Area History: Chapter 41 - Part II:  Vol II - Watson's Annals of Philadelphia And Pennsylvania, 1857

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                                 ANNALS

                                   of

                     PHILADELPHIA  AND  PENNSYLVANIA,


                               VOL.  II
     
            ______________________________________________

Chapter 41 - Part II           APPENDIX


                  "Reminiscences  of  Philadelphia"

  We here give an article from the pen of "Lang Syne" (often quoted in this
work) as a specimen of his manner and tact in giving subjects of by-gone
days.  It may serve to show to others, what they may imitate in the way of
tales of olden time, from the use of the materials, so abundantly preserved
in the foregoing pages.  On the present subject he says, to wit :
  The contemplation, occasionally, by your reminiscent of the astonishing
increase in population, wealth and splendour, now exhibiting every where
throughout our beloved city; its lengthened pavements and splendid buildings
very frequently cause a reversion of the mind back upon the period when, on
Monday mornings in particular, he crept lazily to school, stopping here and
gazing there upon the "moving panorama" around him.  The images of
characters then existing in the city, and the situation of things are as
palpable as was the "air drawn dagger" of Macbeth, but without the horror.
They float upon the memory rather as "Thistle down moving" or the motes
(sometimes mingled and convolved) discernible only in the sunbeam.  Ere they
vanish for ever, as the curling mist, or the flitting ghost at cock-crow, it
is intended in this communication to collect a variety of them hastily
together, in one groupe, so that those who have a relish for the modern
antique, in by-gone days, may see them 

                  "Come like shadows, so depart".

  An elderly domestic in the Pancoast family, who always named himself Me Mo
Michael Hans Muckle Weder, although moving in an humble sphere, his person
and character were familiar to every inhabitant.  When sent on an errand he
could scarcely proceed a square in an hour, being continually surrounded by
all sorts of people, some viewing him and listening to him, and some asking
him over again, the same question which had been asked a thousand times.
Whether the question (repeated) came from the child or the man, he was sure
to answer them, every one, with an unbroken smile, extending from cheek to
cheek (sans teeth) with unwearied patience, idiotic simplicity, and an
affectionate tone of voice.  To astonish them, he sometimes changed his
usual amiable appearance and expression of countenance to a hideous frown
and an awful squint; his two eyes gazing at each other and his long tongue
hissing like the serpent from between his boneless gums, causing the
juvenile spectator to shrink away from the horrid sight, which was but for a
moment -- then resuming his usual benevolent smiling look, he would say
"that's the way to frighten the Indians, so it is".  He claimed as
sweethearts, all the fashionable unmarried young belles in the city.  He had
"fifty hundred, twenty hundred and sixteen" of them; and when any one of
them married, he was sure to go the next day after the wedding to claim his
forfeit, always cheerfully given to him, which was a half crown, and a glass
of punch from the lady's own hand, which said he, was all the same as though
I married her myself.
  A partially deranged, elderly, spectre-looking maiden lady, tall and thin,
of the Friends' persuasion, named Leah, was somewhat remarkable from the
circumstance, that she used sometimes to pass the night wrapped in a
blanket, between the graves of the Potter's field (now Washington square)
for the benevolent purpose of frightening away "the doctors".
  Collector Sharp Delany, in the front part of his family residence,
transacted the whole custom house business of the port of Philadelphia at
the south-east corner of Walnut and Second streets, at present occupied by
the Delaware Insurance Company.
  George Baynton, a native of the city, was, without controversy,
acknowledged to be the most admirable among the fashionable young gentlemen
of his day -- being of proper age and height and of the most astonishing
beauty.  "The beautiful Fatima" as described by Lady Wortley Montague in her
letters from Adrianople, and George Baynton, should have been brother and
sister.  Boys and men would turn and gaze after his splendid personal
appearance -- "many a bright eye fell beneath his glance" and followed his
receding footsteps with admiration.  Fame had assigned to him all the
bounties of nature beyond the reach of art -- and every youthful manly
grace, accompanied by the fascination of the serpent towards the devoted
fluttering bird.  He deceased in the fever of 1793.
  The uptown and the downtown boys, at this time, used to have, according to
the streets, their regular night-battles with sticks and stones, making the
panes of glass to jingle on the pavement occasionally -- but the appearance
of Old Carlisle and the famous West, the constable, would scatter them into
all the hiding places, peeping out from hole and corner, when the coast was
clear.
  The sign of the Three Jolly Irishmen, a tavern kept at the northeast
corner of Race and Water streets, and whose locality ( `twas said ) was
familiar in places across the ocean, used to be notorious throughout the
city as a primary resort of the "new comers", and at times one continued
scene and sound of daily riot and night brawl, making it dangerous to meddle
with them even by course of law.  A little old German watchman who stood in
his box hard by, his shoulders bending under the pressure of years, and his
chin and nose almost in contact -- on being foolishly applied to one night,
and questioned why he did not go and quell the riot there, answered as
follows -- "Bless my soul, gentlemen -- bless my soul, wass cann I do wid dem".
  White sand for floors, being at the time an important article of
consumption, the old sand man for the northern part of the city, was looked
for the same as the milkman.  For the amusement of his customers, on being
requested so to do, he would send his horse onward, the length of the
square, then call after him by his name, causing the horse with the load of
white sand to turn about and come to him -- he trolling the song of "White
sand, ho ! -- a shilling a bush, soft 'oder' hard money".
  Turkey carpets were spoken of, and only to be seen upon the floors of the
first families for wealth.  Parlour floors of very respectable people in
business used to be "swept and garnished" every morning with sand sifted
through a "sand sieve" and sometimes smoothed with a hair broom, into quaint
circles and fancy wreaths, agreeably to the "genius for drawing" possessed
by the chambermaid.
  The Old Loganian Library, a one story brick building shaped gable-end
fashion in the front, stood solitary and alone within a post and rail fence
on the west side of Sixth street midway between Chestnut and Walnut streets.
Behind the house, and on the grass, the scholars belonging to the Quaker
Academy in Fourth street, used to have the regular "set to".  Sometimes in
the grapple, after being "brought to the scratch" the following exclamation
might frequently be heard by one of the combatants -- "Don't tear my shirt
-- tear my skin -- but don't tear my shirt".
  The Northern Liberties, about Camptown and Pegg's run, used to be in
agitation almost every Saturday night, by the regular- irregular tavern,
rough-and-tumble, smash fighting between the ship-carpenters from
Kensington, and the butchers from Spring Garden; the public authority not
even attempting to hinder them.
  A bank note at this time, signed by Thomas Willing, president, and
countersigned by a long row of hieroglyphic, perpendicular hair-strokes,
only discoverable by the close inspection of microscopic power to be the
name of Tench Francis, the cashier, was a kind of "caviar to the multitude"
and not to be seen, as now-a-days, in the hands of every one.  It used to be
viewed as a thing totally different from the continental paper money -- as
something unfathomable and puzzling to the brains of people in its very
nature -- it being considered as so much cash in gold and silver, to be had
in a moment.  The strength of the paper caused a bet to be made, that in its
material it consisted of either silk or Russia sheeting; and that three of
the notes twisted together would lift a fifty-six pound weight from the
ground.  On trial, the notes broke by the weight; a convulsive laughter
ensued among the crowd.  A consternation seized the owner of the notes,
whether or not by having torn them, he would be able to recover their amount
from the primitive national bank.  There were three banks in the thirteen
United States at the time, and the banking system was spoken of as a great
mystery, known only to the "great financier" Robert Morris, and the precious
few.  The number of banks at present distributed throughout the now
twenty-four United States, being three hundred and sixty-five, the great
mystery has been proportionably unraveled.
  Persons living towards the Delaware, and speaking of the house, No. 322
Market street (then standing by itself above Ninth street) by way of
designating the distance, would say "away out at Marcoe's".
    Story books for children consisted in Goody Two Shoes, Giles
Gingerbread, Tom Thumb, Peter Pippin, and Robinson Crusoe abridged, all
printed and published originally in St. Paul's Church Yard, London, by
Carrington Bowles, and resold here at sixpence.
  The people being numbered about this time, the population of the city in
round numbers was said to be above 50,000; which act of numbering was
supposed by many pious persons -- speaking on the subject, after it had
happened -- to be the procuring cause of the judgment of the fever, with
which the city was afterwards afflicted.  Even they said, as was the
judgment of pestilence upon the Israelites, for numbering the people in
David's time.

                 Continental  Money

  It may interest many to see a brief notice of the history and progress of
our continental money -- because so few of the present generation have ever
been rightly informed respecting its operations and details.  It is in
itself something properly appertaining to an illustration of our chapter of
"the War of Independence" and as such we here give it, to wit :
  In June 1775, was made the first emission of 2,000,000 of dollars.  Before
the close of that year, 3,000,000 more were issued.  In May 1776, 5,000,000
more were issued, in the autumn of that year 5,000,000 more, and in
December, 5,000,000 more.  Such frequent and large emissions began to reduce
their value in the confidence of the people.  In the mean time, the power of
taxing was virtually denied to the Confederation.  They could only recommend
the measure to the states.
  The whole amount issued during the war was 400,000,000 dollars !  but the
collections made by the continental government in various ways, cancelled
from time to time about one half of it, so that the maximum of valuation at
no time exceeded $200,000,000; nor did it reach that sum until its
depreciation had compelled congress to take it in, and pay it out at 40
dollars for one of specie.
  It kept nearly at par for the first year; as it was then but about equal
to the amount of specie held in all the colonies.  But the quick succession
of the increase tended to depreciate it, till it reached 500 for 1, and
finally 1000 for 1, -- when it ceased to circulate for any value at all.
  Congress, after a time, exchanged forty for one, by giving the holders
loan office certificates at par, and had offered to redeem the whole in the
same way at 1000 to 1 when it was down at that price; but as those loan
office certificates had themselves gone down to 2s. 6d. on the pound, or
eight dollars for one, very few were found to avail themselves of the offer.
That was their misfortune, to have been so distrustful, or so needy !
  Public securities of similar character, bearing various names, such as
loan office certificates, depreciation certificates, final settlements &c.,
and thus constituted the public debt at the end of the war.  All these were
worth but eight for one, until the adoption of the present constitution in
1789 when they were funded and rose to par, and thus made fortunes for many !
  The whole revolutionary debt, as estimated on the journal of Congress, the
29th April 1783, not including the paper money, stood thus, viz.:
      Foreign debt to France and Holland, at 4 per cent --   $7,885,085
      Domestic debt in various certificates, as above     --   34,115.290
                                                                            
      -----------------
                                                                            
      $42,000,375

  At four and six per cent. interest,
  Making an interest of $2,415,958 per annum.
  To the foregoing  the Secretary of the Treasury afterwards added, for
claims held by several of the States $21,500,000 and then funded  the whole,
putting a part on interest at six per cent., postponing another part without
interest for ten years, and the remainder bearing an immediate interest at
three per cent.
  The foregoing, with the arrears of six years of interest being added, and
with some other unsettled claims, made the whole debt amount to ninety four
millions, which soon went up to par !
  The statesmen of the Revolution were well disposed to pay their paper
obligations, and alleged that they also had the ability to do so; but
against these stood the inability of the people to pursue the profitable
employments of peaceable times, and therefore their inability to pay taxes,
even if the Congress had had the power to impose them.  They could only
recommend the measure to the States.  They had all agreed at one time to
exact an impost of 5 per cent. on all imported goods, but Rhode Island
resisted the measure to the last, and without unanimity it could not be
adopted !
  The campaign of 1778 and `79, with an army of thirty to forty thousand
men, was sustained by emissions of paper money to the amount of 135,000,000
of dollars.  Thus "making it by wagon loads! "   In the same time, the
amount of specie received into the public Treasury was but 151,666 dollars,
a weight but about a ton of coal if all put into a cart for its carriage !
  It has been said that so great a sinking of paper money, was not so
injuriously felt among the people as might be imagined -- and it has been
reasoned that, viz.:  The largest sum by which they could have been affected
might be estimated at 300,000,000 at 20 for one, which is only half of the
rate fixed by Congress.  This would give 15,000,000 of sound money; and
this, having been a currency for six years, gives an annual average of
2,500,000; which, to a population of 3,000,000 would make, in point of fact,
a poll tax of but about one dollar to each; or if they be estimated by
families of six persons each, would be an annual loss, to such severally, of
but five dollars each !  So easy it is by figures to diminish losses, which
we of the present generation have never felt !  Yet it was a painful and
onerous loss to our forefathers, now all gone beyond its influence!
  Those who are minutely curious on this manner may consult, with profit, a
late paper in the proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia,
by Samuel Breck, Esq.


