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diff --git a/3043.txt b/3043.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25681ed --- /dev/null +++ b/3043.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4896 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Quaker Colonies, by Sydney G. Fisher + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Quaker Colonies + A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 + in The Chronicles Of America Series + +Author: Sydney G. Fisher + +Posting Date: February 21, 2009 [EBook #3043] +Release Date: January, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUAKER COLONIES *** + + + + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's +University, and Alev Akman. + + + + + + +THE QUAKER COLONIES, + +A CHRONICLE OF THE PROPRIETORS OF THE DELAWARE + +Volume 8 In The Chronicles Of America Series + +By Sydney G. Fisher + + +New Haven: Yale University Press + +Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. + +London: Humphrey Milford + +Oxford University Press + +1919 + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA + II. PENN SAILS FOR THE DELAWARE + III. LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA + IV. TYPES OF THE POPULATION + V. THE TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS + VI. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR + VII. THE DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT + VIII. THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY + IX. PLANTERS AND TRADERS OF SOUTHERN JERSEY + X. SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS IN EAST JERSEY + XI. THE UNITED JERSEYS + XII. LITTLE DELAWARE + XIII. THE ENGLISH CONQUEST + + BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + + + +THE QUAKER COLONIES + + + +Chapter I. The Birth Of Pennsylvania + +In 1661, the year after Charles II was restored to the throne of +England, William Penn was a seventeen-year-old student at Christ Church, +Oxford. His father, a distinguished admiral in high favor at Court, had +abandoned his erstwhile friends and had aided in restoring King Charlie +to his own again. Young William was associating with the sons of the +aristocracy and was receiving an education which would fit him to obtain +preferment at Court. But there was a serious vein in him, and while at a +high church Oxford College he was surreptitiously attending the meetings +and listening to the preaching of the despised and outlawed Quakers. +There he first began to hear of the plans of a group of Quakers to found +colonies on the Delaware in America. Forty years afterwards he wrote, "I +had an opening of joy as to these parts in the year 1661 at Oxford." And +with America and the Quakers, in spite of a brief youthful experience as +a soldier and a courtier, William Penn's life, as well as his fame, is +indissolubly linked. + +Quakerism was one of the many religious sects born in the seventeenth +century under the influence of Puritan thought. The foundation principle +of the Reformation, the right of private judgment, the Quakers carried +out to its logical conclusion; but they were people whose minds had +so long been suppressed and terrorized that, once free, they rushed to +extremes. They shocked and horrified even the most advanced Reformation +sects by rejecting Baptism, the doctrine of the Trinity, and all +sacraments, forms, and ceremonies. They represented, on their best +side, the most vigorous effort of the Reformation to return to the +spirituality and the simplicity of the early Christians. But their +intense spirituality, pathetic often in its extreme manifestations, +was not wholly concerned with another world. Their humane ideas and +philanthropic methods, such as the abolition of slavery, and the reform +of prisons and of charitable institutions, came in time to be accepted +as fundamental practical social principles. + +The tendencies of which Quakerism formed only one manifestation appeared +outside of England, in Italy, in France, and especially in Germany. The +fundamental Quaker idea of "quietism," as it was called, or peaceful, +silent contemplation as a spiritual form of worship and as a development +of moral consciousness, was very widespread at the close of the +Reformation and even began to be practiced in the Roman Catholic Church +until it was stopped by the Jesuits. The most extreme of the English +Quakers, however, gave way to such extravagances of conduct as trembling +when they preached (whence their name), preaching openly in the +streets and fields--a horrible thing at that time--interrupting other +congregations, and appearing naked as a sign and warning. They gave +offense by refusing to remove their hats in public and by applying to +all alike the words "thee" and "thou," a form of address hitherto used +only to servants and inferiors. Worst of all, the Quakers refused to +pay tithes or taxes to support the Church of England. As a result, the +loathsome jails of the day were soon filled with these objectors, and +their property melted away in fines. This contumacy and their street +meetings, regarded at that time as riotous breaches of the peace, gave +the Government at first a legal excuse to hunt them down; but as they +grew in numbers and influence, laws were enacted to suppress them. Some +of them, though not the wildest extremists, escaped to the colonies in +America. There, however, they were made welcome to conditions no less +severe. + +The first law against the Quakers in Massachusetts was passed in 1656, +and between that date and 1660 four of the sect were hanged, one of them +a woman, Mary Dyer. Though there were no other hangings, many Quakers +were punished by whipping and banishment. In other colonies, notably New +York, fines and banishment were not uncommon. Such treatment forced the +Quakers, against the will of many of them, to seek a tract of land +and found a colony of their own. To such a course there appeared no +alternative, unless they were determined to establish their religion +solely by martyrdom. + +About the time when the Massachusetts laws were enforced, the principal +Quaker leader and organizer, George Fox (1624-1691), began to consider +the possibility of making a settlement among the great forests and +mountains said to lie north of Maryland in the region drained by the +Delaware and Susquehanna rivers. In this region lay practically the only +good land on the Atlantic seaboard not already occupied. The Puritans +and Dutch were on the north, and there were Catholic and Church of +England colonies on the south in Maryland and Virginia. The middle +ground was unoccupied because heretofore a difficult coast had prevented +easy access by sea. Fox consulted Josiah Coale, a Quaker who had +traveled in America and had seen a good deal of the Indian tribes, with +the result that on his second visit to America Coale was commissioned to +treat with the Susquehanna Indians, who were supposed to have rights in +the desired land. In November, 1660, Coale reported to Fox the result +of his inquiries: "As concerning Friends buying a piece of land of the +Susquehanna Indians I have spoken of it to them and told them what thou +said concerning it; but their answer was, that there is no land that is +habitable or fit for situation beyond Baltimore's liberty till they come +to or near the Susquehanna's Fort." * Nothing could be done immediately, +the letter went on to say, because the Indians were at war with one +another, and William Fuller, a Maryland Quaker, whose cooperation was +deemed essential, was absent. + + + * James Bowden's "History of the Friends in America," vol. I, p. +389 + + +This seems to have been the first definite movement towards a Quaker +colony. Reports of it reached the ears of young Penn at Oxford and set +his imagination aflame. He never forgot the project, for seventeen is an +age when grand thoughts strike home. The adventurousness of the plan was +irresistible--a home for the new faith in the primeval forest, far from +imprisonment, tithes, and persecution, and to be won by effort worthy of +a man. It was, however, a dream destined not to be realized for many a +long year. More was needed than the mere consent of the Indians. In +the meantime, however, a temporary refuge for the sect was found in the +province of West Jersey on the Delaware, which two Quakers had bought +from Lord Berkeley for the comparatively small sum of 1000 pounds. Of +this grant William Penn became one of the trustees and thus gained +his first experience in the business of colonizing the region of his +youthful dreams. But there was never a sufficient governmental control +of West Jersey to make it an ideal Quaker colony. What little control +the Quakers exercised disappeared after 1702; and the land and situation +were not all that could be desired. Penn, though also one of the owners +of East Jersey, made no attempt to turn that region into a Quaker +colony. + +Besides West Jersey the Quakers found a temporary asylum in Aquidneck, +now Rhode Island. * For many years the governors and magistrates were +Quakers, and the affairs of this island colony were largely in their +hands. Quakers were also prominent in the politics of North Carolina, +and John Archdale, a Quaker, was Governor for several years. They formed +a considerable element of the population in the towns of Long Island and +Westchester County but they could not hope to convert these communities +into real Quaker commonwealths. + + + * This Rhode Island colony should be distinguished from the +settlement at Providence founded by Roger Williams with which it was +later united. See Jones, "The Quakers in the American Colonies," p. 21, +note. + + +The experience in the Jerseys and elsewhere very soon proved that if +there was to be a real Quaker colony, the British Crown must give +not only a title to the land but a strong charter guaranteeing +self-government and protection of the Quaker faith from outside +interference. But that the British Government would grant such valued +privileges to a sect of schismatics which it was hunting down in England +seemed a most unlikely event. Nothing but unusual influence at Court +could bring it about, and in that quarter the Quakers had no influence. + +Penn never forgot the boyhood ideal which he had developed at college. +For twenty years he led a varied life--driven from home and whipped by +his father for consorting with the schismatic; sometimes in deference +to his father's wishes taking his place in the gay world at Court; even, +for a time, becoming a soldier, and again traveling in France with some +of the people of the Court. In the end, as he grew older, religious +feeling completely absorbed him. He became one of the leading Quaker +theologians, and his very earnest religious writings fill several +volumes. He became a preacher at the meetings and went to prison for his +heretical doctrines and pamphlets. At last he found himself at the age +of thirty-six with his father dead, and a debt due from the Crown of +16,000 pounds for services which his distinguished father, the admiral, +had rendered the Government. + +Here was the accident that brought into being the great Quaker colony, +by a combination of circumstances which could hardly have happened +twice. Young Penn was popular at Court. He had inherited a valuable +friendship with Charles II and his heir, the Duke of York. This +friendship rested on the solid fact that Penn's father, the admiral, +had rendered such signal assistance in restoring Charles and the whole +Stuart line to the throne. But still 16,000 pounds or $80,000, the +accumulation of many deferred payments, was a goodly sum in those days, +and that the Crown would pay it in money, of which it had none too much, +was unlikely. Why not therefore suggest paying it instead in wild land +in America, of which the Crown had abundance? That was the fruitful +thought which visited Penn. Lord Berkeley and Lord Carteret had been +given New Jersey because they had signally helped to restore the Strait +family to the throne. All the more therefore should the Stuart family +give a tract of land, and even a larger tract, to Penn, whose father +had not only assisted the family to the throne but had refrained so long +from pressing his just claim for money due. + +So the Crown, knowing little of the value of it, granted him the most +magnificent domain of mountains; lakes, rivers, and forests, fertile +soil, coal, petroleum, and iron that ever was given to a single +proprietor. In addition to giving Penn the control of Delaware and, with +certain other Quakers, that of New Jersey as well, the Crown placed +at the disposal of the Quakers 55,000 square miles of most valuable, +fertile territory, lacking only about three thousand square miles of +being as large as England and Wales. Even when cut down to 45,000 square +miles by a boundary dispute with Maryland, it was larger than Ireland. +Kings themselves have possessed such dominions, but never before a +private citizen who scorned all titles and belonged to a hunted sect +that exalted peace and spiritual contemplation above all the wealth and +power of the world. Whether the obtaining of this enormous tract of +the best land in America was due to what may be called the eternal +thriftiness of the Quaker mind or to the intense desire of the British +Government to get rid of these people--at any cost might be hard to +determine. + +Penn received his charter in 1681, and in it he was very careful to +avoid all the mistakes of the Jersey proprietary grants. Instead of +numerous proprietors, Penn was to be the sole proprietor. Instead +of giving title to the land and remaining silent about the political +government, Penn's charter not only gave him title to the land but +a clearly defined position as its political head, and described the +principles of the government so clearly that there was little room for +doubt or dispute. + +It was a decidedly feudal charter, very much like the one granted to +Lord Baltimore fifty years before, and yet at the same time it secured +civil liberty and representative government to the people. Penn owned +all the land and the colonists were to be his tenants. He was compelled, +however, to give his people free government. The laws were to be made by +him with the assent of the people or their delegates. In practice this +of course meant that the people were to elect a legislature and Penn +would have a veto, as we now call it, on such acts as the legislature +should pass. He had power to appoint magistrates, judges, and some other +officers, and to grant pardons. Though, by the charter, proprietor of +the province, he usually remained in England and appointed a deputy +governor to exercise authority in the colony. In modern phrase, +he controlled the executive part of the government and his people +controlled the legislative part. + +Pennsylvania, besides being the largest in area of the proprietary +colonies, was also the most successful, not only from the proprietor's +point of view but also from the point of view of the inhabitants. The +proprietorships in Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and the Carolinas +were largely failures. Maryland was only partially successful; it was +not particularly remunerative to its owner, and the Crown deprived him +of his control of it for twenty years. Penn, too, was deprived of the +control of Pennsylvania by William III but for only about two years. +Except for this brief interval (1692-1694), Penn and his sons after him +held their province down to the time of the American Revolution in 1776, +a period of ninety-four years. + +A feudal proprietorship, collecting rents from all the people, seems +to modern minds grievously wrong in theory, and yet it would be very +difficult to show that it proved onerous in practice. Under it the +people of Pennsylvania flourished in wealth, peace, and happiness. Penn +won undying fame for the liberal principles of his feudal enterprise. +His expenses in England were so great and his quitrents always so much +in arrears that he was seldom out of debt. But his children grew rich +from the province. As in other provinces that were not feudal there were +disputes between the people and the proprietors; but there was not +so much general dissatisfaction as might have been expected. The +proprietors were on the whole not altogether disliked. In the American +Revolution, when the people could have confiscated everything in +Pennsylvania belonging to the proprietary family, they not only +left them in possession of a large part of their land, but paid them +handsomely for the part that was taken. + +After Penn had secured his charter in 1681, he obtained from the Duke of +York the land now included in the State of Delaware. He advertised for +colonists, and began selling land at 100 pounds for five thousand acres +and annually thereafter a shilling quitrent for every hundred acres. He +drew up a constitution or frame of government, as he called it, after +wide and earnest consultation with many, including the famous Algernon +Sydney. Among the Penn papers in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania +is a collection of about twenty preliminary drafts. Beginning with one +which erected a government by a landed aristocracy, they became more +and more liberal, until in the end his frame was very much like the most +liberal government of the other English colonies in America. He had +a council and an assembly, both elected by the people. The council, +however, was very large, had seventy-two members, and was more like +an upper house of the Legislature than the usual colonial governor's +council. The council also had the sole right of proposing legislation, +and the assembly could merely accept or reject its proposals. This was +a new idea, and it worked so badly in practice that in the end the +province went to the opposite extreme and had no council or upper house +of the Legislature at all. + +Penn's frame of government contained, however, a provision for its own +amendment. This was a new idea and proved to be so happy that it is now +found in all American constitutions. His method of impeachment by which +the lower house was to bring in the charge and the upper house was +to try it has also been universally adopted. His view that an +unconstitutional law is void was a step towards our modern system. The +next step, giving the courts power to declare a law unconstitutional, +was not taken until one hundred years after his time. With the advice +and assistance of some of those who were going out to his colony he +prepared a code of laws which contained many of the advanced ideas +of the Quakers. Capital punishment was to be confined to murder and +treason, instead of being applied as in England to a host of minor +offenses. The property of murderers, instead of being forfeited to the +State, was to be divided among the next of kin of the victim and of +the criminal. Religious liberty was established as it had been in Rhode +Island and the Jerseys. All children were to be taught a useful trade. +Oaths in judicial proceedings were not required. All prisons were to +be workhouses and places of reformation instead of dungeons of dirt, +idleness, and disease. This attempt to improve the prisons inaugurated +a movement of great importance in the modern world in which the part +played by the Quakers is too often forgotten. + +Penn had now started his "Holy Experiment," as he called his enterprise +in Pennsylvania, by which he intended to prove that religious liberty +was not only right, but that agriculture, commerce, and all arts and +refinements of life would flourish under it. He would break the delusion +that prosperity and morals were possible only under some one particular +faith established by law. He, would prove that government could +be carried on without war and without oaths, and that primitive +Christianity could be maintained without a hireling ministry, without +persecution, without ridiculous dogmas or ritual, sustained only by its +own innate power and the inward light. + + + +Chapter II. Penn Sails For The Delaware + +The framing of the constitution and other preparations consumed the year +following Penn's receipt of his charter in 1681. But at last, on +August 30, 1682, he set sail in the ship Welcome, with about a hundred +colonists. After a voyage of about six weeks, and the loss of thirty of +their number by smallpox, they arrived in the Delaware. June would have +been a somewhat better month in which to see the rich luxuriance of +the green meadows and forests of this beautiful river. But the autumn +foliage and bracing air of October must have been inspiring enough. +The ship slowly beat her way for three days up the bay and river in +the silence and romantic loneliness of its shores. Everything indicated +richness and fertility. At some points the lofty trees of the primeval +forest grew down to the water's edge. The river at every high tide +overflowed great meadows grown up in reeds and grasses and red and +yellow flowers, stretching back to the borders of the forest and full +of water birds and wild fowl of every variety. Penn, now in the prime of +life, must surely have been aroused by this scene and by the reflection +that the noble river was his and the vast stretches of forests and +mountains for three hundred miles to the westward. + +He was soon ashore, exploring the edge of his mighty domain, settling +his government, and passing his laws. He was much pleased with the +Swedes whom he found on his land. He changed the name of the little +Swedish village of Upland, fifteen miles below Philadelphia, to Chester. +He superintended laying out the streets of Philadelphia and they remain +to this day substantially as he planned them, though unfortunately too +narrow and monotonously regular. He met the Indians at Philadelphia, sat +with them at their fires, ate their roasted corn, and when to amuse him +they showed him some of their sports and games he renewed his college +days by joining them in a jumping match. + +Then he started on journeys. He traveled through the woods to New York, +which then belonged to the Duke of York, who had given him Delaware; he +visited the Long Island Quakers; and on his return he went to Maryland +to meet with much pomp and ceremony Lord Baltimore and there discuss +with him the disputed boundary. He even crossed to the eastern shore of +the Chesapeake to visit a Quaker meeting on the Choptank before winter +set in, and he describes the immense migration of wild pigeons at +that season, and the ducks which flew so low and were so tame that the +colonists knocked them down with sticks. + +Most of the winter he spent at Chester and wrote to England in high +spirits of his journeys, the wonders of the country, the abundance of +game and provisions, and the twenty-three ships which had arrived so +swiftly that few had taken longer than six weeks, and only three had +been infected with the smallpox. "Oh how sweet," he says, "is the quiet +of these parts, freed from the anxious and troublesome solicitations, +hurries and perplexities of woful Europe." + +As the weeks and months passed, ships kept arriving with more Quakers, +far exceeding the migration to the Jerseys. By summer, Penn reported +that 50 sail had arrived within the past year, 80 houses had been built +in Philadelphia, and about 300 farms had been laid out round the town. +It is supposed that about 8000 immigrants had arrived. This was a +more rapid development than was usual in the colonies of America. +Massachusetts and Virginia had been established slowly and with much +privation and suffering. But the settlement of Philadelphia was like a +summer outing. There were no dangers, the hardships were trifling, and +there was no sickness or famine. There was such an abundance of game +close at hand that hunger and famine were in nowise to be feared. The +climate was good and the Indians, kindly treated, remained friendly for +seventy years. + +It is interesting to note that in that same year, 1682, in which Penn +and his friends with such ease and comfort founded their great colony +on the Delaware, the French explorers and voyageurs from Canada, after +years of incredible hardships, had traversed the northern region of the +Great Lakes with their canoes and had passed down the Mississippi to its +mouth, giving to the whole of the Great West the name of Louisiana, and +claiming it for France. Already La Salle had taken his fleet of canoes +down the Mississippi River and had placed the arms of France on a post +at its mouth in April, 1682, only a few months before Penn reached +his newly acquired colony. Thus in the same year in which the Quakers +established in Pennsylvania their reign of liberty and of peace with +the red men, La Salle was laying the foundation of the western empire of +despotic France, which seventy years afterwards was to hurl the savages +upon the English colonies, to wreck the Quaker policy of peace, but to +fail in the end to maintain itself against the free colonies of England. + +While they were building houses in Philadelphia, the settlers lived in +bark huts or in caves dug in the river bank, as the early settlers +in New Jersey across the river had lived. Pastorius, a learned German +Quaker, who had come out with the English, placed over the door of his +cave the motto, "Parva domus, sed amica bonis, procul este profani," +which much amused Penn when he saw it. A certain Mrs. Morris was much +exercised one day as to how she could provide supper in the cave for +her husband who was working on the construction of their house. But on +returning to her cave she found that her cat had just brought in a fine +rabbit. In their later prosperous years they had a picture of the cat +and the rabbit made on a box which has descended as a family heirloom. +Doubtless there were preserved many other interesting reminiscences of +the brief camp life. These Quakers were all of the thrifty, industrious +type which had gone to West Jersey a few years before. Men of means, +indeed, among the Quakers were the first to seek refuge from the fines +and confiscations imposed upon them in England. They brought with them +excellent supplies of everything. Many of the ships carried the frames +of houses ready to put together. But substantial people of this +sort demanded for the most part houses of brick, with stone cellars. +Fortunately both brick clay and stone were readily obtainable in the +neighborhood, and whatever may have been the case in other colonies, +ships loaded with brick from England would have found it little to their +profit to touch at Philadelphia. An early description says that the +brick houses in Philadelphia were modeled on those of London, and this +type prevailed for nearly two hundred years. + +It was probably in June, 1683, that Penn made his famous treaty with +the Indians. No documentary proof of the existence of such a treaty has +reached us. He made, indeed, a number of so-called treaties, which +were really only purchases of land involving oral promises between the +principals to treat each other fairly. Hundreds of such treaties have +been made. The remarkable part about Penn's dealings with the Indians +was that such promises as he made he kept. The other Quakers, too, were +as careful as Penn in their honorable treatment of the red men. +Quaker families of farmers and settlers lived unarmed among them for +generations and, when absent from home, left children in their care. The +Indians, on their part, were known to have helped white families with +food in winter time. Penn, on his first visit to the colony, made a long +journey unarmed among the Indians as far as the Susquehanna, saw the +great herds of elk on that river, lived in Indian wigwams, and learned +much of the language and customs of the natives. There need never be any +trouble with them, he said. They were the easiest people in the world to +get on with if the white men would simply be just. Penn's fair treatment +of the Indians kept Pennsylvania at peace with them for about seventy +years--in fact, from 1682 until the outbreak of the French and Indian +Wars, in 1755. In its critical period of growth, Pennsylvania was +therefore not at all harassed or checked by those Indian hostilities +which were such a serious impediment in other colonies. + +The two years of Penn's first visit were probably the happiest of his +life. Always fond of the country, he built himself a fine seat on +the Delaware near Bristol, and it would have been better for him, and +probably also for the colony, if he had remained there. But he thought +he had duties in England: his family needed him; he must defend +his people from the religious oppression still prevailing; and Lord +Baltimore had gone to England to resist him in the boundary dispute. One +of the more narrow-minded of his faith wrote to Penn from England that +he was enjoying himself too much in his colony and seeking his own +selfish interest. Influenced by all these considerations, he returned +in August, 1684, and it was long before he saw Pennsylvania again--not, +indeed, until October, 1699, and then for only two years. + + + +Chapter III. Life In Philadelphia + +The rapid increase of population and the growing prosperity in +Pennsylvania during the life of its founder present a striking contrast +to the slower and more troubled growth of the other British colonies +in America. The settlers in Pennsylvania engaged at once in profitable +agriculture. The loam, clay, and limestone soils on the Pennsylvania +tide of the Delaware produced heavy crops of grain, as well as pasture +for cattle and valuable lumber from its forests. The Pennsylvania +settlers were of a class particularly skilled in dealing with the soil. +They apparently encountered none of the difficulties, due probably to +incompetent farming, which beset the settlers of Delaware, whose land +was as good as that of the Pennsylvania colonists. + +In a few years the port of Philadelphia was loading abundant cargoes for +England and the great West India trade. After much experimenting with +different places on the river, such as New Castle, Wilmington, Salem, +Burlington, the Quakers had at last found the right location for a great +seat of commerce and trade that could serve as a center for the export +of everything from the region behind it and around it. Philadelphia thus +soon became the basis of a prosperity which no other townsite on the +Delaware had been able to attain. The Quakers of Philadelphia were the +soundest of financiers and men of business, and in their skillful hands +the natural resources of their colony were developed without setback +or accident. At an early date banking institutions were established in +Philadelphia, and the strongest colonial merchants and mercantile firms +had their offices there. It was out of such a sound business life that +were produced in Revolutionary times such characters as Robert Morris +and after the Revolution men like Stephen Girard. + +Pennsylvania in colonial times was ruled from Philadelphia somewhat as +France has always been ruled from Paris. And yet there was a difference: +Pennsylvania had free government. The Germans and the Scotch-Irish +outnumbered the Quakers and could have controlled the Legislature, +for in 1750 out of a population of 150,000 the Quakers were only about +50,000; and yet the Legislature down to the Revolution was always +confided to the competent hands of the Quakers. No higher tribute, +indeed, has ever been paid to any group of people as governors of a +commonwealth and architects of its finance and trade. + +It is a curious commentary on the times and on human nature that these +Quaker folk, treated as outcasts and enemies of good order and religion +in England and gradually losing all their property in heavy fines and +confiscations, should so suddenly in the wilderness prove the capacity +of their "Holy Experiment" for achieving the best sort of good order and +material success. They immediately built a most charming little town +by the waterside, snug and pretty with its red brick houses in the best +architectural style. It was essentially a commercial town down to the +time of the Revolution and long afterwards. The principal residences +were on Water Street, the second street from the wharves. The town in +those days extended back only as far as Fourth Street, and the State +House, now Independence Hall, an admirable instance of the local brick +architecture, stood on the edge of the town. The Pennsylvania Hospital, +the first institution of its kind to be built in America, was situated +out in the fields. + +Through the town ran a stream following the line of the present Dock +Street. Its mouth had been a natural landing place for the first +explorers and for the Indians from time immemorial. Here stood a neat +tavern, the Blue Anchor, with its dovecotes in old English style, +looking out for many a year over the river with its fleet of small +boats. Along the wharves lay the very solid, broad, somber, Quaker-like +brick warehouses, some of which have survived into modern times. +Everywhere were to be found ships and the good seafaring smell of tar +and hemp. Ships were built and fitted out alongside docks where other +ships were lading. A privateer would receive her equipment of guns, +pistols, and cutlasses on one side of a wharf, while on the other side +a ship was peacefully loading wheat or salted provisions for the West +Indies. + +Everybody's attention in those days was centered on the water instead of +inland on railroads as it is today. Commerce was the source of wealth of +the town as agriculture was the wealth of the interior of the province. +Every one lived close to the river and had an interest in the rise and +fall of the tide. The little town extended for a mile along the water +but scarcely half a mile back from it. All communication with other +places, all news from the world of Europe came from the ships, whose +captains brought the letters and the few newspapers which reached +the colonists. An important ship on her arrival often fired a gun and +dropped anchor with some ceremony. Immediately the shore boats swarmed +to her side; the captain was besieged for news and usually brought the +letters ashore to be distributed at the coffeehouse. This institution +took the place of the modern stock exchange, clearing house, newspaper, +university, club, and theater all under one roof, with plenty to eat and +drink besides. Within its rooms vessels and cargoes were sold; before +its door negro slaves were auctioned off; and around it as a +common center were brought together all sorts of business, valuable +information, gossip, and scandal. It must have been a brilliant scene +in the evening, with the candles lighting embroidered red and yellow +waistcoats, blue and scarlet Coats, green and black velvet, with the +rich drab and mouse color of the prosperous Quakers contrasting with the +uniforms of British officers come to fight the French and Indian wars. +Sound, as well as color, had its place in this busy and happy colonial +life. Christ Church, a brick building which still stands the perfection +of colonial architecture had been established by the Church of England +people