Landau kind, having a seat in front for children, and was drawn by four black horses; he was of course a very opulent man, a grandee in his generation -- such phaetons cost £400. The country seats then were few. Pennington had his country house where Chew's now stands, and the present kitchen wings of Chew's house sufficed for the simplicity of gentlemen of those days. Another country house was Samuel Shoemaker's, a mayor of Philadelphia, and is the same now a part of the house of Mr. Duval's place, and enlarged by Col. T. Forrest. In their early days, all the better kinds of houses had balconies in the front, in which, at the close of the day, it was common to see the women at most of the houses sitting and sewing or knitting. At that time the women went to their churches generally in short gowns and petticoats, and with check or white flaxen aprons. The young men had their heads shaved, and wore white caps; in summer they went without coats, wearing striped trowsers, and barefooted; the old Friends wore wigs. In their day every house was warmed in winter by "jamb stoves" and Mr. Sower, of Germantown (the printer) cast the first stoves perhaps thus used in the United States. They were cast in Lancaster; none of them are now up and in use, but many of the plates are often seen lying about the old houses as door steps, &c. A jamb stove was set in the chimney jamb, (or side) in the kitchen fire place; it was made something-like the box form of the present ten-plate stoves, but without a pipe or oven, and it passed through the wall of the chimney back into the adjoining sitting rooms, so as to present its back end (opposite the fire door) in that room. The plate used to be made sometimes red hot; but still it was but a poor means of giving out heat, and could not have answered but for their then hardy constitutions, and the general smallness of their rooms in that day. Mr. K. remembers very well, that when he was a lad, there was yet a little company of Delaware Indians, (say 25 or 30 persons) then hutted and dwelling on the low grounds of Philip Kelley's manufactory ground. There was then a wood there through all the low ground, which now forms his meadow ground and mill race course. Some of the old Indians died and were buried in Concord burying ground, adjoining Mr. Duval's place. After they were dead the younger Indians all moved off in a body, when Keyser was about 14 or 15 years of age. Indian Ben among them was celebrated as a great fiddler, and every body was familiar with Indian Isaac. In going to the city there was a thick woods on the south-west side of the turnpike below Naglee's hill -- where Skerrett's house now stands, called Logan's swamp and woods. The road then went on the low ground to the south-westward of said hill and house. At Penn's creek, (or Three-mile run, now Albanus Logan's place) and at the opposite side on Norris' place, began a deep and lofty wood, which extended on both sides of the road nearly into the suburbs, and from thence the woods continued many miles up the Delaware. There was then no inlet into the city but by the Front street road. The Second and Third streets were not then formed. On the 20th of October, 1746, a great public fair was held at Germantown. In 1762, the Paxton boys, from near Lancaster, halted at the market square, preparatory to their intended invasion of Philadelphia, to kill the friendly Indians sheltered there; they yielded to negotiation and went home. There were several hundred of them. Rittenhouse, the celebrated philosopher, as well as Godfrey, the inventor of Hadley's quadrant, were of the neighbourhood of Germantown. Captain Miller, who was basely killed at Fort Washington, after its surrender, was of Germantown. The old road of Germantown continued in a line with the first bank of Germantown (to the south-west of the present), ran near the poor house, by S. Harvey's, up through R. Haines' low lands, and came out by the Concord school house, by the Washington, or Abington lane. Some of the logs now lie sound under ground, back of Justice Johnson's on which the road ran by the swamp. The quantity of Indian arrow heads, spears, and hatchets, all of flint and stone, and attached to wooden or withe handles, still ploughed up in the fields, is great. {Note : withe = a slender flexible branch or twig} I have seen some of a heap of two hundred together, in a circle of the size of a bushel; some of them, strange to tell, are those taken from chalk beds, and not at all like the flint of our country. The creek on which Wm. L. Fisher's mill stands is the head of Frankford creek, and was called by the Indians Wingohocking. The creek at Albanus Logan's, called Penn's creek, was called Tumanaxamaming, and goes out at the upper end of Kensington. Anthony Johnson, who died in 1823, aged 78, saw when a lad, a large bear