CHAPTER II.
PENNSYLVANIA.
I had a vision: evening sat in gold Upon the bosom of a boundless plain, Covered with beauty; garden, field and fold, Studding the billowy sweep of ripening grain, Like islands in the purple summer main, The temples of pure marble met the sun, That tinged their white shafts with a golden stain And sounds of rustic joy and labor done, Hallowed the lonely hour, until her pomp was gone. --Croly.
Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous of all the errors of mankind.A false leader in religion may be more fatal than an incompetent generalof an army, therefore ministers of the gospel and teachers have thegreatest task imposed on them of any of God's creation. When once one'sreligion runs mad, barbarity assumes the support of conscience and feelsits approval in the consummation of the most heinous crimes. ThePilgrims and Puritans who had fled from religious persecutions acrossthe seas, and had come to the wilderness to worship God according totheir own conscience were unwilling to grant the same privilege toothers. For this reason they banished Roger Williams and persecutedother religious sects not in accordance with their own views.
They whipped Quakers, bored holes in their tongues, branded them withhot irons, and even hung them for their religious views. Why need oneblame Spain for the infamous inquisition, when the early churches ofProtestantism did fully as bad? Religious fervor controlled by prejudiceand ignorance is the greatest calamity that can befall a nation.
The Quakers appeared first in England about the time Roger Williamsprocured his charter for Rhode Island. The term Quaker now so veneratedand respected was given this sect in derision, just as the Puritans,Protestants and many other now respectable sects were named.
Their founder and preachers were among the boldest and yet the meekestof the non-conformists. Their morality was so strict that by some theywere denominated ascetics, and this strictness was carried into everyhabit and department of life. Extravagant expenditures, fashionabledress, games of chance, dancing, attending the theatres and allamusements, however harmless, were forbidden by this sect. Even musicwas discouraged as a seductive vanity. The members of this church wereforbidden to own slaves, to take part in war, engage in lawsuits,indulge in intemperance or profanity, which, if persisted in, was acause for the expulsion of a member from the society, and the whole bodywas in duty bound to keep a watch upon the actions of each other. Theirpractices so generally agreed with their principles, that society wascompelled to admit that the profession of a Quaker or Friend, as theyusually styled themselves, was a guaranty of a morality above theordinary level of the world.
The founder of this remarkable sect was George Fox, a shoemaker ofLeicestershire, England, who, at the early age of nineteen, conceivedthe idea that he was called of God to preach the gospel of the LordJesus Christ. He attacked the coldness and spiritual deadness of all themodes and forms of religious worship around him, and soon excited apersecuting spirit which marked his ministerial life of about fortyyears as a pilgrimage from one prison to another. When, in 1650, he wascalled before Justice Bennet, of Derby, he admonished that magistrate torepent and "tremble and _quake_ before the word of the Lord," at thesame time his own body was violently agitated with his intense emotions.The magistrate and other officers of the court then and there named hima "Quaker" out of derision, a term which the society have since come touse themselves.
William Penn, the son of a distinguished English admiral, became anearly convert to this religion. At an early age, while at college, heembraced the doctrines and adopted the mode of life of George Fox andhis followers. When his father first learned that his son was in dangerof becoming a Quaker, he was incredulous. The admiral was a worldly,ambitious man and had great plans in view for his son, which would allbe blasted if the precocious youth adopted the new religion. Thestruggles of young William Penn with his ambitious father, were long andbitter. He was beaten and turned out of doors by his angry parent, thentaken back by the erratic but kind-hearted father and sent to France tobe lured with gayety and dazzled with promises of wealth anddistinction; but William Penn had the courage of his convictions andyielded not one whit of his religious ideas. Conscious of being right,he was unmoved by either promises or threats, and he even withstood thefires of persecution.
On one occasion he and another were tried on a charge of preaching inthe streets. The jury, after being kept without fire, food, or water fortwo days and nights, brought in a verdict of "not guilty," for whichthey were each heavily fined by the court and committed to Newgateprison. Penn and his companion did not wholly escape, for they werefined and imprisoned for contempt of court, in wearing their hats in thepresence of that body. At this time William Penn was only twenty-fouryears of age.