defiantly in the midst of heretical Quakerdom. It soon possessed +a chime of bells sent out from England. Captain Budden, who brought them +in his ship Myrtilla, would charge no freight for so charitable a deed, +and in consequence of his generosity every time he and his ship appeared +in the harbor the bells were rung in his honor. They were rung on market +days to please the farmers who came into town with their wagons loaded +with poultry and vegetables. They were rung muffled in times of public +disaster and were kept busy in that way in the French and Indian wars. +They were also rung muffled for Franklin when it was learned that while +in London he had favored the Stamp Act--a means of expressing popular +opinion which the newspapers subsequently put out of date. + +The severe Quaker code of conduct and peaceful contemplation contains no +prohibition against good eating and drinking. Quakers have been known to +have the gout. The opportunities in Philadelphia to enjoy the pleasures +of the table were soon unlimited. Farm, garden, and dairy products, +vegetables, poultry, beef, and mutton were soon produced in immense +quantity and variety and of excellent quality. John Adams, coming from +the "plain living and high thinking" of Boston to attend the first +meeting of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, was invited to dine +with Stephen Collins, a typical Quaker, and was amazed at the feast set +before him. From that time his diary records one after another of these +"sinful feasts," as he calls them. But the sin at which he thus looks +askance never seems to have withheld him from a generous indulgence. +"Drank Madeira at a great rate," he says on one occasion, "and took no +harm from it." Madeira obtained in the trade with Spain was the popular +drink even at the taverns. Various forms of punch and rum were common, +but the modern light wines and champagne were not then in vogue. + +Food in great quantity and variety seems to have been placed on the +table at the same time, with little regard to formal courses. Beef, +poultry, and mutton would all be served at one dinner. Fruit and nuts +were placed on the table in profusion, as well as puddings and desserts +numerous and deadly. Dinners were served usually in the afternoon. The +splendid banquet which Adams describes as given to some members of the +Continental Congress by Chief Justice Chew at his country seat was held +at four in the afternoon. The dinner hour was still in the afternoon +long after the Revolution and down to the times of the Civil War. Other +relics of this old love of good living lasted into modern times. It +was not so very long ago that an occasional householder of wealth and +distinction in Philadelphia could still be found who insisted on doing +his own marketing in the old way, going himself the first thing in the +morning on certain days to the excellent markets and purchasing all the +family supplies. Philadelphia poultry is still famous the country over; +and to be a good judge of poultry was in the old days as much a point of +merit as to be a good judge of Madeira. A typical Philadelphian, envious +New Yorkers say, will still keep a line of depositors waiting at a bank +while he discourses to the receiving teller on what a splendid purchase +of poultry he had made that morning. Early in the last century a wealthy +leader of the bar is said to have continued the old practice of going +to market followed by a negro with a wheelbarrow to bring back the +supplies. Not content with feasting in their own homes, the colonial +Philadelphians were continually banqueting at the numerous taverns, from +the Coach and Horses, opposite the State House, down to the Penny +Pot Inn close by the river. At the Coach and Horses, where the city +elections were usually held, the discarded oyster shells around it had +been trampled into a hard white and smooth floor over which surged the +excited election crowds. In those taverns the old fashion prevailed of +roasting great joints of meat on a turnspit before an open fire; and to +keep the spit turning before the heat little dogs were trained to work +in a sort of treadmill cage. + +In nothing is this colonial prosperity better revealed than in the +quality of the country seats. They were usually built of stone and +sometimes of brick and stone, substantial, beautifully proportioned, +admirable in taste, with a certain simplicity, yet indicating a people +of wealth, leisure, and refinement, who believed in themselves and +took pleasure in adorning their lives. Not a few of these homes on +the outskirts of the city have come down to us unharmed, and Cliveden, +Stenton, and Belmont are precious relics of such solid structure +that with ordinary care they will still last for centuries. Many were +destroyed during the Revolution; others, such as Landsdowne, the seat +of one of the Penn family, built in the Italian style, have disappeared; +others were wiped out by the city's growth. All of them, even the small +ones, were most interesting and typical of the life of the times. The +colonists began to build them very early. A family would have a solid, +brick town house and, only a mile or so away, a country house which +was equally substantial. Sometimes they built at a greater distance. +Governor Keith, for example, had a country seat, still standing though +built in the middle of the eighteenth century, some twenty-five miles +north of the city in what was then almost a wilderness. + +Penn's ideal had always been to have Philadelphia what he called "a +green country town." Probably he had in mind the beautiful English towns +of abundant foliage and open spaces. And Penn was successful, for many +of the Philadelphia houses stood by themselves, with gardens round them. +The present Walnut was first called Pool Street; Chestnut was called +Winn Street; and Market was called High Street. If he could have +foreseen the enormous modern growth of the city, he might not have made +his streets so narrow and level. But the fault lies perhaps rather with +the people for adhering so rigidly and for so long to Penn's scheme, +when traffic that he could not have imagined demanded wider streets. +If he could have lived into our times he would surely have sent us very +positive directions in his bluff British way to break up the original +rectangular, narrow plan which was becoming dismally monotonous when +applied to a widely spread-out modern city. He was a theologian, but he +had a very keen eye for appearances and beauty of surroundings. + + + +Chapter IV. Types Of The Population + +The arrival of colonists in Pennsylvania in greater numbers than in +Delaware and the Jerseys was the more notable because, within a few +years after Pennsylvania was founded, persecution of the Quakers ceased +in England and one prolific cause of their migration was no more. +Thirteen hundred Quakers were released from prison in 1686 by James +II; and in 1689, when William of Orange took the throne, toleration was +extended to the Quakers and other Protestant dissenters. + +The success of the first Quakers who came to America brought others +even after persecution ceased in England. The most numerous class of +immigrants for the first fifteen or twenty years were Welsh, most of +whom were Quakers with a few Baptists and Church of England people. They +may have come not so much from a desire to flee from persecution as to +build up a little Welsh community and to revive Welsh nationalism. In +their new surroundings they spoke their own Welsh language and very few +of them had learned English. They had been encouraged in their national +aspirations by an agreement with Penn that they were to have a tract of +40,000 acres where they could live by themselves. The land assigned to +them lay west of Philadelphia in that high ridge along the present main +line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, now so noted for its wealthy suburban +homes. All the important names of townships and places in that region, +such as Wynnewood, St. Davids, Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, Merion, Haverford, +Radnor, are Welsh in origin. Some of the Welsh spread round to the north +of Philadelphia, where names like Gwynedd and Penllyn remain as their +memorials. The Chester Valley bordering the high ridge of their first +settlement they called Duffrin Mawr or Great Valley. + +These Welsh, like so many of the Quakers, were of a well-to-do class. +They rapidly developed their fertile land and, for pioneers, lived quite +luxuriously. They had none of the usual county and township officers +but ruled their Welsh Barony, as it was called, through the authority of +their Quaker meetings. But this system eventually disappeared. The +Welsh were absorbed into the English population, and in a couple of +generations their language disappeared. Prominent people are descended +from them. David Rittenhouse, the astronomer, was Welsh on his mother's +side. David Lloyd, for a long time the leader of the popular party and +at one time Chief Justice, was a Welshman. Since the Revolution the +Welsh names of Cadwalader and Meredith have been conspicuous. + +The Church of England people formed a curious and decidedly hostile +element in the early population of Pennsylvania. They established +themselves in Philadelphia in the beginning and rapidly grew into a +political party which, while it cannot be called very strong in numbers, +was important in ability and influence. After Penn's death, his sons +joined the Church of England, and the Churchmen in the province became +still stronger. They formed the basis of the proprietary party, filled +executive offices in the Government, and waged relentless war against +the Quaker majority which controlled the Legislature. During Penn's +lifetime the Churchmen were naturally opposed to the whole government, +both executive and legislative. They were constantly sending home to +England all sorts of reports and information calculated to show that the +Quakers were unfit to rule a province, that Penn should be deprived of +his charter, and that Pennsylvania should be put under the direct rule +of the King. + +They had delightful schemes for making it a strong Church of England +colony like Virginia. One of them suggested that, as the title to the +Three Lower Counties, as Delaware was called, was in dispute, it should +be taken by the Crown and given to the Church as a manor to support +a bishop. Such an ecclesiastic certainly could have lived in princely +state from the rents of its fertile farms, with a palace, retinue, +chamberlains, chancellors, feudal courts, and all the appendages of +earthly glory. For the sake of the picturesqueness of colonial history +it is perhaps a pity that this pious plan was never carried out. + +As it was, however, the Churchmen established themselves with not a +little glamour and romance round two institutions, Christ Church for the +first fifty years, and after that round the old College of Philadelphia. +The Reverend William Smith, a pugnacious and eloquent Scotchman, led +them in many a gallant onset against the "haughty tribe" of Quakers, and +he even suffered imprisonment in the cause. He had a country seat on +the Schuylkill and was in his way a fine character, devoted to the +establishment of ecclesiasticism and higher learning as a bulwark +against the menace of Quaker fanaticism; and but for the coming on of +the Revolution he might have become the first colonial bishop with all +the palaces, pomp, and glory appertaining thereunto. + +In spite of this opposition, however, the Quakers continued their +control of the colony, serenely tolerating the anathemas of the +learned Churchmen and the fierce curses and brandished weapons of the +Presbyterians and Scotch-Irish. Curses and anathemas were no check +to the fertile soil. Grist continued to come to the mill; and the +agricultural products poured into Philadelphia to be carried away in the +ships. The contemplative Quaker took his profits as they passed; enacted +his liberalizing laws, his prison reform, his charities, his peace with +the savage Indians; allowed science, research, and all the kindly arts +of life to flourish; and seemed perfectly contented with the damnation +in the other world to which those who flourished under his rule +consigned him. + +In discussing the remarkable success of the province, the colonists +always disputed whether the credit should be given to the fertile soil +or to the liberal laws and constitution. It was no doubt due to +both. But the obvious advantages of Penn's charter over the mixed and +troublesome governmental conditions in the Jerseys, Penn's personal fame +and the repute of the Quakers for liberalism then at its zenith, and the +wide advertising given to their ideas and Penn's, on the continent of +Europe as well as in England, seem to have been the reasons why more +people, and many besides Quakers, came to take advantage of that fertile +soil. + +The first great increase of alien population came from Germany, which +was still in a state of religious turmoil, disunion, and depression from +the results of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War. The reaction +from dogma in Germany had produced a multitude of sects, all yearning +for greater liberty and prosperity than they had at home. Penn and other +Quakers had made missionary tours in Germany and had preached to the +people. The Germans do not appear to have been asked to come to the +Jerseys. But they were urged to come to Pennsylvania as soon as the +charter was obtained; and many of them made an immediate response. The +German mind was then at the height of its emotional unrestraint. It was +as unaccustomed to liberty of thought as to political liberty and it +produced a new sect or religious distinction almost every day. Many +of these sects came to Pennsylvania, where new small religious bodies +sprang up among them after their arrival. Schwenkfelders, Tunkers, +Labadists, New Born, New Mooners, Separatists, Zion's Brueder, +Ronsdorfer, Inspired, Quietists, Gichtelians, Depellians, Mountain Men, +River Brethren, Brinser Brethren, and the Society of the Woman in the +Wilderness, are names which occur in the annals of the province. But +these are only a few. In Lancaster County alone the number has at +different times been estimated at from twenty to thirty. It would +probably be impossible to make a complete list; some of them, indeed, +existed for only a few years. Their own writers describe them as +countless and bewildering. Many of them were characterized by the +strangest sort of German mysticism, and some of them were inclined to +monastic and hermit life and their devotees often lived in caves or +solitary huts in the woods. + +It would hardly be accurate to call all the German sects Quakers, since +a great deal of their mysticism would have been anything but congenial +to the followers of Fox and Penn. Resemblances to Quaker doctrine can, +however, be found among many of them; and there was one large sect, +the Mennonites, who were often spoken of as German Quakers. The two +divisions fraternized and preached in each other's meetings. The +Mennonites were well educated as a class and Pastorius, their leader, +was a ponderously learned German. Most of the German sects left the +Quakers in undisturbed possession of Philadelphia, and spread out into +the surrounding region, which was then a wilderness. They and all the +other Germans who afterwards followed them settled in a half circle +beginning at Easton on the Delaware, passing up the Lehigh Valley into +Lancaster County, thence across the Susquehanna and down the Cumberland +Valley to the Maryland border, which many of them crossed, and in time +scattered far to the south in Virginia and even North Carolina, where +their descendants are still found. + +These German sects which came over under the influence of Penn and the +Quakers, between the years 1682 and 1702, formed a class by themselves. +Though they may be regarded as peculiar in their ideas and often in +their manner of life, it cannot be denied that as a class they were a +well-educated, thrifty, and excellent people and far superior to the +rough German peasants who followed them in later years. This latter +class was often spoken of in Pennsylvania as "the church people," to +distinguish them from "the sects," as those of the earlier migration +were called. + +The church people, or peasantry of the later migration, belonged usually +to one of the two dominant churches of Germany, the Lutheran or +the Reformed. Those of the Reformed Church were often spoken of as +Calvinists. This migration of the church people was not due to the +example of the Quakers but was the result of a new policy which was +adopted by the British Government when Queen Anne ascended the throne +in 1702, and which aimed at keeping the English people at home and at +filling the English colonies in America with foreign Protestants hostile +to France and Spain. + +Large numbers of these immigrants were "redemptioners," as they were +called; that is to say, they were persons who had been obliged to sell +themselves to the shipping agents to pay for their passage. On their +arrival in Pennsylvania the captain sold them to the colonists to pay +the passage, and the redemptioner had to work for his owner for a period +varying from five to ten years. No stigma or disgrace clung to any of +these people under this system. It was regarded as a necessary business +transaction. Not a few of the very respectable families of the State and +some of its prominent men are known to be descended from redemptioners. + +This method of transporting colonists proved a profitable trade for +the shipping people, and was soon regularly organized like the modern +assisted immigration. Agents, called "newlanders" and "soul-sellers," +traveled through Germany working up the transatlantic traffic by various +devices, some of them not altogether creditable. Pennsylvania proved to +be the most attractive region for these immigrants. Some of those who +were taken to other colonies finally worked their way to Pennsylvania. +Practically none went to New England, and very few, if any, to Virginia. +Indeed, only certain colonies were willing to admit them. + +Another important element that went to make up the Pennsylvania +population consisted of the Scotch-Irish. They were descendants of +Scotch and English Presbyterians who had gone to Ireland to take up the +estates of the Irish rebels confiscated under Queen Elizabeth and James +I. This migration of Protestants to Ireland, which began soon after +1600, was encouraged by the English Government. Towards the middle +of the seventeenth century the confiscation of more Irish land under +Cromwell's regime increased the migration to Ulster. Many English joined +the migration, and Scotch of the Lowlands who were largely of English +extraction, although there were many Gaelic or Celtic names among them. + +These are the people usually known in English history as Ulstermen--the +same who made such a heroic defense of Londonderry against James II, and +the same who in modern times have resisted home rule in Ireland because +it would bury them, they believe, under the tyranny of their old +enemies, the native Irish Catholic majority. They were more thrifty and +industrious than the native Irish and as a result they usually prospered +on the Irish land. At first they were in a more or less constant state +of war with the native Irish, who attempted to expel them. They were +subsequently persecuted by the Church of England under Charles I, who +attempted to force them to conform to the English established religion. +Such a rugged schooling in Ireland made of them a very aggressive, hardy +people, Protestants of the Protestants, so accustomed to contests and +warfare that they accepted it as the natural state of man. + +These Ulstermen came to Pennsylvania somewhat later than the first +German sects; and not many of them arrived until some years after 1700. +They were not, like the first Germans, attracted to the colony by any +resemblance of their religion to that of the Quakers. On the contrary +they were entirely out of sympathy with the Quakers, except in the +one point of religious liberty; and the Quakers were certainly out of +sympathy with them. Nearly all the colonies in America received a share +of these settlers. Wherever they went they usually sought the frontier +and the wilderness; and by the time of the Revolution, they could be +found upon the whole colonial frontier from New Hampshire to Georgia. +They were quite numerous in Virginia, and most numerous along the edge +of the Pennsylvania wilderness. It was apparently the liberal laws +and the fertile soil that drew them to Pennsylvania in spite of their +contempt for most of the Quaker doctrines. + +The dream of their life, their haven of rest, was for these Scotch-Irish +a fertile soil where they would find neither Irish "papists" nor Church +of England; and for this reason in America they always sought the +frontier where they could be by themselves. They could not even get on +well with the Germans in Pennsylvania; and when the Germans crowded +into their frontier settlements, quarrels became so frequent that the +proprietors asked the Ulstermen to move farther west, a suggestion which +they were usually quite willing to accept. At the close of the colonial +period in Pennsylvania the Quakers, the Church of England people, and +the miscellaneous denominations occupied Philadelphia and the region +round it in a half circle from the Delaware River. Outside of this +area lay another containing the Germans, and beyond that were the +Scotch-Irish. The principal stronghold of the Scotch-Irish was the +Cumberland Valley in Southern Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna, a +region now containing the flourishing towns of Chambersburg, Gettysburg, +Carlisle, and York, where the descendants of these early settlers are +still very numerous. In modern times, however, they have spread out +widely; they are now to be found all over the State, and they no longer +desire so strongly to live by themselves. + +The Ulstermen, owing to the circumstances of their earlier life, had no +sympathy whatever with the Quaker's objection to war or with his +desire to deal fairly with the Indians and pay them for their land. As +Presbyterians and Calvinists, they belonged to one of the older and more +conservative divisions of the Reformation. The Quaker's doctrine of the +inward light, his quietism, contemplation, and advanced ideas were quite +incomprehensible to them. As for the Indians, they held that the Old +Testament commands the destruction of all the heathen; and as for paying +the savages for their land, it seemed ridiculous to waste money on such +an object when they could exterminate the natives at less cost. The +Ulstermen, therefore, settled on the Indian land as they pleased, or for +that matter on any land, and were continually getting into difficulty +with the Pennsylvania Government no less than with the Indians. They +regarded any region into which they entered as constituting a sovereign +state. It was this feeling of independence which subsequently prompted +them to organize what is known as the Whisky Rebellion when, after the +Revolution, the Federal Government put a tax on the liquor which they +so much esteemed as a product, for corn converted into whisky was more +easily transported on horses over mountain trails, and in that form +fetched a better price in the markets. + +After the year 1755, when the Quaker method of dealing with the Indians +no longer prevailed, the Scotch-Irish lived on the frontier in a +continual state of savage warfare which lasted for the next forty years. +War, hunting the abundant game, the deer, buffalo, and elk, and some +agriculture filled the measure of their days and years. They paid little +attention to the laws of the province, which were difficult to enforce +on the distant frontier, and they administered a criminal code of their +own with whipping or "laced jacket," as they called it, as a punishment. +They were Jacks of all trades, weaving their own cloth and making nearly +everything they needed. They were the first people in America to develop +the use of the rifle, and they used it in the Back Country all the +way down into the Carolinas at a time when it was seldom seen in the +seaboard settlements. In those days, rifles were largely manufactured +in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and there were several famous gunsmiths in +Philadelphia. Some of the best of these old rifles have been preserved +and are really beautiful weapons, with delicate hair triggers, +gracefully curved stocks, and quaint brass or even gold or silver +mountings. The ornamentation was often done by the hunter himself, who +would melt a gold or silver coin and pour it into some design which he +had carved with his knife in the stock. + +The Revolution offered an opportunity after the Ulstermen's heart, +and they entered it with their entire spirit, as they had every other +contest which involved liberty and independence. In fact, in that period +they played such a conspicuous part that they almost ruled Philadelphia, +the original home of the Quakers. Since then, spread out through the +State, they have always had great influence, the natural result of their +energy, intelligence, and love of education. + +Nearly all these diverse elements of the Pennsylvania population were +decidedly sectional in character. The Welsh had a language of their own, +and they attempted, though without success, to maintain it, as well as +a government of their own within their barony independent of the regular +government of the province. The Germans were also extremely sectional. +They clung with better success to their own language, customs, and +literature. The Scotch-Irish were so clannish that they had ideas of +founding a separate province on the Susquehanna. Even the Church of +England people were so aloof and partisan that, though they lived about +Philadelphia among the Quakers, they were extremely hostile to the +Quaker rule and unremittingly strove to destroy it. + +All these cleavages and divisions in the population continue in their +effects to this day. They prevented the development of a homogeneous +population. No exact statistics were taken of the numbers of the +different nationalities in colonial times; but Franklin's estimate is +probably fairly accurate, and his position in practical politics gave +him the means of knowing and of testing his calculations. About the year +1750 he estimated the population as one-third Quaker, one-third German, +and one-third miscellaneous. This gave about 50,000 or 60,000 to each of +the thirds. Provost Smith, of the newly founded college, estimated the +Quakers at only about 40,000. But his estimate seems too low. He was +interested in making out their numbers small because he was trying +to show the absurdity of allowing such a small band of fanatics and +heretics to rule a great province of the British Empire. One great +source of the Quaker power lay in the sympathy of the Germans, who +always voted on their side and kept them in control of the Legislature, +so that it was in reality a case of two-thirds ruling one-third. The +Quakers, it must be admitted, never lost their heads. Unperturbed +through all the conflicts and the jarring of races and sects, they held +their position unimpaired and kept the confidence and support of the +Germans until the Revolution changed everything. + +The varied elements of population spread out in ever widening half +circles from Philadelphia as a center. There was nothing in the +character of the region to stop this progress. The country all the way +westward to the Susquehanna was easy hill, dale, and valley, covered +by a magnificent growth of large forest trees--oaks, beeches, poplars, +walnuts, hickories, and ash--which rewarded the labor of felling by +exposing to cultivation a most fruitful soil. + +The settlers followed the old Indian trails. The first westward +pioneers seem to have been the Welsh Quakers, who pushed due west from +Philadelphia and marked out the course of the famous Lancaster Road, +afterwards the Lancaster Turnpike. It took the line of least resistance +along the old trail, following ridges until it reached the Susquehanna +at a spot where an Indian trader, named Harris, established himself and +founded a post which subsequently became Harrisburg, the capital of the +State. + +For a hundred years the Lancaster Road was the great highway westward, +at first to the mountains, then to the Ohio, and finally to the +Mississippi Valley and the Great West. Immigrants and pioneers from all +the New England and Middle States flocked out that way to the land of +promise in wagons, or horseback, or trudging along on foot. Substantial +taverns grew up along the route; and habitual freighters and stage +drivers, proud of their fine teams of horses, grew into characters of +the road. When the Pennsylvania Railroad was built, it followed the same +line. In fact, most of the lines of railroad in the State follow Indian +trails. The trails for trade and tribal intercourse led east and west. +The warrior trails usually led north and south, for that had long been +the line of strategy and conquest of the tribes. The northern tribes, +or Six Nations, established in the lake region of New York near the +headwaters of the Delaware, the Susquehanna, and the Ohio, had the +advantage of these river valleys for descending into the whole Atlantic +seaboard and the valley of the Mississippi. They had in consequence +conquered all the tribes south of them as far even as the Carolinas and +Georgia. All their trails of conquest led across Pennsylvania. + +The Germans in their expansion at first seem to have followed up the +Schuylkill Valley and its tributaries, and they hold this region to the +present day. Gradually they crossed the watershed to the Susquehanna and +broke into the region of the famous limestone soil in Lancaster County, +a veritable farmer's paradise from which nothing will ever drive them. +Many Quaker farmers penetrated north and northeast from Philadelphia +into Bucks County, a fine rolling and hilly wheat and corn region, +where their descendants are still found and whence not a few well-known +Philadelphia families have come. + +The Quaker government of Pennsylvania in almost a century of its +existence largely fulfilled its ideals. It did not succeed in governing +without war; but the war was not its fault. It did succeed in governing +without oaths. An affirmation instead of an oath became the law of +Pennsylvania for all who chose an affirmation; and this law was soon +adopted by most American communities. It succeeded in establishing +religious liberty in Pennsylvania in the fullest sense of the word. It +brought Christianity nearer to its original simplicity and made it less +superstitious and cruel. + +The Quakers had always maintained that it was a mistake to suppose that +their ideas would interfere with material prosperity and happiness; +and they certainly proved their contention in Pennsylvania. To Quaker +liberalism was due not merely the material prosperity, but prison reform +and the notable public charities of Pennsylvania; in both of which +activities, as in the abolition of slavery, the Quakers were leaders. +Original research in science also flourished in a marked degree in +colonial Pennsylvania. No one in those days knew the nature of thunder +and lightning, and the old explanation that they were the voice of an +angry God was for many a sufficient explanation. Franklin, by a long +series of experiments in the free Quaker colony, finally proved in 1752 +that lightning was electricity, that is to say, a manifestation of +the same force that is produced when glass is rubbed with buckskin. He +invented the lightning rod, discovered the phenomenon of positive and +negative electricity, explained the action of the Leyden jar, and was +the first American writer on the modern science of political economy. +This energetic citizen of Pennsylvania spent a large part of his life +in research; he studied the Gulf Stream, storms and their causes, +waterspouts, whirlwinds; and he established the fact that the northeast +storms of the Atlantic coast usually move against the wind. + +But Franklin was not the only scientist in the colony. Besides his three +friends, Kinnersley, Hopkinson, and Syng, who worked with him and helped +him in his discoveries, there were David Rittenhouse, the astronomer, +John Bartram, the botanist, and a host of others. Rittenhouse excelled +in every undertaking which required the practical application of +astronomy, He attracted attention even in Europe for his orrery which +indicated the movements of the stars and which was an advance on all +previous instruments of the kind. When astronomers in Europe were +seeking to have the transit of Venus of 1769 observed in different parts +of the world, Pennsylvania alone of the American colonies seems to +have had the man and the apparatus necessary for the work. Rittenhouse +conducted the observations at three points and won a world-wide +reputation by the accuracy and skill of his observations. The whole +community was interested in this scientific undertaking; the Legislature +and public institutions raised the necessary funds; and the American +Philosophical Society, the only organization of its kind in the +colonies, had charge of the preparations. + +The American Philosophical Society had been started in Philadelphia in +1743. It was the first scientific society to be founded in America, and +throughout the colonial period it was the only society of its kind in +the country. Its membership included not only prominent men throughout +America, such as Thomas Jefferson, who were interested in scientific +inquiry, but also representatives of foreign nations. With its library +of rare and valuable collections and its annual publication of essays on +almost every branch of science, the society still continues its useful +scientific work. + +John Bartram, who was the first botanist to describe the plants of the +New World and who explored the whole country from the Great Lakes to +Florida, was a Pennsylvania Quaker of colonial times, farmer born and +bred. Thomas Godfrey, also a colonial Pennsylvanian, was rewarded by +the Royal Society of England for an improvement which he made in +the quadrant. Peter Collinson of England, a famous naturalist and +antiquarian of early times, was a Quaker. In modern times John Dalton, +the discoverer of the atomic theory of colorblindness, was born of +Quaker parents, and Edward Cope, of a well-known Philadelphia Quaker +family, became one of the most eminent naturalists and paleontologists +of the nineteenth century, and unaided discovered over a third of the +three thousand extinct species of vertebrates recognized by men of +science. In the field of education, Lindley Murray, the grammarian of +a hundred years ago, was a Quaker. Ezra Cornell, a Quaker, founded the +great university in New York which bears his name; and Johns Hopkins, +also a Quaker, founded the university of that name in