come across the road in daytime from Chew's ground, then a wood; he has seen abundance of wild turkeys, and has often heard the wolves howl at night near his father's house; the one rebuilt at the corner of S. Harvey's lane. The woods then came up near the house. He has seen several deer in the woods, but they were fast going off when he was young. Near the same house, when the old road passed in the swamp behind it, his father told him he once saw six wolves in daytime. After James Logan's house was built, in 1728, at Stenton, a bear of large size came and leaped over the garden fence. Jacob Keyser, now 88, tells me that he and others pursued and killed a small bear, about sixty-five years ago, on one of the back lots; it was, however, then a matter of surprise and sport. Mr. K. remembers that a Mr. Axe, in his time, killed a bear on Samuel Johnson's place, not far from the Wissahiccon. Foxes and rackoons were then quite plenty. Only about fifty years ago a flock of six wild turkeys came to Enoch Rittenhouse's mill, and remained about there till his family shot the whole of them; and in the winter of 1832 they shot a lynx there. In 1721 a bear was killed in Germantown, and so published, and two more nearer to Philadelphia. In the house of Reuben Haines, built by Dirk Johnson, a chief and his twenty Indians have been sheltered and entertained. Anthony Johnson, when a boy, has seen near two hundred Indians at a time on the present John Johnson's place, in a woods on the hollow adjoining to the wheelwright's shop. They would remain there a week at a time, to make and sell baskets, ladles, fiddles &c. He used to remain hours with them and see their feats of agility. They would go over fences without touching them, in nearly a horizontal attitude, and yet alight on their nimble feet. They would also do much at shooting of marks. One Edward Keimer imitated them so closely as to execute all their exploits. Beaver and beaver dams A. Johnson has often seen. The earliest settlers used to make good linens and vend them in Philadelphia. They were also distinguished, even till modern times, for their fabric of Germantown stockings. This fact induced the Bank of Germantown to adopt a seal, with such a loom upon it. The linen sellers and weavers used to stand with the goods for sale on the edge of the pavement in Market street, on the north side, near to Second street corner. The cheapness of imported stockings is now ruining their business. Professor Kalm, who visited Germantown in 1748, says : "The inhabitants were so numerous, that the street was always full". Old Mr. W., in 1718, or `20, shot a stout deer between Germantown and Philadelphia, and the rifle he used is now in possession of his grandson. John Seelig predicted men's lives when requested, by the rules of nativities; and he had a mysterious cane, or rod, which he commanded to be cast into the Schuylkill in his last sickness, and which, as the tradition goes, exploded therein ! Kelpius too kept his diary by noting the signs of the Zodiac. Doctor Witt left all his property to strangers by the name of Warmer, saying, they had been kind to him on his arrival, in bestowing him a hat in place of his, lost on shipboard. The tombstone of C.F. Post, the missionary and interpreter, so often named in Proud's history, is in the lower burying ground. He died in 1785, aged 75 years. The Germantown newspaper, by C. Sower, was printed but once a quarter, and began in the year 1739; and what was curious, he cast his own types and made his own ink ! It eventually was printed monthly, but from and after the year 1744, it was printed every week, under the title of the "Germantown Gazette", by C. Sower, Jr., and was not discontinued till some time in the war. A copy of these papers would be a kind gift to the Germantown Library. Sower published first in the United States a quarto Bible, in German. Germantown was a place of great interest during the war of the revolution, and at the celebrated battle there. It occurred on the morning of 4th October 1777. The main body of the British army, under Gens. Howe, Grey, Grant and Agnew, were attacked by the Americans in the following order : Washington, with the division of Sullivan and Wayne, flanked by Gen. Thomas Conway's brigade, entered the town by Chestnut hill road. Gen. Armstrong, with the Pennsylvania militia, attacked the left and rear, near Schuylkill. The division of Generals Greene and Stephens, flanked by Gen. McDougall's brigade, were to enter by taking a circuit at the market house, and attack the right wing, and the militia of Maryland and Jersey, under Generals Smallwood and Freeman, were to march by the old York road and fall upon the rear of the right. General Sterling, with Generals Nash and Maxwell's brigade, formed a corps of reserve. Admirably as this attack was planned, it