                                Fort  Allen

  It was near to Lehighton that the fort once stood, fronting on the Lehigh
opposite to the mouth of Mahony creek.  There the garrison (while some of
them were out skating) was surprised and massacred by Indians.  Nothing now
remains of it but its deep well.  About the same time, Captain Wetherhold,
who commanded a scouting party, and who used to make Allentown and Bethlehem
his place of rendezvous, was surprised about six miles from the latter
place, and himself and whole party shot and scalped.  On the same day, a
party, with one Henry Jenks, was also surprised and cut off.

                        Indian Settlement --- Inland.

            The Indian hunter here his shelter found;
            Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true,
            Here built his wigwam, and his bark canoe,
            Speared the quick salmon leaping up the fall,
            And slew the deer without the rifle ball.

            Here the young squaw her cradling tree would choose,
            Singing her chant, to hush her swart pappoose;
            Here stain her quills, and string her trinkets rude,
            And weave her warrior's wampum in the wood.

            No more shall they thy welcome waters bless,
            No more their forms thy moonlit banks shall press;
            No more be heard, from mountain or from grave,
            His whoops of slaughter, or her song of love.

                          Spinning Wheels and Looms.

  These wheels are now so out of fashion and use, as hardly to be known by
their names, among the modern city belles, as former articles of household
thrift.  They must, therefore, be told, that the first is the name of an old
fashioned piano with one string and one melody -- the other was a big
house-organ with but few stops.  They sometimes joined their melodies and
song, most cheerily, airs of olden time, like these, viz.:  "The diligent
hand maketh rich".  "She provideth both wool and flax".  "She stayeth at
home", &c.

                     Battle of Germantown -- Incidents

  Lieutenant Whitman of Reading, was left on the field, supposed to be
killed or mortally wounded.  After a while, he made out to crawl on hands
and knees to the second house, on south side in Washington lane.  There he
was sheltered by the resident, and was visited by Doctor Witt, who soon
pronounced his case incurable; but at the earnest begging of the lieutenant,
he continued to try to save his life.  He recovered surprisingly for a time,
when a British officer coming to hear of him, made him and his host both
prisoners.  While so held, Lieutenant Whitman found a chance to get to speak
with Major Andre, who procured him a release.  He then went to live with Mr.
Hergesheimer, where he was nursed and fed till the time of the retreat or
withdrawal of the British from Germantown.  While he was there hiding
himself for fear of a second capture, the American horse (division)
appeared, when he claimed their help and protection.  Just then, they
captured a country Friend coming in to sell butter to the British; and as
his punishment, they made him take up Lieutenant Whitman, in his chair, to
Reading.  He lived many years afterwards.

             Battle of Germantown, as stated by General Wilkinson.

  General Wayne, who was in the battle and led the first onset along the
main street, writes afterwards from White Marsh, on 21st November 1777, to
General Gates (vide Wilkinson's Memoirs) and says, "At Germantown fortune
smiled on our arms for full three hours; the enemy were broken, dispersed,
and flying in all quarters; we were in possession of their whole encampment,
together with their artillery park &c.  A wind-mill attack was made on a
house into which six light companies had thrown themselves to avoid our
bayonets; this gave the enemy time to rally; our troops were deceived by the
attack, taking it for something formidable, they fell back to assist in what
they deemed a serious affair; the enemy finding themselves no further
pursued and believing it to be a retreat, followed; confusion ensued, and we
ranaway from the arms of victory really open to receive us.  We shall be
therefore obliged to leave Mr. Howe to his occupancy of easy winter
quarters, whilst we shall be reduced to the hard necessity of making a
winter campaign in the open field with naked troops.  But I do not despair;
if our worthy general will but follow his own good judgement, without
listening too much to some counsel."
  General Wilkinson, in his Memoirs, gives his facts concerning the
disposition of the troops, vol. 1, page 351.  He says ---"When he visited
the camp at Whitemarsh, the battle of Germantown was then the prevailing
topic and conversation; and there were many versions and opinions of the
same, and much too many censures by subalterns, who could not know the facts
which governed the conduct of their superiors and themselves.  Some charging
it to the tardy movements of the left; others to defective vigour on the
right; but those who had been most warmly engaged, ascribed it to the halt
at Chew's house, which was imputed to the counsellors of the
commander-in-chief, among whom I perceived, that General Greene was the most
prominent object of jealousy, and yet a gentleman well able to advise and
most efficient to act, and positively the first captain of his day, a most
worthy pupil of Washington too."
  He gives General Armstrong's letter to General Gates, from the Trapp, of
9th October 1777, saying ---"The British were encamped chiefly at
Germantown, and the foreigners principally betwixt the Falls of Schuylkill
and John Van Deering's mill.  We could not take off (as was designed) but
beat the enemy's pickets, so that the surprise was not total, but partial.
We attacked at the head of Germantown with vigour, and drove the British,
who frequently rallied, and were drove again and again, about the space of
two miles, when some unhappy spirit of infatuation seized our troops almost
universally, whereby they began to retreat and fled in wild disorder,
without orders from the general and beyond his power to prevent.  [Note --
Colonel Forrest told me, it was caused by our drummers striking a beat for a
parley at Chew's house, which was understood by the men to mean a retreat,
and that nothing could correct it.]  So that a glorious victory already
eight tenths won, was shamefully and mysteriously lost; for none now can give
any good reason for the flight !  The conjectures are these -- the morning
was foggy, and so far, unfavourable.  It is said our men took the manoeuvres
of part of our people for large reinforcements of the enemy, and thereby
took fright at themselves or at one another !  Some unhappy officer is said
to have called out we are surrounded !  The enemy, in their flight, a part
of them took into a church and a large body into Mr. Chew's house, where we
made an ill-judged delay.  There was a flag sent in and insulted, and the
bearer (Lieutenant Smith) was wounded.  My destiny was against the
foreigners, rather to divert them with the militia than to fight their
superior body, which we did, until the general, seeing his men retreat, sent
for me with the division.  I followed a slow cannonade several miles, but
found him not -- then fell in the rear of the enemy, still supposing them a
vanquished party and that we had victory.  We gave them a brush; but their
artillery, well directed, soon obliged us to file off, near two hours after
our troops had left the field.  I lost but three and nine were wounded."
  General A. St. Clair writes from Whitemarsh, November 21 1777 to General
Gates, saying --- "The battle happened in his absence.  There was strange
mismanagement, and it has produced infinite court martials, and made us
dread the superiority of the British discipline, which gives me much
concern.  It is melancholy that Congress, lately so august, so truly
venerable, should in so short a time be so visibly altered. Certainly we
much need reform in these matters !"
  General Wilkinson gives us sundry facts of the arrangement of the battle,
and disposition of the troops, most of which he learned from Colonel
Forrest, who confirmed several facts, and with whom he travelled over the
localities and made his observations and reflections, at the time he was in
Germantown in 1815-16, writing and publishing his Memoirs.  They are to this
effect, to wit :
  The main body of the British occupied ground nearly at right angles with
the main street.  The front line on the school-house lane to the west, and
the church lane (its opposite) to the east.  The park was in the area, south
of the market-house, and fronting the house of David Dreshler [now S.B.
Morris'] in which General Howe had his quarters.  The second line formed a
parallel, at about one-fourth of a mile in the rear, and flanking the road
near the old six-mile stone, before the door of H. Conyngham, Esq.  The
advanced body, consisting of the second battalion of British light infantry,
with a field train, occupied the height in front of Beggarstown [Bonsall's
place] on the left of the road, and at two miles advance from the main body,
with an out-lying picket at Mount Airy.  The 40th regiment, commanded by
Colonel Musgrave, was in a field, eastward of Chew's house.
  The Americans marched all night, in a dark atmosphere, having as an
advanced patrole, the horse of Captain Allen M'Lane, who attempted to
surprise their picket, but fell in with double sentries, whom he killed,
with the loss of one man, and soon after routed the guard.
  The surprise was complete, and Wayne's brigade commenced the action with
the British light infantry, who resisted manfully, but were forced to
retire, leaving their artillery on the ground; but preserving some order in
their retreat and making a scattering fire as they fell back.  Colonel
Musgrave's regiment, being soon after attacked, retired into Chew's house.
In the mean time, General Wayne pressed the retreating light infantry and
continued to overthrow every thing in his way.  Our men, as is common with
raw troops, expended their ammunition lavishly, soon ran short, and sent to
the rear for a supply.  General Washington, with General Sullivan and the
troops who followed Wayne, having reached Chew's house, from which Musgrave
was delivering a random fire from the upper windows at the corps passing on
the road, who might be heard, but not seen, because of the distance of the
house and the density of the fog, called a consultation (as he understood)
when it was determined to attack the house, a measure which caused a halt of
the centre column; but having no effect on those approaching on the right
and left.  It was reported that Colonel Laurens, an aid of General
Washington's attempted with a party to force the main door, through which
the party within shot out many bullets.  About same time, Major White, aid
to Sullivan, got mortally wounded by a shot from the cellar window in his
attempt to fire a window shutter.  These attacks being withdrawn because of
the severity of the resistance, a parley was ordered to be beaten, when
Captain Smith of the Virginia line got shot as he was advancing with a flag
to demand a surrender.
  General Wayne, in the mean time, continued to pursue the retreating enemy.
General Armstrong was engaged with the Hessians near the Schuylkill, and a
part of General Green's column had reached the church lane, and met the
right wing of the enemy's front line.  At this time Colonel Stewart, with
his regiment, got warmly engaged, though not in concert, and were soon
overpowered.  Stewart made good his retreat, and Colonel Matthews, with his
corps, were made prisoners.
  During these operations, Lord Cornwallis was advancing rapidly from the
city with the grenadiers, and the left wing of the British front line had
got in motion, under Generals Gray and Agnew.
  At this time, the front of the American troops had nearly reached the
market-house [midway of the town] when hearing the parley in the rear, and
mistaking it for the retreat, some one cried out, "they beat the retreat" --
when the exclamation spread like wild fire -- a sudden panic ensued, and
troops which had met with no check, fled in wild disorder, in spite of the
exertions of their officers to rally them ! *  [*He notices such panics, as
occurrences, happening to the best troops, such as those in the battle of
Friedlingen under Villars, &c.]  The fog still continued heavy, and the left
column had become entangled and was falling back, and the right had made no
impression.  Captain Forrest, then of the artillery, was, before the time of
beating the parley, setting off from General Knox to the front, to say the
ammunition wagons were at hand, and had nearly got up with the front, when
the beat was made, and the consequences followed under his own immediate
observation.
  General Agnew was not killed in the general action, but had come with his
brigade from the left wing to give his support, when our troops gave way,
and while advancing at the head of his column, he was shot down by one of
some lurking party.
  Finally, had Washington pressed forward with the centre, fatigued, and
exhausted of ammunition, he would have come into contact with the main body
of the enemy, fresh for action -- against a force of 10,000; and it cannot
but be feared, that he must have met with a still greater disaster.  On the
whole, it must be regarded, evil as it seemed to have been, another
manifestation of the Divine Providence in behalf of these states.