Baltimore. + +Pennsylvania deserves the credit of turning these early scientific +pursuits to popular uses. The first American professorship of botany +and natural history was established in Philadelphia College, now the +University of Pennsylvania. The first American book on a medical subject +was written in Philadelphia by Thomas Cadwalader in 1740; the first +American hospital was established there in 1751; and the first +systematic instruction in medicine. Since then Philadelphia has +produced a long line of physicians and surgeons of national and European +reputation. For half a century after the Revolution the city was the +center of medical education for the country and it still retains a large +part of that preeminence. The Academy of Natural Sciences founded in +Philadelphia in 1812 by two inconspicuous young men, an apothecary and +a dentist, soon became by the spontaneous support of the community a +distinguished institution. It sent out two Arctic expeditions, that +of Kane and that of Hayes, and has included among its members the most +prominent men of science in America. It is now the oldest as well as +the most complete institution of its kind in the country. The Franklin +Institute, founded in Philadelphia in 1824, was the result of a similar +scientific interest. It was the first institution of applied science +and the mechanic arts in America. Descriptions of the first 2900 patents +issued by the United States Government are to be found only on the pages +of its Journal, which is still an authoritative annual record. + +Apart from their scientific attainments, one of the most interesting +facts about the Quakers is the large proportion of them who have +reached eminence, often in occupations which are supposed to be somewhat +inconsistent with Quaker doctrine. General Greene, the most capable +American officer of the Revolution, after Washington, was a Rhode Island +Quaker. General Mifflin of the Revolution was a Pennsylvania Quaker. +General Jacob Brown, a Bucks County Pennsylvania Quaker, reorganized the +army in the War of 1819. and restored it to its former efficiency. +In the long list of Quakers eminent in all walks of life, not only in +Pennsylvania but elsewhere, are to be found John Bright, a lover of +peace and human liberty through a long and eminent career in British +politics; John Dickinson of Philadelphia, who wrote the famous Farmer's +Letters so signally useful in the American Revolution; Whittier, the +American poet, a Quaker born in Massachusetts of a family converted from +Puritanism when the Quakers invaded Boston in the seventeenth century; +and Benjamin West, a Pennsylvania Quaker of colonial times, an artist of +permanent eminence, one of the founders of the Royal Academy in England +and its president in succession to Sir Joshua Reynolds. + +Wherever Quakers are found they are the useful and steady citizens. +Their eminence seems out of all proportion to their comparatively small +numbers. It has often been asked why this height of attainment should +occur among a people of such narrow religious discipline. But were +the Quakers really narrow, or were they any more narrow than other +rigorously self-disciplined people: Spartans, Puritans, soldiers whose +discipline enables them to achieve great results? All discipline is +in one sense narrow. Quaker quietude and retirement probably conserved +mental energy instead of dissipating it. In an age of superstition and +irrational religion, their minds were free and unhampered, and it was +the dominant rational tone of their thought that enabled science to +flourish in Pennsylvania. + + + +Chapter V. The Troubles Of Penn And His Sons + +The material prosperity of Penn's Holy Experiment kept on proving itself +over and over again every month of the year. But meantime great events +were taking place in England. The period of fifteen years from Penn's +return to England in 1684, until his return to Pennsylvania at the close +of the year of 1699, was an eventful time in English history. It was +long for a proprietor to be away from his province, and Penn would have +left a better reputation if he had passed those fifteen years in his +colony, for in England during that period he took what most Americans +believe to have been the wrong side in the Revolution of 1688. + +Penn was closely tied by both interest and friendship to Charles II and +the Stuart family. When Charles II died in 1685 and his brother, the +Duke of York, ascended the throne as James II, Penn was equally bound +to him, because among other things the Duke of York had obtained Penn's +release in 1669 from imprisonment for his religious opinions. He became +still more bound when one of the first acts of the new King's reign +was the release of a great number of people who had been imprisoned +for their religion, among them thirteen hundred Quakers. In addition to +preaching to the Quakers and protecting them, Penn used his influence +with James to secure the return of several political offenders from +exile. His friendship with James raised him, indeed, to a position of no +little importance at Court. He was constantly consulted by the King, in +whose political policy he gradually became more and more involved. + +James was a Roman Catholic and soon perfected his plans for making both +Church and State a papal appendage and securing for the Crown the right +to suspend acts of Parliament. Penn at first protested, but finally +supported the King in the belief that he would in the end establish +liberty. In his earlier years, however, Penn had written pamphlets +arguing strenuously against the same sort of despotic schemes that +James was now undertaking; and this contradiction of his former position +seriously injured his reputation even among his own people. + +Part of the policy of James was to grant many favors to the Quakers and +to all other dissenting bodies in England, to release them from prison, +to give them perfect freedom of worship, and to remove the test laws +which prevented them from holding office. He thus hoped to unite them +with the Roman Catholics in extirpating the Church of England +and establishing the Papacy in its place. But the dissenters and +nonconformists, though promised relief from sufferings severer than +it is possible perhaps now to appreciate, refused almost to a man this +tempting bait. Even the Quakers, who had suffered probably more than +the others, rejected the offer with indignation and mourned the +fatal mistake of their leader Penn. All Protestant England united in +condemning him, accused him of being a secret Papist and a Jesuit in +disguise, and believed him guilty of acts and intentions of which he +was probably entirely innocent. This extreme feeling against Penn is +reflected in Macaulay's "History of England," which strongly espouses +the Whig side; and in those vivid pages Penn is represented, and very +unfairly, as nothing less than a scoundrel. + +In spite of the attempts which James made to secure his position, the +dissenters, the Church of England, and Penn's own Quakers all joined +heart and soul in the Revolution of 1688, which quickly dethroned the +King, drove him from England, and placed the Prince of Orange on +the throne as William III. Penn was now for many years in a very +unfortunate, if not dangerous, position, and was continually suspected +of plotting to restore James. For three years he was in hiding to escape +arrest or worse, and he largely lost the good will and affection of the +Quakers. + +Meantime, since his departure from Pennsylvania in the summer of +1684, that province went on increasing in population and in pioneer +prosperity. But Penn's quitrents and money from sales of land were far +in arrears, and he had been and still was at great expense in starting +the colony and in keeping up the plantation and country seat he had +established on the Delaware River above Philadelphia. Troublesome +political disputes also arose. The Council of eighteen members which he +had authorized to act as governor in his absence neglected to send the +new laws to him, slighted his letters, and published laws in their own +name without mentioning him or the King. These irregularities were much +exaggerated by enemies of the Quakers in England. The Council was not a +popular body and was frequently at odds with the Assembly. + +Penn thought he could improve the government by appointing five +commissioners to act as governor instead of the whole Council. Thomas +Lloyd, an excellent Quaker who had been President of the Council and who +had done much to allay hard feeling, was fortunately the president of +these commissioners. Penn instructed them to act as if he himself were +present, and at the next meeting of the Assembly to annul all the laws +and reenact only such as seemed proper. This course reminds us of the +absolutism of his friend, King James, and, indeed, the date of these +instructions (1686) is that when his intimacy with that bigoted monarch +reached its highest point. Penn's theory of his power was that the frame +or constitution of government he had given the province was a contract; +that, the Council and Assembly having violated some of its provisions, +it was annulled and he was free, at least for a time, to govern as he +pleased. Fortunately his commissioners never attempted to carry out +these instructions. There would have been a rebellion and some very +unpleasant history if they had undertaken to enforce such oriental +despotism in Pennsylvania. The five commissioners with Thomas Lloyd at +their head seem to have governed without seriously troublesome incidents +for the short term of two years during which they were in power. But +in 1687 Thomas Lloyd, becoming weary of directing them, asked to be +relieved and is supposed to have advised Penn to appoint a single +executive instead of commissioners. Penn accordingly appointed Captain +John Blackwell, formerly an officer in Cromwell's army. Blackwell was +not a Quaker but a "grave, sober, wise man," as Penn wrote to a friend, +who would "bear down with a visible authority vice and faction." It was +hoped that he would vigorously check all irregularities and bring Penn +better returns from quitrents and sales of land. + +But this new governor clashed almost at once with the Assembly, tried +to make them pass a militia law, suggested that the province's trade to +foreign countries was illegal, persecuted and arrested members of the +Assembly, refused to submit new laws to it, and irritated the people by +suggesting the invalidity of their favorite laws. The Quaker Assembly +withstood and resisted him until they wore him out. After a year and +one month in office he resigned at Penn's request or, according to +some accounts, at his own request. At any rate, he expressed himself as +delighted to be relieved. As a Puritan soldier he found himself no match +for a peaceable Quaker Assembly. + +Penn again made the Council the executive with Thomas Lloyd as its +President. But to the old causes of unrest a new one was now added. +One George Keith, a Quaker, turned heretic and carried a number of +Pennsylvania Quakers over to the Church of England, thereby causing +great scandal. The "Lower Counties" or Territories, as the present +State of Delaware was then called, became mutinous, withdrew their +representatives from the Council, and made William Markham their +Governor. This action together with the Keithian controversy, the +disturbances over Blackwell, and the clamors of Church of England people +that Penn was absent and neglecting his province, that the Quakers would +make no military defense, and that the province might at any time fall +into the hands of France, came to the ears of King William, who was +already ill disposed toward Penn and distrusted him as a Jacobite. It +seemed hardly advisable to allow a Jacobite to rule a British colony. +Accordingly a royal order suspended Penn's governmental authority and +placed the province under Benjamin Fletcher, Governor of New York. +He undertook to rule in dictatorial fashion, threatening to annex the +province to New York, and as a consequence the Assembly had plenty of +trouble with him. But two years later, 1694, the province was returned +to Penn, who now appointed as Governor William Markham, who had served +as lieutenant-governor under Fletcher. + +Markham proceeded to be high-handed with the Assembly and to administer +the government in the imperialistic style of Fletcher. But the +Assembly soon tamed him and in 1696 actually worried out of him a new +constitution, which became known as Markham's Frame, proved much more +popular than the one Penn had given, and allowed the Assembly much more +power. Markham had no conceivable right to assent to it and Penn never +agreed to it; but it was lived under for the next four years until +Penn returned to the province. While it naturally had opponents, it +was largely regarded as entirely valid, and apparently with the +understanding that it was to last until Penn objected to it. + +Penn had always been longing to return to Pennsylvania and live there +for the rest of his life; but the terrible times of the Revolution +of 1688 in England and its consequences had held him back. Those +difficulties had now passed. Moreover, William III had established free +government and religious liberty. No more Quakers were imprisoned and +Penn's old occupation of securing their protection and release was gone. + +In the autumn of 1699 he sailed for Pennsylvania with his family and, +arriving after a tedious three months' voyage, was well received. His +political scrapes and mistakes in England seemed to be buried in the +past. He was soon at his old enjoyable life again, traveling actively +about the country, preaching to the Quakers, and enlarging and +beautifying his country seat, Pennsbury, on the Delaware, twenty miles +above Philadelphia. As roads and trails were few and bad he usually +traveled to and from the town in a barge which was rowed by six oarsmen +and which seemed to give him great pride and pleasure. + +Two happy years passed away in this manner, during which Penn seems to +have settled, not however without difficulty, a great deal of business +with his people, the Assembly, and the Indian tribes. Unfortunately +he got word from England of a bill in Parliament for the revocation +of colonial charters and for the establishment of royal governments in +their place. He must needs return to England to fight it. Shortly before +he sailed the Assembly presented him with a draft of a new constitution +or frame of government which they had been discussing with him +and preparing for some time. This he accepted, and it became the +constitution under which Pennsylvania lived and prospered for +seventy-five years, until the Revolution of 1776. + +This new constitution was quite liberal. The most noticeable feature of +it was the absence of any provision for the large elective council or +upper house of legislation, which had been very unpopular. The Assembly +thus became the one legislative body. There was incidental reference +in the document to a governor's council, although there was no formal +clause creating it. Penn and his heirs after his death always appointed +a small council as an advisory body for the deputy governor. The +Assembly was to be chosen annually by the freemen and to be composed of +four representatives from each county. It could originate bills, control +its own adjournments without interference from the Governor, choose its +speaker and other officers, and judge of the qualifications and +election of its own members. These were standard Anglo-Saxon popular +parliamentary rights developed by long struggles in England and now +established in Pennsylvania never to be relaxed. Finally a clause in the +constitution permitted the Lower Counties, or Territories, under +certain conditions to establish home rule. In 1705 the Territories took +advantage of this concession and set up an assembly of their own. + +Immediately after signing the constitution, in the last days of October, +1701, Penn sailed for England, expecting soon to return. But he became +absorbed in affairs in England and never saw his colony again. This was +unfortunate because Pennsylvania soon became a torment to him instead of +a great pleasure as it always seems to have been when he lived in it. He +was a happy present proprietor, but not a very happy absentee one. + +The Church of England people in Pennsylvania entertained great hopes +of this proposal to turn the proprietary colonies into royal provinces. +Under such a change, while the Quakers might still have an influence in +the Legislature, the Crown would probably give the executive offices to +Churchmen. They therefore labored hard to discredit the Quakers. They +kept harping on the absurdity of a set of fanatics attempting to govern +a colony without a militia and without administering oaths of office or +using oaths in judicial proceedings. How could any one's life be safe +from foreign enemies without soldiers, and what safeguard was there for +life, liberty, and property before judges, jurors, and witnesses, none +of whom had been sworn? The Churchmen kept up their complaints for along +time, but without effect in England. Penn was able to thwart all their +plans. The bill to change the province into a royal one was never passed +by Parliament. Penn returned to his court life, his preaching, and his +theological writing, a rather curious combination and yet one by which +he had always succeeded in protecting his people. He was a favorite +with Queen Anne, who was now on the throne, and he led an expensive life +which, with the cost of his deputy governor's salary in the colony, the +slowness of his quitrent collections, and the dishonesty of the steward +of his English estates, rapidly brought him into debt. To pay the +government expense of a small colonial empire and at the same time +to lead the life of a courtier and to travel as a preacher would have +exhausted a stronger exchequer than Penn's. + +The contests between the different deputy governors, whom Penn or his +descendants sent out, and the Quaker Legislature fill the annals of +the province for the next seventy years, down to the Revolution. These +quarrels, when compared with the larger national political contests of +history, seem petty enough and even tedious in detail. But, looked at +in another aspect, they are important because they disclose how +liberty, self-government, republicanism, and many of the constitutional +principles by which Americans now live were gradually developed as +the colonies grew towards independence. The keynote to all these early +contests was what may be called the fundamental principle of colonial +constitutional law or, at any rate, of constitutional practice, namely, +that the Governor, whether royal or proprietary, must always be kept +poor. His salary or income must never become a fixed or certain sum but +must always be dependent on the annual favor and grants of a legislature +controlled by the people. This belief was the foundation of American +colonial liberty. The Assemblies, not only in Pennsylvania but in other +colonies, would withhold the Governor's salary until he consented to +their favorite laws. If he vetoed their laws, he received no salary. One +of the causes of the Revolution in 1776 was the attempt of the mother +country to make the governors and other colonial officials dependent +for their salaries on the Government in England instead of on the +legislatures in the colonies. + +So the squabbles, as we of today are inclined to call them, went on +in Pennsylvania--provincial and petty enough, but often very large and +important so far as the principle which they involved was concerned. The +Legislature of Pennsylvania in those days was a small body composed of +only about twenty-five or thirty members, most of them sturdy, thrifty +Quakers. They could meet very easily anywhere--at the Governor's house, +if in conference with him, or at the treasurer's office or at the loan +office, if investigating accounts. Beneath their broad brim hats and +grave demeanor they were as Anglo-Saxon at heart as Robin Hood and his +merry men, and in their ninety years of political control they built up +as goodly a fabric of civil liberty as can be found in any community in +the world. + +The dignified, confident message from a deputy governor, full of +lofty admonitions of their duty to the Crown, the province, and the +proprietor, is often met by a sarcastic, stinging reply of the Assembly. +David Lloyd, the Welsh leader of the anti-proprietary party, and +Joseph Wilcox, another leader, became very skillful in drafting these +profoundly respectful but deeply cutting replies. In after years, +Benjamin Franklin attained even greater skill. In fact, it is not +unlikely that he developed a large measure of his world famous aptness +in the use of language in the process of drafting these replies. The +composing of these official communications was important work, for a +reply had to be telling and effective not only with the Governor but +with the people who learned of its contents at the coffeehouse and +spread the report of it among all classes. There was not a little +good-fellowship in their contests; and Franklin, for instance, tells us +how he used to abuse a certain deputy governor all day in the Assembly +and then dine with him in jovial intercourse in the evening. + +The Assembly had a very convenient way of accomplishing its purposes in +legislation in spite of the opposition of the British Government. +Laws when passed and approved by the deputy governor had to be sent to +England for approval by the Crown within five years. But meanwhile the +people would live under the law for five years, and, if at the end of +that time it was disallowed, the Assembly would reenact the measure and +live under it again for another period. + + +The ten years after Penn's return to England in 1701 were full of +trouble for him. Money returns from the province were slow, partly +because England was involved in war and trade depressed, and partly +because the Assembly, exasperated by the deputy governors he appointed, +often refused to vote the deputy a salary and left Penn to bear all the +expense of government. He was being rapidly overwhelmed with debt. One +of his sons was turning out badly. The manager of his estates in England +and Ireland, Philip Ford, was enriching himself by the trust, charging +compound interest at eight per cent every six months, and finally +claiming that Penn owed him 14,000 pounds. Ford had rendered accounts +from time to time, but Penn in his careless way had tossed them aside +without examination. When Ford pressed for payment, Penn, still without +making any investigation, foolishly gave Ford a deed in fee simple of +Pennsylvania as security. Afterwards he accepted from Ford a lease of +the province, which was another piece of folly, for the lease could, +of course, be used as evidence to show that the deed was an absolute +conveyance and not intended as a mortgage. + +This unfortunate business Ford kept quiet during his lifetime. But on +his death his widow and son made everything public, professed to be +the proprietors of Pennsylvania, and sued Penn for 2000 pounds rent in +arrears. They obtained a judgment for the amount claimed and, as Penn +could not pay, they had him arrested and imprisoned for debt. For nine +months he was locked up in the debtors' prison, the "Old Bailey," and +there he might have remained indefinitely if some of his friends had +not raised enough money to compromise with the Fords. Isaac Norris, +a prominent Quaker from Pennsylvania, happened at that time to be in +England and exerted himself to set Penn free and save the province from +further disgrace. After this there was a reaction in Penn's favor. He +selected a better deputy governor for Pennsylvania. He wrote a long and +touching letter to the people, reminding them how they had flourished +and grown rich and free under his liberal laws, while he had been +sinking in poverty. + +After that conditions improved in the affairs of Penn. The colony was +better governed, and the anti-proprietary party almost disappeared. The +last six or eight years of Penn's life were free from trouble. He +had ceased his active work at court, for everything that could be +accomplished for the Quakers in the way of protection and favorable +laws had now been done. Penn spent his last years in trying to sell the +government of his province to the Crown for a sum that would enable him +to pay his debts and to restore his family to prosperity. But he was +too particular in stipulating that the great principles of civil and +religious liberty on which the colony had been established should not be +infringed. He had seen how much evil had resulted to the rights of the +people when the proprietors of the Jerseys parted with their right to +govern. In consequence he required so many safeguards that the sale of +Pennsylvania was delayed and delayed until its founder was stricken with +paralysis. Penn lingered for some years, but his intellect was now too +much clouded to make a valid sale. The event, however, was fortunate +for Pennsylvania, which would probably otherwise have lost many valuable +rights and privileges by becoming a Crown colony. + +On July 30,1718, Penn died at the age of seventy-four. His widow became +proprietor of the province, probably the only woman who ever became +feudal proprietor of such an immense domain. She appointed excellent +deputy governors and ruled with success for eight years until her death +in 1726. In her time the ocean was free from enemy cruisers, and the +trade of the colony grew so rapidly that the increasing sales of land +and quitrents soon enabled her to pay off the mortgage on the province +and all the rest of her husband's debts. It was sad that Penn did not +live to see that day, which he had so hoped for in his last years, when, +with ocean commerce free from depredations, the increasing money returns +from his province would obviate all necessity of selling the government +to the Crown. + +With all debts paid and prosperity increasing, Penn's sons became very +rich men. Death had reduced the children to three--John, Thomas, +and Richard. Of these, Thomas became what may be called the managing +proprietor, and the others were seldom heard of. Thomas lived in the +colony nine years--1732 to 1741--studying its affairs and sitting as a +member of the Council. For over forty years he was looked upon as the +proprietor. In fact, he directed the great province for almost as long +a time as his father had managed it. But he was so totally unlike his +father that it is difficult to find the slightest resemblance in feature +or in mind. He was not in the least disposed to proclaim or argue about +religion. Like the rest of his family, he left the Quakers and joined +the Church of England, a natural evolution in the case of many Quakers. +He was a prosperous, accomplished, sensible, cool-headed gentleman, by +no means without ability, but without any inclination for setting the +world on fire. He was a careful, economical man of business, which is +more than can be said of his distinguished father. He saw no visions and +cared nothing for grand speculations. + +Thomas Penn, however, had his troubles and disputes with the Assembly. +They thought him narrow and close. Perhaps he was. That was the opinion +of him held by Franklin, who led the anti-proprietary party. But at the +same time some consideration must be given to the position in which +Penn found himself. He had on his hands an empire, rich, fertile, and +inhabited by liberty-loving Anglo-Saxons and by passive Germans. He +had to collect from their land the purchase money and quitrents rapidly +rolling up in value with the increase of population into millions of +pounds sterling, for which he was responsible to his relatives. At the +same time he had to influence the politics of the province, approve or +reject laws in such a way that his family interest would be protected +from attack or attempted confiscation, keep the British Crown satisfied, +and see that the liberties of the colonists were not impaired and that +the people were kept contented. + +It was not an easy task even for a clear-headed man like Thomas Penn. +He had to arrange for treaties with the Indians and for the purchase of +their lands in accordance with the humane ideas of his father and in the +face of the Scotch-Irish thirst for Indian blood and the French desire +to turn the savages loose upon the Anglo-Saxon settlements. He had to +fight through the boundary disputes with Connecticut, Maryland, and +Virginia, which threatened to reduce his empire to a mere strip of land +containing neither Philadelphia nor Pittsburgh. The controversy with +Connecticut lasted throughout the colonial period and was not definitely +settled till the close of the Revolution. The charter of Connecticut +granted by the British Crown extended the colony westward to the Pacific +Ocean and cut off the northern half of the tract afterwards granted to +William Penn. In pursuance of what they believed to be their rights, the +Connecticut people settled in the beautiful valley of Wyoming. They were +thereupon ejected by force by the proprietors of Pennsylvania; but they +returned, only to be ejected again and again in a petty warfare carried +on for many years. In the summer of 1778, the people of the valley +were massacred by the Iroquois Indians. The history of this Connecticut +boundary dispute fills volumes. So does the boundary dispute with +Maryland, which also lasted throughout the colonial period; the dispute +with Virginia over the site of Pittsburgh is not so voluminous. +All these controversies Thomas Penn conducted with eminent skill, +inexhaustible patience, and complete success. For this achievement the +State owes him a debt of gratitude. + +Thomas Penn was in the extraordinary position of having to govern as +a feudal lord what was virtually a modern community. He was exercising +feudal powers three hundred years after all the reasons for the feudal +system had ceased to exist; and he was exercising those powers and +acquiring by them vast wealth from a people in a new and wild country +whose convictions, both civil and religious, were entirely opposed +to anything like the feudal system. It must certainly be put down as +something to his credit that he succeeded so well as to retain control +both of the political government and his family's increasing wealth down +to the time of the Revolution and that he gave on the whole so little +offense to a high-strung people that in the Revolution they allowed his +family to retain a large part of their land and paid them liberally for +what was confiscated. + +The wealth which came to the three brothers they spent after the manner +of the time in country life. John and Richard do not appear to have had +remarkable country seats. But Thomas purchased in 1760 the fine English +estate of Stoke Park, which had belonged to Sir Christopher Hatton of +Queen Elizabeth's time, to Lord Coke, and later to the Cobham family. +Thomas's son John, grandson of the founder, greatly enlarged and +beautified the place and far down into the nineteenth century it was +one of the notable country seats of England. This John Penn also built +another country place called Pennsylvania Castle, equally picturesque +and interesting, on the Isle of Portland, of which he was Governor. + + + +Chapter VI. The French And Indian War + +There was no great change in political conditions in Pennsylvania until +about the year 1755. The French in Canada had been gradually developing +their plans of spreading down the Ohio and Mississippi valleys behind +the English colonies. They were at the same time securing alliances with +the Indians and inciting them to hostilities against the English. But +so rapidly were the settlers advancing that often the land could not +be purchased fast enough to prevent irritation and ill feeling. The +Scotch-Irish and Germans, it has already been noted, settled on lands +without the formality of purchase from the Indians. The Government, when +the Indians complained, sometimes ejected the settlers but more often +hastened to purchase from the Indians the land which had been occupied. +"The Importance of the British Plantations in America," published in +1731, describes the Indians as peaceful and contented in Pennsylvania +but irritated and unsettled in those other colonies where they had +usually been ill-treated and defrauded. This, with other evidence, +goes to show that up to that time Penn's policy of fairness and good +treatment still prevailed. But those conditions soon changed, as the +famous Walking Purchase of 1737 clearly indicated. + +The Walking Purchase had provided for the sale of some lands along the +Delaware below the Lehigh on a line starting at Wrightstown, a few miles +back from the Delaware not far above Trenton, and running northwest, +parallel with the river, as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. +The Indians understood that this tract would extend northward only to +the Lehigh, which was the ordinary journey of a day and a half. The +proprietors, however, surveyed the line beforehand, marked the trees, +engaged the fastest walkers and, with horses to carry provisions, +started their men at sunrise. By running a large part of the way, at +the end of a day and a half these men had reached a point thirty miles +beyond the Lehigh. + +The Delaware Indians regarded this measurement as a pure fraud and +refused to abandon the Minisink region north of the Lehigh. The +proprietors then called in the assistance of the Six Nations of New +York, who ordered the Delawares off the Minisink lands. Though they +obeyed, the Delawares became the relentless enemies of the white man and +in the coming years revenged themselves by massacres and murder. They +also broke the control which the Six Nations had over them, became an +independent nation, and in the French Wars revenged themselves on the +Six Nations as well as on the white men. The congress which convened at +Albany in 1754 was an attempt on the part of the British Government to +settle all Indian affairs in a general agreement and to prevent separate +treaties by the different colonies; but the Pennsylvania delegates, by +various devices of compass courses which the Indians did not understand +and by failing to notify and secure the consent of certain tribes, +obtained a grant of pretty much the whole of Pennsylvania west of the +Susquehanna. The Indians considered this procedure to be another gross +fraud. It is to be noticed that in their dealings with Penn they had +always been satisfied, and that he had always been careful that they +should be duly consulted and if necessary be paid twice over for the +land. But his sons were more economical, and as a result of the shrewd +practices of the Albany purchase the Pennsylvania Indians almost +immediately went over in a body to the French and were soon scalping +men, women, and children among the Pennsylvania colonists. It is a +striking fact, however, that in all the after years of war and rapine +and for generations