failed, from those fortuitous events in warfare, over which Gen. Washington had no possible control. Lieut. Col. Musgrave, of the British army, as the Americans advanced, threw himself, with six companies of the 40th regiment, into Chew's large stone house, which stood full in front of the main body of the Americans. Musgrave, before the battle, encamped back of Chew's house in excellent huts, and Col. Webster's regiment (33d) lay back of John Johnson's in huts also; they were as regular and neat as a town. Gen. Read, it has been said, was for pushing on immediately, and was opposed by Gen. Knox as against military rule, to leave an enemy in a fort in the rear. Any how, in attempting to induce the surrender of Lieuet. Col. Musgrave, the precious moments were lost, and gave Generals Grey, Grant, and Agnew (who dwelt in Germantown) time to come up with a reinforcement. Much blame, too, was attached to Gen. S.'s divisions, who was said to have been intoxicated, and to have so far misconceived and broken his orders as to have been afterwards tried and broken. The morning was exceedingly foggy, which would have greatly favoured the Americans, had not those, as well as part of Greene's column, remained thus inactive. Col. Mathews, of Greene's column, attacked with great spirit and routed the parties opposed to him, and took one hundred and ten prisoners; but, through the fog, he lost sight of his brigade, and was himself taken prisoner with his whole regiment, (on P. Kelley's hill) and his prisoners released. Greene and Stephens' division, formed the last column of the retreating Americans. Count Pulaski's cavalry covered the rear. Washington retreated to Skippack creek -- his loss amounted to one hundred and fifty-two killed, and five hundred and twenty-one wounded, upwards of four hundred were made prisoners, amongst whom were fifty-four officers. The cannon which assailed Chew's house were planted in front of the present John Johnson's house; Chew's house was so battered that it took four or five carpenters a whole winter to repair and replace the fractures. The front door which was replaced was filled with shot holes -- it is still preserved there. A cousin of mine, who was intimate with Gen. Washington's aide-de-camp, told me that he told him he had never heard the general utter an oath, but on that day, when he seemed deeply mortified and indignant, he expressed an execration at General S_____ as a drunken rascal. The daughter of Benjamin Marshal, Esq., at whose house General Washington stopped after the battle, told me he reached there in the evening, and would only take a dish of tea, and pulling out the half of a biscuit, assured the family the other half was all the food he had taken since the preceding day. The general opinion then was, that but for the delay at Chew's house, our army must have been victorious, and we should have been sufficiently avenged for our losses the preceding month at the battle of Brandywine, and would have probably caused the British to evacuate Philadelphia. But Gen. Wilkinson, in his late memoirs, who has described minutely the battle therein, and was but a few years ago here on the spot, examining the whole ground, has published his entire conviction that it was a "kind providence", which overruled the disaster for our good; for had we been successful and pushed on for the city, Gen. Howe was coming on with a force sufficient to have captured or destroyed the whole American army. He states, that Washington relied on information from a deserter, that states, that Howe intended a movement of his troops towards Fort Mifflin, which, unknown to Gen. Washington, he had countermanded, and so enabled him to come out in full force. See Appendix : Battle of Germantown, as stated by General Wilkinson. There were as many as twenty thousand British &c., in and about the town under Gen. Howe. He was a fine large man, and looked considerably like Gen. Washington : he lived some time at Logan's and also in the present Samuel Morris' house; he walked abroad in plain clothes in a very unassuming manner. Gen. Grant occupied the house now Michael Staiger's, near the lane. The artillery lay on the high ground in rear of the poor house; two regiments of Highlanders half a mile in the rear of Reuben Haines' house; and the Hessians lay on the Ridge Hill above Peter Robeson's near the road; all the infantry were on the commons about where J. Price's seat now is. In the time of the battle Gen. Howe came as far as the market square, and stayed there giving his commands. Gen. Agnew rode on at the head of his men, and when he came as far as the wall of the Mennonist grave yard, he was shot by Hans P. Boyer, who lay in ambush, and took deliberate aim at the star on his breast; he fell from his fine horse, and was carried to Mr. Wister's house, where he