      Adventures of a "Collector" and Reminiscences of the Year 1800

  Young persons engaged in commercial trade, have little or no conception of
the changes which have been effected in their pursuits, since the short
period of forty years.  To illustrate something of what we mean, we propose
to give some facts of the incidents which usually befell, at the time
mentioned, those young clerks and apprentices in the dry-goods trade --
y'clept "collectors".  To give the picture of one such, we shall draw from
our recollections of one who was our cotemporary.
  At the beginning of this century (the year 1800) this friend of ours was
still "a 'prentice hand" with one of the six or eight only great notables in
the city of Philadelphia, in the dry-goods importing way.  They consisted of
Fries, Chancellor, Wistar, and Ashton, in High street; and of Field,
Thompson, Hartshorne, and Large, in Front street.  All beside these were
comprised in the little world of small dealers below them.  At that time,
all their remittances from the West came in, in "hard dollars" and were
generally carried, after their arrival, to banks for deposit, like the iron
money of Lycurgus, in wheelbarrows !  These large dealers had their regular
seasons of country collection, in mid-winter and in mid-summer.  'Twas in
the former season that my friend once started from Philadelphia to go to
Harrisburg and Carlisle to the westward, and round about to Virginia and
home, as collector of one of the houses before named.  He was mounted on
horseback, wrapped up in a great Fearnought over-coat, his legs and feet
muffled up in woollen "leggings and over-shoes".  It was a mild time for the
season, and so mild that the frost was out of the ground, and the roads were
bad beyond the conception of the present race of travellers.  For instance,
we have known it to be a fact that four hours have been consumed in going by
the road from Philadelphia to Germantown, the saddle or team-horse sinking
to the knees and deeper in many places, before the turnpike was made.  At
the hill at Germantown, it was much steeper than now and so narrow as to
admit but one carriage at a time.  It was even the practice of the stage to
cause its passengers to get out and walk up the hill; and all wagoners used
to stop and unite their teams to draw up loaded wagons, both there, and also
at the hill at Norris' place nearer the city.
  Our collector had been carefully forewarned to keep a good lookout for the
ripples at "the fording places" for then, be it remarked, we had few or none
of our present good bridges.  When he got near to Harrisburg, having forded
the Swatara, by the course of its ripple, he met with an old customer in the
form of an elderly widow who had just got a young husband in the person of a
German musician.  The lady was extremely afraid of fording, and as our young
traveller had now acquired some skill therein, he offered to lead the way,
if they would follow in their old fashioned chair.  The offer was accepted,
and they went on very well until about the middle of the stream, when lo !
the horse which had been imperfectly tied at the collar, actually walked out
of his gears, drawing out the wedded groom by the reins into the water, and
letting down the shafts !  thus leaving the lonely lady screaming with
fright, with her feet under the water in her chair !  In the mean time the
big trunk of merchandise, which had been set up in the forepart of the
chair, was floating down the ebbing stream.  Time and money were lost to
procure assistance to regain the trunk, and to draw out the lady and the chair !
  Harrisburg, at which he next arrived, was a rough and rude affair,
compared with its present improvement and enlargement.  The crossing of the
Susquehanna, at the then "Harris' ford and ferry" was occasionally a
terrible affair.  He had actually to remain there nine days to get even a
chance to pass over amidst the driving ice.  When he did start, the boat,
which had twenty inches of ice frozen to its bottom, became an unmanageable
clump among the floating masses, and drove down the stream some miles before
they could effect their landing.  Now, the same river is traversed by a
grand bridge in two divisions, making an entire mile in length !  It ought
to be remembered that at this time there were no bridges in all the route to
the West !
  Carlisle was then chiefly remarkable for its rigid religious feelings, and
especially in its deep silence in the streets and at the inns on the
Sabbath.  The Scotch Presbyterians then had all the sway to themselves.
  On one occasion of travelling beyond Carlisle, the passage of the
Yellowbreeches' creek was so swollen as to stop the passengers for a couple
of days.  He at length procured a man, who, for the consideration of four
dollars, contrived to set him over at a place above the ford.  He used a
canoe to which he tied and swam the horse; he then took off the wheels and
the body of the sulkey, and ferried them over separately.
  Sometimes these tours extended to the "far West" and at other times
through the western part of Virginia and North Carolina.  As there were then
no stages and no banks inland, there were of course no means of remittances,
and therefore, the collectors were expected to call generally upon their
customers.  When they had succeeded to gather their silver in quantities,
they bought pack-horses to serve as their carriers; each horse taking bags
containing two thousand dollars placed upon little wooden-formed saddles,
much in the shape of a sawyer's wood-horse and set upon the horses' backs.
These horses when they arrived at Philadelphia were sold.  It was in this
way of horse-back travelling, you could sometimes see officers of the
Western army "coming into the settlements" as they called it, even on to
Philadelphia.  In this way of traveling, we can well remember, when, about
the same time, the present Philip, king of France, rode out High street with
his young brothers, as explorers and visiters of the Western regions.
  We might justly be surprised, now, to contemplate a young man, quite
alone, with his half a dozen horses laden with silver, travelling the lonely
wilds of our woods and the rugged heights of our Alleghanies, unmolested by
robbers, and almost without fear !  No accidents then occurred, for surely
men were less enured to crime.  The pack-horses used to be severally unladen
at nights, and the silver carried into the traveller's bed-room, in the low
log-house inn.  The collector had indeed his pistols; but what were they to
the power of the landlord and his friends, if they had been evil disposed !
The money was, however, a serious charge, and we could, if we had room, give
some amusing anecdotes of false alarms.
  Such facts, so recent in our history, should not be forgotten by those who
now enjoy such remarkable improvements in our transportation conveyances, by
steamers, railroads, and comfortable coaches drawn upon turnpikes.

                         The  Revolutionary  Navy

  The Revolution was begun without a single armed vessel.  In 1775, Rhode
Island began by fitting out two small schooners to defend the coasting
trade, and Connecticut had also two small vessels for the same object.
Rhode Island was the first to recommend to congress the formation of a naval
force; and in December 1775, congress commissioned several vessels -- say
thirteen in number, and thus commenced our gallant little navy.  In the
spring of 1776, Massachusetts fitted out several armed vessels, the white
flag of which bore a figure of a pine, or liberty tree, with the motto "We
appeal to Heaven".  The first naval battle took place about three weeks
after the battle of Lexington; and a Captain Wheaton was the first to cause
the striking of the British flag on the ocean.  At the time of this early
career on the sea, General Washington undertook to get up and send to sea an
expedition of six vessels, and was obliged in his instructions to address
them as a part of the army.  This because no congressional laws then existed
for the creation of the navy.
  At this early period of our navel enterprise, the middle and more southern
states seem to have started with the device of the rattlesnake on their
flag.  The earliest vessels seen of the Virginia outfit, at Norfolk and
Hampton roads, contained thirteen stripes and a rattlesnake in its coil with
head and tail erect and thirteen rattles -- with the motto, "Don't tread on
me". [It is commended by the London Morning Chronicle, of 25 July, 1776.]
  The earliest frigate, from Philadelphia, the Alfred, Captain Hopkins, of
which Paul Jones was lieutenant, showed a flag of thirteen stripes of red
and blue, with a rattlesnake, in a running attitude with mouth open and
sting projected, under it the motto -- "Don't tread on me".  That same flag,
says Sherburne, in his Life of Jones, was borne by the Alliance frigate,
under Paul Jones, when she dashed through a British fleet of twenty-one sail
of war vessels in the North sea, receiving their fire and making her escape.
  
     Memoranda from Lewis Evans' Journey in 1743, going from Philadelphia by
the Schuylkill and Susquehanna, to Lake Ontario, to wit:

  About 24 miles west of the wagon ford, is the passage through the first
ridge of the Kittocktinny Mountains (since Blue Mountains).  From the top of
this pass we have a view of the vale ten miles across, varied here and there
with swelling hills, looking at a distance like cleared land, but are
covered with dwarf oaks, about shoulder high and bearing acorns or the best
gallnuts of any we have.  Count Zinzendorf gave to this vale the name of St.
Anthony's Wilderness, and designs, as Mr. Conrad Weiser tells me, to bring
over some Germans to settle it.  The soil is but poor and ordinary, except
on the Swatara, and there is at present no practicable road over the
mountain by which the vale may communicate with the settled part of the
province.  [The foregoing description must apply to Schuylkill county
generally]  He speaks of a settlement of Indians, five families of
Delawares, at the confluence of the two branches of the Swatara -- marking
the place since Jones Town, on the main road to Harrisburg.  [How things are
since altered -- The Wilderness of St. Anthony is no more such, but is now
"a beautiful and variegated valley above the Kittatinny Mountain" which
mountain stretches from the junction of the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers,
over Dauphin, Schuylkill, and Northampton counties.]
  Shamokin (now Sunbury) is called an Indian town of Delawares, who have
their groups of wigwams pretty near together, and many more scattered here
and there over a very fruitful spot of ground of about 800 acres.

           Early travelling in Pennsylvania, inland, 1762.