afterwards the Indians retained the most distinct +and positive tradition of Penn's good faith and of the honesty of all +Quakers. So persistent, indeed, was this tradition among the tribes of +the West that more than a century later President Grant proposed to +put the whole charge of the nation's Indian affairs in the hands of the +Quakers. The first efforts to avert the catastrophe threatened by the +alliance of the red man with the French were made by the provincial +assemblies, which voted presents of money or goods to the Indians to +offset similar presents from the French. The result was, of course, the +utter demoralization of the savages. Bribed by both sides, the Indians +used all their native cunning to encourage the bribers to bid against +each other. So far as Pennsylvania was concerned, feeling themselves +cheated in the first instance and now bribed with gifts, they developed +a contempt for the people who could stoop to such practices. As a +result this contempt manifested itself in deeds hitherto unknown in the +province. One tribe on a visit to Philadelphia killed cattle and robbed +orchards as they passed. The delegates of another tribe, having visited +Philadelphia and received 500 pounds as a present, returned to the +frontier and on their way back for another present destroyed the +property of the interpreter and Indian agent, Conrad Weiser. They felt +that they could do as they pleased. To make matters worse, the Assembly +paid for all the damage done; and having started on this foolish +business, they found that the list of tribes demanding presents rapidly +increased. The Shawanoes and the Six Nations, as well as the Delawares, +were now swarming to this new and convenient source of wealth. + +Whether the proprietors or the Assembly should meet this increasing +expense or divide it between them, became a subject of increasing +controversy. It was in these discussions that Thomas Penn, in trying to +keep his family's share of the expense as small as possible, first got +the reputation for closeness which followed him for the rest of his life +and which started a party in the province desirous of having Parliament +abolish the proprietorship and put the province under a governor +appointed by the Crown. + +The war with the French of Canada and their Indian allies is of interest +here only in so far as it affected the government of Pennsylvania. +From this point of view it involved a series of contests between the +proprietors and the Crown on the one side and the Assembly on the other. +The proprietors and the Crown took advantage of every military necessity +to force the Assembly into a surrender of popular rights. But the +Assembly resisted, maintaining that they had the same right as the +British Commons of having their money bills received or rejected by the +Governor without amendment. Whatever they should give must be given on +their own terms or not at all; and they would not yield this point to +any necessities of the war. + +When Governor Morris asked the Assembly for a war contribution in +1754, they promptly voted 20,000 pounds. This was the same amount that +Virginia, the most active of the colonies in the war, was giving. Other +colonies gave much less; New York, only 5000 pounds, and Maryland 6000 +pounds. Morris, however, would not assent to the Assembly's bill unless +it contained a clause suspending its effect until the King's pleasure +was known. This was an attempt to establish a precedent for giving up +the Assembly's charter right of passing laws which need not be submitted +to the King for five years and which in the meantime were valid. The +members of the Assembly very naturally refused to be forced by the +necessities of the war into surrendering one of the most important +privileges the province possessed. It was, they said, as much their duty +to resist this invasion of their rights as to resist the French. + +Governor Morris, besides demanding that the supply of 20,000 pounds +should not go into force until the King's pleasure was known, insisted +that the paper money representing it should be redeemable in five years. +This period the Assembly considered too short; the usual time was ten +years. Five years would ruin too many people by foreclosures. Moreover, +the Governor was attempting to dictate the way in which the people +should raise a money supply. He and the King had a right to ask for aid +in war; but it was the right of the colony to use its own methods +of furnishing this assistance. The Governor also refused to let the +Assembly see the instructions from the proprietors under which he +was acting. This was another attack upon their liberties and involved +nothing less than an attempt to change their charter rights by secret +instructions to a deputy governor which he must obey at his peril. +Several bills had recently been introduced in the English Parliament for +the purpose of making royal instructions to governors binding on all the +colonial assemblies without regard to their charters. This innovation, +the colonists felt, would wreck all their liberties and turn colonial +government into a mere despotism. + +The assemblies of all the colonies have been a good deal abused for +delay in supporting the war and meanness in withholding money. But +in many instances the delay and lack of money were occasioned by the +grasping schemes of governors who saw a chance to gain new privileges +for the Crown or a proprietor or to weaken popular government by +crippling the powers of the legislatures. The usual statement that +the Pennsylvania Assembly was slow in assisting the war because it was +composed of Quakers is not supported by the facts. The Pennsylvania +Assembly was not behind the rest. On this particular occasion, when +their large money supply bill could not be passed without sacrificing +their constitutional rights, they raised money for the war by appointing +a committee which was authorized to borrow 5000 pounds on the credit of +the Assembly. + +Other contests arose over the claim of the proprietors that their +estates in the province were exempt from taxation for the war or any +purpose. One bill taxing the proprietary estates along with others was +met by Thomas Penn offering to subscribe 5000 pounds, as a free gift to +the colony's war measures. The Assembly accepted this, and passed the +bill without taxing the proprietary estates. It turned out, however, +to be a shrewd business move on the part of Thomas Penn; for the 5000 +pounds was to be collected out of the quitrents that were in arrears, +and the payment of it was in consequence long delayed. The thrifty +Thomas had thus saddled his bad debts on the province and gained a +reputation for generosity at the same time. + +Pennsylvania, though governed by Quakers assisted by noncombatant +Germans, had a better protected frontier than Maryland or Virginia; no +colony, indeed, was at that time better protected. The Quaker Assembly +did more than take care of the frontier during the war; it preserved +at the same time constitutional rights in defense of which twenty-five +years afterwards the whole continent fought the Revolution. The Quaker +Assembly even passed two militia bills, one of which became law, and +sent rather more than the province's full share of troops to protect +the frontiers of New York and New England and to carry the invasion into +Canada. + +General Braddock warmly praised the assistance which Pennsylvania gave +him because, he said, she had done more for him than any of the other +colonies. Virginia and Maryland promised everything and performed +nothing, while Pennsylvania promised nothing and performed everything. +Commodore Spy thanked the Assembly for the large number of sailors sent +his fleet at the expense of the province. General Shirley, in charge +of the New England and New York campaigns, thanked the Assembly for +the numerous recruits; and it was the common opinion at the time that +Pennsylvania had sent more troops to the war than any other colony. In +the first four years of the war the province spent for military purposes +210,567 pounds sterling, which was a very considerable sum at that time +for a community of less than 200,000 people. Quakers, though they hate +war, will accept it when there is no escape. The old story of the Quaker +who tossed a pirate overboard, saying, "Friend, thee has no business +here," gives their point of view better than pages of explanation. +Quaker opinion has not always been entirely uniform. In Revolutionary +times in Philadelphia there was a division of the Quakers known as the +Fighting Quakers, and their meeting house is still pointed out at the +corner of Fourth Street and Arch. They even produced able military +leaders: Colonel John Dickinson, General Greene, and General Mifflin in +the Continental Army, and, in the War of 1812, General Jacob Brown, +who reorganized the army and restored its failing fortunes after many +officers had been tried and found wanting. + +There was always among the Quakers a rationalistic party and a party of +mysticism. The rationalistic party prevailed in Pennsylvania all through +the colonial period. In the midst of the worst horrors of the French and +Indian wars, however, the conscientious objectors roused themselves and +began preaching and exhorting what has been called the mystical side of +the faith. Many extreme Quaker members of the Assembly resigned their +seats in consequence. After the Revolution the spiritual party began +gaining ground, partly perhaps because then the responsibilities of +government and care of the great political and religious experiment in +Pennsylvania were removed. The spiritual party increased so rapidly +in power that in 1827 a split occurred which involved not a little +bitterness, ill feeling, and litigation over property. This division +into two opposing camps, known as the Hicksites and the Orthodox, +continues and is likely to remain. + +Quaker government in Pennsylvania was put to still severer tests by +the difficulties and disasters that followed Braddock's defeat. That +unfortunate general had something over two thousand men and was hampered +with a train of artillery and a splendid equipment of arms, tools, and +supplies, as if he were to march over the smooth highways of Europe. +When he came to drag all these munitions through the depths of the +Pennsylvania forests and up and down the mountains, he found that he +made only about three miles a day and that his horses had nothing to eat +but the leaves of the trees. Washington, who was of the party, finally +persuaded him to abandon his artillery and press forward with about +fifteen hundred picked men. These troops, when a few miles from Fort +Duquesne (now Pittsburgh), met about six hundred Indians and three +hundred French coming from the fort. The English maintained a close +formation where they were, but the French and Indians immediately spread +out on their flanks, lying behind trees and logs which provided rests +for their rifles and security for their bodies. This strategy decided +the day. The English were shot down like cattle in a pen, and out of +about fifteen hundred only four hundred and fifty escaped. The French +and Indian loss was not much over fifty. + +This defeat of Braddock's force has become one of the most famous +reverses in history; and it was made worse by the conduct of Dunbar who +had been left in command of the artillery, baggage, and men in the rear. +He could have remained where he was as some sort of protection to the +frontier. But he took fright, burned his wagons, emptied his barrels of +powder into the streams, destroyed his provisions, and fled back to Fort +Cumberland in Maryland. Here the governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia +as well as the Pennsylvania Assembly urged him to stay. But, determined +to make the British rout complete, he soon retreated to the peace and +quiet of Philadelphia, and nothing would induce him to enter again the +terrible forests of Pennsylvania. + +The natural result of the blunder soon followed. The French, finding +the whole frontier of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia abandoned, +organized the Indians under French officers and swept the whole region +with a devastation of massacre, scalping, and burning that has never +been equaled. Hurons, Potawatomies, Ojibways, Ottawas, Mingoes, +renegades from the Six Nations, together with the old treaty friends of +Penn, the Delawares and Shawanoes, began swarming eastward and soon +had killed more people than had been lost at Braddock's defeat. The +onslaught reached its height in September and October. By that time all +the outlying frontier settlers and their families had been killed or +sent flying eastward to seek refuge in the settlements. The Indians even +followed them to the settlements, reached the Susquehanna, and crossed +it. They massacred the people of the village of Gnadenhutten, near +Bethlehem on the Lehigh, and established near by a headquarters for +prisoners and plunder. Families were scalped within fifty miles of +Philadelphia, and in one instance the bodies of a murdered family +were brought into the town and exhibited in the streets to show the +inhabitants how near the danger was approaching. Nothing could be done +to stem the savage tide. Virginia was suffering in the same way: the +settlers on her border were slaughtered or were driven back in herds +upon the more settled districts, and Washington, with a nominal strength +of fifteen hundred who would not obey orders, was forced to stand +a helpless spectator of the general flight and misery. There was no +adequate force or army anywhere within reach. The British had been +put to flight and had gone to the defense of New England and New York. +Neither Pennsylvania nor Virginia had a militia that could withstand +the French and their red allies. They could only wait till the panic had +subsided and then see what could be done. + +One thing was accomplished, however, when the Pennsylvania Assembly +passed a Quaker militia law which is one of the most curious legal +documents of its kind in history. It was most aptly worded, drafted by +the master hand of Franklin. It recited the fact that the province had +always been ruled by Quakers who were opposed to war, but that now it +had become necessary to allow men to become soldiers and to give them +every facility for the profession of arms, because the Assembly though +containing a Quaker majority nevertheless represented all the people of +the province. To prevent those who believed in war from taking part in +it would be as much a violation of liberty of conscience as to force +enlistments among those who had conscientious scruples against it. Nor +would the Quaker majority have any right to compel others to bear arms +and at the same time exempt themselves. Therefore a voluntary militia +system was established under which a fighting Quaker, a Presbyterian, an +Episcopalian, or anybody, could enlist and have all the military glory +he could win. + +It was altogether a volunteer system. Two years afterwards, as the +necessities of war increased, the Quaker Assembly passed a rather +stringent compulsory militia bill; but the governor vetoed it, and the +first law with its volunteer system remained in force. Franklin busied +himself to encourage enlistments under it and was very successful. +Though a philosopher and a man of science, almost as much opposed to war +as the Quakers and not even owning a shotgun, he was elected commander +and led a force of about five hundred men to protect the Lehigh Valley. +His common sense seems to have supplied his lack of military training. +He did no worse than some professional soldiers who might be named. +The valley was supposed to be in great danger since its village of +Gnadenhutten had been burned and its people massacred. The Moravians, +like the Quakers, had suddenly found that they were not as much opposed +to war as they had supposed. They had obtained arms and ammunition from +New York and had built stockades, and Franklin was glad to find them so +well prepared when he arrived. He built small forts in different parts +of the valley, acted entirely on the defensive, and no doubt checked the +raids of the Indians at that point. They seem to have been watching +him from the hilltops all the time, and any rashness on his part would +probably have brought disaster upon him. After his force had been +withdrawn, the Indians again attacked and burned Gnadenhutten. + +The chain of forts, at first seventeen, afterwards increased to fifty, +built by the Assembly on the Pennsylvania frontier was a good plan so +far as it went, but it was merely defensive and by no means completely +defensive, since Indian raiding parties could pass between the forts. +They served chiefly as refuges for neighboring settlers. The colonial +troops or militia, after manning the fifty forts and sending their quota +to the operations against Canada by way of New England and New York, +were not numerous enough to attack the Indians. They could only act on +the defensive as Franklin's command had done. As for the rangers, as +the small bands of frontiersmen acting without any authority of either +governor or legislature were called, they were very efficient as +individuals but they accomplished very little because they acted at +widely isolated spots. What was needed was a well organized force which +could pursue the Indians on their own ground so far westward that the +settlers on the frontier would be safe. The only troops which could +do this were the British regulars with the assistance of the colonial +militia. + +Two energetic efforts to end the war without aid from abroad were made, +however, one by the pacific Quakers and the other by the combatant +portion of the people. Both of these were successful so far as they +went, but had little effect on the general situation. In the summer +of 1756, the Quakers made a very earnest effort to persuade the two +principal Pennsylvania tribes, the Delawares and Shawanoes, to withdraw +from the French alliance and return to their old friends. These two +tribes possessed a knowledge of the country which enabled them greatly +to assist the French designs on Pennsylvania. Chiefs of these tribes +were brought under safe conducts to Philadelphia, where they were +entertained as equals in the Quaker homes. Such progress, indeed, was +made that by the end of July a treaty of peace was concluded at Easton +eliminating those two tribes from the war. This has sometimes been +sneered at as mere Quaker pacifism; but it was certainly successful in +lessening the numbers and effectiveness of the enemy. + +The other undertaking was a military one, the famous attack upon +Kittanning conducted by Colonel John Armstrong, an Ulsterman from +Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the first really aggressive officer the +province had produced. The Indians had two headquarters for their raids +into the province, one at Logstown on the Ohio a few miles below Fort +Duquesne, and the other at Kittanning or, as the French called it, +Attique, about forty miles northeast. At these two points they assembled +their forces, received ammunition and supplies from the French, and +organized their expeditions. As Kittanning was the nearer, Armstrong in +a masterly maneuver took three hundred men through the mountains without +being discovered and, by falling upon the village early in the morning, +he effected a complete surprise. The town was set on fire, the Indians +were put to flight, and large quantities of their ammunition were +destroyed. But Armstrong could not follow up his success. Threatened +by overwhelming numbers, he hastened to withdraw. The effect which the +fighting and the Quaker treaty had on the frontier was good. Incursions +of the savages were, at least for the present, checked. But the root of +the evil had not yet been reached, and the Indians remained massed +along the Ohio, ready to break in upon the people again at the first +opportunity. + +The following year, 1757, was the most depressing period of the war. +The proprietors of Pennsylvania took the opportunity to exempt their own +estate from taxation and throw the burden of furnishing money for the +war upon the colonists. Under pressure of the increasing success of the +French and Indians and because the dreadful massacres were coming nearer +and nearer to Philadelphia, the Quaker Assembly yielded, voted the +largest sum they had ever voted to the war, and exempted the proprietary +estates. The colony was soon boiling with excitement. The Churchmen, as +friends of the proprietors, were delighted to have the estates exempted, +thought it a good opportunity to have the Quaker Assembly abolished, and +sent petitions and letters and proofs of alleged Quaker incompetence +to the British Government. The Quakers and a large majority of the +colonists, on the other hand, instead of consenting to their own +destruction, struck at the root of the Churchmen's power by proposing +to abolish the proprietors. And in a letter to Isaac Norris, Benjamin +Franklin, who had been sent to England to present the grievances of the +colonists, even suggested that "tumults and insurrections that might +prove the proprietary government unable to preserve order, or show the +people to be ungovernable, would do the business immediately." + +Turmoil and party strife rose to the most exciting heights, and the +details of it might, under certain circumstances, be interesting to +describe. But the next year, 1758, the British Government, by sending +a powerful force of regulars to Pennsylvania, at last adopted the +only method for ending the war. Confidence was at once restored. The +Pennsylvania Assembly now voted the sufficient and, indeed, immense sum +of one hundred thousand pounds, and offered a bounty of five pounds +to every recruit. It was no longer a war of defense but now a war of +aggression and conquest. Fort Duquesne on the Ohio was taken; and the +next autumn Fort Pitt was built on its ruins. Then Canada fell, and +the French empire in America came to an end. Canada and the Great West +passed into the possession of the Anglo-Saxon race. + + + +Chapter VII. The Decline Of Quaker Government + +When the treaty of peace was signed in 1763, extinguishing France's +title to Canada and turning over Canada and the Mississippi Valley to +the English, the colonists were prepared to enjoy all the blessings of +peace. But the treaty of peace had been made with France, not with the +red man. A remarkable genius, Pontiac, appeared among the Indians, one +of the few characters, like Tecumseh and Osceola, who are often cited +as proof of latent powers almost equal to the strongest qualities of the +white race. Within a few months he had united all the tribes of the +West in a discipline and control which, if it had been brought to the +assistance of the French six years earlier, might have conquered the +colonies to the Atlantic seaboard before the British regulars could have +come to their assistance. The tribes swept westward into Pennsylvania, +burning, murdering, and leveling every habitation to the ground with a +thoroughness beyond anything attempted under the French alliance. The +settlers and farmers fled eastward to the towns to live in cellars, +camps, and sheds as best they could. * Fortunately the colonies retained +a large part of the military organization, both men and officers, of +the French War, and were soon able to handle the situation. Detroit and +Niagara were relieved by water; and an expedition commanded by Colonel +Bouquet, who had distinguished himself under General Forties, saved Fort +Pitt. + + + * For an account of Pontiac's conspiracy, see "The Old Northwest" +by Frederic A. Ogg (in "The Chronicles of America"). + + +At this time the Scotch-Irish frontiersmen suddenly became prominent. +They had been organizing for their own protection and were meeting with +not a little success. They refused to join the expedition of regular +troops marching westward against Pontiac's warriors, because they wanted +to protect their own homes and because they believed the regulars to be +marching to sure destruction. Many of the regular troops were invalided +from the West Indies, and the Scotch-Irish never expected to see any +of them again. They believed that the salvation of Pennsylvania, or at +least of their part of the province, depended entirely upon themselves. +Their increasing numbers and rugged independence were forming them +also into an organized political party with decided tendencies, as it +afterwards appeared, towards forming a separate state. + +The extreme narrowness of the Scotch-Irish, however, misled them. The +only real safety for the province lay in regularly constituted and +strong expeditions, like that of Bouquet, which would drive the main +body of the savages far westward. But the Scotch-Irish could not see +this; and with that intensity of passion which marked all their +actions they turned their energy and vengeance upon the Quakers and +semicivilized Indians in the eastern end of the colony. Their preachers, +who were their principal leaders and organizers, encouraged them in +denouncing Quaker doctrine as a wicked heresy from which only evil +could result. The Quakers had offended God from the beginning by making +treaties of kindness with the heathen savages instead of exterminating +them as the Scripture commanded: "And when the Lord thy God shall +deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy +them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." +The Scripture had not been obeyed; the heathen had not been destroyed; +on the contrary, a systematic policy of covenants, treaties, +and kindness had been persisted in for two generations, and as a +consequence, the Ulstermen said, the frontiers were now deluged in +blood. They were particularly resentful against the small settlement of +Indians near Bethlehem, who had been converted to Christianity by the +Moravians, and another little village of half civilized basketmaking +Indians at Conestoga near Lancaster. The Scotch-Irish had worked +themselves up into a strange belief that these small remnants were +sending information, arms, and ammunition to the western tribes; and +they seemed to think that it was more important to exterminate these +little communities than to go with such expeditions as Bouquet's to +the West. They asked the Governor to remove these civilized Indians and +assured him that their removal would secure the safety of the frontier. +When the Governor, not being able to find anything against the Indians, +declined to remove them, the Scotch-Irish determined to attend to the +matter in their own fashion. + +Bouquet's victory at Bushy Run, much to the surprise of the +Scotch-Irish, stopped Indian raids of any seriousness until the +following spring. But in the autumn there were a few depredations, which +led the frontiersmen to believe that the whole invasion would begin +again. A party of them, therefore, started to attack the Moravian +Indians near Bethlehem; but before they could accomplish their object, +the Governor brought most of the Indians down to Philadelphia for +protection. Even there they were narrowly saved from the mob, for the +hostility against them was spreading throughout the province. + +Soon afterwards another party of Scotch-Irish, ever since known as the +"Paxton Boys," went at break of day to the village of the Conestoga +Indians and found only six of them at home--three men, two women, and a +boy. These they instantly shot down, mutilated their bodies, and burned +their cabins. As the murderers returned, they related to a man on the +road what they had done, and when he protested against the cruelty of +the deed, they asked, "Don't you believe in God and the Bible?" The +remaining fourteen inhabitants of the village, who were away selling +brooms, were collected by the sheriff and put in the jail at Lancaster +for protection. The Paxtons heard of it and in a few days stormed the +jail, broke down the doors, and either shot the poor Indians or cut them +to pieces with hatchets. + +This was probably the first instance of lynch law in America. It raised +a storm of indignation and controversy; and a pamphlet war persisted +for several years. The whole province was immediately divided into +two parties. On one side were the Quakers, most of the Germans, and +conservatives of every sort, and on the other, inclined to sympathize +with the Scotch-Irish, were the eastern Presbyterians, some of the +Churchmen, and various miscellaneous people whose vindictiveness towards +all Indians had been aroused by the war. The Quakers and conservatives, +who seem to have been the more numerous, assailed the Scotch-Irish in no +measured language as a gang of ruffians without respect for law or order +who, though always crying for protection, had refused to march with +Bouquet to save Fort Pitt or to furnish him the slightest assistance. +Instead of going westward where the danger was and something might +be accomplished, they had turned eastward among the settlements and +murdered a few poor defenseless people, mostly women and children. + +Franklin, who had now returned from England, wrote one of his best +pamphlets against the Paxtons, the valorous, heroic Paxtons, as he +called them, prating of God and the Bible, fifty-seven of whom, armed +with rifles, knives, and hatchets, had actually succeeded in killing +three old men, two women, and a boy. This pamphlet became known as the +"Narrative" from the first word of its title, and it had an immense +circulation. Like everything Franklin wrote, it is interesting reading +to this day. + +One of the first effects of this controversy was to drive the excitable +Scotch-Irish into a flame of insurrection not unlike the Whisky +Rebellion, which started among them some years after the Revolution. +They held tumultuous meetings denouncing the Quakers and the whole +proprietary government in Philadelphia, and they organized an expedition +which included some delegates to suggest reforms. For the most part, +however, it was a well equipped little army variously estimated at from +five hundred to fifteen hundred on foot and on horseback, which marched +towards Philadelphia with no uncertain purpose. They openly declared +that they intended to capture the town, seize the Moravian Indians +protected there, and put them to death. They fully expected to be +supported by most of the people and to have everything their own way. +As they passed along the roads, they amused themselves in their rough +fashion by shooting chickens and pigs, frightening people by thrusting +their rifles into windows, and occasionally throwing some one down and +pretending to scalp him. + +In the city there was great excitement and alarm. Even the classes who +sympathized with the Scotch-Irish did not altogether relish having their +property burned or destroyed. Great preparations were made to meet the +expedition. British regulars were summoned. Eight companies of militia +and a battery of artillery were hastily formed. Franklin became a +military man once more and superintended the preparations. On all sides +the Quakers were enlisting; they had become accustomed to war; and this +legitimate chance to shoot a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian was too much for +the strongest scruples of their religion. It was a long time, however, +before they heard the end of this zeal; and in the pamphlet war which +followed they were accused of clamorously rushing to arms and demanding +to be led against the enemy. + +It is amusing now to read about it in the old records. But it was +serious enough at the time. When the Scotch-Irish army reached the +Schuylkill River and found the fords leading to the city guarded, they +were not quite so enthusiastic about killing Quakers and Indians. They +went up the river some fifteen miles, crossed by an unopposed ford, and +halted in Germantown ten miles north of Philadelphia. That was as far as +they thought it safe to venture. Several days passed, during which the +city people continued their preparations and expected every night to be +attacked. There were, indeed, several false alarms. Whenever the alarm +was sounded at night, every one placed candles in his windows to light +up the streets. One night when it rained the soldiers were allowed +to shelter themselves in a Quaker meeting house, which for some hours +bristled with bayonets and swords, an incident of which the Presbyterian +pamphleteers afterwards made much use for satire. On another day all the +cannon were fired to let the enemy know what was in store for him. + +Finally commissioners with the clever, genial Franklin at their head, +went out to Germantown to negotiate, and soon had the whole mighty +difference composed. The Scotch-Irish stated their grievances. The +Moravian Indians ought not to be protected by the government, and all +such Indians should be removed from the colony; the men who killed +the Conestoga Indians should be tried where the supposed offense was +committed and not in Philadelphia; the five frontier counties had +only ten representatives in the Assembly while the three others had +twenty-six--this should be remedied; men wounded in border war should be +cared for at public expense; no trade should be carried on with hostile +Indians until they restored prisoners; and there should be a bounty on +scalps. + +While these negotiations were proceeding, some of the Scotch-Irish +amused themselves by practicing with their rifles at the weather vane, +a figure of a cock, on the steeple of the old Lutheran church in +Germantown--an unimportant incident, it is true, but one revealing the +conditions and character of the time as much as graver matters do. The +old weather vane with the bullet marks upon it is still preserved. About +thirty of these same riflemen were invited to Philadelphia and were +allowed to wander about and see the sights of the town. The rest +returned to the frontier. As for their list of grievances, not one of +them was granted except, strange and sad to relate, the one which asked +for a scalp bounty. The Governor, after the manner of other colonies, +it must be admitted, issued the long desired scalp proclamation, which +after offering rewards for prisoners and scalps, closed by saying, "and +for the scalp of a female Indian fifty pieces of eight." William Penn's +Indian policy had been admired for its justice and humanity by all the +philosophers and statesmen of the world, and now his grandson, Governor +of the province, in the last days of the family's control, was offering +bounties for women's scalps. + +Franklin while in England had succeeded in having the proprietary lands +taxed equally with the lands of the colonists. But the proprietors +attempted to construe this provision so that their best lands were taxed +at the rate paid by the people on their worst. This obvious quibble of +course raised such a storm of opposition that the Quakers, joined by +classes which had never before supported them, and now forming a large +majority, determined to appeal to the Government in England to abolish +the proprietorship and put the colony under the rule