William Penn.]
A great many Friends had emigrated to America, and two had becomeproprietors of New Jersey. The first event that drew Penn's particularattention to America was when he was called upon to act as umpirebetween the two Quaker proprietors of New Jersey. Having the New Worldthus thrust upon his attention, the young convert to the new religionbegan to look with longing eyes across the Atlantic for a home forhimself and his persecuted brethren. Shortly afterward, he obtainedfrom the crown a charter for a vast territory beyond the Delaware. Thischarter was given in payment of a debt of eighty thousand dollars dueto his father from the government. The charter was perpetualproprietorship given to him and his heirs, in the fealty of an annualpayment of two beaver skins. In honor of his Welch ancestry, Pennproposed calling the domain "New Wales;" but for some reason thesecretary of state objected.
Penn, while endeavoring to think up an appropriate title, suggested thatSylvania would be an appropriate name for such a woody country. Thesecretary who drew up the charter, on the impulse of the moment,prefixed the name of Penn to Sylvania in the document. William Pennprotested against the use of his name, as he had no ambition to be thusdistinguished, and offered to pay the secretary if he would leave itout. This he refused to do, and Penn next appealed to the king--"themerrie King Charlie," who insisted that the province should be calledPennsylvania, in honor of his dead friend the admiral. Thus Pennsylvaniareceived its name. The territory included in William Penn's charterextended north from New Castle in Delaware three degrees of latitude andfive degrees of longitude west from the Delaware River. William Penn wasempowered to ordain all laws with the consent of the freemen, subject tothe approval of the king. No taxes were to be raised save by theprovincial assembly, and permission was given to the clergymen of theAnglican church to reside within the province without molestation.
The charter for Pennsylvania was granted on March 14, 1681, and in thefollowing May, Penn sent William Markham, a relative, to takepossession of his province and act as deputy governor. A large numberof emigrants in the employ of the "company of free traders" who hadpurchased lands in Pennsylvania of the proprietor, went with him. Thesesettled near the Delaware and "builded and planted."
With the assistance of Algernon Sidney, a sturdy republican, who soonafter perished on the scaffold for his views on personal liberty, Penndrew up a code of laws for the government of the colony, that were wise,liberal and benevolent, and next year sent them to the settlers inPennsylvania for their approval.
William Penn soon discovered that his colony was liable to suffer forthe want of sea-board room. He coveted Delaware for that purpose, andresolved if possible to have it. This territory, however, was claimed byLord Baltimore as a part of Maryland, and for some time had been amatter of dispute between him and the Duke of York. For the sake ofpeace, the latter offered to purchase the territory of Baltimore; butthe baron would not sell it. Penn then assured the Duke that LordBaltimore's claim was "against law, civil and common." The duke gladlyassented to the opinion, and the worldly-wise Quaker obtained from hisgrace a quitclaim deed for the territory, now comprising the whole ofthe State of Delaware.
As soon as William Penn had accomplished his purpose, he made immediatepre
parations for going to America, and within a week after the bargainwas officially settled, he sailed in the ship _Welcome_, with onehundred emigrants, in August, 1682. Many of his emigrants died fromsmall-pox on the voyage; but with the remainder he arrived, early inNovember, at New Castle, where he found almost a thousand emigrants. Inaddition to these, there were about three thousand old settlers--Swedes,Dutch, Huguenots, Germans and English--enough to form the material forthe solid foundation of a State.
There Penn received from the agent of the Duke of York, and in thepresence of all the people, a formal surrender of all that fine domain.The Dutch had long before conquered and absorbed the Swedes on theDelaware, and the English in turn had conquered the Dutch, and it was byvirtue of his charter, giving him a title to all New Netherland, thatthe duke claimed the territory as his own. The transfer inherited forPenn and his descendants a dispute with the proprietors of Maryland,which might seem incompatible with the views of Quakers. William Penn,in honor of the duke, attempted to change the name of Cape Henlopen toCape James; but geography is sometimes arbitrary and refuses to changeat will of rulers, and Henlopen and May preserve their original namesgiven them by the Dutch.