  Heckewelder tells us of his travel from Litiz (Lancaster) with C.F. Post
and others, to the Indians at Muskingum.  They started on horseback, singing
a hym.  Their going so far was deemed perilous.  Put up first night at
Middletown; next day crossed the Susquehanna at Harris's ferry; the river
was risen fearfully by the melting of much snow, the ferrymen feared to
cross; at length they got over, but were carried down the stream two miles
by the rapid current.  Stopped at Carlisle to meet and talk with Indians; in
two days reached Shippensburg, where they saw the last of the white
settlements.  Then came the howling wilderness, and every where they saw the
blackened ruins of former houses and barns, and remains of chimnies, the sad
memorials of French and Indian devastations in the war of 1758 and after, of
which they heard many horrid recitals from eye-witnesses.  Eleven miles
beyond Shippensburg, Post struck into a mountain path, as a much shorter
route than by the wagon road.  The path was hardly discernible, and the
ascent steep and rocky.  After a travel of several days, they arrived at the
Juniata crossings, incurring much danger over the rapid stream.  Soon after
they passed "Bloody Run" where a body of soldiers conveying provisions to
Fort Pitt had been surprised and killed.  Seven miles further, they came to
Fort Bedford, where was a strong garrison.  On the 30th March they began to
cross the Alleghany mountains; then the ground was covered with snow 3 1/2
feet deep.  Saw there many carcasses of horses scattered along the mountain
path, more snow was falling, and they feared to be covered with it; after a
painful ride, they gained the summit of the mountain.  At last, after a hard
day's journey, they came to the cabin of a hunter (Jack Miller) in Edmond's
swamp.  As soon as nightfall the wolves came round and began their dismal
howl, the night music of the place all the year round.  Miller (called Fancy
Jack) had no stable, and to guard the horses from the wolves, ward and watch
was kept up all the night by the hunter and his sons.  In the morning they
started and soon reached Stony Creek, where the small stream was too swollen
to be crossed.  The small garrison, and the few settlers were on the other
side.  In time a Sugar trough was brought from the woods, and they ferried
over, but their horses narrowly escaped destruction.  Afterwards they
crossed Laurel Hill and Chestnut Ridge, and reached Bushy Run on the 1st
April, from whence they pushed on diligently to go 25 miles to Fort Pitt
before night.  When within seven or eight miles of that Fort, they found
themselves on Braddock's field, known as the place of action on the 9th
July, 1755, by the dreadful sight of so many scattered skulls and bones of
the slain, which lay so thickly around, as to be continually stricken by the
hoofs of their horses and awaking dismal recollections of the slain.  At
length they reached the Fort, and were once more among their fellow man. 
The then only private dwelling was at the point, owned by two traders,
Davenport and McKinney, who received them into their house with the most
friendly hospitality.  In the command of the Fort, was Colonel Bouquet who,
with his officers, treated them with much civility.
  [Such as the preceding, was the nature, toil, and exposure of an inland
travel in 1762 and for several years afterwards.  It is something now, to be
thus informed by actual travellers, what was once the rough and wilderness
state of a country, since so settled, productive and flourishing !]

       Western  Pioneers,  as  recollected by  Rev. Mr. Doddridge.

  The first settlements along the Monongahela, commenced by his father, with
others, was in 1772.  In 1773, they extended even to the Ohio.  First
settlers came mostly from Maryland and Virginia; they generally went by the
route of Braddock's TRAIL.  Some which went from Pennsylvania, went by the
military road, viz. Bedford and Ligonier.  Their removals were generally on
horses with pack-saddles.  Settlement entitled men to land, 400 acres free.
They called the same "Tomahawk's rights" because with it they barked and
deadened the trees around their bounds of location.  They usually chose
grounds having a hollow for the house and barn, and the hills near, making
them as settled in a basin, intending thereby that "whatever comes to the
house, comes down hill."
  Usually, settlers came in the Spring, the male part only, and after
clearing and planting corn &c., went back for their families, and brought
them out in the Fall.  Small families came out at once in the spring.  They
depended much on lean venizen and wild turkeys, and often the flesh of the
bear.  Anxiously they looked out for the first growth of the potatoes,
pumpkins, squashes &c.  When the young corn came it was a perfect jubilee to
use them for roasting ears, and afterwards when hardened by age, to grate
them on a tin grater for "Johnny Cakes".  (Journey cakes.)
  At this time, the settlers lived in peace with the Indians, but in the
year of 1774, all was brought into confusion and peril by the war of Lord
Dunmore, all brought on by the atrocious murder of the peaceable,
inoffensive Indians at Captina, and Yellow Creek.  They had, in consequence,
to move the women and children into Fort, wherein they had small hovels; the
men in the mean time, had to risk the knife and tomahawk in occasional
attention to their fields, to guard their families from eventual starvation.
  These original settlers had to be their own mechanics, for all which they
needed.  The hommony block and hand-mills were found in most of their
houses.  The block was hollowed out at top by burning, and the play of the
pestle ground the corn.  Sometimes they used the sweep of 16 feet to lessen
the toil in pounding corn into meal for cakes and mush.  At some places
where they had saltpetre caves, they made their own gunpowder by means of
those sweeps and mortars.  In making meal, they also used a domestic
contrivance called a grater; it was a plate of roughly perforated tin, on
which they grated their grain.  The hand mill was another and a better
contrivance, made with two circular stones, the under one being the bed
stone, and the upper one the runner.  These were placed to run in a wide
hoop or band, with a spout for discharging the meal; the runner was moved by
a staff passed through an upright affixed in the runner.  Such mills are
still used in the Holy Land, as alluded to by our Saviour, when he said "two
women shall be grinding at a mill"   &c.
  Their water-mills were tub-mills made readily with little expense,
consisting of an upright shaft, at the lower end of which a wheel of 4 or 5
feet was attached, the upper end passed through the bed stone and carried
the runner in the manner of a trundle-head.  Sifters were used in lieu of
bolting cloths, and were made of deerskins as a parchment, stretched over a
hoop and pierced with holes made with hot wire.
  As to their clothing, it was spun by women in every house; almost every
woman could weave their linsey-woolsey and make the clothes.
  Every family tanned their own leather; their tan vat was a large trough
sunk in the ground; bark was shaved and pounded, ashes were used in place of
lime for taking off the hair.  Bear's and hog's lard and tallow, answered in
place of fish oil.  The currying was done with a drawing-knife; the blacking
was made of soot and hog's lard.
  Most families had their own tailors and shoemakers; those who could not
make shoes could make shoe packs made like moccasins, of single pieces of
leather, save the tongue-piece, on the top of the foot, all was fitted by
gathering stitches.  They made ploughs of wood, harrows with wooden teeth,
they also made their own cooper ware of staves.  Some who could not do some
of these things for themselves gave their labor to those who could, and so
all were profited and mutually accommodated.  Rough times indeed !
  For a long time after the first settlements of the country the inhabitants
married young.  There was no distinction of rank, and very little of
fortune; on these accounts the first loves resulted in marriage; and a
family establishment cost but a little labor, nothing else.  Marriages were
celebrated at the house of the bride, and the incidents were usually these,
viz.:  It created a general sensation, it was looked to by all, old and
young, as occasion for frolic and fun, and being almost the only means of
producing a gathering except where labor was required, such as reaping,
log-rolling, house building, or campaigning; they went to it with double
zest.  The groom partly started from the house of the father early, so as to
reach the house of the bride by noon, the intended time of marriage -- for
it was always to precede the dinner.  The company there assembled, being
frontier people without a store, tailor, or mantuamaker within a hundred
miles, came dressed accordingly.  The gentlemen were dressed in shoe-packs,
moccasins, leather breeches, leggins, linsey hunting shirts, and all
home-made.  The ladies dressed in linsey petticoats, and linsey or linen
bedgowns, coarse shoes, stockings, handkerchiefs, and buckskin gloves, if
any.  The horses were caparisoned with old saddles, old bridles or halters,
and pack-saddles, with a bag or blankets thrown over them; a rope or string
was the usual girth.  The procession march on such an occasion was intended
to be in double file, where the horse paths, for they had no roads, would
permit.  Such paths were occasionally interrupted by fallen trees, and
sometimes so done from mischief, and by interlocking grape-vines and
sapplings to frustrate the company.  Sometimes a posse of neighbors would be
resting in ambush to fire a 'feu de joie', so as to cover the party with
smoke, and to create surprise and shrieks among the riding ladies and the
chivalrous bustle of their partners.  If some got a sprain, they bound it up
with their handkerchief, and cared little more about it; they had no doctors
to help them, nor to help consume their gains.  As the procession neared the
house of the bride, it would sometimes occur that two young men would start
on horseback, full tilt, to win the bottle of whiskey, which, it was
previously understood, would be hung out for the gain of the first arrival.
The start was announced by an Indian yell; the more the route was encumbered
by logs, brush, muddy hollows &c., the better for the rival parties to show
their horsemanship.  The bottle gained, the winner returns to the party, and
first hands it to the groom, and thence it goes on from one to another,
giving each their draught of a dram, the ladies included.
  For the repast of such a party, the table, made of a large slab of timber
hewn out with a broad-axe and set on four sticks, was spread with beef,
pork, fowls, and sometimes deer and bear meat.  There might be some old
pewter dishes and plates, but the rest were wooden bowls and trenchers.  A
few pewter spoons were to be seen, but the most of them were made of horns.
If knives were scarce, the deficiency was made up by using their scalping
knives, taken from the belts of their hunting shirts.
  After dinner, dancing commenced and usually lasted till the next morning.
The figures were reels, or square sets, and jigs.  The commencement was
always a square four, which was followed by what was called jigging it off;
none were allowed to steal away to get sleep, and if girls got tired, they
were expected, for want of chairs, to sit upon the knees of the gentlemen.
  At 9 or 10 o'clock at night, some of the young ladies would steal off the
bride.  That was sometimes to a loft above the dancers, going there by a
ladder; and such a bride's chamber was floored with clap boards, lying loose
and without nails.  Some young men, in mean time, stole off the groom to his
bride.  At a later period, they sent them up refreshments, of which black
Betty, so called, was an essential part, as she stood, in their parlance,
for a bottle of whiskey.
  Such entertainments sometimes lasted for several days, none giving over
till fully fagged down.  If any neighbors felt themselves slighted by not
being invited, it would sometimes occur that such would show their presence
by cutting off the manes, foretops, and even tails of the horses belonging
to the wedding party, everything being rude, like the regions which
surrounded them !  All those scenes and all those kinds of people have
passed away.

                      First  Western  Settlements

  Wm. Darby, speaking of his early recollections of Pittsburg and the
adjacent country (beginning 25 years after Braddock's defeat) after speaking
of his wonderment at the changes effected in 55 years of absence, says that
the Indians were, before his time, most clustered about that vicinity.  That
it was there that Shingas, King of the Delawares, occupied the spot chosen
by Washington as the agent for the site of a post for the Ohio Company.  The
other part of the proximate country was inhabited by the Mingoes and
Shawanoes.  When the French were obliged to abandon their position at the
forks of the Ohio, the greater part of the Indians moved further west; so
that when settlements first began to be made there by the Whites from
Virginia and Pennsylvania, the whole country was an unsettled wilderness.
It was between the years 1735 and `50, that the Whites passed and seated
themselves "few and far between" beyond the Blue Ridge.  The oldest town in
the Great Valley is Winchester Va., which had probably been an Indian
village before.  It was a trading station as early as 1730; Hagerstown was
also another out-trading post.  Salt at that time was worth $5 per bushel to
frontier people, and the difficulty of getting it continued for 30 years
afterwards.  The great era of Western settlement began in 1752, under the
auspices of Gov. Dinwiddie; it was he that gave the impulse and
encouragement westward, extending from Wyoming in Pennsylvania, to Holstein
river in Virginia.  In Virginia, the Alleghany was not passed by the
settlers until 1749, when some isolated habitations were formed in the Green
Brier county.  In 1750, Christopher Gist was sent out by the Ohio Company
with instructions to examine the country, and to report the practicability
of settlements along the Ohio river and thence down to the Falls of Ohio.
He made his journey up the Potomac, thence up the valley to where Fort
Cumberland was afterwards made; thence to the Franktown on a branch of the
Juniata, thence to Loyalhannon, and thence out to the Ohio, at the Forks.
When he got to Muskingum, he saw the King's colours there hoisted, and
George Croghan (Indian trader) at the head of the few Whites found there and
holding a council with the Indians.  It was from Winchester, Va., that Thos.
Merlin and John Salling undertook a journey of discovery up the Great
Valley.  They went as far as the head of the Roanoke, where Salling was
captured by the Cherokees, and carried to the present Tennessee; from thence
he escaped in a hunting excursion in Kentucky.  At his return home, via New
Orleans to Williamsburg, he gave such fascinating accounts of the fine
lands seen that he inspired John Lewis and John Mackay to accompany him
westward.  Lewis made his settlement near the present Taunton, and gave his
name to Lewis creek, a branch of James river; and Mackay fixed himself
(where his descendants now reside) in the Forks of the Shenandoah.  At that
time their hunters could find buffaloes to kill, now no longer seen.