of the King. In the +proposal to make Pennsylvania a Crown colony there was no intention +of confiscating the possessions of the proprietors. It was merely the +proprietary political power, their right to appoint the Governor, that +was to be abolished. This right was to be absorbed by the Crown with +payment for its value to the proprietors; but in all other respects +the charter and the rights and liberties of the people were to remain +unimpaired. Just there lay the danger. An act of Parliament would be +required to make the change and, having once started on such a change, +Parliament, or the party in power therein, might decide to make other +changes, and in the end there might remain very little of the original +rights and liberties of the colonists under their charter. It was by +no means a wise move. But intense feeling on the subject was aroused. +Passionate feeling seemed to have been running very high among the +steady Quakers. In this new outburst the Quakers had the Scotch-Irish on +their side, and a part of the Churchmen. The Germans were divided, but +the majority enthusiastic for the change was very large. + +There was a new alignment of parties. The eastern Presbyterians, usually +more or less in sympathy with the Scotch-Irish, broke away from them +on this occasion. These Presbyterians opposed the change to a royal +governor because they believed that it would be followed by the +establishment by law of the Church of England, with bishops and all the +other ancient evils. Although some of the Churchmen joined the Quaker +side, most of them and the most influential of them were opposed to the +change and did good work in opposing it. They were well content with +their position under the proprietors and saw nothing to be gained under +a royal governor. There were also not a few people who, in the increase +of the wealth of the province, had acquired aristocratic tastes and were +attached to the pleasant social conditions that had grown up round the +proprietary governors and their followers; and there were also those +whose salaries, incomes, or opportunities for wealth were more or less +dependent on the proprietors retaining the executive offices and the +appointments and patronage. + +One of the most striking instances of a change of sides was the case of +a Philadelphia Quaker, John Dickinson, a lawyer of large practice, a man +of wealth and position, and of not a little colonial magnificence when +he drove in his coach and four. It was he who later wrote the famous +"Farmer's Letters" during the Revolution. He was a member of the +Assembly and had been in politics for some years. But on this question +of a change to royal government, he left the Quaker majority and opposed +the change with all his influence and ability. He and his father-in-law, +Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Assembly, became the leaders against +the change, and Franklin and Joseph Galloway, the latter afterwards a +prominent loyalist in the Revolution, were the leading advocates of the +change. + +The whole subject was thoroughly thrashed out in debates in the Assembly +and in pamphlets of very great ability and of much interest to students +of colonial history and the growth of American ideas of liberty. It must +be remembered that this was the year 1764, on the eve of the Revolution. +British statesmen were planning a system of more rigorous control of the +colonies; and the advisability of a stamp tax was under consideration. +Information of all these possible changes had reached the colonies. +Dickinson foresaw the end and warned the people. Franklin and the Quaker +party thought there was no danger and that the mother country could be +implicitly trusted. + +Dickinson warned the people that the British Ministry were starting +special regulations for new colonies and "designing the strictest +reformations in the old." It would be a great relief, he admitted, to +be rid of the pettiness of the proprietors, and it might be accomplished +some time in the future; but not now. The proprietary system might +be bad, but a royal government might be worse and might wreck all the +liberties of the province, religious freedom, the Assembly's control +of its own adjournments, and its power of raising and disposing of the +public money. The ministry of the day in England were well known not +to be favorably inclined towards Pennsylvania because of the frequently +reported willfulness of the Assembly, on which the recent disturbances +had also been blamed. If the King, Ministry, and Parliament started +upon a change, they might decide to reconstitute the Assembly entirely, +abolish its ancient privileges, and disfranchise both Quakers and +Presbyterians. + +The arguments of Franklin and Galloway consisted principally of +assertions of the good intentions of the mother country and the +absurdity of any fear on the part of the colonists for their privileges. +But the King in whom they had so much confidence was George III, and the +Parliament which they thought would do no harm was the same one which +a few months afterwards passed the Stamp Act which brought on the +Revolution. Franklin and Galloway also asserted that the colonies like +Massachusetts, the Jerseys, and the Carolinas, which had been changed to +royal governments, had profited by the change. But that was hardly the +prevailing opinion in those colonies themselves. Royal governors +could be as petty and annoying as the Penns and far more tyrannical. +Pennsylvania had always defeated any attempts at despotism on the part +of the Penn family and had built up a splendid body of liberal laws and +legislative privileges. But governors with the authority and power of +the British Crown behind them could not be so easily resisted as the +deputy governors of the Penns. + +The Assembly, however, voted--twenty-seven to three--with Franklin +and Galloway. In the general election of the autumn, the question was +debated anew among the people and, though Franklin and Galloway were +defeated for seats in the Assembly, yet the popular verdict was strongly +in favor of a change, and the majority in the Assembly was for practical +purposes unaltered. They voted to appeal to England for the change, and +appointed Franklin to be their agent before the Crown and Ministry. He +sailed again for England and soon was involved in the opening scenes of +the Revolution. He was made agent for all the colonies and he spent +many delightful years there pursuing his studies in science, dining with +distinguished men, staying at country seats, and learning all the arts +of diplomacy for which he afterwards became so distinguished. + +As for the Assembly's petition for a change to royal government, +Franklin presented it, but never pressed it. He, too, was finally +convinced that the time was inopportune. In fact, the Assembly itself +before long began to have doubts and fears and sent him word to let +the subject drop; and amid much greater events it was soon entirely +forgotten. + + + +Chapter VIII. The Beginnings Of New Jersey + +New Jersey, Scheyichbi, as the Indians called it, or Nova Caesarea, +as it was called in the Latin of its proprietary grant, had a history +rather different from that of other English colonies in America. +Geographically, it had not a few attractions. It was a good sized +dominion surrounded on all sides but one by water, almost an island +domain, secluded and independent. In fact, it was the only one of the +colonies which stood naturally separate and apart. The others were +bounded almost entirely by artificial or imaginary lines. + +It offered an opportunity, one might have supposed, for some +dissatisfied religious sect of the seventeenth century to secure a +sanctuary and keep off all intruders. But at first no one of the various +denominations seems to have fancied it or chanced upon it. The Puritans +disembarked upon the bleak shores of New England well suited to the +sternness of their religion. How different American history might have +been if they had established themselves in the Jerseys! Could they, +under those milder skies, have developed witchcraft, set up blue laws, +and indulged in the killing of Quakers? After a time they learned about +the Jerseys and cast thrifty eyes upon them. Their seafaring habits and +the pursuit of whales led them along the coast and into Delaware Bay. +The Puritans of New Haven made persistent efforts to settle the southern +part of Jersey, on the Delaware near Salem. They thought, as their +quaint old records show, that if they could once start a branch colony +in Jersey it might become more populous and powerful than the New +Haven settlement and in that case they intended to move their seat of +government to the new colony. But their shrewd estimate of its value +came too late. The Dutch and the Swedes occupied the Delaware at that +time and drove them out. Puritans, however, entered northern Jersey +and, while they were not numerous enough to make it a thoroughly Puritan +community, they largely tinged its thought and its laws, and their +influence still survives. + +The difficulty with Jersey was that its seacoast was a monotonous line +of breakers with dangerous shoal inlets, few harbors, and vast mosquito +infested salt marshes and sandy thickets. In the interior it was for +the most part a level, heavily forested, sandy, swampy country in its +southern portions, and rough and mountainous in the northern portions. +Even the entrance by Delaware Bay was so difficult by reason of its +shoals that it was the last part of the coast to be explored. The +Delaware region and Jersey were in fact a sort of middle ground far less +easy of access by the sea than the regions to the north in New England +and to the south in Virginia. + +There were only two places easy of settlement in the Jerseys. One was +the open region of meadows and marshes by Newark Bay near the mouth +of the Hudson and along the Hackensack River, whence the people slowly +extended themselves to the seashore at Sandy Hook and thence southward +along the ocean beach. This was East Jersey. The other easily occupied +region, which became West Jersey, stretched along the shore of the lower +Delaware from the modern Trenton to Salem, whence the settlers gradually +worked their way into the interior. Between these two divisions lay +a rough wilderness which in its southern portion was full of swamps, +thickets, and pine barrens. So rugged was the country that the native +Indians lived for the most part only in the two open regions already +described. + +The natural geographical, geological, and even social division of New +Jersey is made by drawing a line from Trenton to the mouth of the Hudson +River. North of that line the successive terraces of the piedmont and +mountainous region form part of the original North American continent. +South of that line the more or less sandy level region was once a shoal +beneath the ocean; afterwards a series of islands; then one island with +a wide sound behind it passing along the division line to the mouth of +the Hudson. Southern Jersey was in short an island with a sound behind +it very much like the present Long Island. The shoal and island had been +formed in the far distant geologic past by the erosion and washings from +the lofty Pennsylvania mountains now worn down to mere stumps. + +The Delaware River flowed into this sound at Trenton. Gradually the +Hudson end of the sound filled up as far as Trenton, but the tide from +the ocean still runs up the remains of the Old Sound as far as Trenton. +The Delaware should still be properly considered as ending at Trenton, +for the rest of its course to the ocean is still part of Old Pensauken +Sound, as it is called by geologists. + +The Jerseys originated as a colony in 1664. In 1675 West Jersey passed +into the control of the Quakers. In 1680 East Jersey came partially +under Quaker influence. In August, 1664, Charles II seized New York, New +Jersey, and all the Dutch possessions in America, having previously +in March granted them to his brother the Duke of York. The Duke almost +immediately gave to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, members of +the Privy Council and defenders of the Stuart family in the Cromwellian +wars, the land between the Delaware River and the ocean, and bounded +on the north by a line drawn from latitude 41 degrees on the Hudson to +latitude 41 degrees 40 minutes on the Delaware. This region was to be +called, the grant said, Nova Caesarea, or New Jersey. The name was a +compliment to Carteret, who in the Cromwellian wars had defended the +little isle of Jersey against the forces of the Long Parliament. As the +American Jersey was then almost an island and geologically had been one, +the name was not inappropriate. + +Berkeley and Carteret divided the province between them. In 1676 an +exact division was attempted, creating the rather unnatural sections +known as East Jersey and West Jersey. The first idea seems to have been +to divide by a line running from Barnegat on the seashore to the mouth +of Pensauken Creek on the Delaware just above Camden. This, however, +would have made a North Jersey and a South Jersey, with the latter much +smaller than the former. Several lines seem to have been surveyed at +different times in the attempt to make an exactly equal division, which +was no easy engineering task. As private land titles and boundaries were +in some places dependent on the location of the division line, there +resulted much controversy and litigation which lasted down into our +own time. Without going into details, it is sufficient to say that the +acceptable division line began on the seashore at Little Egg Harbor at +the lower end of Barnegat Bay and crossed diagonally or northwesterly to +the northern part of the Delaware River just above the Water Gap. It is +known as the Old Province line, and it can be traced on any map of the +State by prolonging, in both directions, the northeastern boundary of +Burlington County. + +West Jersey, which became decidedly Quaker, did not remain long in the +possession of Lord Berkeley. He was growing old; and, disappointed in +his hopes of seeing it settled, he sold it, in 1673, for one thousand +pounds to John Fenwick and Edward Byllinge, both of them old Cromwellian +soldiers turned Quakers. That this purchase was made for the purpose +of affording a refuge in America for Quakers then much imprisoned and +persecuted in England does not very distinctly appear. At least there +was no parade of it. But such a purpose in addition to profit for the +proprietors may well have been in the minds of the purchasers. + +George Fox, the Quaker leader, had just returned from a missionary +journey in America, in the course of which he had traveled through New +Jersey in going from New York to Maryland. Some years previously in +England, about 1659, he had made inquiries as to a suitable place for +Quaker settlement and was told of the region north of Maryland which +became Pennsylvania. But how could a persecuted sect obtain such a +region from the British Crown and the Government that was persecuting +them? It would require powerful influence at Court; nothing could then +be done about it; and Pennsylvania had to wait until William Penn became +a man with influence enough in 1681 to win it from the Crown. But here +was West Jersey, no longer owned directly by the Crown and bought in +cheap by two Quakers. It was an unexpected opportunity. Quakers soon +went to it, and it was the first Quaker colonial experiment. + +Byllinge and Fenwick, though turned Quakers, seem to have retained +some of the contentious Cromwellian spirit of their youth. They soon +quarreled over their respective interests in the ownership of West +Jersey; and to prevent a lawsuit, so objectionable to Quakers, the +decision was left to William Penn, then a rising young Quaker about +thirty years old, dreaming of ideal colonies in America. Penn awarded +Fenwick a one-tenth interest and four hundred pounds. Byllinge soon +became insolvent and turned over his nine-tenths interest to his +creditors, appointing Penn and two other Quakers, Gawen Lawrie, a +merchant of London, and Nicholas Lucas, a maltster of Hertford, to hold +it in trust for them. Gawen Lawrie afterwards became deputy governor of +East Jersey. Lucas was one of those thoroughgoing Quakers just released +from eight years in prison for his religion. * + + + * Myers, "Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West Jersey, and +Delaware", p. 180. + +Fenwick also in the end fell into debt and, after selling over one +hundred thousand acres to about fifty purchasers, leased what remained +of his interest for a thousand years to John Edridge, a tanner, and +Edmund Warner, a poulterer, as security for money borrowed from them. +They conveyed this lease and their claims to Penn, Lawrie, and Lucas, +who thus became the owners, as trustees, of pretty much all West Jersey. + +This was William Penn's first practical experience in American affairs. +He and his fellow trustees, with the consent of Fenwick, divided the +West Jersey ownership into one hundred shares. The ninety belonging to +Byllinge were offered for sale to settlers or to creditors of Byllinge +who would take them in exchange for debts. The settlement of West Jersey +thus became the distribution of an insolvent Quaker's estate among his +creditor fellow religionists. + +Although no longer in possession of a title to land, Fenwick, in 1675, +went out with some Quaker settlers to Delaware Bay. There they founded +the modern town of Salem, which means peace, giving it that name because +of the fair and peaceful aspect of the wilderness on the day they +arrived. They bought the land from the Indians in the usual manner, +as the Swedes and Dutch had so often done. But they had no charter or +provision for organized government. When Fenwick attempted to exercise +political authority at Salem, he was seized and imprisoned by Andros, +Governor of New York for the Duke of York, on the ground that, although +the Duke had given Jersey to certain individual proprietors, the +political control of it remained in the Duke's deputy governor. Andros, +who had levied a tax of five per cent on all goods passing up the +Delaware, now established commissioners at Salem to collect the duties. + +This action brought up the whole question of the authority of Andros. +The trustee proprietors of West Jersey appealed to the Duke of York, who +was suspiciously indifferent to the matter, but finally referred it +for decision to a prominent lawyer, Sir William Jones, before whom the +Quaker proprietors of West Jersey made a most excellent argument. They +showed the illegality, injustice, and wrong of depriving the Jerseys +of vested political rights and forcing them from the freeman's right +of making their own laws to a state of mere dependence on the arbitrary +will of one man. Then with much boldness they declared that "To exact +such an unterminated tax from English planters, and to continue it after +so many repeated complaints, will be the greatest evidence of a design +to introduce, if the Crown should ever devolve upon the Duke, an +unlimited government in old England." Prophetic words which the Duke, in +a few years, tried his best to fulfill. But Sir William Jones deciding +against him, he acquiesced, confirmed the political rights of West +Jersey by a separate grant, and withdrew any authority Andros claimed +over East Jersey. The trouble, however, did not end here. Both the +Jerseys were long afflicted by domineering attempts from New York. + +Penn and his fellow trustees now prepared a constitution, or +"Concessions and Agreements," as they called it, for West Jersey, the +first Quaker political constitution embodying their advanced ideas, +establishing religious liberty, universal suffrage, and voting by +ballot, and abolishing imprisonment for debt. It foreshadowed some of +the ideas subsequently included in the Pennsylvania constitution. All +these experiences were an excellent school for William Penn. He learned +the importance in starting a colony of having a carefully and maturely +considered system of government. In his preparations some years +afterwards for establishing Pennsylvania he avoided much of the bungling +of the West Jersey enterprise. + +A better organized attempt was now made to establish a foothold in West +Jersey farther up the river than Fenwick's colony at Salem. In 1677 the +ship Kent took out some 230 rather well-to-do Quakers, about as fine a +company of broadbrims, it is said, as ever entered the Delaware. Some +were from Yorkshire and London, largely creditors of Byllinge, who +were taking land to satisfy their debts. They all went up the river to +Raccoon Creek on the Jersey side, about fifteen miles below the present +site of Philadelphia, and lived at first among the Swedes, who had +been in that part of Jersey for some years and who took care of the new +arrivals in their barns and sheds. These Quaker immigrants, however, +soon began to take care of themselves, and the weather during the winter +proving mild, they explored farther up the river in a small boat. They +bought from the Indians the land along the river shore from Oldman's +Creek all the way up to Trenton and made their first settlements on the +river about eighteen miles above the site of Philadelphia, at a +place they at first called New Beverly, then Bridlington, and finally +Burlington. + +They may have chosen this spot partly because there had been an old +Dutch settlement of a few families there. It had long been a crossing of +the Delaware for the few persons who passed by land from New York or New +England to Maryland and Virginia. One of the Dutchmen, Peter Yegon, kept +a ferry and a house for entertaining travelers. George Fox, who crossed +there in 1671, describes the place as having been plundered by the +Indians and deserted. He and his party swam their horses across the +river and got some of the Indians to help them with canoes. + +Other Quaker immigrants followed, going to Salem as well as to +Burlington, and a stretch of some fifty miles of the river shore became +strongly Quaker. There are not many American towns now to be found with +more of the old-time picturesqueness and more relics of the past than +Salem and Burlington. + +Settlements were also started on the river opposite the site afterwards +occupied by Philadelphia, at Newton on the creek still called by that +name; and another a little above on Cooper's Creek, known as Cooper's +Ferry until 1794. Since then it has become the flourishing town of +Camden, full of shipbuilding and manufacturing, but for long after the +Revolution it was merely a small village on the Jersey shore opposite +Philadelphia, sometimes used as a hunting ground and a place of resort +for duelers and dancing parties from Philadelphia. + +The Newton settlers were Quakers of the English middle class, weavers, +tanners, carpenters, bricklayers, chandlers, blacksmiths, coopers, +bakers, haberdashers, hatters, and linen drapers, most of them possessed +of property in England and bringing good supplies with them. Like all +the rest of the New Jersey settlers they were in no sense adventurers, +gold seekers, cavaliers, or desperadoes. They were well-to-do middle +class English tradespeople who would never have thought of leaving +England if they had not lost faith in the stability of civil and +religious liberty and the security of their property under the Stuart +Kings. With them came servants, as they were called; that is, persons of +no property, who agreed to work for a certain time in payment of their +passage, to escape from England. All, indeed, were escaping from England +before their estates melted away in fines and confiscations or their +health or lives ended in the damp, foul air of the crowded prisons. Many +of those who came had been in jail and had decided that they would not +risk imprisonment a second time. Indeed, the proportion of West Jersey +immigrants who had actually been in prison for holding or attending +Quaker meetings or refusing to pay tithes for the support of the +established church was large. For example, William Bates, a carpenter, +while in jail for his religion, made arrangements with his friends +to escape to West Jersey as soon as he should be released, and his +descendants are now scattered over the United States. Robert Turner, a +man of means, who settled finally in Philadelphia but also owned much +land near Newton in West Jersey, had been imprisoned in England in 1660, +again in 1662, again in 1665, and some of his property had been taken, +again imprisoned in 1669 and more property taken; and many others had +the same experience. Details such as these make us realize the situation +from which the Quakers sought to escape. So widespread was the Quaker +movement in England and so severe the punishment imposed in order to +suppress it that fifteen thousand families are said to have been ruined +by the fines, confiscations, and imprisonments. + +Not a few Jersey Quakers were from Ireland, whither they had fled +because there the laws against them were less rigorously administered. +The Newton settlers were joined by Quakers from Long Island, where, +under the English law as administered by the New York governors, they +had also been fined and imprisoned, though with less severity than at +home, for nonconformity to the Church of England. On arriving, the West +Jersey settlers suffered some hardships during the year that must elapse +before a crop could be raised and a log cabin or house built. During +that period they usually lived, in the Indian manner, in wigwams of +poles covered with bark, or in caves protected with logs in the steep +banks of the creeks. Many of them lived in the villages of the Indians. +The Indians supplied them all with corn and venison, and without this +Indian help, they would have run serious risk of starving, for they were +not accustomed to hunting. They had also to thank the Indians for having +in past ages removed so much of the heavy forest growth from the wide +strip of land along the river that it was easy to start cultivation. + +These Quaker settlers made a point of dealing very justly with the +Indians and the two races lived side by side for several generations. +There is an instance recorded of the Indians attending with much +solemnity the funeral of a prominent Quaker woman, Esther Spicer, for +whom they had acquired great respect. The funeral was held at night, +and the Indians in canoes, the white men in boats, passed down Cooper's +Creek and along the river to Newton Creek where the graveyard was, +lighting the darkness with innumerable torches, a strange scene to think +of now as having been once enacted in front of the bustling cities of +Camden and Philadelphia. Some of the young settlers took Indian wives, +and that strain of native blood is said to show itself in the features +of several families to this day. + +Many letters of these settlers have been preserved, all expressing the +greatest enthusiasm for the new country, for the splendid river better +than the Thames, the good climate, and their improved health, the +immense relief to be away from the constant dread of fines and +punishment, the chance to rise in the world, with large rewards for +industry. They note the immense quantities of game, the Indians bringing +in fat bucks every day, the venison better than in England, the streams +full of fish, the abundance of wild fruits, cranberries, hurtleberries, +the rapid increase of cattle, and the good soil. A few details +concerning some of the interesting characters among these early colonial +Quakers have been rescued from oblivion. There is, for instance, the +pleasing picture of a young man and his sister, convinced Quakers, +coming out together and pioneering in their log cabin until each found a +partner for life. There was John Haddon, from whom Haddonfield is named, +who bought a large tract of land but remained in England, while his +daughter Elizabeth came out alone to look after it. A strong, decisive +character she was, and women of that sort have always been encouraged in +independent action by the Quakers. She proved to be an excellent manager +of an estate. The romance of her marriage to a young Quaker preacher, +Estaugh, has been celebrated in Mrs. Maria Child's novel "The Youthful +Emigrant." The pair became leading citizens devoted to good works and to +Quaker liberalism for many a year in Haddonfield. + +It was the ship Shields of Hull, bringing Quaker immigrants to +Burlington, of which the story is told that in beating up the river +she tacked close to the rather high bank with deep water frontage where +Philadelphia was afterwards established; and some of the passengers +remarked that it was a fine site for a town. The Shields, it is said, +was the first ship to sail up as far as Burlington. Anchoring before +Burlington in the evening, the colonists woke up next morning to find +the river frozen hard so that they walked on the ice to their future +habitations. + +Burlington was made the capital of West Jersey, a legislature was +convened and laws were passed under the "concessions" or constitution +of the proprietors. Salem and Burlington became the ports of the little +province, which was well under way by 1682, when Penn came out to take +possession of Pennsylvania. + +The West Jersey people of these two settlements spread eastward into the +interior but were stopped by a great forest area known as the Pines, or +Pine Barrens, of such heavy growth that even the Indians lived on its +outer edges and entered it only for hunting. It was an irregularly +shaped tract, full of wolves, bear, beaver, deer, and other game, and +until recent years has continued to attract sportsmen from all parts of +the country. Starting near Delaware Bay, it extended parallel with the +ocean as far north as the lower portion of the present Monmouth County +and formed a region about seventy-five miles long and thirty miles wide. +It was roughly the part of the old sandy shoal that first emerged from +the ocean, and it has been longer above water than any other part of +southern Jersey. The old name, Pine Barrens, is hardly correct because +it implies something like a desert, when as a matter of fact the region +produced magnificent forest trees. + +The innumerable visitors who cross southern Jersey to the famous +seashore resorts always pass through the remains of this old central +forest and are likely to conclude that the monotonous low scrub oaks +and stunted pines on sandy level soil, seen for the last two or three +generations, were always there and that the primeval forest of colonial +times was no better. But that is a mistake. The stunted growth now seen +is not even second growth but in many cases fourth or fifth or more. The +whole region was cut over long ago. The original growth, pine in many +places, consisted also of lofty timber of oak, hickory, gum, ash, +chestnut, and numerous other trees, interspersed with dogwood, +sassafras, and holly, and in the swamps the beautiful magnolia, along +with the valuable white cedar. DeVries, who visited the Jersey coast +about 1632, at what is supposed to have been Beesley's or Somer's Point, +describes high woods coming down to the shore. Even today, immediately +back of Somer's Point, there is a magnificent lofty oak forest +accidentally preserved by surrounding marsh from the destructive +forest fires; and there are similar groves along the road towards +Pleasantville. In fact, the finest forest trees flourish in that region +wherever given a good chance. Even some of the beaches of Cape May had +valuable oak and luxuriant growths of red cedar; and until a few years +ago there were fine trees, especially hollies, surviving on Wildwood +Beach. + +The Jersey white cedar swamps were, and still are, places of fascinating +interest to the naturalist and the botanist. The hunter or explorer +found them scattered almost everywhere in the old forest and near its +edges, varying in size from a few square yards up to hundreds of acres. +They were formed by little streams easily checked in their flow through +the level land by decaying vegetation or dammed by beavers. They kept +the water within the country, preventing all effects of droughts, +stimulating the growth of vegetation which by its decay, throughout +the centuries, was steadily adding vegetable mold or humus to the sandy +soil. This process of building up a richer soil has now been largely +stopped by lumbering, drainage, and fires. + +While there are many of these swamps left, the appearance of numbers +of them has largely changed. When the white men first came, the great +cedars three or four feet in diameter which had fallen centuries before +often lay among the living trees, some of them buried deep in the mud +and preserved from decay. They were invaluable timber, and digging them +out and cutting them up became an important industry for over a hundred +years. In addition to being used for boat building, they made excellent +shingles which would last a lifetime. The swamps, indeed, became known +as shingle mines, and it was a good description of them. An important +trade was developed in hogshead staves, hoops, shingles, boards, and +planks, much of which went into the West Indian trade to be exchanged +for rum, sugar, molasses, and negroes. * + + + * Between the years 1740 and '50, the Cedar Swamps of the county +[Cape May] were mostly located; and the amount of lumber since taken +from them is incalculable, not only as an article of trade, but to +supply the home demand for fencing and building material in the county. +Large portions of these swamps have been worked a second and some a +third time, since located. At the present time [1857] there is not an +acre of original growth of swamp standing, having all passed away +before the resistless sway of the speculator or the consumer. "Beesley's +"Sketch of Cape May" p. 197. + + +The great forest has long since been lumbered to death. The pines were +worked for tar, pitch, resin, and turpentine until for lack of material +the industry passed southward through the Carolinas to Florida, +exhausting the trees as it went. The Christmas demand for holly has +almost stripped the Jersey woods of these trees once so numerous. +Destructive fires and frequent cutting keep the pine and oak lands +stunted. Thousands of dollars' worth of cedar springing up in the swamps +are sometimes destroyed in a day. But efforts to control the fires so +destructive not only to this standing timber but to the fertility of +the soil, and attempts to reforest this country not only for the sake +of timber but as an attraction to those who resort there in search of +health or natural beauty, have not been vigorously pushed. The great +forest has now, to be sure, been partially cultivated in spots, and the +sand used for large glass-making industries. Small fruits and grapes +flourish in some places. At the northern end of this forest tract the +health resort known as Lakewood was established to take advantage of the +pine air. A little to the southward is the secluded Brown's Mills, once +so appealing to lovers of the simple life. Checked on the east by the +great forest, the West Jersey Quakers spread southward from Salem until +they came to the Cohansey, a large and beautiful stream flowing out of +the forest and wandering through green meadows and marshes to the bay. +So numerous were the wild geese along its shores and along the Maurice +River farther south that the first settlers are said to have killed them +for their feathers alone and to have thrown the carcasses away. At the +head of navigation of the Cohansey was a village called Cohansey Bridge, +and after 1765 Bridgeton, a name still borne by a flourishing modern +town. Lower down near the marsh was the village of Greenwich, the +principal place of business up to the year 1800, with a foreign trade. +Some of the tea the East India Company tried to force on the colonists +during the Revolution was sent there and was duly rejected. It is still +an extremely pretty village, with its broad shaded streets like a New +England town and its old Quaker meeting house. In fact, not a few New +Englanders from Connecticut, still infatuated with southern Jersey in +spite of the rebuffs received in ancient times from Dutch and Swedes, +finally settled near the Cohansey after it came under control of the +more amiable Quakers. There was also one place called after Fairfield in +Connecticut and another called New England Town. + +The first churches of this region were usually built near running +streams so that the congregation could procure water for themselves and +their horses. Of one old Presbyterian Church it used to be said that +no one had ever ridden to it in a wheeled vehicle. Wagons and carriages +were very scarce until after the Revolution. Carts for occasions of +ceremony as well as utility were used before wagons and carriages. For a +hundred and fifty years the horse's back was the best form of conveyance +in the deep sand of the trails and roads. This was true of all southern +Jersey. Pack horses and the backs of Indian and negro slaves were the +principal means of transportation on land. The roads and trails, in +fact, were so few and so heavy with sand that water travel was very +much developed. The Indian dugout canoe was adopted and found faster +and better than heavy English rowboats. As the province was almost +surrounded by water and was covered with a network of creeks and +channels, nearly all the villages and towns were situated on tidewater +streams, and the dugout canoe, modified and improved, was for several +generations the principal means of communication. Most of the old roads +in New Jersey followed Indian trails. There was a trail, for example, +from the modern Camden opposite Philadelphia, following up Cooper's +Creek past Berlin, then called Long-a-coming, crossing the watershed, +and then following Great Egg Harbor River to the seashore. Another +trail, long used by the settlers, led from Salem up to Camden, +Burlington, and Trenton, going round the heads of streams. It was +afterwards abandoned for the shorter route obtained by bridging the +streams nearer their mouths. This old trail also extended from the +neighborhood of Trenton to Perth Amboy near the mouth of the Hudson, and +thus, by supplementing the lower routes, made a trail nearly the whole +length of the province. + +As a Quaker refuge, West Jersey never attained the success of +Pennsylvania. The political disturbances and the continually threatened +loss of self-government in both the Jerseys were a serious deterrent to +Quakers who, above all else, prized rights which they found far better +secured in Pennsylvania. In 1702, when the two Jerseys were united into +one colony under a government appointed by the Crown, those rights were +more restricted than ever and all hopes of West Jersey becoming a colony +under complete Quaker control were shattered. Under Governor Cornbury, +the English law was adopted and enforced, and the Quakers were +disqualified from testifying in court unless they took an oath and +were prohibited from serving on juries or holding any office of trust. +Cornbury's judges wore scarlet robes, powdered wigs, cocked hats, +gold lace, and side arms; they were conducted to the courthouse by the +sheriff's cavalcade and opened court with great parade and ceremony. +Such a spectacle of pomp was sufficient to divert the flow of Quaker +immigrants to Pennsylvania, where the government was entirely in Quaker +hands and where plain and serious ways gave promise of enduring and +unmolested prosperity. + +The Quakers had altogether thirty meeting houses in West Jersey and +eleven in East Jersey, which probably shows about the proportion +of Quaker influence in the two Jerseys. Many of them have since +disappeared; some of the early buildings, to judge from the pictures, +were of wood and not particularly pleasing in appearance. They were +makeshifts, usually intended to be replaced by better buildings. Some +substantial brick buildings of excellent architecture have survived, and +their plainness and simplicity, combined with excellent proportions and +thorough construction, are clearly indicative of Quaker character. There +is a particularly interesting one in Salem with a magnificent old oak +beside it, another in the village of Greenwich on the Cohansey farther +south, and another at Crosswicks near Trenton. + +In West Jersey near Mount Holly was born and lived John Woolman, a +Quaker who became eminent throughout the English speaking world for the +simplicity and loftiness of his religious thought as well as for his +admirable style of expression. His "Journal," once greatly and even +extravagantly admired, still finds readers. "Get the writings of John +Woolman by heart," said Charles Lamb, "and love the early Quakers." +He was among the Quakers one of the first and perhaps the first really +earnest advocate of the abolition of slavery. The scenes of West Jersey +and the writings of Woolman seem to belong together. Possibly a feeling +for the simplicity of those scenes and their life led Walt Whitman, who +grew up on Long Island under Quaker influence, to spend his last years +at Camden, in West Jersey. His profound democracy, which was very +Quaker-like, was more at home there perhaps than anywhere else. + + + +Chapter IX. Planters And Traders Of Southern Jersey + +Most of the colonies in America, especially the stronger ones, had an +aristocratic class, which was often large and powerful, as in the case +of Virginia, and which usually centered around the governor, especially +if he were appointed from England by the Crown or by a proprietor. But +there was very little of this social distinction in New Jersey. Her +political life had been too much broken up, and she had been too long +dependent on the governors of New York to have any of those pretty +little aristocracies with bright colored clothes, and coaches and four, +flourishing within her boundaries. There seems to have been a faint +suggestion of such social pretensions under Governor Franklin just +before the Revolution. He was beginning to live down the objections to +his illegitimate birth and Toryism and by his entertainments and manner +of living was creating a social following. There is said also to have +been something a little like the beginning of an aristocracy among the +descendants of the Dutch settlers who had ancestral holdings near the +Hudson; but this amounted to very little. + +Class distinctions were not so strongly marked in New Jersey as in some +other colonies. There grew up in southern Jersey, however, a sort of +aristocracy of gentlemen farmers, who owned large tracts of land and +lived in not a little style in good houses on the small streams. + +The northern part of the province, largely settled and influenced by New +Englanders, was like New England a land of vigorous concentrated town +life and small farms. The hilly and mountainous nature of the northern +section naturally led to small holdings of land. But in southern Jersey +the level sandy tracts of forest were often taken up in large areas. +In the absence of manufacturing, large acreage naturally became, as in +Virginia and Maryland, the only mark of wealth and social distinction. +The great landlord was looked up to by the lesser fry. The Quaker rule +of discountenancing marrying out of meeting tended to keep a large +acreage in the family and to make it larger by marriage. A Quaker +of broad acres would seek for his daughter a young man of another +landholding Quaker family and would thus join the two estates. + +There was a marked difference between East Jersey and West Jersey +in county organization. In West Jersey the people tended to become +planters; their farms and plantations somewhat like those of the far +South; and the political unit of government was the county. In East +Jersey the town was the starting point and the county marked the +boundaries of a collection of towns. This curious difference, the result +of soil, climate, and methods of life, shows itself in other States +wherever South and North meet. Illinois is an example, where the +southern part of the State is governed by the county system, and the +northern part by the town system. + +The lumberman, too, in clearing off the primeval forest and selling the +timber, usually dealt in immense acreage. Some families, it is said, can +be traced steadily proceeding southward as they stripped off the forest, +and started sawmills and gristmills on the little streams that trickled +from the swamps, and like beavers making with their dams those pretty +ponds which modern lovers of the picturesque are now so eager to find. A +good deal of the lumbering in the interior pines tract was carried on +by persons who leased the premises from owners who lived on plantations +along the Delaware or its tributary streams. These operations began soon +after 1700. Wood roads were cut into the Pines, sawmills were started, +and constant use turned some of these wood roads into the highways of +modern times. + +There was a speculative tinge in the operations of this landed +aristocracy. Like the old tobacco raising aristocracy of Virginia and +Maryland, they were inclined to go from tract to tract, skinning what +they could from a piece of deforested land and then seeking another +virgin tract. The roughest methods were used; wooden plows, brush +harrows, straw collars, grapevine harness, and poor shelter for animals +and crops; but were the Virginia methods any better? In these operations +there was apparently a good deal of sudden profit and mushroom +prosperity accompanied by a good deal of debt and insolvency. In this, +too, they were like the Virginians and Carolinians. There seem to have +been also a good many slaves in West Jersey, brought, as in the southern +colonies, to work on the large estates, and this also, no doubt, helped +to foster the aristocratic feeling. + +The best days of the Jersey gentlemen farmers came probably when they +could no longer move from tract to tract. They settled down and enjoyed +a very plentiful, if rude, existence on the products of their land, +game, and fish, amid a fine climate--with mosquitoes enough in summer to +act as a counterirritant and prevent stagnation from too much ease and +prosperity. After the manner of colonial times, they wove their own +clothes from the wool of their own sheep and made their own implements, +furniture, and simple machinery. + +There are still to be found fascinating traces of this old life in +out-of-the-way parts of southern Jersey. To run upon old houses among +the Jersey pines still stored with Latin classics and old editions of +Shakespeare, Addison, or Samuel Johnson, to come across an old mill +with its machinery, cogwheels, flywheels, and all, made of wood, to find +people who make their own oars, and the handles of their tools from +the materials furnished by their own forest, is now unfortunately a +refreshment of the spirit that is daily becoming rarer. + +This condition of material and social self-sufficiency lasted in places +long after the Revolution. It was a curious little aristocracy--a very +faint and faded one, lacking the robustness of the far southern +type, and lacking indeed the real essential of an aristocracy, namely +political power. Moreover, although there were slaves in New Jersey, +there were not enough of them to exalt the Jersey gentlemen farmers into +such self-sufficient lords and masters as the Virginian and Carolinian +planters became. + +To search out the remains of this stage of American history, however, +takes one up many pleasant streams flowing out of the forest tract +to the Delaware on one side or to the ocean on the other. This +topographical formation of a central ridge or watershed of forest and +swamp was a repetition of the same formation in the Delaware peninsula, +which like southern Jersey had originally been a shoal and then an +island. The Jersey watershed, with its streams abounding in wood duck +and all manner of wild life, must have been in its primeval days as +fascinating as some of the streams of the Florida cypress swamps. Toward +the ocean, Wading River, the Mullica, the Tuckahoe, Great Egg; and on +the Delaware side the Maurice, Cohansey, Salem Creek, Oldman's, Raccoon, +Mantua, Woodberry, Timber, and the Rancocas, still possess attraction. +Some of them, on opposite sides of the divide, are not far apart +at their sources in the old forest tract; so that a canoe can be +transported over the few miles and thus traverse the State. One of these +trips up Timber Creek from the Delaware and across only eight miles of +land to the headwaters of Great Egg Harbor River and thence down to the +ocean, thus cutting South Jersey in half, is a particularly romantic +one. The heavy woods and swamps of this secluded route along these +forest shadowed streams are apparently very much as they were three +hundred years ago. + +The water in all these streams, particularly in their upper parts, owing +to the sandy soil, is very clean and clear and is often stained by +the cedar roots in the swamps a clear brown, sometimes almost an amber +color. One of the streams, the Rancocas, with its many windings to Mount +Holly and then far inland to Brown's Mills, seems to be the favorite +with canoemen and is probably without an equal in its way for those who +love the Indian's gift that brings us so close to nature. + +The spread of the Quaker settlements along Delaware Bay to Cape May +was checked by the Maurice River and its marshes and by the Great Cedar +Swamp which crossed the country from Delaware Bay to the ocean and thus +made of the Cape May region a sort of island. The Cape May region, it +is true, was settled by Quakers, but most of them came from Long Island +rather than from the settlements on the Delaware. They had followed +whale fishing on Long Island and in pursuit of that occupation some of +them had migrated to Cape May where whales were numerous not far off +shore. + +The leading early families of Cape May, the Townsends, Stillwells, +Corsons, Leamings, Ludlams, Spicers, and Cresses, many of whose +descendants still live there, were Quakers of the Long Island strain. +The ancestor of the Townsend family came to Cape May because he had +been imprisoned and fined and threatened with worse under the New York +government for assisting his fellow Quakers to hold meetings. Probably +the occasional severity of the administration of the New York laws +against Quakers, which were the same as those of England, had as much +to do as had the whales with the migration to Cape May. This Quaker +civilization extended from Cape May up as far as Great Egg Harbor where +the Great Cedar Swamp joined the seashore. Quaker meeting houses were +built at Cape May, Galloway, Tuckahoe, and Great Egg. All have been +abandoned and the buildings themselves have disappeared, except that of +the Cape May meeting, called the Old Cedar Meeting, at Seaville; and it +has no congregation. The building is kept in repair by members of the +Society from other places. + +Besides the Quakers, Cape May included a number of New Haven people, the +first of whom came there as early as 1640 under the leadership of George +Lamberton and Captain Turner, seeking profit in whale fishing. They were +not driven out by the Dutch and Swedes, as happened to their companions +who attempted to settle higher up the river at Salem and the Schuylkill. +About one-fifth of the old family names of Cape May and New Haven are +similar, and there is supposed to be not a little New England blood +not only in Cape May but in the neighboring counties of Cumberland and +Salem. While the first New Haven whalers came to Cape May in 1640, it is +probable that for a long time they only sheltered their vessels there, +and none of them became permanent settlers until about 1685. + +Scandinavians contributed another element to the population of the Cape +May region. Very little is definitely known about this settlement, but +the Swedish names in Cape May and Cumberland counties seem to indicate a +migration of Scandinavians from Wilmington and Tinicum. + +Great Egg Harbor, which formed the northern part of the Cape May +settlement, was named from the immense numbers of wild fowl, swans, +ducks, and water birds that formerly nested there every summer and have +now been driven to Canada or beyond. Little Egg Harbor farther up the +coast was named for the same reason as well as Egg Island, of three +hundred acres in Delaware Bay, since then eaten away by the tide. The +people of the district had excellent living from the eggs as well as +from the plentiful fowl, fish, and oysters. + +Some farming was done by the inhabitants of Cape May; and many cattle, +marked with brands but in a half wild state, were kept out on the +uninhabited beaches which have now become seaside summer cities. Some +of the cattle were still running wild on the beaches down to the time +of the Civil War. The settlers "mined" the valuable white cedar from the +swamps for shingles and boards, leaving great "pool holes" in the swamps +which even today sometimes trap the unwary sportsman. The women knitted +innumerable mittens and also made wampum or Indian money from the clam +and oyster shells, an important means of exchange in the Indian trade +all over the colonies, and even to some extent among the colonists +themselves. The Cape May people built sloops for carrying the white +cedar, the mittens, oysters, and wampum to the outside world. They +sold a great deal of their cedar in Long Island, Rhode Island, and +Connecticut. Philadelphia finally became their market for oysters and +also for lumber, corn, and the whalebone and oil. Their sloops also +traded to the southern colonies and even to the West Indies. + +They were an interesting little community, these Cape May people, very +isolated and dependent on the water and on their boats, for they were +completely cut off by the Great Cedar Swamp which stretched across the +point and separated them from the rest of the coast. This troublesome +swamp was not bridged for many years; and even then the roads to it were +long, slow, and too sandy for transporting anything of much bulk. + +Next above Cape May on the coast was another isolated patch of +civilization which, while not an island, was nevertheless cut off on the +south by Great Egg Harbor with its river and marshes, and on the north +by Little Egg Harbor with the Mullica River and its marshes extending +far inland. The people in this district also lived somewhat to +themselves. To the north lay the district which extended to Sandy Hook, +also with its distinct set of people. + +The people of the Cape became in colonial times clever traders in +various pursuits. Although in one sense they were as isolated as +islanders, their adventurous life on the sea gave them breadth of view. +By their thrift and in innumerable shrewd and persistent ways they +amassed competencies and estates for their families. Aaron Leaming, for +example, who died in 1780, left an estate of nearly $1,000,000. Some +kept diaries which have become historically valuable in showing not only +their history but their good education and the peculiar cast of their +mind for keen trading as well as their rigid economy and integrity. + +One character, Jacob Spicer, a prosperous colonial, insisted on having +everything made at home by his sons and daughters--shoes, clothes, +leather breeches, wampum, even shoe thread--calculating the cost of +everything to a fraction and economizing to the last penny of money and +the last second of time. Yet in the course of a year he used "fifty-two +gallons of rum, ten of wine, and two barrels of cyder." Apparently in +those days hard labor and hard drinking went well together. + +The Cape May people, relying almost entirely on the water for +communication and trade, soon took to piloting vessels in the Delaware +River, and some of them still follow this occupation. They also became +skillful sailors and builders of small craft, and it is not surprising +to learn that Jacocks Swain and his sons introduced, in 1811, the +centerboard for keeping flat-bottomed craft closer to the wind. They +are said to have taken out a patent for this invention and are given the +credit of being the originators of the idea. But the device was known in +England in 1774, was introduced in Massachusetts in the same year, and +may have been used long before by the Dutch. The need of it, however, +was no doubt strongly impressed upon the Cape May people by the +difficulties which their little sloops experienced in beating home +against contrary winds. Some of them, indeed, spent weeks in sight of +the Cape, unable to make it. One sloop, the Nancy, seventy-two days from +Demarara, hung off and on for forty-three days from December 25, 1787, +to February 6, 1788, and was driven off fifteen times before she finally +got into Hereford Inlet. Sometimes better sailing craft had to go out +and bring in such distressed vessels. The early boats were no doubt +badly constructed; but in the end apprenticeship to dire necessity made +the Cape May sailors masters of seamanship and the windward art. * + + + * Stevens, "History of Cape May County," pp. 219, 229; Kelley, +"American Yachts" (1884), p. 165. + + +Wilson, the naturalist, spent a great deal of time in the Cape May +region, because of the great variety of birds to be found there. +Southern types, like the Florida egret, ventured even so far north, and +it was a stopping place for migrating birds, notably woodcock, on their +northern and southern journeys. Men of the stone age had once been +numerous in this region, as the remains of village plats and great shell +heaps bore witness. It was a resting point for all forms of life. That +much traveled, adventurous gentleman of the sea, Captain Kidd, according +to popular legend, was a frequent visitor to this coast. + +In later times, beginning in 1801, the Cape became one of the earliest +of the summer resorts. The famous Commodore Decatur was among the first +distinguished men to be attracted by the simple seaside charm of the +place, long before it was destroyed by wealth and crowds. Year by year +he used to measure and record at one spot the encroachment of the sea +upon the beach. Where today the sea washes and the steel pier extends, +once lay cornfields. For a hundred years it was a favorite resting place +for statesmen and politicians of national eminence. They traveled there +by stage, sailing sloop, or their own wagons. People from Baltimore +and the South more particularly sought the place because it was easily +accessible from the head of Chesapeake Bay by an old railroad, long +since abandoned, to Newcastle on the Delaware, whence sail-or steamboats +went to Cape May. This avoided the tedious stage ride over the sandy +Jersey roads. Presidents, cabinet officers, senators, and congressmen +sought the invigorating air of the Cape and the attractions of the old +village, its seafaring life, the sailing, fishing, and bathing on the +best beach of the coast. Congress Hall, their favorite hotel, became +famous, and during a large part of the nineteenth century presidential +nominations and policies are said to have been planned within its walls. + + + +Chapter X. Scotch Covenanters And Others In East Jersey + +East Jersey was totally different in its topography from West Jersey. +The northern half of the State is a region of mountains and lakes. As +part of the original continent it had been under the ice sheet of +the glacial age and was very unlike the level sands, swamps, and pine +barrens of West Jersey which had arisen as a shoal and island from the +sea. The only place in East Jersey where settlement was at all easy was +along the open meadows which were reached by water near the mouth of the +Hudson, round Newark Bay, and along the Hackensack River. + +The Dutch, by the discoveries of Henry Hudson in 1609, claimed the whole +region between the Hudson and the Delaware. They settled part of East +Jersey opposite their headquarters at New York and called it Pavonia. +But their cruel massacre of some Indians who sought refuge among them at +Pavonia destroyed the prospects of the settlement. The Indians revenged +themselves by massacring the Dutch again and again, every time they +attempted to reestablish Pavonia. This kept the Dutch out of East Jersey +until 1660, when they succeeded in establishing Bergen between Newark +Bay and the Hudson. + +The Dutch authority in America was overthrown in 1664 by Charles II, +who had already given all New Jersey to his brother the Duke of York. +Colonel Richard Nicolls commanded the British expedition that seized the +Dutch possessions; and he had been given full power as deputy governor +of all the Duke of York's vast territory. + +Meantime the New England Puritans seem to have kept their eyes on East +Jersey as a desirable region, and the moment the Connecticut Puritans +heard of Nicolls' appointment, they applied to him for a grant of a +large tract of land on Newark Bay. In the next year, 1665, he gave them +another tract from the mouth of the Raritan to Sandy Hook; and soon the +villages of Shrewsbury and Middletown were started. + +Meantime, however, unknown to Nicolls, the Duke of York in England had +given all of New Jersey to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. As has +already been pointed out, they had divided the province between +them, and East Jersey had fallen to Carteret, who sent out, with some +immigrants, his relative Philip Carteret as governor. Governor Carteret +was of course very much surprised to find so much of the best land +already occupied by the excellent and thrifty Yankees. As a consequence, +litigation and sometimes civil war over this unlucky mistake lasted for +a hundred years. Many of the Yankee settlers under the Nicolls grant +refused to pay quitrents to Carteret or his successors and, in spite of +a commission of inquiry from England in 1751 and a chancery suit, they +held their own until the Revolution of 1776 extinguished all British +authority. + +There was therefore from the beginning a strong New England tinge in +East Jersey which has lasted to this day. Governor Carteret established +a village on Newark Bay which still bears the name Elizabeth, which +he gave it in honor of the wife of the proprietor, and he made it the +capital. There were also immigrants from Scotland and England. But +Puritans from Long Island and New England continued to settle round +Newark Bay. By virtue either of character or numbers, New Englanders +were evidently the controlling element, for they established the New +England system of town government, and imposed strict Connecticut laws, +making twelve crimes punishable with death. Soon there were flourishing +little villages, Newark and Elizabeth, besides Middletown and +Shrewsbury. The next year Piscatawa and Woodbridge were added. Newark +and the region round it, including the Oranges, was settled by very +exclusive Puritans, or Congregationalists, as they are now called, +some thirty families from four Connecticut towns--Milford, Guilford, +Bradford, and New Haven. They decided that only church members should +hold office and vote. + +Governor Carteret ruled the colony with an appointive council and a +general assembly elected by the people, the typical colonial form of +government. His administration lasted from 1665 to his death in 1682; +and there is nothing very remarkable to record except the rebellion of +the New Englanders, especially those who had received their land from +Nicolls. Such independent Connecticut people were, of course, quite out +of place in a proprietary colony, and, when in 1670 the first collection +of quitrents was attempted, they broke out in violent opposition, in +which the settlers of Elizabeth were prominent. In 1672 they elected +a revolutionary assembly of their own and, in place of the deputy +governor, appointed as proprietor a natural son of Carteret. They +began imprisoning former officers and confiscating estates in the most +approved revolutionary form and for a time had the whole government in +their control. It required the interference of the Duke of York, of the +proprietors, and of the British Crown to allay the little tempest, and +three years were given in which to pay the quitrents. + +After the death of Sir George Carteret in 1680, his province of East +Jersey was sold to William Penn and eleven other Quakers for the sum +of 3400 pounds. Colonies seem to have been comparatively inexpensive +luxuries in those days. A few years before, in 1675, Penn and some other +Quakers had, as has already been related, gained control of West Jersey +for the still smaller sum of one thousand pounds and had established +it as a Quaker refuge. It might be supposed that they now had the same +purpose in view in East Jersey, but apparently their intention was to +create a refuge for Presbyterians, the famous Scotch Covenanters, +much persecuted at that time under Charles II, who was forcing them to +conform to the Church of England. + +Penn and his fellow proprietors of East Jersey each chose a partner, +most of them Scotchmen, two of whom, the Earl of Perth and Lord +Drummond, were prominent men. To this mixed body of Quakers, other +dissenters, and some Papists, twenty-four proprietors in all, the Duke +of York reconfirmed by special patent their right to East Jersey. Under +their urging a few Scotch Covenanters began to arrive and seem to have +first established themselves at Perth Amboy, which they named from +the Scottish Earl of Perth and an Indian word meaning "point." This +settlement they expected to become a great commercial port rivaling New +York. Curiously enough, Robert Barclay, the first governor appointed, +was not only a Scotchman but also a Quaker, and a theologian whose +"Apology for the True Christian Divinity" (1678) is regarded to this day +as the best statement of the original Quaker doctrine. He remained in +England, however, and the deputies whom he sent out to rule the colony +had a troublous time of it. + +That Quakers should establish a refuge for Presbyterians seems at first +peculiar, but it was in accord with their general philanthropic plan to +help the oppressed and suffering, to rescue prisoners and exiles, and +especially to ameliorate the horrible condition of people confined in +the English dungeons and prisons. Many vivid pictures of how the Scotch +Covenanters were hunted down like wild beasts may be found in English +histories and novels. When their lives were spared they often met a +fate worse than death in the loathsome dungeons into which thousands of +Quakers of that time were also thrust. A large part of William Penn's +life as a courtier was spent in rescuing prisoners, exiles, and +condemned persons of all sorts, and not merely those of his own faith. +So the undertaking to make of Jersey two colonies, one a refuge for +Quakers and the other a refuge for Covenanters, was natural enough, and +it was a very broad-minded plan for that age. + +In 1683, a few years after the Quaker control of East Jersey began, a +new and fiercer persecution of the Covenanters was started in the old +country, and shortly afterwards Monmouth's insurrection in England broke +out and was followed by a most bloody proscription and punishment. The +greatest efforts were made to induce those still untouched to fly for +refuge to East Jersey; but, strange to say, comparatively few of them +came. It is another proof of the sturdiness and devotion which has +filled so many pages of history and romance with their praise that as +a class the Covenanters remained at home to establish their faith with +torture, martyrdom, and death. + +In 1685 the Duke of York ascended the throne of England as James II, +and all that was naturally to be expected from such a bigoted despot was +soon realized. The persecutions of the Covenanters grew worse. Crowded +into prisons to die of thirst and suffocation, shot down on the +highways, tied to stakes to be drowned by the rising tide, the whole +Calvinistic population of Scotland seemed doomed to extermination. Again +they were told of America as the only place where religious liberty was +allowed, and in addition a book was circulated among them called "The +Model of the Government of the Province of East Jersey in America." +These efforts were partially successful. More Covenanters came than +before, but nothing like the numbers of Quakers that flocked to +Pennsylvania. The whole population of East Jersey--New Englanders, +Dutch, Scotch Covenanters, and all--did not exceed five thousand and +possibly was not over four thousand. + +Some French Huguenots, such as came to many of the English colonies +after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes of 1685, were added to the +East Jersey population. A few went to Salem in West Jersey, and some +of these became Quakers. In both the Jerseys, as elsewhere, they became +prominent and influential in all spheres of life. There was a decided +Dutch influence, it is said, in the part nearest New York, emanating +from the Bergen settlement in which the Dutch had succeeded in +establishing themselves in 1660 after the Indians had twice driven them +from Pavonia. Many descendants of Dutch families are still found in +that region. Many Dutch characteristics were to be found in that region +throughout colonial times. Many of the houses had Dutch stoops or +porches at the door, with seats where the family and visitors sat on +summer evenings to smoke and gossip. Long Dutch spouts extended out +from the eaves to discharge the rain water into the street. But the +prevailing tone of East Jersey seems to have been set by the Scotch +Presbyterians and the New England Congregationalists. The College of +New Jersey, afterward known as Princeton, established in 1747, was the +result of a movement among the Presbyterians of East Jersey and New +York. + +All these elements of East Jersey, Scotch Covenanters, Connecticut +Puritans, Huguenots, and Dutch of the Dutch Reformed Church, were in +a sense different but in reality very much in accord and congenial +in their ideas of religion and politics. They were all sturdy, +freedom-loving Protestants, and they set the tone that prevails in East +Jersey to this day. Their strict discipline and their uncompromising +thrift may now seem narrow