It was the earliest days in November when William Penn, with a fewfriends, set out in an open boat and journeyed up the river to thebeautiful bank, fringed with pine trees, on which the city ofPhiladelphia was soon to rise.
On this occasion was made that famous treaty with the Indians, withwhich every school-boy is acquainted. Beneath a huge elm at Shakamaxon,on the northern edge of Philadelphia, William Penn, surrounded by a fewfriends, in the habiliments of peace, met the numerous delegations ofthe Lenni-Lenape tribes. The great treaty was not for the purchase oflands; but, confirming what Penn had written and Markham covenanted, itssublime purpose was the recognition of the equal rights of humanity,under the shelter of the forest trees, barren of leaves from the effectsof the early frosts. Penn proclaimed to the men of the Algonkin race,from both banks of the Delaware, from the borders of the Schuylkill,and, it may have been, even from the Susquehannah, the same simplemessage of peace and love which George Fox had professed beforeCromwell, and which Mary Fisher had borne to the Grand Turk. He arguedthat the English and the Indian should respect the same moral law,should be alike secure in their pursuits and their possessions, andshould adjust every difference by a peaceful tribunal, to be composed ofan equal number of wise and discreet men from each race. Penn said:
"We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good-will. No advantagewill be taken on either side; but all shall be openness and love. I willnot call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children tooseverely, nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship betweenme and you, I will not compare to a chain, for that rains might rust, orthe falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man's body weredivided into two parts. We are all one flesh and blood."
The sincerity of the speaker, as well as his sacred doctrine, touchedthe hearts of the forest children, and they renounced their guile andtheir revenge. The presents which Penn offered were received insincerity, and with hearty friendship they gave the belt of wampum.
"We will live," said they, "in love with William Penn and his children,as long as the moon and the sun shall endure."
Mr. Bancroft says: "This agreement of peace and friendship was madeunder the open sky, by the side of the Delaware, with the sun and riverand the forest for witnesses. It was not confirmed by an oath; it wasnot ratified by signatures and seals; no record of the conference canbe found, and its terms and conditions had no abiding inscription but onthe heart. There they were written like the law of God. The simple sonsof the wilderness, returning to their wigwams, kept the history of thecovenant by strings of wampum, and, long afterward, in their cabins,would count over the shells on a clean piece of bark and recall to theirown memory and repeat to their children or to the stranger the words ofWilliam Penn. New England had just terminated a disastrous war ofextermination. The Dutch were scarcely ever at peace with the Algonkins.The laws of Maryland refer to Indian hostilities and massacres, whichextended as far as Richmond. Penn came without arms; he declared hispurpose to abstain from violence; he had no message but peace, and not adrop of Quaker blood was shed in his time by an Indian.
"Was there not progress from Melendez to Roger Williams? from Cortez andPizarro to William Penn? The Quakers, ignorant of the homage which theirvirtues would receive from Voltaire and Raynal, men so unlikethemselves, exulted in the consciousness of their humanity. 'We havedone better,' said they truly, 'than if, with the proud Spaniards, wehad gained the mines of Potosi. We may make the ambitious heroes, whomthe world admires, blush for their shameful victories. To the poor,dark souls around about us we teach their rights as men.'"
After the treaty, Penn again journeyed through New Jersey to New Yorkand Long Island, visiting friends and preaching with his usual fervorand earnestness. Then he returned to the Delaware, and, on the seventhday of November, he went to Uplands (now Chester), where he met thefirst provincial assembly of his province. There he made known hisbenevolent designs toward all men, civilized and savage, and excited thelove and reverence of all hearers. The assembly tendered their gratefulacknowledgment to him, and the Swedes authorized one of their number tosay to him in their name that they "would live, serve and obey him withall they had," declaring that it was "the best day they ever saw." Heinformed the assembly of the union of the "territories" (as Delaware wascalled) with his province, and received their congratulations. Then andthere was laid the foundation for the great commonwealth ofPennsylvania.