died in the front parlour. He was a very civil and gentlemanly man. The man who killed him was not an enlisted soldier, and died not long since in the poor house. At that same place is a rising hill, at which the severest of the firing and battle was waged, except what occurred so disastrously for us at Chew's house. The British advanced no farther than the said hill on the road, until after the retreat. Several have told me, who saw the dead and dying after the action, lying on the ground, that some in their last moments were quite insane; but all who could speak were in great thirst from anguish, &c. In Samuel Keyser's garden many bodies were lying; and in the rear of Justice Johnson's, Gen. Morgan of the rifle corps came up with a small body after the action was supposed to be closed, and very daringly and unexpectedly killed nineteen Hessians and an officer, all of whom were buried there, save the officer, who was next day removed to the city. Boys were suffered to get very near the combatants on the flanks. Benjamin Lehman was one, who has told me, there was no order nor ranks after the first fire, and soon every face was as black as negroes' about the mouth and cheeks, from biting off the cartridges; British officers, especially aids-de-camp, rode at full rate up and down through the men, with entire unconcern as to running over them. The ranks, however, gave way. When the British burned seventeen houses at one time, beween Philadelphia and Germantown, in retaliation for some aggressions made, they said, by Col. Ayres, from some of those houses, they ordered Stenton house to be included. Two men came to execute it, they told the housekeeper there, to take out her private things -- while they went to the barn for straw to fire it. A British officer rode up, inquiring for deserters; with much presence of mind she said they had just gone to the barn to hide themselves in the straw -- off he went, crying, "Come out you rascals, and run before me back to camp !" In vain they protested, and alleged their commissions; and thus Logan's venerable house was spared. This house was built in 1727-8, by James Logan, secretary for Penn, and in which he resided; it was a palace-like structure in that day, and was surprisingly well built. Gen Howe stayed part of his time there. A fence of cedar boards is now standing in Peter Keyser's yard, which was very much perforated with musket bullets in the time of the battle. On the 19th of October, the British army removed from Germantown to Philadelphia, as a more convenient place for the reduction of Fort Island. After the battle, the British surgeons made use of Reuben Haines' hall as a room for amputating and other hospital operations requiring prompt care; the Americans who were wounded were carried to the hill where Thomas Armatt's house is, and were there temporarily attended by surgeons, previously to being sent to the hospital in the city. Capt. Turner of North Carolina, and Major Irvine, and six men, were all buried in one grave, at the N.E. corner of the burying ground by the school house. We have set them a stone there. On the north-east side of Three-mile run (Fox Chase Inn now) was a wood in the time of the war. In it were thirty Oneida Indians, and one hundred of Morgan's riflemen, who raised a warwhoop and frightened Lord Carthcart when in a conference with M'Lane. A British picket lay in the present yard of Philip Weaver and several were shot and buried there. The most advanced picket stood at Mount Airy, and was wounded there. Gen. Agnew and Col. Bird of the British army, are both buried in the lower burying ground side by side, next to Mrs. Lamb's gravestone (south-west side of it) at ten feet from Rapp's wall, in a line with the south-west end of his stable. Gen. Agnew showed great kindness to old Mrs. Sommers. Col. Bird died in Bringhurst's big house, and said to the woman there "woman, pray for me -- I leave a widow and four children", The late Mr. Burrill, whose father was grave-digger, told me he saw them buried there. They now have a stone. When the British were in Germantown, they took up all the fences and made the rails into huts, by cutting down all the buckwheat, putting it on the rails, and ground over that. No fences remained. Gen. Howe lived a part of his time at the house now S.B Morris', so said B. Lehman. B. Lehman was an apprentice to Mr. Knorr, a carpenter, and went to the city with half a calf on his shoulder, for which he got quickly 2s. 6d., metal money, per pound, he also sold his old hen for 1 dollar ! He saw there men come stealthily from Skippack, with butter carried on their backs in boxes, which they sold at 5s. There were woods all along the township line to near the city, and they could steal their way through them. Lehman was out two months in the militia draft, but never in battle, he