                     First  Settlers  of  New  Jersey.

  Of the first settlement of Newton township, old Thos. Sharp, a friend, has
left a quaint account, to wit :  Let it be remembered that it having wrought
upon ye minds of some friends that dwelt in Ireland, but such as came
thither (there?) from England, and a pressure being laid upon them for some
years, from which they could not remove until they gave up to leave their
friends and relatives there, with their comfortable subsistence, to
transport themselves and families into this wilderness.  In order thereto,
they sent from Dublin in Ireland, to one Thomas Lurtin, a friend in London,
commander of a pink, who came and made his agreement to transport them into
New Jersey, viz.: Mark Newby,  Thomas Thackara,  William Bate,  George
Goldsmith,  and Thomas Sharp (the writer) then a young man and single.  But
while the ship lay at Dublin, Thomas Lurtin getting sick, remained behind
and put the command under his mate, John Daggar, who set sail the 19th 9th
mom 1681, and arrived at Elsinburg in Salem Co., upon the 19th 11th mo.,
(two months) following, where they were well entertained at the houses of
the Thompsons, who had before gone from Ireland in 1677.  [The time of the
first Thomas Watson]  These had attained to very good living by their
industry.  From there, we went to Salem, where were several houses that were
vacant of persons who had left the town to settle in the country.  In these
we resided for the winter, which proved to be moderate.  At Wickacoa
(Philadelphia) we purchased a boat of the Swansons [sons of Sven the Swede]
and so went to Burlington to the Commissioners, of whom we obtained a
warrant of survey from the then Surveyor General, Daniel Leeds.  Then after
some considerable search to and fro in what was then called `the third of
Irish tenth', we at last pitched upon the place then called Newton [up
Newton creek, and now gone.] which was before the settlement of
Philadelphia.  In the Spring of 1682 we all removed from Salem, together
with Robert Zane, who had before come with the Thompsons, and was also
expecting us.  So we began then our settlement; and although we were at
times pretty hard bestead, having all our provisions as far as Salem to
fetch by water, yet through mercy of God, we were preserved in health and
from any extreme difficulty.  A meeting was immediately set up at the house
of Mark Newby, and in a short time it grew and increased -- unto which Wm.
Cooper and family that lived at the Poynte, resorted; and sometimes the
meeting was kept at his house where he had been settled some time before.
We had then zeal and fervency of spirit, although we had some dread of the
Indians as a salvage people, nevertheless, ye Lord turned them to be
serviceable to us, and to be very loving and kinde.  Let then the rising
generation consider that the settlement of this country was directed upon an
impulse, by the spirit of God's people; not so much for their ease and
tranquility, as for their posterity, and that the wilderness being planted
with a good seed, might grow and increase.  But should not these purposes of
the good husbandman come to pass, then they themselves shall suffer loss.
These facts I have thought good thus to leave behind, as one having had
knowledge of these things from the beginning.*
  *Thomas Sharp's letter above, is preserved as a just counter-part to the
letter of Richard Townsend, a public friend, who wrote and described
incidents at Philadelphia in the early settlement.  Let them live side by
side for posterity.
  [The aforesaid Thomas Sharp was a surveyor and clerk of court, the same
who laid out and surveyed the old "Town of Gloucester" and so called at the
time, (1689) and the place previously Hermaomissing and Arwames by the
Indians, and Nassau by the Dutch and Swedes.  There was once there a
chalybeate spring, much visited by Philadelphians where they also regaled on
strawberries.]
                     "At you salubrious fount do sip,
                          Immured to darksome shade,
                      Around whose sides magnolias bloom,
                      Whose silver blossoms deck the gloom,
                          And scent the spicy glade."
         [Vide Rev. Nathaniel Evans' poems.]
  Thomas Sharp's name is often seen in Isaac Mickle's Reminiscences of Old
Gloucester (an interesting little work).  It was from this family of Sharps
that we have derived the Elsinborough grape, near Salem.

   Becket's notices of Lewis Town and the adjacent country of
                Delaware as done from 1727 to 1743.

  [Having been favored in the year 1838 to peruse a MS. book of 190 pages,
as written by the Rev. W. Becket, church missionary at Lewis Town from 1727
to 1743, being his notices of sundries, his letters, his poetical
compositions &c., I take therefrom the following items.  He went from London
to Lewis Town in 1721, was born in Cheshire.]
  He proposes that the Society for Foreign Missions in London should apply
to the crown to procure the grant of the lands in the three lower counties,
comprising 200,000 acres, inasmuch as they were not included in the grants
to Pennsylvania or Maryland, although the two proprietors were then
contending for it in London.  "Sundry persons who have present titles from
one or the other are uneasy, and would willingly have the Church for their
landlord, as a majority of the people are of the Church of England.  With
such means of money at command, support might be raised for a suffragan,
much wanted here".  {Note : suffragan = an Anglican or Episcopal bishop
assisting a diocesan bishop and not having the right of succession.}
  He demurs to marriage licenses being equally in the hands of the
Presbyterians as well as in the Church -- saying it was an innovation first
introduced by Gov. Sir George Wm. Keith, to improve his desperate fortune.
  His parish comprised the whole county of Sussex -- having four churches,
and having service every Sabbath alternately. The first was built in 1707 at
Cedar Creek.  St. Peter's at Lewis Town was erected in 1722, chiefly by
gifts made in Philadelphia.  (There was a still earlier congregation at
Lewis Town -- one which appears of record as early as 1707)  The first
settlers were generally churchmen from England -- some few were Dutch.
"Since then, the Scotch Irish came into Sussex, have two meeting-houses, and
are very bigotted".
  The proportion of inhabitants in Sussex in 1728, were 1,075 of church
people, 600 of Presbyterians, and 75 of Quakers; making together 1,750
souls, the whole estimated population.  In Lewis there were 58 families.
The negroes in Sussex were 241.  School houses were usually built of logs,
done in one day by all the neighbourhood, by the side of a wood.
  Mr. Becket wrote poetry very readily, and left several examples.  It was
his practice to ride on horseback fifty miles a week, to visit the churches
and people.
  The early prevalence of Church of England doctrine in Sussex -- not much
altered till the time of Whitefield, tended much to preserve there "the love
of Church and State" among a majority of the people, even down to the time
of the Revolutionary war.  That event produced many Tories, so-called , who
were nevertheless very well meaning and respectable people.  They aimed to
live neutral, but being sometimes persecuted, they would sometimes leave
their homes and take refuge in the Black Swamp, and had considerable
sufferings there.

           Earliest Iron Trade and Furnaces, Pennsylvania

  These were begun as early as 1715.  Exportations were made in 1717.  Some
jealousy was thereby excited in the mother country, so that in 1719 a bill
was introduced into Parliament to prevent the erection of rolling and
slitting mills -- but was then rejected.  In 1750, however, such an act was
passed; but allowing the exportation of pig metal to England, free of
duties.  Pig metal exported in 1750, was 3,425 tons, and 390 tons of bar
iron.  The cheapness of wood and labour here gave great advantage to the
American furnaces -- which they thus enjoyed from 1750 to the period of the
Revolution.
  The first built furnace of Pennsylvania was that of Colebrooke Dale,
(Berks Co.) built in 1720, by Jas. Lewis and Anthony Morris of Philadelphia.
The Reading furnace was built in 1730 and the Warwick in 1736.  The Cornwall
furnace in Lebanon county was built in 1741-2 by Peter Grubb and greatly
enriched all the owners.  In 1798 it became the property of Robt. Coleman,
who also acquired a great estate thereby.  The price of pig iron at this
place in 1780 was £300 Continental money and in 1785 was £6 10 shillings,
Pennsylvania currency or $17 1/4.  The Mount Vernon furnace erected in 1800,
by Henry B. Grubb, produced 50 tons a week.  The Mount Hope furnace built by
Peter Grubb in 1786, yielded about 900 tons of pig metal per annum.

                 Red Bank, and the War of the Revolution

  Job Whitall, who lived at Red Bank, in a large brick house fronting the
river (next below the redoubt where Count Donop fell) kept a MS. Diary from
the year 1775 to 95, wherein he noted daily events relating to himself.
>From that book I have made sundry extracts, hereinafter given, which may
serve to show some of the incidents of the war at and near his place in
1777-8.  A large cannon ball went through his house, while his wife was
spinning.  She then took the wheel and herself into the cellar.
  1777  10th Month, 22d.  This day pleasant and fair -- he and his father
hung the gate -- then finished the stacks.  Then got up horses and wagon,
and loaded their goods to move them -- because the English troops (in the
river) were coming nearer.  Himself, wife and children, after eating dinner,
went off to uncle David Cooper's (near Woodbury).  Cooper sent his wagon to
aid in moving the goods.  They drove away 21 head of cattle.  The people in
the Fort drove away from father and I, 47 sheep, into the Fort.
  10th Month, 23d.  The Americans filled the house at his father's so that
we were forced to move out, and we took loads of goods to John Murdocks in
Woodbury [three miles off.]
  25th.  The soldiers pressed his mare, by order of Col. Greene.
  26th.  We haul away the wheat and grain -- then fill four rooms with
goods, locked up.
  27th.  These rooms the soldiers broke open and took away some potatoes.
  11th Month, 1st.  The soldiers took his mare and four loads of rye -- he
gets off some of his horses.  His neighbours assist to carry some of his
produce, hay, &c.
  4th.  The soldiers press his oxen, as they were in the act of hauling
away.  The soldiers went to his uncle David Cooper's and there pressed J.
Whitall's sorrel.
  7th.  He and his family went to Woodbury meeting (of Friends), found it
was in use as an hospital for sick soldiers; but Friends held a solid,
satisfactory meeting out of doors.  The militia soldiers were quartered at
Gibbs' house, and filled it.  Paid for beef then at one shilling and
sixpence per pound.
  9th.  The soldiers at Woodbury steal some of Whitall's pigs -- in meeting
time, while the family is at meeting.
  10th.  He goes to "the Bank" (his homestead) and gets a load out of his
cellar.  Now he moves again, (from Murdock's in Woodbury) to Gibbs' for safety.
  15th.  He went over to his house at Red Bank, to bring away a load, but
there was so much firing there, that nothing was done by him.  To-day he
killed his fat cow, and in the night the soldiers came and pillaged a part
of it.
  16th.  We held our meeting at Mark Millers hose.
  21st.  He staid at home to-day, because of the English soldiers, then
arrived there.  They took his two mares both with foal, and while the army
was passing by, they came and took their bread, pies, milk, cheese, dishes,
cups, spoons -- also their shirts, sheets, blankets, &c., then drove out the
cattle from the brick shed, all of which, however, came back again, save one ox.
  22d.  The soldiers took one of his pigs, and cut and hacked others.  A
great number of soldiers went by to-day, partly peaceable, they only took
some gears and some potatoes.
  23d.  The soldiers took some of his hay, slung on their horses and also
took ten sheep.
  24th.  A warm pleasant day.  The English soldiers all moved off in the
morning from Woodbury.  He walked to the camp ground -- found there his big
kettle and the hide of his brown ox.  He then walked to Woodbury, and found
that they had opened his smoke-house, and taken five flitches.  They also
had used of his boards a thousand feet, and burned two or three thousand of
his staves.  {Note : flitch = a side of cured meat, especially bacon.}
  27th.  Observes a northern light and records its appearance.
  30th.  Goes to Friends meeting, then held again for the first time in the
meeting house.
  12 Month, 15th.  He goes over to Red Bank to spread and gather flax, being
a residue left by the soldiers, who had before used some of it for tents.
  1778.  2d Month, 10th.  Went to "youths' meeting" at Woodbury -- a great
gathering, and many public Friends, and a very grateful time there to many.
  4th Month, 20th.  He moves back to Red Bank and drives back his cattle,
after an absence and precarious living, for upwards of six months.
  [ The place of Job Whitall, now held by his grandson Louis Whitall, is an
old family homestead of ninety acres held upwards of a century.  It was
first settled there by Henry Treadwell, in 1683; after sixteen years, was
bought by the ancestor James Whitall, and there used as his farm.  The brick
house was built there in 1748.  Col. Franklin Davenport, of Woodbury, said
that all of Col. Greene's command were black men.  The present owner, Louis
Whitall, has the scull of Count Donop; he took me to his grave -- sunken and
marked with a coarse stone, inscribed with his name, when killed, &c.; he
also led me over the remains of the old redoubt.  It was, at the time, in an
apple orchard which was cut down to make room.  There are remains of two
breastworks -- the first one on too large a scale to man it, and they
therefore made a smaller one within the other, on one side of it.  The outer
fosse is still a deep ditch, and all the premises are now all overgrown with
tall and thick set pines and some other trees.  The monument is placed some
distance northward from the redoubt, on the line of the next land owner, as
the Whitalls did not wish it on their ground because of predatory companies
visiting the ground and using their melons and fruits, &c.]  {Note : fosse =
ditch, moat}
  [I visited the place and took the above notes and memoranda, the 26th and
27th of June, 1847.]
  Whitall's house was used as an hospital after the battle, to amputate the
wounded.  Mrs. Whitall, was a character, and being present when they
complained of heavy foot-falls on the floor, said they must not complain,
who had brought it on themselves !  She was, however, kind-hearted and
useful to them.  One night, while seated at sewing and knitting, she saw the
lower limbs of a thief, going up stairs, she followed up immediately --found
him under the bed, ordered him out, led him by the collar down stairs, and
slapped his face and bid him begone.