One matter still remained to be adjusted, and that was some satisfactoryarrangement with the third Lord Baltimore, concerning the boundarylines. This at last having been amicably adjusted, Penn went up theDelaware in an open boat to Wicaco, to attend the founding of a city, towhich allusion had been made in his concessions in 1681. Before hisarrival in America, Penn had thought of this city he was to found, andresolved to give it the name of Philadelphia--a Greek word signifyingbrotherly love--as a token of the principles in which he intended togovern his province.
Near a block-house constructed by the Swedes, but which had since beenconverted into a church, he purchased lands extending from the highbanks of the Delaware, fringed with pines, to those of the Schuylkill.There his surveyor laid out the city of Philadelphia upon a plan whichwould embrace about twelve square miles.
The surveyor who aided William Penn in laying out Philadelphia wasThomas Holme. It was at the close of the year 1682, that the town wassurveyed, and the boundaries of the streets marked on the trunks of thechestnut, walnut, locust, spruce, pine and other forest trees coveringthe land. Many of the streets were named for the forest monarchs onwhich these inscriptions were cut, and still bear the names. The growthof the town was rapid, and, within a year after the surveyor hadfinished this work, almost a hundred houses had been erected there, andthe Indians daily came with the fruits of the chase as presents for"Father Penn," as they delighted to call the proprietor.
In the following March, the new city was honored by the gathering thereof the second assembly of the province, when Penn offered to the people,through their representatives a new charter. The new charter was soliberal in all its provisions, that when he asked the question:
"Shall we accept the new constitution or adhere to the old one?" theyvoted in a body to accept the new charter, and became at once arepresentative republican government, with free religious toleration,with justice, for its foundation, and the proprietor, unlike those ofother provinces, surrendered to the people his chartered rights in theappointment of officers. From the beginning, the happiness andprosperity of his people appeared to be uppermost in the heart and mindof William Penn. It was this happy relation between the proprietor andthe people, and the security against Indian raids, that madePennsylvania far outstrip her sister colonies in rapidity of settlementand permanent prosperity.
It was late in 1682 that a small house was erected on the site ofP
hiladelphia for the use of Penn, and only a few years ago it was stillstanding between Front and Second Streets, occupied by Letitia Court.
There he assisted in fashioning those excellent laws which gave a highcharacter to Pennsylvania from the beginning. Among other wiseprovisions was a board of arbitrators called peace-makers, who were toadjust all difficulties and thus prevent lawsuits. The children were alltaught some useful trade. When factors wronged their employees, theywere to make satisfaction and one-third over. All causes for irreligionand vulgarity were to be suppressed, and no man was to be molested forhis religious opinions. It was also decreed that the days of the weekand the months of the year "shall be called as in Scripture, and not byheathen names (as are vulgarly used), as ye First, Second and Thirdmonths of ye year, beginning with ye day called Sunday, and ye monthcalled March," thus beginning the year, as of old, with the first springmonth. Pennsylvania was first divided into three counties--Bucks,Chester and Philadelphia, and the annexed territories were also dividedinto three counties--New Castle, Kent and Sussex--known for a long timeafterward as the "Three Lower Counties on the Delaware."
Penn returned to England in the summer of 1684, leaving the governmentof the province during his absence to five members of the council, ofwhich Thomas Lloyd, the president, held the great seal. William Penn'smission in America had been one of success. In 1685, Philadelphiacontained six hundred houses; schools were established, and WilliamBradford had set up a printing press. He printed his "Almanac for theyear of the Christian's Account, 1687," a broadside, or single sheet,with twelve compartments, the year beginning with March.
William Penn could look with no little degree of pride upon his work. Ifever man was justified in being proud, he was. Looking upon the resultof his work, he, with righteous exultation, wrote to Lord Halifax, "Imust, without vanity, say I have led the greatest colony into Americathat ever man did upon private credit, and the most prosperousbeginnings that ever were in it are to be found among us."