and harsh; but it made them what they were; +and it has left a legacy of order and prosperity under which alien +religions and races are eager to seek protection. In its foundation the +Quakers may claim a share. + +The new King, James II, was inclined to reassume jurisdiction and extend +the power of the Governor of New York over East Jersey in spite of his +grant to Sir George Carteret. In fact, he desired to put New England, +New York, and New Jersey under one strong government centered at New +York, to abolish their charters, to extinguish popular government, and +to make them all mere royal dependencies in pursuance of his general +policy of establishing an absolute monarchy and a papal church in +England. + +The curse of East Jersey's existence was to be always an appendage of +New York, or to be threatened with that condition. The inhabitants now +had to enter their vessels and pay duties at New York. Writs were issued +by order of the King putting both the Jerseys and all New England under +the New York Governor. Step by step the plans for amalgamation and +despotism moved on successfully, when suddenly the English Revolution +of 1688 put an end to the whole magnificent scheme, drove the King into +exile, and placed William of Orange on the throne. + +The proprietaries of both Jerseys reassumed their former authority. But +the New York Assembly attempted to exercise control over East Jersey and +to levy duties on its exports. The two provinces were soon on the eve of +a little war. For twelve or fifteen years East Jersey was in disorder, +with seditious meetings, mob rule, judges and sheriffs attacked while +performing their duty, the proprietors claiming quitrents from the +people, the people resisting, and the British Privy Council threatening +a suit to take the province from the proprietors and make a Crown +colony of it. The period is known in the history of this colony as "The +Revolution." Under the threat of the Privy Council to take over the +province, the proprietors of both East and West Jersey surrendered their +rights of political government, retaining their ownership of land and +quitrents, and the two Jerseys were united under one government in 1702. +Its subsequent history demands another chapter. + + + +Chapter XI. The United Jerseys + +The Quaker colonists grouped round Burlington and Salem, on the +Delaware, and the Scotch Covenanters and New England colonists grouped +around Perth Amboy and Newark, near the mouth of the Hudson, made up the +two Jerseys. Neither colony had a numerous population, and the stretch +of country lying between them was during most of the colonial period a +wilderness. It is now crossed by the railway from Trenton to New York. +It has always been a line of travel from the Delaware to the Hudson. At +first there was only an Indian trail across it, but after 1695 there was +a road, and after 1738 a stage route. + +In 1702, while still separated by this wilderness, the two Jerseys were +united politically by the proprietors voluntarily surrendering all their +political rights to the Crown. The political distinction between +East Jersey and West Jersey was thus abolished; their excellent free +constitutions were rendered of doubtful authority; and from that time to +the Revolution they constituted one colony under the control of a royal +governor appointed by the Crown. + +The change was due to the uncertainty and annoyance caused for their +separate governments when their right to govern was in doubt owing to +interference on the part of New York and the desire of the King to +make them a Crown colony. The original grant of the Duke of York to the +proprietors Berkeley and Carteret had given title to the soil but had +been silent as to the right to govern. The first proprietors and their +successors had always assumed that the right to govern necessarily +accompanied this gift of the land. Such a privilege, however, the +Crown was inclined to doubt. William Penn was careful to avoid this +uncertainty when he received his charter for Pennsylvania. Profiting by +the sad example of the Jerseys, he made sure that he was given both the +title to the soil and the right to govern. + +The proprietors, however, now surrendered only their right to govern the +Jerseys and retained their ownership of the land; and the people always +maintained that they, on their part, retained all the political rights +and privileges which had been granted them by the proprietors. And these +rights were important, for the concessions or constitutions granted by +the proprietors under the advanced Quaker influence of the time were +decidedly liberal. The assemblies, as the legislatures were called, had +the right to meet and adjourn as they pleased, instead of having +their meetings and adjournments dictated by the governor. This was an +important right and one which the Crown and royal governors were +always trying to restrict or destroy, because it made an assembly very +independent. This contest for colonial rights was exactly similar to +the struggle of the English Parliament for liberty against the supposed +right of the Stuart kings to call and adjourn Parliament as they chose. +If the governor could adjourn the assembly when he pleased, he could +force it to pass any laws he wanted or prevent its passing any laws at +all. The two Jersey assemblies under their Quaker constitutions also +had the privilege of making their own rules of procedure, and they +had jurisdiction over taxes, roads, towns, militia, and all details of +government. These rights of a legislature are familiar enough now +to all. Very few people realize, however, what a struggle and what +sacrifices were required to attain them. + +The rest of New Jersey colonial history is made up chiefly of struggles +over these two questions--the rights of the proprietors and their +quitrents as against the people, and the rights of the new assembly as +against the Crown. There were thus three parties, the governor and his +adherents, the proprietors and their friends, and the assembly and the +people. The proprietors had the best of the change, for they lost only +their troublesome political power and retained their property. They +never, however, received such financial returns from the property as +the sons of William Penn enjoyed from Pennsylvania. But the union of the +Jerseys seriously curtailed the rights enjoyed by the people under +the old government, and all possibility of a Quaker government in West +Jersey was ended. It was this experience in the Jerseys, no doubt, +that caused William Penn to require so many safeguards in selling +his political rights in Pennsylvania to the Crown that the sale was, +fortunately for the colony, never completed. + +The assembly under the union met alternately at Perth Amboy and at +Burlington. Lord Cornbury, the first governor, was also Governor of +New York, a humiliating arrangement that led to no end of trouble. The +executive government, the press, and the judiciary were in the complete +control of the Crown and the Governor, who was instructed to take care +that "God Almighty be duly served according to the rites of the Church +of England, and the traffic in merchantable negroes encouraged." +Cornbury contemptuously ignored the assembly's right to adjourn and kept +adjourning it till one was elected which would pass the laws he wanted. +Afterwards the assemblies were less compliant, and, under the lead of +two able men, Lewis Morris of East Jersey and Samuel Jennings, a Quaker +of West Jersey, they stood up for their rights and complained to the +mother country. But Cornbury went on fighting them, granted monopolies, +established arbitrary fees, prohibited the proprietors from selling +their lands, prevented three members of the assembly duly elected from +being sworn, and was absent in New York so much of the time that the +laws went unexecuted and convicted murderers wandered about at large. +In short, he went through pretty much the whole list of offenses of a +corrupt and good-for-nothing royal governor of colonial times. The union +of the two colonies consequently seemed to involve no improvement over +former conditions. At last, the protests and appeals of proprietors and +people prevailed, and Cornbury was recalled. + +Quieter times followed, and in 1738 New Jersey had the satisfaction +of obtaining a governor all her own. The New York Governor had always +neglected Jersey affairs, was difficult of access, made appointments +and administered justice in the interests of New York, and forced Jersey +vessels to pay registration fees to New York. Amid great rejoicing over +the change, the Crown appointed the popular leader, Lewis Morris, as +governor. But by a strange turn of fate, when once secure in power, +he became a most obstinate upholder of royal prerogative, worried the +assembly with adjournments, and, after Cornbury, was the most obnoxious +of all the royal governors. + +The governors now usually made Burlington their capital and it became, +on that account, a place of much show and interest. The last colonial +governor was William Franklin, an illegitimate son of Benjamin +Franklin, and he would probably have made a success of the office if +the Revolution had not stopped him. He had plenty of ability, affable +manners, and was full of humor and anecdote like his father, whom he is +said to have somewhat resembled. He had combined in youth a fondness +for books with a fondness for adventure, was comptroller of the colonial +post office and clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly, served a couple of +campaigns in the French and Indian Wars, went to England with his father +in 1757, was admitted to the English Bar, attained some intimacy with +the Earl of Bute and Lord Fairfax, and through the latter obtained the +governorship of New Jersey in 1762. + +The people were at first much displeased at his appointment and never +entirely got over his illegitimate birth and his turning from Whig +to Tory as soon as his appointment was secured. But he advanced the +interests of the colony with the home government and favored beneficial +legislation. He had an attractive wife, and they entertained, it is +said, with viceregal elegance, and started a fine model farm or country +place on the north shore of the Rancocas not far from the capital at +Burlington. Franklin was drawing the province together and building it +up as a community, but his extreme loyalist principles in the Revolution +destroyed his chance for popularity and have obscured his reputation. + +Though the population of New Jersey was a mixed one, judged by the very +distinct religious differences of colonial times, yet racially it was +thoroughly Anglo-Saxon and a good stock to build upon. At the time +of the Revolution in 1776 the people numbered only about 120,000, +indicating a slow growth; but when the first census of the United States +was taken, in 1790, they numbered 184,139. + +The natural division of the State into North and South Jersey is marked +by a line from Trenton to Jersey City. The people of these two divisions +were quite as distinct in early times as striking differences in +environment and religion could make them. Even in the inevitable +merging of modern life the two regions are still distinct socially, +economically, and intellectually. Along the dividing line the two types +of the population, of course, merged and here was produced and is still +to be found the Jerseyman of the composite type. + +Trenton, the capital of the State, is very properly in the dividing +belt. It was named after William Trent, a Philadelphia merchant who had +been speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly and who became chief justice +of New Jersey. Long ages before white men came Trenton seems to have +been a meeting place and residence of the Indians or preceding races +of stone age men. Antiquarians have estimated that fifty thousand stone +implements have been found in it. As it was at the head of tidewater, +at the so-called Falls of the Delaware, it was apparently a center of +travel and traffic from other regions. From the top of the bluff below +the modern city of Trenton there was easy access to forests of chestnut, +oak, and pine, with their supplies of game, while the river and its +tributary creeks were full of fish. It was a pleasant and convenient +place where the people of prehistoric times apparently met and lingered +during many centuries without necessarily having a large resident +population at any one time. Trenton was so obviously convenient and +central in colonial times that it was seriously proposed as a site for +the national capital. + +Princeton University, though originating, as we have seen, among the +Presbyterians of North Jersey, seems as a higher educational institution +for the whole State to belong naturally in the dividing belt, the +meeting place of the two divisions of the colony. The college began its +existence at Elizabeth, was then moved to Newark, both in the strongly +Presbyterian region, and finally, in 1757, was established at Princeton, +a more suitable place, it was thought, because far removed from the +dissipation and temptation of towns, and because it was in the center +of the colony on the post road between Philadelphia and New York. Though +chartered as the College of New Jersey, it was often called Nassau Hall +at Princeton or simply "Princeton." In 1896 it became known officially +as Princeton University. It was a hard struggle to found the college +with lotteries and petty subscriptions here and there. But Presbyterians +in New York and other provinces gave aid. Substantial assistance was +also obtained from the Presbyterians of England and Scotland. In the +old pamphlets of the time which have been preserved the founders of the +college argued that higher education was needed not only for ministers +of religion, but for the bench, the bar, and the legislature. The two +New England colleges, Harvard and Yale, on the north, and the Virginia +College of William and Mary on the south, were too far away. There must +be a college close at hand. + +At first most of the graduates entered the Presbyterian ministry. +But soon in the short time before the Revolution there were produced +statesmen such as Richard Stockton of New Jersey, who signed the +Declaration of Independence; physicians such as Dr. Benjamin Rush of +Philadelphia; soldiers such as "Light Horse" Harry Lee of Virginia; +as well as founders of other colleges, governors of States, lawyers, +attorney-generals, judges, congressmen, and indeed a very powerful +assemblage of intellectual lights. Nor should the names of James +Madison, Aaron Burr, and Jonathan Edwards be omitted. + +East Jersey with her New England influence attempted something like free +public schools. In West Jersey the Quakers had schools. In both Jerseys, +after 1700 some private neighborhood schools were started, independent +of religious denominations. The West Jersey Quakers, self-cultured and +with a very effective system of mental discipline and education in their +families as well as in their schools, were not particularly interested +in higher education. But in East Jersey as another evidence of +intellectual awakening in colonial times, Queen's College, afterward +known as Rutgers College, was established by the Dutch Reformed +Church in 1766, and was naturally placed, near the old source of Dutch +influence, at New Brunswick in the northerly end of the dividing belt. + +New Jersey was fortunate in having no Indian wars in colonial times, no +frontier, no point of hostile contact with the French of Canada or +with the powerful western tribes of red men. Like Rhode Island in this +respect, she was completely shut in by the other colonies. Once or twice +only did bands of savages cross the Delaware and commit depredations on +Jersey soil. This colony, however, did her part in sending troops and +assistance to the others in the long French and Indian wars; but she had +none of the pressing danger and experience of other colonies. Her people +were never drawn together by a common danger until the Revolution. + +In Jersey colonial homes there was not a single modern convenience of +light, heat, or cooking, and none of the modern amusements. But there +was plenty of good living and simple diversion--husking bees and +shooting in the autumn, skating and sleighing in the winter. Meetings +and discussions in coffeehouses and inns supplied in those days the +place of our modern books, newspapers, and magazines. Jersey inns were +famous meeting places. Everybody passed through their doors--judges, +lawyers, legislators, politicians, post riders, stage drivers, each +bringing his contribution of information and humor, and the slaves and +rabble stood round to pick up news and see the fun. The court days in +each county were holidays celebrated with games of quoits, running, +jumping, feasting, and discussions political and social. At the capital +there was even style and extravagance. Governor Belcher, for example, +who lived at Burlington, professed to believe that the Quaker influences +of that town were not strict enough in keeping the Sabbath, so he drove +every Sunday in his coach and four to Philadelphia to worship in the +Presbyterian Church there and saw no inconsistency in his own behavior. + +Almanacs furnished much of the reading for the masses. The few +newspapers offered little except the barest chronicle of events. The +books of the upper classes were good though few, and consisted chiefly +of the classics of English literature and books of information and +travel. The diaries and letters of colonial native Jerseymen, the +pamphlets of the time, and John Woolman's "Journal," all show a good +average of education and an excellent use of the English language. +Samuel Smith's "History of the Colony of Nova-Casaria, or New Jersey," +written and printed at Burlington and published there in the year 1765, +is written in a good and even attractive style, with as intelligent +a grasp of political events as any modern mind could show; the type, +paper, and presswork, too, are excellent. Smith was born and educated in +this same New Jersey town. He became a member of council and assembly, +at one time was treasurer of the province, and his manuscript historical +collections were largely used by Robert Proud in his "History of +Pennsylvania." + +The early houses of New Jersey were of heavy timbers covered with +unpainted clapboards, usually one story and a half high, with immense +fireplaces, which, with candles, supplied the light. The floors were +scrubbed hard and sprinkled with the plentiful white sand. Carpets, +except the famous old rag carpets, were very rare. The old wooden houses +have now almost entirely disappeared; but many of the brick houses which +succeeded them are still preserved. They are of simple well-proportioned +architecture, of a distinctive type, less luxuriant, massive, and +exuberant than those across the river in Pennsylvania, although both +evidently derived from the Christopher Wren school. The old Jersey homes +seem to reflect with great exactness the simple feeling of the people +and to be one expression of the spirit of Jersey democracy. + +There were no important seats of commerce in this province. Exports of +wheat, provisions, and lumber went to Philadelphia or New York, which +were near and convenient. The Jersey shores near the mouth of the Hudson +and along the Delaware, as at Camden, presented opportunities for ports, +but the proximity to the two dominating ports prevented the development +of additional harbors in this part of the coast. It was not until after +the Revolution that Camden, opposite Philadelphia, and Jersey City, +opposite New York, grew into anything like their present importance. + +There were, however, a number of small ports and shipbuilding villages +in the Jerseys. It is a noticeable fact that in colonial times and even +later there were very few Jersey towns beyond the head of tidewater. The +people, even the farmers, were essentially maritime. The province showed +its natural maritime characteristics, produced many sailors, and built +innumerable small vessels for the coasting and West India trade--sloops, +schooners, yachts, and sailboats, down to the tiniest gunning boat and +sneak box. Perth Amboy was the principal port and shipbuilding +center for East Jersey as Salem was for West Jersey. But Burlington, +Bordentown, Cape May, and Trenton, and innumerable little villages +up creeks and channels or mere ditches could not be kept from the +prevailing industry. They built craft up to the limit of size that +could be floated away in the water before their very doors. Plentifully +supplied with excellent oak and pine and with the admirable white cedar +of their own forests, very skillful shipwrights grew up in every little +hamlet. + +A large part of the capital used in Jersey shipbuilding is said to have +come from Philadelphia and New York. At first this capital sought its +profit in whaling along the coast and afterwards in the trade with the +West Indies, which for a time absorbed so much of the shipping of all +the colonies in America. The inlets and beaches along the Jersey coast +now given over to summer resorts were first used for whaling camps or +bases. Cape May and Tuckerton were started and maintained by whaling; +and as late as 1830, it is said, there were still signs of the industry +on Long Beach. + +Except for the whaling, the beaches were uninhabited--wild stretches +of sand, swarming with birds and wild fowl, without a lighthouse or +lifesaving station. In the Revolution, when the British fleet blockaded +the Delaware and New York, Little Egg, the safest of the inlets, was +used for evading the blockade. Vessels entered there and sailed up +the Mullica River to the head of navigation, whence the goods were +distributed by wagons. To conceal their vessels when anchored just +inside an inlet, the privateersmen would stand slim pine trees beside +the masts and thus very effectively concealed the rigging from British +cruisers prowling along the shore. + +Along with the whaling industry the risks and seclusion of the inlets +and channels developed a romantic class of gentlemen, as handy with +musket and cutlass as with helm and sheet, fond of easy, exciting +profits, and reaping where they had not sown. They would start legally +enough, for they began as privateersmen under legal letters of marque +in the wars. But the step was a short one to a traffic still more +profitable; and for a hundred years Jersey customs officers are said to +have issued documents which were ostensibly letters of marque but which +really abetted a piratical cruise. Piracy was, however, in those days +a semi-legitimate offense, winked at by the authorities all through the +colonial period; and respectable people and governors and officials of +New York and North Carolina, it is said, secretly furnished funds for +such expeditions and were interested in the profits. + + + +Chapter XII. Little Delaware + +Delaware was the first colony to be established on the river that bears +this name. It went through half a century of experiences under the Dutch +and Swedes from 1609 to 1664, and then eighteen years under the English +rule of the Duke of York, from whom it passed into the hands of William +Penn, the Quaker. The Dutch got into it by an accident and were regarded +by the English as interlopers. And the Swedes who followed had no better +title. + +The whole North Atlantic seaboard was claimed by England by virtue of +the discoveries of the Cabots, father and son; but nearly a hundred +years elapsed before England took advantage of this claim by starting +the Virginia colony near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in 1607. And +nearly a quarter of a century more elapsed before Englishmen settled +on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. Those were the two points most +accessible to ships and most favorable for settlement. The middle +ground of the Delaware and Hudson regions was not so easily entered and +remained unoccupied. The mouth of the Delaware was full of shoals and +was always difficult to navigate. The natural harbor at the mouth of the +Hudson was excellent, but the entrance to it was not at first apparent. + +Into these two regions, however, the Dutch chanced just after the +English had effected the settlement of Jamestown in Virginia. The Dutch +had employed an Englishman named Henry Hudson and sent him in 1609 in a +small ship called the Half Moon to find a passage to China and India by +way of the Arctic Ocean. Turned back by the ice in the Arctic, he sailed +down the coast of North America, and began exploring the middle ground +from the Virginia settlement, which he seems to have known about; and, +working cautiously northward along the coast and feeling his way +with the lead line, he soon entered Delaware Bay. But finding it very +difficult of navigation he departed and, proceeding in the same careful +way up along the coast of New Jersey, he finally entered the harbor of +New York and sailed up the Hudson far enough to satisfy himself that it +was not the desired course to China. + +This exploration gave the Dutch their claim to the Delaware and Hudson +regions. But though it was worthless as against the English right by +discovery of the Cabots, the Dutch went ahead with their settlement, +established their headquarters and seat of government on Manhattan +Island, where New York stands today, and exercised as much jurisdiction +and control as they could on the Delaware. + +Their explorations of the Delaware, feeling their way up it with small +light draft vessels among its shoals and swift tides, their travels +on land--shooting wild turkeys on the site of the present busy town of +Chester--and their adventures with the Indians are full of interest. +The immense quantities of wild fowl and animal and bird life along the +shores astonished them; but what most aroused their cupidity was the +enormous supply of furs, especially beaver and otter, that could be +obtained from the Indians. Furs became their great, in fact, their only +interest in the Delaware. They established forts, one near Cape Henlopen +at the mouth of the river, calling it Fort Oplandt, and another far +up the river on the Jersey side at the mouth of Timber Creek, nearly +opposite the present site of Philadelphia, and this they called Fort +Nassau. Fort Oplandt was destroyed by the Indians and its people were +massacred. Fort Nassau was probably occupied only at intervals. These +two posts were built mainly to assist the fur trade, and any attempts at +real settlement were slight and unsuccessful. + +Meantime about the year 1624 the Swedes heard of the wonderful +opportunities on the Delaware. The Swedish monarch, Gustavus Adolphus, a +man of broad ambitions and energetic mind, heard about the Delaware from +Willem Usselinx, a merchant of Antwerp who had been actively interested +in the formation of the Dutch West India Company to trade in the Dutch +possessions in America. Having quarreled with the directors, Usselinx +had withdrawn from the Netherlands and now offered his services to +Sweden. The Swedish court, nobles, and people, all became enthusiastic +about the project which he elaborated for a great commercial company +to trade and colonize in Asia, Africa, and America. * But the plan was +dropped because, soon after 1630, Gustavus Adolphus led his country to +intervene on the side of the Protestants in the Thirty Years' War in +Germany, where he was killed three years later at the battle of Lutzen. +But the desire aroused by Usselinx for a Swedish colonial empire +was revived in the reign of his infant daughter, Christina, by the +celebrated Swedish Chancellor, Oxenstierna. + + + + * See "Willem Usselinx," by J. F. Jameson in the "Papers of the +American Historical Association," vol. II. + +An expedition, which actually reached the Delaware in 1638, was sent out +under another Dutch renegade, Peter Minuit, who had been Governor of New +Netherland and after being dismissed from office was now leading this +Swedish enterprise to occupy part of the territory he had formerly +governed for the Dutch. His two ships sailed up the Delaware and with +good judgment landed at the present site of Wilmington. At that point +a creek carrying a depth of over fourteen feet for ten miles from its +mouth flowed into the Delaware. The Dutch had called this creek Minquas, +after the tribe of Indians; the Swedes named it the Christina after +their infant Queen; and in modern times it has been corrupted into +Christiana. + +They sailed about two and a half miles through its delta marshes to some +rocks which formed a natural wharf and which still stand today at +the foot of Sixth Street in Wilmington. This was the Plymouth Rock of +Delaware. Level land, marshes, and meadows lay along the Christina, the +remains of the delta which the stream had formed in the past. On the +edge of the delta or moorland, rocky hills rose, forming the edge of the +Piedmont, and out of them from the north flowed a fine large stream, +the Brandywine, which fell into the Christina just before it entered +the Delaware. Here in the delta their engineer laid out a town, called +Christinaham, and a fort behind the rocks on which they had landed. A +cove in the Christina made a snug anchorage for their ships, out of the +way of the tide. They then bought from the Indians all the land from +Cape Henlopen to the Falls of the Delaware at Trenton, calling it New +Sweden and the Delaware New Swedeland Stream. The people of Delaware +have always regarded New Sweden as the beginning of their State, and +Peter Minuit, the leader of this Swedish expedition, always stands first +on the published lists of their governors. + +On their arrival in the river in the spring of 1638, the Swedes found no +evidences of permanent Dutch colonization. Neither Fort Oplandt nor +Fort Nassau was then occupied. They always maintained that the Dutch had +abandoned the river, and that it was therefore open to the Swedes for +occupation, especially after they had purchased the Indian title. It was +certainly true that the Dutch efforts to plant colonies in that region +had failed; and since the last attempt by De Vries, six years had +elapsed. On the other hand, the Dutch contended that they had in that +time put Fort Nassau in repair, although they had not occupied it, and +that they kept a few persons living along the Jersey shore of the river, +possibly the remains of the Nassau colony, to watch all who visited it. +These people had immediately notified the Dutch governor Kieft at New +Amsterdam of the arrival of the Swedes, and he promptly issued a protest +against the intrusion. But his protest was neither very strenuous nor +was it followed up by hostile action, for Sweden and Holland were on +friendly terms. Sweden, the great champion of Protestant Europe, had +intervened in the Thirty Years' War to save the Protestants of Germany. +The Dutch had just finished a similar desperate war of eighty years +for freedom from the papal despotism of Spain. Dutch and Swedes had, +therefore, every reason to be in sympathy with each other. The Swedes, +a plain, strong, industrious people, as William Penn aptly called them, +were soon, however, seriously interfering with the Dutch fur trade and +in the first year, it is said, collected thirty thousand skins. If +this is true, it is an indication of the immense supply of furbearing +animals, especially beaver, available at that time. For the next +twenty-five years Dutch and Swedes quarreled and sometimes fought over +their respective claims. But it is significant of the difficulty of +retaining a hold on the Delaware region that the Swedish colonists on +the Christina after a year or two regarded themselves as a failure +and were on the point of abandoning their enterprise, when a vessel, +fortunately for them, arrived with cattle, agricultural tools, and +immigrants. It is significant also that the immigrants, though in a +Swedish vessel and under the Swedish government, were Dutchmen. They +formed a sort of separate Dutch colony under Swedish rule and settled +near St. George's and Appoquinimink. Immigrants apparently were +difficult to obtain among the Swedes, who were not colonizers like the +English. + +At this very time, in fact, Englishmen, Puritans from Connecticut, were +slipping into the Delaware region under the leadership of Nathaniel +Turner and George Lamberton, and were buying the land from the Indians. +About sixty settled near Salem, New Jersey, and some on the Schuylkill +in Pennsylvania, close to Fort Nassau--an outrageous piece of audacity, +said the Dutch, and an insult to their "High Mightinesses and the noble +Directors of the West India Company." So the Schuylkill English were +accordingly driven out, and their houses were burned. The Swedes +afterwards expelled the English from Salem and from the Cohansey, lower +down the Bay. Later the English were allowed to return, but they seem to +have done little except trade for furs and beat off hostile Indians. + +The seat of the Swedish government was moved in 1643 from the Christina +to Tinicum, one of the islands of the Schuylkill delta, with an +excellent harbor in front of it which is now the home of the yacht clubs +of Philadelphia. Here they built a fort of logs, called Fort Gothenborg, +a chapel with a graveyard, and a mansion house for the governor, and +this remained the seat of Swedish authority as long as they had any on +the river. From here Governor Printz, a portly irascible old soldier, +said to have weighed "upwards of 400 pounds and taken three drinks +at every meal," ruled the river. He built forts on the Schuylkill and +worried the Dutch out of the fur trade. He also built a fort called Nya +Elfsborg, afterward Elsinboro, on the Jersey side below Salem. By +means of this fort he was able to command the entrance to the river +and compelled every Dutch ship to strike her colors and acknowledge the +sovereignty of Sweden. Some he prevented from going up the river at all; +others he allowed to pass on payment of toll or tribute. He gave orders +to destroy every trading house or fort which the Dutch had built on the +Schuylkill, and to tear down the coat of arms and insignia which the +Dutch had placed on a post on the site of Philadelphia. The Swedes now +also bought from the Indians and claimed the land on the Jersey side +from Cape May up to Raccoon Creek, opposite the modern Chester. + +The best place to trade with the Indians for furs was the Schuylkill +River, which flowed into the Delaware at a point where Philadelphia was +afterwards built. There were at that time Indian villages where West +Philadelphia now stands. The headwaters of streams flowing into the +Schuylkill were only a short distance from the headwaters of streams +flowing into the Susquehanna, so that the valley of the Schuylkill +formed the natural highway into the interior of Pennsylvania. The route +to the Ohio River followed the Schuylkill for some thirty or forty +miles, turned up one of its tributaries to its source, then crossed the +watershed to the head of a stream flowing into the Susquehanna, thence +to the