                    Our  Advancement  and  Prosperity.

Being remarks induced by the perusal of Macauley's England, Vol. 1, Chap. 3d.

  However we, of this age, may smile at the rustic simplicity of the past --
so often set forth in the present work, we are only to read such a book as
Macaulay's England at the time that Pennsylvania began to be settled, to
perceive how like the early settlers here was the condition of the home
country which they had left.  Macauley's extended 3d chapter is replete with
notices of all such leading changes of men and things there, as these Annals
of our country have aimed to note and observe here.  He remarks very justly
that "we must never forget that the country then, was a very different
country from that in which we now live".
  We here give a summary of facts, for example, to wit : "The Army and Navy,
then, were small neglected concerns.  The sheep, oxen, and horses, were
diminutive.  They had no race horses, as now.  Their manufactories were few.
Agriculture was ill understood, and little practised  -- they had few
gardens and flowers.  Coal and salt mines were not worked.  The roads were
bad.  Stages were few; going only two or three times a week to principal
towns.  The chief land carriage was with pack horses.  Their country
gentlemen and gentry made few or no visits to London.  London itself, was
coarse and grotesque in its weekly publication; and the mass of the people
had no reading but in the form of ballads.  There were no political readers
-- no free discussion; and very few who were able to read and write.  Few
books were printed and read.  The people were coarse and cruel in their
sports.  The country clergy were ill paid, and little regarded.  Few humane
and charitable institutions existed.  The poor were ill paid -- but four to
seven shillings per week and their comforts generally neglected.  They had
no hospitals for their sickness.  The Post-office was but little used, and
merchants lived in confined closes &c.  They were without libraries.
Philosophy, medicine, chemistry, mechanics, were studied by very few.  The
elegant places now about London, were then rude uncultivated commons, having
in many locations, heaths, fens, and morasses.  Highwaymen then beset most
of the roads; and travellers went mostly on horseback.
  From the premises, we of this country cannot but perceive that our
progress in improvement, preceding the period of our Revolutionary war, much
surpassed the time of the two Charles' and Cromwell's governments.  A result
which we should be inclined to impute to our self-movements, and
self-inspired impulses, impelling to all that was useful and ameliorating.
As Americans, let us consider !


                    Old  Congress  and  First  Prayer           

  John Adams has given in a letter of Sept. 1774, at Philadelphia, his
graphic description of the cause and manner of the first prayer in the then
First Congress.  Writing to a friend, he says "When the Congress met, Mr.
Cushing motioned that it should be opened with prayer.  It was opposed by
Mr. Jay and Mr. Rutledge, because we were so divided in religious sentiment
-- Some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anna-Baptists, some Presbyterians,
and some Congregationalists, that we could not join in the same worship.
Mr. Samuel Adams rose and said that "he was no bigot, and could hear prayer
from any gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at the same time a friend to
his country -- that he was a stranger in Philadelphia, but had heard that
Parson DuchÈ deserved that character, and therefore he moved that he, an
Episcopalian clergyman, might be desired to read prayers before the Congress
to-morrow morning".  The motion was affirmed.  Mr. Randolph, our President,
waited on him -- he appeared with his clerk, and in pontificals, read
several prayers, and then read the order of Psalms for the 7th September a
part of which was the 35th psalm.  You must remember, this was the next
morning after we had heard the rumours of the horrible cannonade of Boston.
It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that psalm to be read on that morning !
After this, Mr. DuchÈ, unexpectedly to every body, struck out in extemporary
prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present.  I must confess, I
never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced -- done with such
fervour -- such ardor -- such correctness and pathos, and in language so
elegant and sublime, for Congress, for the Province of Massachusetts bay,
especially the town of Boston.  It had an excellent effect upon every body
here.  I must beg you to read that psalm, to wit "Plead my cause, O Lord,
with them that strive against me -- stand up for my help -- say unto my
soul, I am thy salvation.  Let them be turned back and brought to confusion
that devise my hurt -- and my tongue shall speak of thy praise evermore".
If there is any faith in the'sortes Biblica', it would be thought
providential.  The whole scene and crisis -- was enough to melt a heart of
stone.  I saw the tears gush into the eyes of the old, grave, pacific Quakers.


        Congress, and Seat of Government at Princeton, July 1783.

  The Rev. Ashbel Green, in writing to his father -- says : "We have the
gentlemen of the Congress for fellow-students, they however, exercising by
themselves in the library.  We are made now alive and bustling -- the quiet
of the village is broken up -- carriages and wagons and chairs now rattle
every where; oranges, pine-apples, lemons and other luxuries are all the cry
now.  They have had a great public dinner at 6 o'clock, having present sundry
foreign ministers.  In the evening, sky-rockets and fireworks.  The papers,
brought by the Congress, filled six wagons."

            My Annals --- a  Picture  of  Colonial  Times.

  I have sometimes said, and still oftener thought, that my Annals should
afford interest abroad -- even to Europe itself, as showing the early
domestic and homebred history of our Anglo-Saxon race, destined perchance,
with Britons at home, to anglify, under Providence, the other nations of the
globe !  I see some of my thoughts lately, well expressed in the London
Christian Examiner -- to wit :  "Trace the principles and institutions of
the Pilgrims in their development, operation and results.  Not only 'the
little one has become a thousand, and the small one's a great one', but
those institutions, civil and sacred, have found throughout a congenial
soil.  In these stand the glory of America; under any other dynasty that
country could never have risen.  On her present position we must look with
intense interest.  Her whole history is interwoven with the gate of Europe
-- America holds no common place.  Her conduct and influence in morals and
religion is in unison and co-operation with that of Britain, and is destined
to change the whole aspect of society every where.  The superstitions and
errors of ages are melting away.  In her future progress she is destined, in
common with Britain, to carry along with her the destiny of the species.
The world is not only to receive a new language, a new philosophy, a new
religion; but to take its entire type and impression from these two nations.
In moral power and resources, America not only rivals, but far exceeds the
European States, England alone excepted.  No force can crush the sympathy
that already exists and is continually augmenting, between Europe and the
New World.  We are deeply interested in the progress of her power and
greatness; for she is descended from ancestors who, like the Father of the
faithful, for the sake of truth, went to a land which they knew not; and
like the children of Abraham, have truth in their keeping -- in common with
us; and are destined to carry it by their commerce and British principles of
civilization, to the end of the earth."  [Are not Britons, then, peculiarly
interested in examining those traces of our domestic history, those pictures
of our rise, progress, and advancement to present greatness, which have been
pictorially drawn from facts, such as I have traced and recorded ?  Let
Britons examine and consider !  Americans too, of whatever State, and
however distant from Philadelphia or New York, have a direct interest in
such recitals as I have aimed to preserve, as being a picture of those
Colonial days, when we as Colonists were all of homogenous character, and in
each and every Colony, presented an honest, frugal, contented, and homebred
race.]

          Memoranda of Historical Works concerning our olden time.