got 200 dollars paper money; for 100 dollars he bought a sleigh ride, and for the other 100 dollars a pair of shoes ! Samuel Widdes, in Germantown, used to go to the city with a wheelbarrow to take therein apples and pears, which he sold high. Lehman, and all the other boys, went to meeting in tow trowsers and shirts, without jackets or shoes. {Note : tow = short or broken fiber such as flax, hemp,etc. that is used especially for yarn or twine; yarn or cloth made of tow} What homely days ! At that time, and during all the war, all business was at a stand. Not a house was roofed or mended in Germantown in five or six years. Most persons who had any substance lived in part on what they could procure on loan. The people, pretty generally, were mentally averse to the war -- equal, certainly, to two-thirds of the population of the place who felt as if they had nothing to lose by the contest. So several have told me. Mrs. Bruner, who died in Germantown in 1835 at the age of 80, the wife of a blacksmith in respectable circumstances, had been the mother of twelve children, and kept her house with such a family more than sixty years of her life without ever having had any hired help. She had done all her own work and done it well; after her house work was done, to make leather gloves for pay as a seamstress. She was but a specimen of many of her day, who looked to such industry as a means to acquire a small estate at the end of a long life. Industry became so habitual to both husband and wife, that they knew not, in time, how to rest when idle. The family was pious, benevolent and kind. When shall we see such people among the moderns? The trustees of the Academy of Germantown, in the year 1793, had applications from the State, and United States, to rent their academy for their use. It was thereupon resolved by the trustees, on the 26th October, 1793, that they would take measures to accomodate the Congress of the United States, at their next session, with the use of the same, for the sum of 300 dollars. Only think of such a school-house, of eighty by fifty feet, being seriously proposed for the use of the American congress. The congress was then so small; it is now so great. The circumstances which led to the intended application of the house, grew not of an inquiry made by Gen. Washington, who then resided in Germantown, in the house afterwards for many years the summer residence of the Perot family -- now of Samuel B. Morris. In 1793, when Gen. Washington dwelt in Germantown, the town was held as the government place of the state of Pennsylvania and of the United States; and this was because of the necessary retreat of the officers and offices, from the city of Philadelphia, where the yellow fever was raging with destructive effect. At that time the office of state, &c. of Pennsylvania, was held in the stone house next above B. Lehman's. There you could every day see Governor Mifflin and his secretary of state, A.J. Dallas. The house now the Bank of Germantown was occupied by Thomas Jefferson, as secretary of state of the United States, and by Mr. Randolph, as attorney general. The Bank of the United States was located in the three-storied stone house of Billings, and when its treasure was brought, it was guarded by a troop of horse. Oellers, once celebrated for his great hotel for the congressmen, in Chestnut street, had his hotel here, in the house since Clement Bringham's and at that house, filled with lodgers, the celebrated Bates, of comic memory, used to hold musical soirees at 50 cents a head, to help to moderate the gloom of the sad times. At that time, the whole town was crowded with strangers and boarders; and especially by numerous French emigrants, escaped from the massacre of St. Domingo. It was then expected that the next, or future years, might be again visited by yellow fever; and therefore, numerous engagements of houses, and purchases of grounds at increased prices were made, to insure a future refuge. In this way, the Banks of North America and of Pennsylvania found a place in the Academy in the next fever which occurred in 1798. It ought to be mentioned as a peculiar circumstance connected with Perot's house, before mentioned, that it had been the residence severally of Gen. Howe, the British commander in the war of the revolution, and at the same time, the home of the then youth, Prince William, the late king of England, William IV.; afterwards, in 1793, the residence of Gen. Washington, while President of the United States. Look at its size as then regarded good enough and large enough for a president, in contrast with the present presidential palace at Washington city ! It is thus that we are rapidly growing as a nation from small things to great things ! The French West India residents that were in Germantown were of various complexions, were dressed