Penn bade the colonists farewell, with the brightest hopes for thefuture, saying, "My love and my life are to and with you, and no watercan quench it, nor distance bring it to an end. I have been with you,cared for you, and served you with unfeigned love, and you are belovedof me and dear to me beyond utterance. I bless you in the name and powerof the Lord, and may God bless you with his righteousness, peace andplenty all the land over." Then of Philadelphia, the apple of the nobleQuaker's eye, he said, "And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement ofthis province, my soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand inthe day of trial, and that thy children may be blessed."
He stood on the deck of the ship which was anchored at the foot ofChestnut Street, when he delivered his farewell address, and on thatbright August day, when the good ship spread her sails and sped awayacross the seas, he bore away with him to England the blessings of thewhole people.
Four months after Penn's return to England, Charles the Second died, andhis brother James ascended the throne. A period of theological andpolitical excitement in England followed, in which William Penn becameinvolved. William Penn and the new king had long been personal friends,and through the influence of the honest Quaker, twelve hundredpersecuted Friends were released from prison, in 1686. As James wasunder the influence of the Jesuits, his Quaker friend was suspected ofbeing one of them, and when the revolution that drove James from thethrone came, Penn was three times arrested on false charges of treasonand as often acquitted, his last acquittal being in 1690. There hadmeanwhile been great political and theological commotions inPennsylvania, and in April, 1691, the three lower counties on theDelaware, offended at the action of the council at Philadelphia,withdrew from the union, and Penn yielded to the secessionists so far asto appoint a separate deputy governor over them.
In consequence of representations which came from Pennsylvania, themonarchs William and Mary deprived Penn of his rights as governor of hisprovince, in 1692, and the control of the domain was placed in the handsof Governor Fletcher of New York, who, in the spring of 1693, reunitedthe Delaware counties to the parent province. Fletcher appeared at thehead of the council at Philadelphia on Monday, the 15th of May, withWilliam Markham, Penn's deputy, as lieutenant governor.
The noble Quaker, however, had powerful friends who interceded with KingWilliam for the restoration of Penn's rights. He was called before thePrivy Council to answer certain accusations, when his innocence wasproven, and a few months later, all his ancient rights were restored.
Penn's fortune had been wasted, and he lingered in England, under theheavy hand of poverty, until 1699, when, with his daughter and secondwife, Hannah Callowhill, he sailed to Philadelphia. Meanwhile, hiscolony, under his old deputy, William Markham, had asserted their rightto self-government and made laws for themselves.
They were prosperous, but clamorous for political privileges guaranteedto them by law. Regarding their demands as reasonable, Penn, inNovember, 1701, gave them a new form of government, with more liberalconcessions than had been formerly given. The people of the territoriesor three lower counties were still restive under the forced union withPennsylvania, and Penn made provisions for their permanent separation inlegislation, in 1702, and the first independent legislature in Delawarewas assembled at New Castle in 1703. Although Philadelphia and Delawareever afterward continued to have separate legislatures, they were underthe same government until the Revolution in 1776.
Shortly after Penn's arrival in America, he received tidings thatmeasures were pending before the privy council, for bringing all of theproprietary governments under the crown. Penn located in Philadelphia,declaring it his intention to live and die there. He erected anexcellent brick house on the corner of Second Street and Norris Alley.
Disparaging news from his native land determined him to return toEngland, which he did in 1701, where he succeeded in setting matters torights. He never returned to America. Harassed and wearied by businessconnected with his province, he was making arrangements in 1712 to sellit for sixty thousand dollars, when he was prostrated with paralysis. Hesurvived the first shock six years, though he never fully recovered,then he died, leaving his estates in America to his three sons. Hisfamily governed Pennsylvania, as proprietors, until the Revolution madeit an independent State, in 1776. During that time the great province ofPennsylvania had borne its share of troubles with the French andIndians.