  The most ancient is that of John de Laet, of Antwerp, a resident of Leyden
-- himself a scholar -- he wrote very accurately from what he heard.  He
knew personally, Capt. De Vries, and had seen the MS. journals of Hendrick
Hudson, Adrian Block, Capt. May, and probably other voyagers to the New
Nederlands.  He had much enthusiasm for the interests of our New World -- he
formed, probably, the earliest chart of the Delaware.  He describes the
tribes of Indians, from the Capes to the Falls at Trenton.  He published in
1625, and died in 1649.
     {A translation of the part relating to the New Netherlands has been
published in the first volume of the New York series of the New York
Historical Collections -- he published in black letter, in Dutch and Latin.
Which last was, of course, for the 'savans'  of Europe.}
  The next in order comes the Royal Beauchamp Plantagenet, who published in
1648, his "description of New Albion", made up from his two pamphlets, of
1637 and '42.  Though carelessly written, it seems to be the result of an
actual residence, by certain English settlers (among whom was Master Evelyn)
under the grant to Sir Edmund Ployden, his friend.*  [*Ployden calls himself
"Earl Albion", as having land enough to give him an Earldom !  It all went
down as to claim and title; but in 1788, we saw in the public papers, a
claim to New Jersey and Long Island, as belonging to the Earl of Albion's
family -- it died away unnoticed.]  He had marked out the country for
several nobles of his family, and he and his compatriots, for a while held a
settlement on the Jersey side of Delaware, somewhere below Red Bank,
supposed at Billingsport.  But one copy of this most remarkable work is
believed to exist, and that is in the Philadelphia Library, [and which is
intended to be copied, as a curiosity.]
  The "description of New Sweden" by Campanius, may be regarded as the third
book in point of order of our antiquities.  For although not printed at the
time it depicts -- yet it contains facts about locations along the Delaware,
collected by Thomas Campanius, and Peter Lindstrom, the Engineer,
contemporary with Gov. Printz, in 1642 and subsequent.  This Campanius was
the Swedish clergyman who lived in New Sweden six years.  He was born in
Stockholm, 1601, from which cause he has been called Thomas Campanius Holm.
He made a catechism into the Indian Language, printed in 1696, he died in
1683.  The notes which he wrote at Tinicum, were edited by his grandson,
also named Thomas Campanius Holm, and published at Stockholm in 1702.  It
has lately been done into English by Mr. P.S. Duponceau, at the instance of
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and a small copy of Lindstrom's map
of the Delaware, accompanies his work, a large chart of 27 inches is also
preserved in the Philosophical Society.
  The next of the historians and geographers is Adrian Van der Donck, who
bore the honours of Doctor of civil and common law, from the University of
Leyden.  He enjoys the distinction of being the first lawyer in the New
Netherlands, and the first sheriff of Rensselaerwyck.  He came out in 1642,
and afterwards printed at the Hague in 1653 his "Descriptions of the New
Netherlands".  From the second edition of 1656, Mr. Johnson of Brooklyn, has
made his translation.  Although in himself a scholar, he preferred to write
in his vernacular tongue, the Dutch.  His map of 1656, so far as the
Delaware is concerned, seems very correct.
  In 1655, was published, in Dutch, a work by David Pieterzen de Vries,
master of artillery, his "Brief historical and journalized notes of several
voyages to the four quarters of the globe".  This De Vries is the same
person who appeared in command at Fort Nassau, N.J.  He was concerned with
his friends De Laet and Van Rensselaer in planting colonies in New
Netherlands.
     [A portion of his work has been translated into English for the New
York Historical Society, by Mr. Troost, and also some fragments of it have
been preserved by Du Simetiere.]
  In 1698, Gabriel Thomas, published in London "an historical and
geographical account of the Province of Pennsylvania, and of West New
Jersey".  The part relative to Pennsylvania, I have given in my Annals.  The
New Jersey part, I have not seen -- the book is now very scarce, and hard to
be obtained -- the Jersey part has been reprinted here lately.
  Peter Kalm, was a professor of Botany, born in 1715 in Sweden, who visited
our Swedish settlers in 1748 and remained among us three years; he published
his travels among us, in an English translation in 1770 -- died in 1779,
much distinguished as a Botanist.
  In 1796, the Rev. George Acrelius published at Stockholm, "A description
of the present and former state at the Swedish congregations in New Sweden"
which was translated by Nicholas Collin, D.D., of Swedes' Church,
Philadelphia.  Acrelius had been a minister at the Christiana Church in
Delaware, for several years.  He returned to Sweden in 1756, and lived at
Fallinsboro in Sweden, when his book was published.

                     The  Wissahiccon

  This romantic Creek, and scenery, now so much visited and familiar to
many, was not long since an extremely wild unvisited place -- to illustrate
which, I give these facts, to wit :  Enoch and Jacob Rittenhouse, residents
there, told me in 1845, that when they were boys the place had many
pheasants, that they snared a hundred of them in a season -- they also got
many partridges.  The creek had many excellent fish -- such as large sunfish
and perch.  The summer wild ducks came there regularly, and were shot often
-- also, some winter ducks.  They then had no visitors from the city, and
only occasionally from Germantown.  There they lived quietly and retired --
now all is public and bustling -- all is changed.

                    Longevity, and List of Names and Ages

               The frosts of ninety years have passed
                     Upon this aged head ---
                It seems a fine old relic cast
                     From days that long have fled.

  Mrs. Betsey Frantham, died at Maury county, North Carolina, on the 10th
January 1834, aged 154 years !  She was a native of Germany, and arrived at
North Carolina in 1710.  At the age of 120 her eyesight became almost
extinct; but during the last twenty years of her life, she could see as well
as when 20 years of age !  She had come out in 1710 among a number of German
emigrants to whom Gov. Lynte was directed to give 100 acres of land
severally, as motives to settlement.  She was for several years unable to
walk, and it was their practice for several years to keep her lying between
two feather beds, to keep up the essential temperature to the preservation
of her life.  She had lost the sense of taste and hearing for some time
before her death.
  Died at New Brunswick, N.J. (Aug. 1834 Hugh Henderson, aged 104 years; a
native of the Highlands of Scotland.  He could take long walks, and enjoyed
his health and spirits till February last, when he broke his leg by a fall
on the ice.  His bones were set and reunited firmly.
  Died in Chester county 1831, Nathaniel Mercer of that county, aged 101
years.
  Died at New York, September 1834, of Cholera, a poor coloured woman, aged
109 years.  She lived and died in Orange street.  There is now living in
Washington street a coloured man who is aged 104 years.
  Joice Heth, a negro slave, is exhibited alive at Pittsburgh, aged 161
years !  She retains vivid recollection of the scenes of her youth, and is
to be brought on to Philadelphia, New York, &c.  It is said that she once
belonged to General Washington's father, and had been the nurse of the
General.  A post mortem examination in 1835-6 seems to prove her to be not
more than 90 years old.
  Col. W. Drake, died at New Haven, on the 11 September 1796, in the 100th
year of his age, and having his faculties sound to the last.
  Wm. Butler died at Philadelphia in May 1828, aged 108, "the oldest
inhabitant of Philadelphia".
  Died at Fairfield, S.C., 3 Jan., 1835. Jennings Allen, aged 117 years, had
served with Braddock, and also in the Revolution.

             General  Washington, his providential preservation.

  Sundry circumstances in the early life of Washington while a Colonel in
the western wilderness have not been sufficiently noticed, as marking him
even from the beginning as "the man of destiny," as one providentially
preserved for the subsequent salvation of his country.  For instance, in the
case of his exposure of person in the battle of Braddock's defeat.  His
letter to his mother of 18 July 1755 -- says "The Virginian troops" -- to
which he belonged -- "showed a great deal of bravery, and were nearly all
killed.  I luckily escaped without a wound, though I had four bullets
through my coat, and had two horses shot under me.  The general's two aides
being early wounded, I was the only person then left to distribute the
general's orders.  At the same time he requests to inform his brother John,
that he has not been killed, as had been before reported in a circumstantial
account.  He added, "By the all powerful dispensations of Providence, I have
been protected beyond all human probability of expectation, while death was
levelling my companions on every side".  Such remarkable perils, and such
acknowledgements of a divine protection therein, are things which should be
impressively considered.
  Besides the foregoing, it came to pass afterwards, when Washington was out
in Ohio in 1770, to explore some wild lands near the Kenawha river, he there
met an aged Indian chief who told him that during the battle in Braddock's
field, he had singled him out at several times to bring him down with his
rifle, and ordered his young warriors to do the same; but none of the balls
took effect !  He was then convinced that the young hero was under some
special guardianship of the Great Spirit, and he had therefore desisted from
firing.  He had now come a long way to pay his homage to so peculiar a man
-- as one saved by Heaven !  Surely, if the poor Indian could thus discern
the protection from above, much more readily should we who profess to
understand a God "who rules in the affairs of men".
  In the year 1753, Major Washington, returning from his visit to Fort Le
Boeuf, roughing it all the way like a perfect woodsman, urging his lonely
way through the depths of the forests in the depth of the winter, fell into
a fearful dilemma, which ordinarily would have cost the life of any other
individual.  He had left his horse and heavy baggage, and for the sake of
greater dispatch had undertaken to foot his way, with his friend Mr. Gist
for his companion.  Being tied up in his watch coat, with his better clothes
off and his papers and provisions tied in a pack slung to his back, (think
of that, for the great General Washington, afterwards President of the
United States) they urged their lonely way through the woods, each with gun
in hand and momentarily exposed to Indian surprise.  That surprise came from
a party of French Indians laying in wait -- one of them fired upon them not
fifteen steps off but missed, and then they seized him, (mark it, that they
were too humane to kill an enemy in possession !) and at night let him go;
they in meanwhile walking all night, as their best security for getting
beyond the reach of the party on the morrow.  They then continued walking
all next day -- when they reached the river two miles above Shannopins --
which they had hoped to have found frozen from the keenness of the cold
which they had braved.  The ice there, however, was drifting in vast
quantities, and they had no way to pass it but on a raft, which they
themselves were obliged to construct with only one poor hatchet.  In such a
necessary and hurried work, they were diligently employed all day -- exposed
to cold in their persons; and with continued apprehensions from the pursuing
Indians probably near them !  On such an occasion did Washington, probably,
remember the prayers which he may have been taught by a mother's care in his
youth.  Can we suppose that he did not ejaculate something from the heart
for Divine support and protection !  He was protected.  For soon after they
had embarked on their frail log structure "they got jammed up in the ice,
and momentarily expected their raft to sink and themselves to perish !"
Just at their extremity, when Washington was setting his pole to save his
position, he was jerked out into 10 feet water !  They had no alternative,
but to make their way to an island, leaving their raft to its fate.  There
they had to pass the whole night in mid-winter ! -- their clothes soaked
with iced water and stiffly frozen -- so frozen, that his companion, Mr.
Gist, had all of his fingers and some of his toes frozen !  Mark the
providence !  Washington though equally, or more exposed, was not frozen;
and the very severity of the freezing made a formidable bridge of ice, by
which they safely passed over to the main land on the next morning, and soon
after reached the wigwam of Queen Allaquippa where they were refreshed !
Surely as many of us as may regard Washington as bestowed upon us as a
nation's deliverer, must herein see and confess the hand divine, which led
his footsteps in his youth, and guided him to future years, through a long,
perilous and eminent life.  We know nothing in the whole career of
Washington, which has been to us such moving cause of emotion, as the
contemplation of these earliest scenes of Washington.  Scenes, however,
which have been least noticed by others.  We can't think of his rugged and
severe backwood struggles -- his exertions for life and honour, without
thinking how little he then could have dreamed of his country's
Independence, and himself the appointed Leader !  We row backward when we go
ahead !  So dark and mysterious are the counsels which sometimes lead and
rule in the affairs of men !
  It may be imputed to the good tact and good sense of Gov. Dinwiddie who
came out to Virginia in 1752, to have first brought out the proper
estimation of the talents of young Washington; and still more are we
indebted to the discernment of the Rev. Samuel Davis (afterwards President
of Princeton College) who at his sermon preached the 17 Aug. 1755, before
the Hanover volunteers of Capt. Overton's command, to excite them to the
war, just after the defeat of Braddock -- He says "shall these savages go
unchecked, and must our unhappy brethern on our frontiers go unassisted and
unpitied ?  No !  No ! Thank God, he has been pleased to diffuse some sparks
of the martial fire through our country -- in you it begins to kindle, and
may I not produce you, my brethern, who are engaged in this volunteer
expedition as instances of it ?"  He then gives as an episode or note,
saying, "I may point out to the public, that heroic youth, Col. Washington,
whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a
manner for some important service to his country".  Doct. Davis' text, in
the foregoing sermon, was from 2d Saml. x.12.  "Be of good courage, and let
us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God; and the Lord
do that which seemeth him good". -- See Davis' Sermons, vol.5.  Edn. 1818.

                 Possible  Changes  of  Men  and  Manners.