in clothing of St. Domingo fashion, presenting a peculiarity of costume; and showing much gayety of manners. They filled the streets with French conversations by day -- for they were all idlers; and with much of music at night. They were withal great shooters, and killed and eat all manner of birds without discrimination -- they saying that crows, swallows, &c., were as good as others, as all depended upon the style of the cooking. I have seen or known of several officers of the Revolution, who had been in the battle of Germantown, who came again, in advanced age, to revisit the active scenes of their military prowess; so came Capt. Blackmore and Capt. Slaughter, both of the Virginia regiment; so Col. Pickering, of New England; so some of the relatives of Gen. Agnew, who was killed, &c. What scenes for them to remember afresh. Intimately connected with the fame and reputation of Germantown is the now frequently visited steam, the Wissahiccon, made attractive by its still native wildness, and rugged, rocky, woody character; there is also there, under the name of the "Monastery of the Wissahiccon", a three-storied ancient stone building of an oblong square, situated on high ground, near to a woody, romantic dell, through which the Wissahiccon finds its meandering way. About this house, so secluded and little known to the mass of the people, there have been sundry vague and mysterious reports and traditions of its having been once occupied as a monastery. A name, and purpose of use, sufficiently startling, even now, to the sensibility of sundry protestants. The place was last owned and occupied by Joshua Garsed -- a large manufacturer of flax-thread, twine &c. -- who has shut up many of the windows, which were formerly equal to four to every chamber, making two on every front angle of the square. Those who saw the structure sixty years ago, say that it then had a balcony all around the house at the floor of the second story. The tale told in the early days of the present aged neighbours was, that it once contained monks of "the seventh-day Baptist order" and that they used wooden blocks for pillows [like those at Ephrata] scallopped out so as to fit the head. Some have also said that they remembered to have seen, near to the house, small pits and hillocks which indicated a former burial place, since turned into cultivation. With such traditionary data for a starting point, it has become matter of interest to many, who are curious in the history of the past, to learn what further facts we can produce, concerning the premises. If the house should have been built as early as 1708 -- when Kelpius, the hermit, died "at the Ridge", it may have been constructed by the forty students from Germany -- the Pietists who came out in 1694, with Kelpius, to live a single life in the wilderness; but if it was built, as is most probable, and as has been said, by Joseph Gorgas, a Tunker-Baptist, who intended it as a branch of the brotherhood established at Ephrata near Lancaster, and to whom he afterwards moved and joined himself -- then he must have built it before the year 1745, when Conrad Matthias, "the last of the Ridge hermits" died. It is known, by "the Chronica Ephrata" -- a folio, that there was a brotherly affinity between "the Ridge hermits" (of Roxborough) and those of Ephrata. After Joseph Gorgas had gone to Ephrata, the premises, with a farm of seventy acres and a grist mill, fell to his son John Gorgas; from him it was sold about the time of the Revolution, to Edward Miller; -- thence to Peter Care, fifty years ago, who held it till about the year 1800. Then it was bought by John Livezey, miller; next by Longstreth, who made it a paper mill; and lately and lastly, by Joshua Garsed & Co. Since their possession of the premises, they have considerably increased the numbers and size of the buildings along the creek; and the Monastery House they have converted into an agreeable dwelling, changing and modernizing the internal forms of the rooms -- taking out all the corner chimneys &c. The scenery from this house, and from the dell below, is very romantic, rugged, and in nature's wildest mood -- presenting, particularly, very high and mossy rocks, studded with stunted trees -- the whole standing out very perpendicularly into the line of the Wissahiccon, and turning it off very abruptly in another direction. It was in the year 1732, that the religionists of Ephrata first agreed to quit their former solitary life, and to dwell together in monastic society as monks. This they did first, in May 1733. Their book of chronicles says that "the society was enlarged by members from the banks of the Wissahiccon". Of course, intimating and confirming the idea already advanced, that there was a brotherhood of their order, dwelling at or near the place now called the Monastery. End Part I