Juniata, at the head of which the trail led over a short divide +to the head of the Conemaugh, which flowed into the Allegheny, and the +Allegheny into the Ohio. Some of the Swedes and Dutch appear to have +followed this route with the Indians as early as 1646. + +The Ohio and Allegheny region was inhabited by the Black Minquas, so +called from their custom of wearing a black badge on their breast. The +Ohio, indeed, was first called the Black Minquas River. As the country +nearer the Delaware was gradually denuded of beaver, these Black Minquas +became the great source of supply and carried the furs, over the route +described, to the Schuylkill. The White Minquas lived further east, +round Chesapeake and Delaware bays, and, though spoken of as belonging +by language to the great Iroquois or Six Nation stock, were themselves +conquered and pretty much exterminated by the Six Nations. The Black +Minquas, believed to be the same as the Eries of the Jesuit Relations, +were also practically exterminated by the Six Nations. * + + + * Myers, "Narratives of Early Pennsylvania", pp. 103-104. + + +The furs brought down the Schuylkill were deposited at certain rocks two +or three miles above its mouth at Bartram's Gardens, now one of the city +parks of Philadelphia. On these rocks, then an island in the Schuylkill, +the Swedes built a fort which completely commanded the river and cut the +Dutch off from the fur trade. They built another fort on the other side +of Bartram's Gardens along the meadow near what is now Gibson's Point; +and Governor Printz had a great mill a couple of miles away on Cobb's +Creek, where the old Blue Bell tavern has long stood. These two forts +protected the mill and the Indian villages in West Philadelphia. + +One would like to revisit the Delaware of those days and see all its +wild life and game, its islands and shoals, its virgin forests as they +had grown up since the glacial age, untouched by the civilization of +the white man. There were then more islands in the river, the water was +clearer, and there were pretty pebble and sandy beaches now overlaid by +mud brought down from vast regions of the valley no longer protected by +forests from the wash of the rains. On a wooded island below Salem, long +since cut away by the tides, the pirate Blackhead and his crew are said +to have passed a winter. The waters of the river spread out wide at +every high tide over marshes and meadows, turning them twice a day for a +few hours into lakes, grown up in summer with red and yellow flowers and +the graceful wild oats, or reeds, tasseled like Indian corn. + +At Christinaham, in the delta of the Christina and the Brandywine, the +tide flowed far inland to the rocks on which Minuit's Swedish expedition +landed, leaving one dry spot called Cherry Island, a name still borne +by a shoal in the river. Fort Christina, on the edge of the overflowed +meadow, with the rocky promontory of hills behind it, its church and +houses, and a wide prospect across the delta and river, was a fair spot +in the old days. The Indians came down the Christina in their canoes or +overland, bringing their packs of beaver, otter, and deer skins, their +tobacco, corn, and venison to exchange for the cloth, blankets, tools, +and gaudy trinkets that pleased them. It must often have been a scene of +strange life and coloring, and it is difficult today to imagine it all +occurring close to the spot where the Pennsylvania railroad station now +stands in Wilmington. + +When doughty Peter Stuyvesant became Governor of New Netherland, he +determined to assert Dutch authority once more on the South River, as +the Delaware was called in distinction from the Hudson. As the Swedes +now controlled it by their three forts, not a Dutch ship could reach +Fort Nassau without being held up at Fort Elfsborg or at Fort Christina +or at the fort at Tinicum. It was a humiliating situation for the +haughty spirit of the Dutch governor. To open the river to Dutch +commerce again, Stuyvesant marched overland in 1651 through the +wilderness, with one hundred and twenty men and, abandoning Fort Nassau, +built a new fort on a fine promontory which then extended far out into +the river below Christina. Today the place is known as New Castle; the +Dutch commonly referred to it as Sandhoeck or Sand Point; the English +called it Grape Vine Point. Stuyvesant named it Fort Casimir. + +The tables were now turned: the Dutch could retaliate upon Swedish +shipping. But the Swedes were not so easily to be dispossessed. Three +years later a new Swedish governor named Rising arrived in the river +with a number of immigrants and soldiers. He sailed straight up to Fort +Casimir, took it by surprise, and ejected the Dutch garrison of about a +dozen men. As the successful coup occurred on Trinity Sunday, the Swedes +renamed the place Fort Trinity. + +The whole population--Dutch and Swede, but in 1654 mostly +Swede--numbered only 368 persons. Before the arrival of Rising there +had been only seventy. It seems a very small number about which to be +writing history; but small as it was their "High Mightinesses," as the +government of the United Netherlands was called, were determined to +avenge on even so small a number the insult of the capture of Fort +Casimir. + +Drums, it is said, were beaten every day in Holland to call for recruits +to go to America. Gunners, carpenters, and powder were collected. A ship +of war was sent from Holland, accompanied by two other vessels whose +names alone, Great Christopher and King Solomon, should have been +sufficient to scare all the Swedes. At New Amsterdam, Stuyvesant labored +night and day to fit out the expedition. A French privateer which +happened to be in the harbor was hired. Several other vessels, in +all seven ships, and six or seven hundred men, with a chaplain called +Megapolensis, composed this mighty armament gathered together to drive +out the handful of poor hardworking Swedes. A day of fasting and prayer +was held and the Almighty was implored to bless this mighty expedition +which, He was assured, was undertaken for "the glory of His name." It +was the absurdity of such contrasts as this running all through the +annals of the Dutch in America that inspired Washington Irving to write +his infinitely humorous "History of New York from the Beginning of the +World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty," by "Diedrich Knickerbocker." It +is difficult for an Anglo-Saxon to take the Dutch in America seriously. +What can you do with a people whose imagination allowed them to give +such names to their ships as Weigh Scales, Spotted Cow, and The Pear +Tree? So Irving described the taking of Fort Casimir in mock heroic +manner. He describes the marshaling of the Dutch hosts of New York by +families, the Van Grolls of Anthony's Nose, the Brinkerhoffs, the Van +Kortlandts, the Van Bunschotens of Nyack and Kakiat, the fighting men +of Wallabout, the Van Pelts, the Say Dams, the Van Dams, and all the +warriors of Hellgate "clad in their thunder-and-lightning gaberdines," +and lastly the standard bearers and bodyguards of Peter Stuyvesant, +bearing the great beaver of the Manhattan. + +"And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate struggle, the maddening +ferocity, the frantic desperation, the confusion and self-abandonment +of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The +heavens were darkened with a tempest of missives. Bang! went the guns; +whack! went the broadswords; thump! went the cudgels; crash! went the +musket-stocks; blows, kicks, cuffs, scratches, black eyes and bloody +noses swelling the horrors of the scene! Thick, thwack, cut and hack, +helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, heads-over-heels, +rough-and-tumble! Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter and +splutter! cried the Swedes. Storm the works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. +Fire the mine! roared stout Rising--Tantarar-ra-ra! twanged the +trumpet of Antony Van Corlear;--until all voice and sound became +unintelligible,--grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of triumph +mingling in one hideous clamor. The earth shook as if struck with a +paralytic stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight; rocks +burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even Christina creek turned +from its course, and ran up a hill in breathless terror!" + +As a matter of fact, the fort surrendered without a fight on +September 1, 1655. It was thereupon christened New Amstel, afterwards +New Castle, and was for a long time the most important town on the +Delaware. This achievement put the Dutch in complete authority over the +Swedes on both sides of the river. The Swedes, however, were content, +abandoned politics, secluded themselves on their farms, and left +politics to the Dutch. Trade, too, they left to the Dutch, who, in their +effort to monopolize it, almost killed it. This conquest by their High +Mightinesses also ended the attempts of the New Englanders, particularly +the people of New Haven, to get a foothold in the neighborhood of Salem, +New Jersey, for which they had been struggling for years. They had +dreams of a great lake far to northward full of beaver to which the +Delaware would lead them. Their efforts to establish themselves survived +in one or two names of places near Salem, as, for example, New England +Creek, and New England Channel, which down almost into our own time was +found on charts marking one of the minor channels of the bay along the +Jersey shore. They continued coming to the river in ships to trade in +spite of restrictions by the Dutch; and some of them in later years, as +has been pointed out, secured a foothold on the Cohansey and in the Cape +May region, where their descendants are still to be found. + + + +Chapter XIII. The English Conquest + +It is a curious fact that the ancestor of the numerous Beekman family in +New York, after whom Beekman Street is named, was for a time one of the +Dutch governors on the Delaware who afterwards became the sheriff of +Esopus, New York. His successor on the Delaware had some thoughts of +removing the capital down to Odessa on the Appoquinimink, when an +event long dreaded happened. In 1664, war broke out between England +and Holland, long rivals in trade and commerce, and all the Dutch +possessions in the New World fell an easy prey to English conquerors. +A British fleet took possession of New Amsterdam, which surrendered +without a struggle. But when two British men of war under Sir Robert +Carr appeared before New Amstel on the Delaware, Governor D'Hinoyossa +unwisely resisted; and his untenable fort was quickly subdued by a few +broadsides and a storming party. This opposition gave the conquering +party, according to the custom of the times, the right to plunder; and +it must be confessed that the English soldiers made full use of their +opportunity. They plundered the town and confiscated the land of +prominent citizens for the benefit of the officers of the expedition. + +After the English conquest on the Delaware, not a few of the Dutch +migrated to Maryland, where their descendants, it is said, are still +to be found. Some in later years returned to the Delaware, where on the +whole, notwithstanding the early confiscations, English rule seemed to +promise well. The very first documents, the terms of surrender both on +the Delaware and on the Hudson, breathed an air of Anglo-Saxon freedom. +Everybody was at liberty to come and go at will. Hollanders could +migrate to the Delaware or to New York as much as before. The Dutch +soldiers in the country, if they wished to remain, were to have fifty +acres of land apiece. This generous settlement seemed in striking +contrast to the pinching, narrow interference with trade and individual +rights, the seizures and confiscations for private gain, all under +pretense of punishment, bad enough on the Delaware but worse at New +Amsterdam, which had characterized the rule of the Dutch. + +The Duke of York, to whom Delaware was given, introduced trial by jury, +settled private titles, and left undisturbed the religion and local +customs of the people. But the political rule of the Duke was absolute +as became a Stuart. He arbitrarily taxed exports and imports. Executive, +judicial, and legislative powers were all vested in his deputy governor +at New York or in creatures appointed and controlled by him. It was the +sort of government the Duke hoped to impose upon all Great Britain when +he should come to the throne, and he was trying his 'prentice hand in +the colonies. A political rebellion against this despotism was started +on the Delaware by a man named Konigsmarke, or the Long Finn, aided by +an Englishman, Henry Coleman. They were captured and tried for treason, +their property was confiscated, and the Long Finn branded with the +letter R, and sold as a slave in the Barbados. They might be called the +first martyrs to foreshadow the English Revolution of 1688 which ended +forever the despotic reign of the Stuarts. + +The Swedes continued to form the main body of people on the Delaware +under the regime of the Duke of York, and at the time when William Penn +took possession of the country in 1682 their settlements extended from +New Castle up through Christina, Marcus Hook, Upland (now Chester), +Tinicum, Kingsessing in the modern West Philadelphia, Passyunk, Wicaco, +both in modern Philadelphia, and as far up the river as Frankford and +Pennypack. They had their churches at Christina, Tinicum, Kingsessing, +and Wicaco. The last, when absorbed by Philadelphia, was a pretty little +hamlet on the river shore, its farms belonging to a Swedish family +called Swanson whose name is now borne by one of the city's streets. +Across the river in New Jersey, opposite Chester, the Swedes had +settlements on Raccoon Creek and round Swedesboro. These river +settlements constituted an interesting and from all accounts a very +attractive Scandinavian community. Their strongest bond of union seems +to have been their interest in their Lutheran churches on the river. +They spread very little into the interior, made few roads, and lived +almost exclusively on the river or on its navigable tributaries. One +reason they gave for this preference was that it was easier to reach the +different churches by boat. + +There were only about a thousand Swedes along the Delaware and possibly +five hundred of Dutch and mixed blood, together with a few English, all +living a life of abundance on a fine river amid pleasing scenery, with +good supplies of fish and game, a fertile soil, and a wilderness of +opportunity to the west of them. All were well pleased to be relieved +from the stagnant despotism of the Duke of York and to take part in the +free popular government of William Penn in Pennsylvania. They +became magistrates and officials, members of the council and of the +legislature. They soon found that all their avenues of trade and life +were quickened. They passed from mere farmers supplying their own needs +to exporters of the products of their farms. + +Descendants of the Swedes and Dutch still form the basis of the +population of Delaware. * There were some Finns at Marcus Hook, which +was called Finland; and it may be noted in passing that there were not +a few French among the Dutch, as among the Germans in Pennsylvania, +Huguenots who had fled from religious persecution in France. The name +Jaquette, well known in Delaware, marks one of these families, whose +immigrant ancestor was one of the Dutch governors. In the ten or +dozen generations since the English conquest intermarriage has in many +instances inextricably mixed up Swede, Dutch, and French, as well as the +English stock, so that many persons with Dutch names are of Swedish or +French descent and vice versa, and some with English names like Oldham +are of Dutch descent. There has been apparently much more intermarriage +among the different nationalities in the province and less standing +aloof than among the alien divisions of Pennsylvania. + + + * Swedish names anglicized are now found everywhere. Gostafsson +has become Justison and Justis. Bond has become Boon; Hoppman, Hoffman; +Kalsberg, Colesberry; Wihler, Wheeler; Joccom, Yocum; Dahlbo, Dalbow; +Konigh, King; Kyn, Keen; and so on. Then there are also such names as +Wallraven, Hendrickson, Stedham, Peterson, Matson, Talley, Anderson, and +the omnipresent Rambo, which have suffered little, if any, change. +Dutch names are also numerous, such as Lockermans, Vandever, Van +Dyke, Vangezel, Vandegrift, Alricks, Statts, Van Zandt, Hyatt, Cochran +(originally Kolchman), Vance, and Blackstone (originally Blackenstein). + + +After the English conquest some Irish Presbyterians or Scotch-Irish +entered Delaware. Finally came the Quakers, comparatively few in +colonial times but more numerous after the Revolution, especially in +Wilmington and its neighborhood. True to their characteristics, they +left descendants who have become the most prominent and useful citizens +down into our own time. At present Wilmington has become almost as +distinctive a Quaker town as Philadelphia. "Thee" and "thou" are +frequently heard in the streets, and a surprisingly large proportion +of the people of prominence and importance are Quakers or of Quaker +descent. Many of the neat and pleasant characteristics of the town +are distinctly of Quaker origin; and these characteristics are found +wherever Quaker influence prevails. + +Wilmington was founded about 1731 by Thomas Willing, an Englishman, +who had married into the Swedish family of Justison. He laid out a +few streets on his wife's land on the hill behind the site of old Fort +Christina, in close imitation of the plan of Philadelphia, and from +that small beginning the present city grew, and was at first called +Willingtown. * William Shipley, a Pennsylvania Quaker born in England, +bought land in it in 1735, and having more capital than Willing, pushed +the fortunes of the town more rapidly. He probably had not a little to +do with bringing Quakers to Wilmington; indeed, their first meetings +were held in a house belonging to him until they could build a meeting +house of their own in 1738. + + + * Some years later in a borough charter granted by Penn, the name +was changed to Wilmington in honor of the Earl of Wilmington. + + +Both Shipley and Willing had been impressed with the natural beauty of +the situation, the wide view over the level moorland and green marsh and +across the broad river to the Jersey shore, as well as by the natural +conveniences of the place for trade and commerce. Wilmington has ever +since profited by its excellent situation, with the level moorland for +industry, the river for traffic, and the first terraces or hills of +the Piedmont for residence; and, for scenery, the Brandywine tumbling +through rocks and bowlders in a long series of rapids. + +The custom still surviving in Wilmington of punishing certain classes of +criminals by whipping appears to have originated in the days of Willing +and Shipley, about the year 1740, when a cage, stocks, and whipping-post +were erected. They were placed in the most conspicuous part of the town, +and there the culprit, in addition to his legal punishment, was also +disciplined at the discretion of passers-by with rotten eggs and other +equally potent encouragements to reform. These gratuitous inflictions, +not mentioned in the statute, as well as the public exhibition of the +prisoner were abolished in later times and in this modified form the +method of correction was extended to the two other counties. Sometimes +a cat-o'nine-tails was used, sometimes a rawhide whip, and sometimes +a switch cut from a tree. Nowadays, however, all the whipping for the +State is done in Wilmington, where all prisoners sentenced to whipping +in the State are sent. This punishment is found to be so efficacious +that its infliction a second time on the same person is exceedingly +rare. + +The most striking relic of the old Swedish days in Wilmington is the +brick and stone church of good proportions and no small beauty, and +today one of the very ancient relics of America. It was built by the +Swedes in 1698 to replace their old wooden church, which was on the +lower land, and the Swedish language was used in the services down +to the year 1800, when the building was turned over to the Church of +England. Old Peter Minuit, the first Swedish governor, may possibly have +been buried there. The Swedes built another pretty chapel--Gloria Dei, +as it was called--at the village of Wicaco, on the shore of the Delaware +where Philadelphia afterwards was established. The original building was +taken down in 1700, and the present one was erected on its site partly +with materials from the church at Tinicum. It remained Swedish Lutheran +until 1831, when, like all the Swedish chapels, it became the property +of the Church of England, between which and the Swedish Lutheran body +there was a close affinity, if not in doctrine, at least in episcopal +organization. * The old brick church dating from 1740, on the +main street of Wilmington, is an interesting relic of the colonial +Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in Delaware, and is now carefully preserved +as the home of the Historical Society. + + + * Clay's "Annals of the Swedes", pp. 143, 153-4. + + +After Delaware had been eighteen years under the Duke of York, William +Penn felt a need of the west side of the river all the way down to +the sea to strengthen his ownership of Pennsylvania. He also wanted to +offset the ambitions of Lord Baltimore to extend Maryland northward. +Penn accordingly persuaded his friend James, the Duke of York, to give +him a grant of Delaware, which Penn thereupon annexed to Pennsylvania +under the name of the Territories or Three Lower Counties. The three +counties, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, * are still the counties of +Delaware, each one extending across the State and filling its whole +length from the hills of the Brandywine on the Pennsylvania border to +the sands of Sussex at Cape Henlopen. The term "Territory" has ever +since been used in America to describe an outlying province not yet +given the privileges of a State. Instead of townships, the three +Delaware counties were divided into "hundreds," an old Anglo-Saxon +county method of division going back beyond the times of Alfred the +Great. Delaware is the only State in the Union that retains this name +for county divisions. The Three Lower Counties were allowed to send +representatives to the Pennsylvania Assembly; and the Quakers of +Delaware have always been part of the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia. + + + * The original names were New Castle, Jones's, and Hoerekill, as +it was called by the Dutch, or Deal. + + +In 1703, after having been a part of Pennsylvania for twenty years, the +Three Lower Counties were given home rule and a legislature of their +own; but they remained under the Governor of Pennsylvania until the +Revolution of 1776. They then became an entirely separate community and +one of the thirteen original States. Delaware was the first State to +adopt the National Constitution, and Rhode Island, its fellow small +State, the last. Having been first to adopt the Constitution, the people +of Delaware claim that on all national occasions or ceremonies they are +entitled to the privilege of precedence. They have every reason to be +proud of the representative men they sent to the Continental Congress, +and to the Senate in later times. Agriculture has, of course, always +been the principal occupation on the level fertile land of Delaware; and +it is agriculture of a high class, for the soil, especially in certain +localities, is particularly adapted to wheat, corn, and timothy grass, +as well as small fruits. That section of land crossing the State in +the region of Delaware City and Middleton is one of the show regions in +America, for crops of wheat and corn. Farther south, grain growing is +combined with small fruits and vegetables with a success seldom attained +elsewhere. Agriculturally there is no division of land of similar size +quite equal to Delaware in fertility. Its sand and gravel base with +vegetable mold above is somewhat like the southern Jersey formation, +but it is more productive from having a larger deposit of decayed +vegetation. + +The people of Delaware have, indeed, very little land that is not +tillable. The problems of poverty, crowding, great cities, and excessive +wealth in few hands are practically unknown among them. The foreign +commerce of Wilmington began in 1740 with the building of a brig named +after the town, and was continued successfully for a hundred years. +At Wilmington there has always been a strong manufacturing interest, +beginning with the famous colonial flour mills at the falls of the +Brandywine, and the breadstuffs industry at Newport on the Christina. +With the Brandywine so admirably suited to the water-power machinery +of those days and the Christina deep enough for the ships, Wilmington +seemed in colonial times to possess an ideal combination of advantages +for manufacturing and commerce. The flour mills were followed in 1802 by +the Du Pont Powder Works, which are known all over the world, and which +furnished powder for all American wars since the Revolution, for the +Crimean War in Europe, and for the Allies in the Great War. + +"From the hills of Brandywine to the sands of Sussex" is an expression +the people of Delaware use to indicate the whole length of their little +State. The beautiful cluster of hills at the northern end dropping into +park-like pastures along the shores of the rippling Red Clay and White +Clay creeks which form the deep Christina with its border of green reedy +marshes, is in striking contrast to the wild waste of sands at Cape +Henlopen. Yet in one way the Brandywine Hills are closely connected with +those sands, for from these very hills have been quarried the hard +rocks for the great breakwater at the Cape, behind which the fleets of +merchant vessels take refuge in storms. + +The great sand dunes behind the lighthouse at the cape have their equal +nowhere else on the coast. Blown by the ocean winds, the dunes work +inland, overwhelming a pine forest to the tree tops and filling swamps +in their course. The beach is strewn with every type of wreckage of +man's vain attempts to conquer the sea. The Life Saving Service men have +strange tales to tell and show their collections of coins found along +the sand. The old pilots live snugly in their neat houses in Pilot Row, +waiting their turns to take the great ships up through the shoals and +sands which were so baffling to Henry Hudson and his mate one hot August +day of the year 1609. + +The Indians of the northern part of Delaware are said to have been +mostly Minquas who lived along the Christiana and Brandywine, and are +supposed to have had a fort on Iron Hill. The rest of the State was +inhabited by the Nanticokes, who extended their habitations far down the +peninsula, where a river is named after them. They were a division or +clan of the Delawares or Leni Lenapes. In the early days they gave some +trouble; but shortly before the Revolution all left the peninsula in +strange and dramatic fashion. Digging up the bones of their dead chiefs +in 1748, they bore them away to new abodes in the Wyoming Valley of +Pennsylvania. Some appear to have traveled by land up the Delaware to +the Lehigh, which they followed to its source not far from the Wyoming +Valley. Others went in canoes, starting far down the peninsula at the +Nanticoke River and following along the wild shore of the Chesapeake to +the Susquehanna, up which they went by its eastern branch straight into +the Wyoming Valley. It was a grand canoe trip--a weird procession of +tawny, black-haired fellows swinging their paddles day after day, with +their freight of ancient bones, leaving the sunny fishing grounds of the +Nanticoke and the Choptank to seek a refuge from the detested white man +in the cold mountains of Pennsylvania. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +A large part of the material for the early history of Pennsylvania is +contained of course in the writings and papers of the founder. The "Life +of William Penn" by S. M. Janney (1852) is perhaps the most trustworthy +of the older biographies but it is a dull book. A biography written with +a modern point of view is "The True William Penn" by Sydney G. Fisher +(1900). Mrs. Colquhoun Grant, a descendant of Penn has published a book +with the title "Quaker and Courtier: the Life and Work of William Penn" +(1907). The manuscript papers of Penn now in the possession of the +Historical Society of Pennsylvania, together with much new material +gathered in England, are soon to be published under the able editorship +of Albert Cook Myers. + +There is a vast literature on the history of Quakerism. The "Journal of +George Fox" (1694), Penn's "Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of +the People called Quakers" (1695), and Robert Barclay's "Apology for the +True Christian Divinity" (1678) are of first importance for the study of +the rise of the Society of Friends. Among the older histories are J.J. +Gurney's "Observations on the Religious Peculiarities of the Society of +Friends" (1824), James Bowden's "History of the Society of Friends in +America," 2 vols. (1850-54), and S.M. Janney's "History of the Religious +Society of Friends," 4 vols. (1860-67). Two recent histories are of +great value: W. C. Braithwaite, "The Beginnings of Quakerism" (1912) and +Rufus M. Jones, "The Quakers in the American Colonies" (1911). Among the +older histories of Penn's province are "The History of Pennsylvania +in North America," 2 vols. (1797-98), written by Robert Proud from the +Quaker point of view and of great value because of the quotations from +original documents and letters, and "History of Pennsylvania from its +Discovery by Europeans to the Declaration of Independence in 1776" +(1829) by T. F. Gordon, largely an epitome of the debates of the +Pennsylvania Assembly which recorded in its minutes in fascinating +old-fashioned English the whole history of the province from year to +year. Franklin's "Historical Review of the Constitution and Government +of Pennsylvania from its Origin" (1759) is a storehouse of information +about the history of the province in the French and Indian wars. Much +of the history of the province is to be found in the letters of Penn, +Franklin, Logan, and Lloyd, and in such collections as Samuel Hazard's +"Register of Pennsylvania," 16 vols. (1828-36), "Colonial Records," 16 +vols. (1851-53), and "Pennsylvania Archives" (1874-). A vast amount of +material is scattered in pamphlets, in files of colonial newspapers +like the "Pennsylvania Gazette," in the publications of the Historical +Society of Pennsylvania, and in the "Pennsylvania Magazine of History +and Biography" (1877-). Recent histories of the province have +been written by Isaac Sharpless, "History of Quaker Government in +Pennsylvania," 2 vols. (1898-99), and by Sydney G. Fisher, "The Making +of Pennsylvania" (1896) and "Pennsylvania, Colony and Commonwealth" +(1897). A scholarly "History of Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania" +has been published by William R. Shepherd in the "Columbia University +Studies" (1896) and the "Relations of Pennsylvania with the British +Government, 1696-1765" (1912) have been traced with painstaking care by +Winfred T. Root. + +Concerning the racial and religious elements in Pennsylvania the +following books contribute much valuable information: A. B. Faust, +"The German Element in the United States," 2 vols. (1909); A. C. Myers, +"Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750" (1909); +S. W. Pennypacker, "Settlement of Germantown, Pennsylvania, and the +Beginning of German Immigration to North America" (1899); J. F. Sachse, +"The German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania, 1694-1708" (1895), and +"The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, 1708-1800," 2 vols. +(1899-1900); L. O. Kuhns, "The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial +Pennsylvania" (1901); H. J. Ford, "The Scotch-Irish in America" (1915); +T. A. Glenn, "Merion in the Welsh Tract" (1896). + +The older histories of New Jersey, like those of Pennsylvania, contain +valuable original material not found elsewhere. Among these Samuel +Smith's "The History of the Colony of Nova Casaria, or New Jersey" +(1765) should have first place. E. B. O'Callaghan's "History of New +Netherland," 2 vols. (1846), and J. R. Brodhead's "History of the State +of New York," 2 vols. (1853, 1871) contain also information about the +Jerseys under Dutch rule. Other important works are: W. A. Whitehead's +"East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments" (New Jersey Historical +Society "Collections," vol.1, 1875), and "The English in East and West +Jersey" in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America," vol. +III, L. Q. C. Elmer's "The Constitution and Government of the Province +and State of New Jersey" (New Jersey Historical Society Collections, +vols. III and VII, 1849 and 1872.) Special studies have been made by +Austin Scott, "Influence of the Proprietors in the Founding of New +Jersey" (1885), and by H. S. Cooley, "Study of Slavery in New Jersey" +(1896), both in the Johns Hopkins University "Studies;" also by E. P. +Tanner, "The Province of New Jersey" (1908) and by E. J. Fisher, "New +Jersey as a Royal Province, 1738-1776" (1911) in the Columbia University +"Studies." Several county histories yield excellent material +concerning the life and times of the colonists, notably Isaac Mickle's +"Reminiscences of Old Gloucester" (1845) and L. T. Stevens's "The +History of Cape May County" (1897) which are real histories written +in scholarly fashion and not to be confused with the vulgar county +histories gotten up to sell. + +The Dutch and Swedish occupation of the lands bordering on the Delaware +may be followed in the following histories: Benjamin Ferris, "A History +of the Original Settlements of the Delaware" (1846); Francis Vincent, +"A History of the State of Delaware" (1870); J. T. Scharf, "History of +Delaware, 1609-1888," 2 vols. (1888); Karl K. S. Sprinchorn, Kolonien +Nya Sveriges Historia (1878), translated in the "Pennsylvania Magazine +of History and Biography," vols. VII and VIII. In volume IV of Winsor's +"Narrative and Critical History of America" is a chapter contributed +by G. B. Keen on "New Sweden, or The Swedes on the Delaware." The most +recent minute work on the subject is "The Swedish Settlements on the +Delaware," 2 vols. (1911) by Amandus Johnson. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Quaker Colonies, by Sydney G. Fisher + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUAKER COLONIES *** + +***** This file should be named 3043.txt or 3043.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/4/3043/ + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's +University, and Alev Akman. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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