  We have been sometimes urged to bring out another volume, wherein we
should so dispose of facts of changes passed and passing upon society, as
should by emphasis of remark, arouse the indolent or inconsiderate reader to
a due sense of the real importance of the changes produced.  We feel that we
have done enough; and the reader, therefore, by his own reflections and
notices, must supply needfull amplifications.
  We, however, think of sundry prevalent and modish actions of society, such
as did not, and could not, formerly, find toleration.  They are just so
special and striking as to form a proper and closing chapter to these
Annals.  Not for the sake of censorship, or objection, but as marking an era
in "the progress of enlightened civilization" to be remembered.
  The generation of elderly ladies have not yet passed away, who made a part
of that society which could not behold such things as opera-dances and
waltzes with complacency.  They felt, as females, an instinctive, inherent
modesty, precluding them from such publicity.  The encroachments upon female
modesty have been progressive, and may continue.
  The first most effective inroad upon the instinctive modesty of the sex --
as is still remembered by them -- was the modish introduction of
man-midwifery.  Against its practice we urge no complaint : nevertheless, it
is remembered as of record, that Mrs. Lydia Robinson of New London, Conn.,
who died in 1769 at the age of 70 years, had been for 35 years a successful
female midwife for 1,200 children and NEVER LOST ONE.  After the change of
such practice to male hands, women felt a hardihood, which prepared them to
permit other influences upon female character.
  Such came latterly, in the form of opera dancing, waltzing, and circus
riding, wherein performers in the display of limbs and individual symmetry,
had the countenance of society; and yet we have among us still, many who can
well remember their first emotions of confusion and blushes at first seeing
some of these spectacles.  In time, they also fell in with the fashion of
the times, and subdued their scruples.
  To what they did eventually submit and bring themselves to witness, form
such exhibitions as Perrot, and the figurante Taglioni would display.  If it
were not so graceful it would be indecent; but they understood the
philosophy of their art --  it was to throw around sensuality as such a
colouring of refinement as might divest it of its grossness.  Look !  there
she comes from the back of the stage, turning round and round with the speed
of a teetotum, in indescribable and fascinating grace -- she pirouettes --
she springs and vaults, her scanty drapery flying upwards, discloses to her
enraptured admirers, among the young men, the beauty of her limbs.  See !
she now rests before the foot-lights, on the very point of her toe, the
other limb highly elevated, depressing and elevating her body with infinite
grace and ease, and smiling and looking modest as an angel -- meanwhile,
affording to enraptured male beholders, the opportunity of scrutinizing the
grace and proportions of her figure.  Next, see the impersonation of Perrot,
he comes and leaps about as if his feet were made of India rubber, and spins
around upon the point of his toe like a top.  He joins the figurante, and
they twirl away and glide along, holding eloquent discourse with their
pliant limbs, after the manner of waltzing.  He, wonderful for grace and
beauty of person, is as much the idol of the ladies, as is the other the
goddess of the gentlemen.  The applause on all sides is deafening, save from
some few youthful innocent girls who have never beheld the like before.
Look at some of them who have come with their friends to see something new
-- undefined, vague, glimmering and wonderful ---

                            -----------"Oh ! the joy
        Of young ideas painted on the mind
        Of objects not yet known, when all is new !"

It is a "Ballet" -- a thing which rank and fashion has countenanced and
sustained.  Their conductors and companions are persons of unblemished
reputation and virtue, and therefore cannot be wrong.  Look at any one of
these novices -- the face betrays that she has seen enough to crimson the
visage and neck with the blush of shame -- she instinctively hides her head
from a sight which has shocked her former sense of decency.  There is no
affectation here.  It is nature out, and comes without bidding.  While thus
confused she hears the enraptured plaudits of all around her, and begins
almost to feel ashamed that she has felt confused.  She almost fears that
her emotions might be imputed to awkwardness -- to prudery -- to anything
else other than the truth, she therefore labours to arrive at such mastery
over self as the manners of society impose.
  The exhibition of figure, grace &c., having thus found public favour, came
in time to give idea to the exibition of living models as statuary subjects
for artists, amateurs, &c.  To show forth from life, selected individuals of
both sexes, as models of perfection in bodily configuration -- veiled only
with invisible or flesh colour tissue.  They found for a while some
spectators of both sexes, others thought it too gross, and the curtain was
dropt.  Whether posterity will raise it again, they shall see.  The time
was, when, even real statuary -- dead cold marble, with its vacant eye,
could not be exposed where females were to be met or seen; and the same
influence is measurably so still.  But while circus riders, of both sexes,
can be tolerated to appear in seeming nakedness of limb and bodily form, the
nudities of images, as in Italy and France, may come to be a future common
exhibition.
  With the operas have come in a new style of singing, such as our
forefathers knew not.  It does not profess to be natural but highly
artificial, measuring its excellence by its difficulty of execution.  Its
prevalence, so far, has changed all manner of singing now heard in social
intercourse, it aims at anything but sweet melody, and seems like an
affectation of something else.  But all are not thus disposed, for those who
judge of music and its charms from natural instinct, adhere earnestly to
nature's dictates and therefore give all favour to coloured ministrels, who
profess to follow nature's mode.  They teach harmony to natural ears and
tastes, and successfully burlesque the operas with all their exalted
screams, trills and intonations.  That some opera singers should get into
choirs of some churches is another innovation of the age; and with it comes
the other innovation, with some, of singing what should be praying responses
"meekly kneeling on the knees".  This we are bound to say, was not always
so.
  One most obvious and most embarrassing change which has "come over the
face of our affairs" is the increased and increasing difficulty of providing
acceptable employment for growing-up sons -- of such as aim at what they
deem genteel occupation.  They find the Bar and medical profession already
surcharged; find them scarce and few and far between.  The result is, that
young men are not, and cannot be, prepared for early marriage and
settlement, or else they seek to find fortunes where they should not.  Too
many are therefore driven to live upon contingencies and chance, and are
liable to be seduced into criminal stratagems at a rate of number never
before so witnessed.  A time must therefore come, when men of sense will
educate and train their surplus sons to husbandry, and others to mechanical
arts requiring skill and education.  Architecture, for instance, in houses
and ship construction, can open many avenues for further employment, and the
elaboration of metals can be carried out into many channels of elevated and
enlightened mechanicism.  Gentlemen, by combination, could so determine to
place their sons, and thus elevate the standard of character just as readily
as the same class could determine recently, to make what was free schools
for poor children, common schools to themselves and all other tax payers.
Make it the fashion that young men should be so disposed of, and the object
is attained.  Men, who by elevation lead society, may in this matter set the
example of so disposing of their sons, and not forcibly constrain them into
positions where society draws another way and affects to exclude them.  It
is not the labour, but the exclusion, which operates on their minds.  Our
forefathers, when society was more equalized, experienced no such
difficulties in the acceptable disposal of their sons.  They found readily,
places for all positions where their education and training inclined them.
  It is thus, by comparing the present and the past, we arrive at some
apprehension of what our forefathers did in former times, and at some
appreciation of the changes which may be induced in the future.  We are thus
pleased and satisfied in proportion to the images which can be created for
our contemplation -- while facts can be educed for consideration, the
imagination and the heart must be affected.  What the world will come to
hereafter, we may all know, as being within the compass of all past history.
Society moves in a circle of changes.  If we are in pride, pride will bring
arrogance and war -- War will produce poverty -- Poverty humiliation and
Peace -- Humiliation will induce Repentance and Reform -- Reform, economy
and wealth, as at the beginning, &c.

                        The  Revolutionary  Navy

  Where so much has been done for the glory of our country in the times
which tried men's souls -- it is desirable to say a few words -- to wit :
  We have many reasons for believing that the officers of our first, or
revolutionary navy, were in many respects different from the present --
different, we should say, in dress, manners and mind.  Their habits were
simpler -- their manners plain, and their intercourse frank and familiar.
In their dress, there was little aim at show and grandeur.  They wore small
cocked hats without lace -- hair powdered and cued -- coats with ample
skirts, and foul-anchor buttons -- small clothes -- hose and shoes.  Their
dignity and sternness, when they aimed at any, was not before their
country-men, but before the enemy.  In that relation, they showed themselves
men of great tact, and of most indomitable spirit and courage.  They had all
been practical seamen in the merchants' service and thus came out in their
new relation, for the occasion.  Indeed our earliest officers for our
subsequent navy, which produced officers such as we have seen to earn a fame
for themselves and their country by their gallantry, in actions since the
revolution, had also been drawn from the mercantile marine -- Such were
Bainbridge, Porter, Chauncey, Hull, Perry, Preble &c.  They had not been
originally bred for drawing-rooms and courtly display; but they had no
deficiency in polished circles, when called to the exercise of their rules
and usages.

                             Army  Officers

  The speaking of navy officers above, stimulates me to say a few words of
army officers, such as were down to the year 1800, while the seat of
government was at Philadelphia.  They were frequently seen abroad in the
streets, and always in their uniform.  It was less expensive and splendid
than now, and thus made an easier affair of daily wear.  They arrived,
generally from the west, on horseback, with a servant, and their baggage
under a bear skin, on another horse.  It was gratifying then to the
citizens, to see military men thus willing to show their colours -- and it
gives a hint to similar professional men to do the same now.

                            American Scenery.

  Willis has well told wherein our American scenery differs from European;
and since the scenery has been depicted by Bartlett, and put upon steel
plates, we cannot but perceive how equally grand and imposing are many of
our river and lake scenes, compared with the best of the European -- "having
no parallel in Europe or on earth".
  "It strikes the European traveller (says Willis) at the first burst of the
scenery of America on his eye, that the new world of Columbus is also a new
world from the land of the Creator -- the vegetation is so wondrously
lavish, and the outlines and minor features are struck out with so bold a
freshness.  The minerva-like birth of the republic -- its sudden rise to
independence, wealth and power, and its continued and marvellous increase in
population and prosperity, strike him with the same surprise, and leave the
same  impression of a new scale of existence, and a fresher and faster law
of growth and accomplishment".  Travellers, who have exhausted the
unchanging countries of Europe, now turn their steps to the novel scenery
and evershifting aspects of this.  It is in river scenery, however, that
America exceeds all other lands; and "here (says Bartlett) the artist's
labour is not as in Europe, to embellish and idealize the reality; he finds
it difficult to come up to it".  Let this concession be considered and
remembered by Americans !

                          The  Credit  System.

  It has been said that "to the system of bills of credit, Pennsylvania owed
more of her provincial prosperity than to any other cause -- it gave her a
facility in effecting exchanges not otherwise attainable".  The mother
country opposed this system, and when the colonial assembly had passed acts
for such emissions, they were negatived by the crown as soon as the acts
permitted -- say in two years.  To meet this obstacle the assemblies
restricted their acts to two years at a time, and thus managed to make the
emissions continual.  Since then we have often effected great and lasting
good by the credit system -- accomplishing numerous great enterprises.  All
this while it was held under wholesome restrictions and restraints.  We have
also greatly abused it when used as a means of excessive stock-jobbing, and
extravagant speculations.  Like fire and water, which are so useful and
necessary in their legitimate use, they can be mismanaged to a tremendous
amount of evil.  Benjamin Franklin, in his early days, was the first person
in Philadelphia who wrote and published in favour of creating paper money;
and he says, that he was strenuously opposed by all the monied men; but they
continued to discuss it in the junta, and it carried with the people -- and
after the first trial in was so liked, as to make calls for more.

                Next :   Final Appendix of the Year 1856.